Railways: Crossrail

Lord Davies of Oldham Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd June 2010 Lords Chamber

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, the noble Lord has great experience in these matters and I will draw his comments to the attention of my ministerial colleagues.

[Lord Davies of Oldham]

My Lords, will the noble Lord forgive me if I look upon the word “scope” as a somewhat weasel word in this context? If he is interpreting the position as one in which the length of trains and the length of stations are not to be changed, and the range of Crossrail—the areas which it will serve—is not to be changed, where on earth are the economies to come from?

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, the economies will come from best-value engineering solutions. For instance, the noble Lord will be aware that innovative engineering solutions were used for the station box at Canary Wharf station. That is a good example of where economies can be made. In 1997, Crossrail was but a faint blip on my radar. I pay tribute to noble Lords opposite for their work on Crossrail, particularly brokering the funding package and obtaining parliamentary approval for the Crossrail Act 2008. We support the project and will run with it.