Clause 5
Channel Tunnel Rail Link (Supplementary Provisions) Bill
12:00 pm
Stephen Hammond (Shadow Minister, Transport; Wimbledon, Conservative)
I want to have a small debate on the clause because, as I mentioned when I spoke to my amendment to clause 3, I have concerns about the wide-ranging impact of clause 5. I am grateful to the Minister and his officials who, during the suspension, clarified one of the points that I raised during the evidence-taking session about the rail link and rail services on it. I now accept that the clause deals with the rail link, rather than with the services.
None the less, I wonder if the Minister could provide us with a few more examples and explanations. Adding the words “or operation” to the development agreement will have a significant impact on every clause in the Act that relates to development agreements. Rights and obligations provided for in those clauses will be extended, so that they will apply not only during the construction phase but once the rail link is operational. I voiced my concerns about the possible implications of that change during our discussion on clause 3.
I would like to ask the Minister whether there are any other provisions in the 1996 Act which relate to development agreements, and which this measure would retrospectively change. Can he be clear what the impact of those changes might be? It is a wide-ranging change, and I wonder whether the measures in the clause might not have been obtained more prudently by making some specific, rather than general, provisions. The development agreement was supposed to deal with the construction phase, which is now complete. We are now into the operation phase. The clause could potentially be used extremely widely, and I wonder whether the Minister could give some reassurances about the intentions of its operation, perhaps give some examples, and indeed tell us where it will potentially impact on other provisions in the 1996 Act.