To ask the Minister of State, Department for Transport which Crossrail contracts awarded for (a) the Crossrail Programme Partner, (b) the Crossrail Delivery Partner, (c) the DfT Programme Partner and (d) the Network Rail Delivery Partner were awarded to (i) US companies, (ii) UK companies and (iii) other companies; which were subject to open tender; and if he will make a statement. (282884)

[holding answer 29 June 2009]: The Programme Partner and Delivery Partner contracts were awarded by Crossrail Ltd., the Project Representative contract was awarded by the Department in conjunction with TfL, and the Network Rail Delivery Partner contract was awarded by Network Rail.

The Crossrail contracts referred to above were awarded as shown in the following table. All of the contracts in the table were awarded under European procurement rules.

All contracts of this scale are subject to the European rules on procurement which require contracts to be advertised in the Official Journal of the European Union where any supplier that wishes to do so can express an interest, thus attracting the widest possible field of prospective bidders.

Under the “restricted procedure” interested suppliers are narrowed down, usually by means of some kind of qualifying questionnaire, to a shortlist from which suppliers are invited to tender.