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Crossrail Bill

There are two? I am terribly sorry. I am surrounded by members of the Select Committee, which makes me feel very honoured. It gave everyone a good hearing and listened with interest and patience, which is not always the case for some other committees that one has been involved in. It produced a comprehensive and fair report, for which I am very grateful. I declare an interest as chairman of the Rail Freight Group, on which basis I appeared. In connection with the amendments, it is relevant to refer the Committee to paragraph 233 of the Select Committee’s report. It says that, "““we take this opportunity to state that we would be concerned if more than one body was to be given infrastructure management responsibilities. We would be further concerned if Network Rail were required to be infrastructure manager for the purposes of the ROGs””—" the Railways and Other Guided Transport Systems (Safety) Regulations 2006, SI 2006/599— "““in the central tunnel section without also being given responsibility for the operation and maintenance of the railway in this section””," which is covered by the infrastructure manager regulations that I mentioned in Amendment No. 21. Clearly the committee heard evidence on the subject and thought it important. I hope that my Amendments Nos. 21 and 22 provide a good basis for ensuring that Crossrail infrastructure is part of the regulated railway, and that my noble friend will accept them. The Committee will know that that would involve the regulator determining any disputes about access if at some stage in future more than one train operator wished to provide services through the tunnel. The regulator would also fix the access charges; one would hope that everybody would pay the same charge, otherwise it would be illegal. That always causes problems; it definitely did when we debated the Channel Tunnel Rail Link amendment Bill about a month ago. I hope that my noble friend will reflect on the fact that one of Crossrail’s big problems in its development and in the passage of the legislation through both Houses has been the relationship with the British Airports Authority and the Heathrow Express, which is of course not a regulated railway or service. It is the same issue here. If you are on the right side of the fence, have a new project and need lots of money, you want priority over everyone else, but if you are on the other side of the fence—BAA is now; it was not before—you see it differently. My conclusion from all that is that it would be much better if Crossrail tunnel infrastructure were part of the regulated railway and if the industry processes that we spent so many hours discussing were applied. I do not need to say any more about Amendments Nos. 21 and 22, because they cover much the same ground as the noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, has covered, and I am pleased to support his amendment as well.