§ The Secretary of State for Transport (Mr. Alistair Darling)On 14 July, I announced that I intended to assemble an expert team to assess Cross London Rail Link's business case proposals for the East-West Crossrail project. I am pleased to announce today that Adrian Montague will lead the expert review team for the Crossrail project. He is the Deputy Chairman of Network Rail, the Chairman of British Energy and is a former head of HM Treasury's Private Finance Taskforce. He has enormous experience in both railway projects and corporate finance and is ideally suited to this important task.
The Government remain keen on the principle of a new East-West Crossrail link. Crossrail has the potential to relieve some of the serious congestion across central London. However, the costs are substantial. A project of this size needs the appropriate level of scrutiny and it must be funded in a way that reflects the distribution of the benefits.
I have therefore asked the team to look closely at CLRL's proposals to see whether they are likely to be deliverable to time, scope and budget, and, if so, whether they are likely to provide proper value for money. I have also asked the team to consider whether there are alternative ways of delivering a Crossrail 18WS project that would offer better performance than the proposals set out in the Business Case. I have asked the team to report to me as soon as practicable and hope that its findings will be available around the turn of the year. The final report will be published.