Crossrail Hybrid Bill

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Crossrail is a new east-west railway linking Maidenhead and Heathrow in the West via tunnels under Central London to Shenfield and Abbey Wood in the East. A copy of the Crossrail regional map is available on this website.

Crossrail's purpose is to significantly increase the capacity of the rail network into and across London and relieve congestion and overcrowding on the existing Rail and Underground networks to meet the substantial growth in demand for travel over the coming decades.

Crossrail will facilitate the continued sustainable development of London’s primary finance and business service activities, located in both the City and Docklands and support local and national Government policy for economic development and regeneration, particularly in the Lee Valley and Thames Gateway areas.

The Crossrail Hybrid Bill which was introduced in to the House of Commons on 22 February 2005 provides for the construction, maintenance and operation of Crossrail.

A hybrid Bill is "a public bill which affects a particular private interest in a manner different from the private interests of other persons or bodies of the same category or class”. For example, the Crossrail Bill provides for the compulsory purchase of certain properties along the route"

The current version of the Crossrail Hybrid Bill and its accompanying explanatory notes can be found by following the links.

Earlier versions of the Bill and explanatory notes can be found on the Parliament website.

Crossrail Bill Parliamentary Progress

House of Commons

The Crossrail Hybrid Bill was introduced in the House of Commons on 22 February 2005 and secured its Second Reading on 19 July 2005. Following Second Reading the Bill was formally committed to a Select Committee. It spent 21 months before the Select Committee, which heard 205 of the 466 petitions or objections lodged against the Bill. The other 261 petitions were either withdrawn or the petitioner chose not to appear before the Committee.

The Select Committee requested various amendments to the Bill, the most significant of which were provision for a new station at Woolwich and an additional ticket hall at Liverpool Street. Both were agreed to by the Government and subsequently brought forward through additional provisions or amendments to the Bill. The Select Committee produced two sets of interim decisions and a final report, dealing with those petitions where they thought that further action should be taken. A transcript of the Committee’s decisions and its report can be viewed on the Parliament website.

In some cases the amendments required further environmental assessment work to be carried out and published. They are called an Amendment of Provisions Environmental Statement (APES) and are available on the Bill supporting documents website.

The Government’s response to both sets of the Committee’s decisions can be downloaded here - Government response to the Crossrail Bill Select Committee's interim decisions.

The remaining Commons Bill Stages - Public Bill Committee, Report and Third Reading - were completed during November and December 2007.

House of Lords

First Reading in the House of Lords took place on 14 December 2007, which triggered a new petitioning period that ended on 30 January 2008. Lord Bassam of Brighton, who is taking the Bill through the Lords, oversaw the Second Reading of the Bill on 9 January.

Commencing on 19 February, the Lords Select Committee sat in public for 29 days of hearings to consider the cases of 45 of the 113 petitions deposited against the Bill. The Committee reported the Bill on 19 May, and published its Special Report, explaining some of its decisions and recommendations, on 27 May.

The Promoter issued its response to the Committee's Special Report on 5 June.

The Bill will now proceed to Grand Committee stage in the Lords. The Department remains hopeful that the Bill will achieve Royal Assent before the summer recess.

Further information on the Bill and its progress can found online.

Environmental Statement and Supporting Documents

As part of the process of seeking powers for Crossrail, the project was subject to an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA). An EIA is a legal process that includes the identification of the significant environmental impacts that are likely to arise from the project. This was undertaken by a team of independent specialists, and the findings of the assessment are reported in an Environmental Statement (ES) which was submitted to Parliament. A copy of the ES (including the various Supplementary Environmental Statements (SESs), the Amendment of Provisions Environmental Statements (APESs) and other accompanying documents) are available from the Bill supporting documents website

The Department invited comments on the ES and compiled responses received by 10 June 2005 into a command paper which was presented to both Houses of Parliament prior to 2nd Reading.

Further comments on the ES (including comments on the various SESs and APESs) received after 10 June 2005 but before 8 August 2007 were compiled into a further command paper which was also presented to both Houses of Parliament prior to 3rd Reading. MPs and Members of the Lords can also be lobbied through the normal democratic process. The report, Further responses to the Government's Consultation on the Crossrail Bill Environmental Statement, is available online.

The Government also published a Command Paper entitled “Government Overview of the Case for Crossrail and Its Environmental Impacts”. It summarises the work done to assess, control and mitigate the environmental impacts of Crossrail, and explains why the Government continues to take the view that the Crossrail project is worthy of its support.

Crossrail Bill supporting documents

In addition to the Bill, various supporting documents have been produced detailing matters ranging from the original business case for Crossrail to the environmental impacts of its construction. These include:

the Environmental Statement,
plans and sections of the project,
a Non-Technical Summary (NTS) of the Environmental Statement,
Supplementary Environmental Statements and their NTS's,
Amendment of Provisions Environmental Statements and their NTS's,
Crossrail property policies,
Information Papers, detailing specific parts of the project,
the draft Environmental Minimum Requirements (Including the draft Construction Code),
the register of undertakings and assurances given to petitioners.

The documents above can all be accessed on the Crossrail Bill supporting documents website.

Cross London Rail Links (CLRL)

Cross London Rail Links (CLRL) or Crossrail, as they are generally known, is a 50/50 joint venture company, formed by Transport for London (TfL) and the Department for Transport (DfT), that have been tasked with promoting and developing the project.

More information on Crossrail and the project can be found on the CLRL website

Crossrail - Heads of Terms

THe Heads of Terms details the agreements between DfT and TfL that underpinned last month's announcement on the funding of Crossrail. It sets out, with only those redations necessary to prevent harm to commercial interests, the agreements that have been reached between DfT and TfL on the future funding and governance of the Crossrail project.

A summary of the Heads of Terms, the full Heads of Terms and a copy of the letter to the Secretary of State for Transport from the Mayor of London are available on this website.

Contact Details

For enquiries about the Crossrail Bill, you can contact us at: crossrail@dft.gsi.gov.uk or by writing to:

Crossrail Bill Team

Department for Transport
Zone 2/19
Great Minster House
76 Marsham Street
London
SW1P 4DR

Responses to the consultation on the Crossrail Environmental Statement

A Command Paper containing copies of all responses to the Environmental Statement received by 10 June 2005 was presented to Parliament on 7 July 2005. The Command Paper provides a guide to the main issues raised by respondents to the ES as well as containing copies of all responses received in Annex F of the document.

Published:: 05 June 2008

Frequently asked questions

Published:: 22 February 2005
Last update:: 15 December 2005

Crossrail archive material

For related documents, pages and internet links, see the column on the right.