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Crossrail Bill

My Lords, it is a great pleasure for me to join every other the noble Lord who has spoken in this debate to give the Bill my full support. It is not every day that legislation comes before your Lordships' House to build a new railway, and it is a measure of the nation's growing confidence in rail as a means of transport that Crossrail enjoys such widespread support in all political parties, on all Benches, among the business community and within local government in London. During Third Reading of the Bill in another place on 13 December, Tom Harris, the Minister for Railways, said that Crossrail would add 21 per cent to rail capacity to the City and 54 per cent to that to the Isle of Dogs, "““thereby relieving congestion and overcrowding on the existing national rail and underground networks. It will support the development of London as a world city and in its role as the financial centre of Europe and the United Kingdom””.—[Official Report, House of Commons, 13/12/07; col. 553.]" I agree with that. Indeed, if we are serious about maintaining and enhancing economic activity in London, there is no alternative to building Crossrail. By 2016, the Underground is likely to be carrying 25 per cent more passengers than today, which is an average of 3.4 million each day. I also endorse what others have said about the value of running 24 services an hour in the peak in both directions through central London, and of carrying 200 million passengers a year in a new fleet of express mainline trains. The benefit to cost ratio of Crossrail will be an excellent 1.8:1, and I see that the Government estimate that Crossrail will generate cash benefits to the UK gross domestic product of at least £20 billion—and it could be much more. Thirty years ago, less enlightened and shorter-sighted local and national politicians—and the planners who advised them—believed that the country could largely do without its railways, and that the solution to our transport problems lay in building miles and miles and miles of new trunk roads and motorways. Those days are now happily behind us, and the railway is seen as the best option. Crossrail will, I suspect, be just one of a number of major new rail projects that we shall see built or at least started in Britain over the next 20 years. I have one or two practical questions on some details of the Bill, which I hope my noble friend Lord Bassam may be able to answer either today or later in writing. First, can he assure me that the tunnels through central London will be built to a gauge which would permit, at a later date, the opportunity to run double-decker trains and thereby hugely increase capacity? I am sure that he would agree that it would be short-sighted to close off that option for later capacity enhancement. Secondly, I note the ingenious and welcome funding formula, about which the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin of Roding, spoke so clearly, and the grants from the Department for Transport, Transport for London, and £2.5 billion from other sources, including contributions from Network Rail, the City of London Corporation and from some of the businesses which will benefit from the line's opening. Is the funding package made on the premise that there will be premium fares for the services carried on it, or is it intended, as I very much hope, that Crossrail will be seen as an integral part of the Transport for London network, with Oyster cards and other travel cards freely available on it, and not be subject to the sort of sky-high premium fares charged on the Heathrow Express? In reading some of the Hansard reports of proceedings in the other place on this Bill—and I confess that the Christmas Recess was not long enough for me to be able to study all of them, because the debate went on for a very long time there—I found that some interesting issues and questions emerged. One or two have been referred to this evening. There were two significant and welcome improvements; one was the plan for better passenger facilities at Liverpool Street and, as my noble friend said, the inclusion of a new station for Greenwich. But there were also some very serious arguments for extending the line westwards to Reading and eastwards to Ebbsfleet. Both propositions enjoyed very wide support in the other place—and, indeed, my noble friend will have noticed that there is substantial support for the Reading option in this House today. I first came across the Crossrail scheme when I was advising the British Railways Board in the 1980s. At that stage, none of us had ever heard of Ebbsfleet, and it was certainly never envisaged that it would become the most important intermediate station between London and the Channel Tunnel. But now the logic for taking Crossrail to Ebbsfleet rather than finishing at Abbey Wood, seems unanswerable. The argument for Reading, rather than Maidenhead, to be the western terminus is even stronger; I agree completely with the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, and the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, on that matter. The Government have already agreed that more than £400 million should be spent on improvements at Reading station. Those will include four more through platforms and at least one additional bay platform, and the corresponding junction improvements. Given that Reading is already the second busiest railway station in Britain outside London—only Birmingham New Street has more trains and more passengers—it seems perverse for it not to be the western Crossrail terminus. An interchange there would work so much better than at Maidenhead, and the benefits for travellers from the Thames Valley, from the south-west, to which the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, referred, from south Wales, as the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, said, from the Cotswold Line—I declare an interest as the president of that line's promotion group—and from places south and west of Reading such as Newbury and Basingstoke, would be enormous. The benefits from a terminal at Maidenhead would be very small in comparison. There are signs that the Government now agree. Tom Harris in the other place said on 23 October: "““I accept that the arguments for extending Crossrail westwards to Reading are persuasive. However, it is not the Government’s intention to redraw the Bill as it stands at the moment””." Noble Lords should note that ““at the moment””. He went on to say that, "““it will be up to any future Government to decide, if they so wish, to extend Crossrail. We have already safeguarded the route from Abbey Wood down to Ebbsfleet, and we are considering whether similar action should be taken with regard to the route west from Maidenhead to Reading””.—[Official Report, 23/10/07; Commons, col. 205.]" A nod's as good as a wink, and we need not feel inhibited in this House during the Bill's later stages and be prevented from proposing amendments which would enhance the benefits of Crossrail by getting the eastern and western terminuses right—at Ebbsfleet and Reading. The Minister in another place said that extensions could be achieved by means of Transport and Works Act 1992 orders, but it would be much more satisfactory if both places were named in the Bill. It would be a proper use of this House's powers to revise and improve the Bill in that way when we have the opportunity to do so. This is a good Bill and a welcome development, and I wish it and the Select Committee—who I hope will not be spending four years on it—every good fortune when we look at it in detail later on.