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Crossrail Bill

My Lords, I am glad that the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, has spoken about this. He and his colleagues sitting behind him, who were valuable members of the Select Committee, listened to a good deal of evidence about this. I do not know what the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, will say about formally including provisions of this sort in the Bill. In Select Committee we discussed the involvement of local groups, which would discuss all the time how people would be affected as these matters proceeded, particularly during construction, which is what my noble friend Lord Low was talking about. That will be one of the most critical issues. Some local groups will be there, and are there already. I only hope that the Government and the promoters of this legislation will encourage other areas to set up functioning local groups to do exactly the sort of thing that my noble friend has been talking about: give notice of what is going to happen, and advise on how to get around obstacles and all the other problems that might arise from a temporary construction that may not be all that temporary. If the Government give a little encouragement to the setting-up and maintenance of local groups that involve themselves in these issues, it might almost be a better answer for my noble friend than anything in his amendment.