Clause 62
Crossrail Bill
5:30 pm
Mark Field (Cities of London and Westminster, Conservative)
I cannot think of any circumstances in which the clause could be invoked. Surely, the reality is that if there is arbitration it is because both parties agree to it. If the procedure is in some sense up in the air, and it has to be enforced by Secretaries of State against the will of one or perhaps even both parties, that runs wholly counter to the notion of what arbitration is, and should, do. Arbitration is about parties getting together on the basis that they agree not only on its application but presumably on the procedure for it. That is why my hon. Friend the Member for Wimbledon thinks that subsection (5) is redundant, and I agree with him. Nothing that the Minister has said has convinced us otherwise. One hopes that the provision will never be invoked, and I suspect that it never will be, because if such a dispute began the parties would not wish to go to arbitration, still less accept an arbitration procedure that was pushed upon them by Secretaries of State.