Charing Cross Hospital

Debate between Andy Slaughter and Ruth Cadbury

Wednesday 1st November 2017 Westminster Hall

[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend and constituency neighbour on securing this debate, and on his leadership in the campaign on the future of Charing Cross. The great fear among my residents—particularly in the eastern half of my constituency—and among people from a far wider area is about the loss of the full-scale accident and emergency service at Charing Cross, which would potentially mean downgrading many in-patient and out-patient services linked to it.

[Andy Slaughter]

I am grateful for the clarity that my hon. Friend brings on that point. What is proposed is the loss of all consultant-led emergency services—type 1 A&E services. The site will therefore lose blue-light ambulances, emergency surgery and emergency consultant services. That is a very substantial change to the health facilities available.

The change came under the heading, “Shaping a healthier future”, which I am afraid my constituents regarded as a rather Orwellian title. That programme has now been subsumed within the sustainability and transformation partnership proposals, which are now nationwide, but essentially the meat of the proposal has not changed over that time. I do not deny—I look for points of agreement if I can—that some of the objectives are perfectly laudable, such as specialisation and the bringing together of expertise on a particular site, as has happened with stroke services, major trauma, renal services and so on, even within the three hospitals in the Imperial trust. That is to be commended. No one objects to improvement to primary, social and community care, which may in time lead to less pressure on acute services. If the consequence is not just better health outcomes but a saving for the public finances, we do not object. The problem, and the reason why there has been a breakdown of trust, is that the changes are being advanced before we know the consequences.

Airport Expansion: Economic and Environmental Impact

Debate between Andy Slaughter and Ruth Cadbury

Wednesday 25th October 2017 Westminster Hall

[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the economic and environmental impacts of airport expansion.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray. I thank the Minister for attending. I am bringing this issue to the House because of the impact that a third runway will have on significant parts of my constituency—those areas not already under the approach path to Heathrow—and because of wider regional and national concerns about the environmental, fiscal and economic cost of expanding Heathrow.

It is a year to the day since the Government’s announcement that the preferred option for an additional runway was Heathrow. Fortuitously, it is also the day after the release of the Government’s revised national policy statement. The Government decision to support expansion at Heathrow was based on reports produced by the Airports Commission, but since the publication of those reports in 2015, further analysis has significantly undermined their conclusions, particularly on the economic and environmental impacts and costs of Heathrow expansion versus those of Gatwick expansion. Yesterday’s releases undermine the conclusion further.

I will outline a few of the key points, the first of which is reduced net economic benefits. To begin with growth figures, I see that yesterday’s Government report revised assumed demand for flying upward, but I wonder if account was taken of UK economic growth: we have in the past year lurched from being one of the fastest- growing G7 economies to one of the slowest. Looking at the comparative figures in the Department for Transport calculations, the new estimates for net economic benefit arising from a third runway at Heathrow compared with Gatwick in yesterday’s figures changed the picture further. A year ago, the net economic benefit from a third runway at Heathrow was given as £61 billion over a 60-year period—a negligible net benefit. Yesterday the Government revised those figures upward: the figures given for a second runway at Gatwick are between £74.1 billion and £75.3 billion over 60 years; but this time the figures for the Heathrow option are lower than those, at £72.8 billion to £74.2 billion.

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is right to highlight yesterday’s figures, which completely blow the Government’s cover and show that there is no environmental or economic case for Heathrow that compares with the case for Gatwick. Does she agree that what is outrageous is that the figures have been suppressed while Heathrow’s cause was advanced? Now that we have the true figures, we should see that the Heathrow option is a totally inappropriate development for London.

[Ruth Cadbury]

Yes, my hon. Friend is right. The election delay and other excuses meant that figures that could have been in the public domain have only just come out.

Job creation figures are often used to justify Heathrow expansion, but those from the Airports Commission report have recently been revised downward. The total number of jobs that it is claimed will be created is down from 78,000 to 37,000. It is disappointing; the first draft of the national policy statement supported the higher figure and I have not had a chance to read the revisions to see whether that has changed. Analysis by Transport for London demonstrates that the 37,000 jobs are not genuinely new jobs, but merely displaced from other parts of the economy. That is not insignificant in terms of ensuring continued employment for thousands of people, but it is completely different from creating new economic activity. It is not clear that Heathrow’s promises to local communities about mitigation, to the regions about connectivity, and to the country about jobs remain the same, given the reduction in the figure for total economic benefit.