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Channel Tunnel Rail Link (Supplementary Provisions) Bill

I am anything but satisfied with what the Minister has said because he has not demonstrated to me what the advantage would be of regulating this rail link differently from any other railway. The Office of Rail Regulation is sufficient in all other cases, so why is it deficient in this one? Is it because the Government hope to get more money? I think that the Minister used the word ““whimsical”” to describe something that I had said, but in fact the word could almost be turned back on his department. Since the department has taken over responsibility for ordering rolling stock, for example, despite being told every couple of weeks that 1,300 new carriages are on the way, there are no new carriages. That has seized up the system when under privatisation it was supposed to be fluid. I am afraid I am anything but convinced by what he has said about there being good reasons, other than perhaps those dreamed up by someone in the Treasury, for including this clause and excepting this link from the generality of rail regulation.