West Coast Main Line

Lord Clark of Windermere Excerpts

Monday 29th October 2012 Lords Chamber

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, as Sam Laidlaw has stated, these are initial views about potential contributory factors that he will continue to investigate in advance of his final report. Laidlaw has chosen not to criticise any particular individual or groups of people. Tackling the deficit and getting the public finances in order require the Government to tighten their belt like any other organisation. In doing its bit, my department made careful and well considered reductions in its headcount that were designed to save the public money while continuing to deliver on all its priorities, including rail franchises.

[Lord Clark of Windermere]

My Lords, I raise my point this evening in the spirit of making sure that we learn the lessons of this very serious exercise. Today, the Minister has very clearly laid out the position. He described the situation from the report as very serious. He talked about things such as technical flaws in the bids and the lack of transparency. However, these revelations contrast markedly with what we were told merely a few months ago. My question to the Minister is simply this: why were Ministers not alert to these very serious flaws in the bid, and can Sam Laidlaw, in his investigation, look at this specific aspect and report on the person who chairs the board at the Department for Transport?

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, the noble Lord talked about lessons learnt. As I said, the next stage of the Laidlaw report will look at why the errors occurred and at the lessons to be learnt. The interim report is not very long and should be available in the Library. I urge noble Lords to read all of it. I read it just this afternoon, so it is not a long report. The noble Lord asked me a point-blank question. Perhaps the answer is that officials did not realise that the flaw existed or how serious it was.