High Speed Rail (Preparation) Bill – in a Public Bill Committee at 2:30 pm on 11 July 2013.
Kris Hopkins
Conservative, Keighley
Thank you, Mrs Brooke, and thank you to the panel for giving some time to come and speak to us. An initial observation would be that engineering and project management do sound exciting. I think we ought to harness this and sell it to some of our students.
Mr Morgan, earlier you mentioned the idea of ensuring that there is sufficient capacity in a budget to anticipate something that you have not even thought of yet. That sounds a bit more Mystic Meg than scientific. Is there a process? How do you come to that figure that you have built into the budget?
Terry Morgan: We have a very sophisticated risk register, as do all big programmes, to which we apply risk in value terms and probability of failure. We spend a lot of time not just accepting something as a risk, but mitigating that risk, as far as possible. We take a proportion of those risks and allocate a probability number to that so that at the end of the day we have a register. We keep that and as a board we review it in detail every quarter. Executively, it is reviewed every month. We are continually trying to mitigate away risks that have been identified. That creates the opportunity to sit down and say, “What new risks are starting to materialise that we had not previously taken account of?” The risk register continues to change and it is important that you have an active risk register to ensure that you are on top of the risks as they start to materialise. As I said, a really important element of that, which the Olympics did very well, was to de-risk some of those items and find that the consequences of doing that are very much to the advantage of the programme.
Frank Dobson
Labour, Holborn and St Pancras
My question is for Mr Hayter in particular. You referred to what is called the upgrade of the west coast main line. I take it that you agree that only £2 billion was spent on the upgrade and the other £7 billion was spent on maintenance, repairs and replacement right along the track to make up for the fact that nothing had been spent on it for about 60 years. In view of that and as 51m is only proposing major works at the Stafford bypass and Ledburn junction, do you think that it is reasonable to suggest that there would be such obstruction on the west coast main line if their proposals were carried out, particularly as Network Rail is proposing doing both major works anyway?
Annette Brooke
Chair of the Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Party
Are there any remaining questions, having rushed us along? No. I thank our witnesses for their participation. That brings us to the end of this panel, because there are no remaining questions. I suspend the sitting for 15 minutes for the anticipated vote.
The House of Commons votes by dividing. Those voting Aye (yes) to any proposition walk through the division lobby to the right of the Speaker and those voting no through the lobby to the left. In each of the lobbies there are desks occupied by Clerks who tick Members' names off division lists as they pass through. Then at the exit doors the Members are counted by two Members acting as tellers. The Speaker calls for a vote by announcing "Clear the Lobbies". In the House of Lords "Clear the Bar" is called. Division Bells ring throughout the building and the police direct all Strangers to leave the vicinity of the Members’ Lobby. They also walk through the public rooms of the House shouting "division". MPs have eight minutes to get to the Division Lobby before the doors are closed. Members make their way to the Chamber, where Whips are on hand to remind the uncertain which way, if any, their party is voting. Meanwhile the Clerks who will take the names of those voting have taken their place at the high tables with the alphabetical lists of MPs' names on which ticks are made to record the vote. When the tellers are ready the counting process begins - the recording of names by the Clerk and the counting of heads by the tellers. When both lobbies have been counted and the figures entered on a card this is given to the Speaker who reads the figures and announces "So the Ayes [or Noes] have it". In the House of Lords the process is the same except that the Lobbies are called the Contents Lobby and the Not Contents Lobby. Unlike many other legislatures, the House of Commons and the House of Lords have not adopted a mechanical or electronic means of voting. This was considered in 1998 but rejected. Divisions rarely take less than ten minutes and those where most Members are voting usually take about fifteen. Further information can be obtained from factsheet P9 at the UK Parliament site.
