Clause 11
Crossrail Bill
1:30 pm
Tom Harris (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department for Transport; Glasgow South, Labour)
I do not want to be overly dramatic about the circumstances that might lead at some point to a major delay in Crossrail. We can all speculate about the effects, for example, of a terrorist attack either in central London or at the Crossrail construction site. I shall be frank: I do not want to speculate about it. However, the process that has already taken up 21 months of Select Committee sittings, and the hybrid Bill process has already been carried over into two separate Parliaments and one general election, so do we want an amendment that would mean that we might conceivably—in unusual circumstances—be forced to go through the whole process all over again.
The people who framed the 1996 Act knew what they were doing, and I reaffirm what I have already said to the Committee: the provision was included in the 1996 Act for the reasons that I have already outlined and the powers were not used. I do not expect them to be used now. Given the amount of work that has already gone into this Bill, I hope that the Committee will understand why the clause, as a safety net, should remain in the Bill.