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Crossrail Bill

My Lords, I am extremely grateful to the Minister for his full and careful reply to all the issues raised. I am most grateful to all other noble Lords who have spoken, who all made relevant points. I should say unambiguously, as I hope I did in my earlier remarks, that I am in absolutely no doubt about the great benefits that will accrue to disabled people as a result of the construction of Crossrail. As I hope will have been clear, my amendment was in no sense moved in a spirit that this is a bad-news development. Overall is it good news for disabled people if we can just handle it in the right way. The Minister has gone out of his way to reassure me that that will be the case. I certainly hope that making appropriate provision for disabled people will not cause any undue delay to the project; indeed, I hope that it will not cause any delay at all. It is obviously to the public good that the project should go ahead with all due dispatch. On works undertaken to meet the needs of disabled people, any legal requirement would require only that reasonable adjustments be made. No undertaking would be expected to go to unreasonable expense. I hope that there are no continuing worries on that score. I express my gratitude to the Select Committee for the depth with which it probed these issues and the concern that it showed for them. As I said, the Minister responded extremely fully. I am most grateful to him for that. He covered all the bases and went out of his way to explain how the needs of disabled people would be covered without a disability equality scheme. CLRL has a disability equality duty, as its activities are covered under parent schemes. That point is covered. I was grateful to hear the Minister say that there is an expectation that the arrangements will need to be reviewed and updated. We can all take comfort from the Minister’s reassurance that that review and updating, and indeed the examination of everything as the project goes along, will be done in full consultation with relevant groups—not just Guide Dogs, which the Minister kindly mentioned, but other relevant groups, particularly local groups, some of which, as he was able to tell us, have already been set up. The Minister has given us a full reassurance, for which I am grateful and which I am sure all noble Lords were glad to hear. I agree with him that it is good that we have been able to give this issue a full airing this evening. Now that we have done that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.