§ Lord Taylor of Blackburn rose to move, That it be an Instruction to the Select Committee on the Bill that they consider whether there will be any adverse consequences in any region of Great Britain arising from the construction and maintenance of the Channel Tunnel and that they report to the House any recommendations they may have to alleviate such adverse consequences.
§ The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
§ The reason I do this—I do not want to detain your Lordships long—it is simply because many of us felt after listening to the debate on Second Reading that very little was said about the effect of the tunnel on the various regions throughout Great Britain. Therefore, as the committee has now been set up, we feel that this is an appropriate time to move the Motion in my name.
§ Moved, That it be an Instruction to the Select Committee on the Bill that they consider whether there will be any adverse consequences in any region of Great Britain arising from the construction and maintenance of the Channel Tunnel and that they report to the House any recommendations they may have to alleviate such adverse consequences—(Lord Taylor of Blackburn.)
§ Lord Brabazon of TaraMy Lords, I wish to make it clear that the considerations which I believe underlie the Motion of the noble Lord are some that the Government believe to be of the greatest importance. The Government are convinced that the Channel Tunnel project is capable of bringing great benefit to all the regions in the United Kingdom, both while it is being constructed and when it is operating. During the construction period orders for equipment and materials will need to be placed both by Eurotunnel and by British Rail totalling in the region of £1 billion. By far the greater part of this expenditure will take place outside the South-East, mainly in the Midlands, the North and Scotland.
Once the tunnel is working the Government believe that the whole of the British economy will benefit from improved and more reliable links with Europe, including and in particular through running freight trains. Nevertheless we recognise that action is needed to maximise those regional benefits. That is why the Government have accepted, subject to improvements in both drafting and substance, a new clause put forward by the Opposition in another place requiring British Railways to draw up a plan for the dispersal of rail traffic, including their proposals for regional distribution centres and depots.
1210 That is why the Government also strongly support the joint Eurotunnel-British Rail regional survey of the opportunities that the tunnel will offer to industry. It is also why the Government believe that it is of great importance that the potential effects of the Channel Tunnel are taken fully into account in the continual process of monitoring the economic situation in the regions, for which my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry is responsible.
Nevertheless the Government believe that there would be considerable dangers in imposing a further burden on the Select Committee, which this Motion, if accepted by the House, would imply. First, it would mean that the House would be instructing the committee to look at a major area of public policy which should properly be dealt with on the Floor of the House. The function of a Select Committee on a hybrid Bill is to look into those matters which cause the Bill to be hybrid in the first place; that is, to consider the effects of the Bill upon private rights and interests.
It is of course the case that Private Bill Committees sometimes need to consider matters which impinge upon areas of public policy, and this is well-established. But a hybrid Bill is not a private Bill; it is a public Bill and the matters of public policy which it contains are, according to the established practices of the House, dealt with by a Committee of the Whole House in the usual way. To instruct the Select Committee to consider this matter would be to confuse the functions of the two committees and set an unfortunate precedent.
Secondly, it is already clear that the Select Committee faces a formidable task even to discharge its appropriate responsibilities. I understand that by the closing date yesterday some 1,460 petitions had been received. I think it would he imprudent to add further to this burden and we should not underestimate what might be involved. To comply with the proposed Instruction the committee might well conclude that it needed to return to the House for a further Instruction authorising it to hear specialist evidence and even to appoint specialist advisers. I think the nature and the purpose of the committee would be radically changed in a wholly inappropriate way.
I hope, therefore, that the noble Lord will take note not only of the difficulties that the Motion would impose on the committee which has now been appointed, but also of the Government's commitment to maximising the benefits of the tunnel when it is built for all parts of the country. In view of these considerations I hope the noble Lord will judge that he should not pursue this Motion.
§ Lord Taylor of BlackburnMy Lords, although I do not accept everything that the Minister said in the earlier part of his statement, and I do not accept that there has been sufficient study within the regions, I certainly see the administrative worries of going to a Select Committee, with all the questions that one would like to put, all the evidence to be taken and all the research that will have to be done. I realise that the Select Committee has a terrific task on its hands to do what it has to do now. Therefore I feel that I should 1211 withdraw this Motion. Nevertheless I hope that at a later stage we shall have an opportunity to put our views from the regions to some committee or to the whole House later. I beg leave to withdraw the Motion.
§ Motion, by leave, withdrawn.