Revised Draft Airports National Policy Statement

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Thursday 15th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I listened with horror as the noble Baroness the Minister laid out the Government’s rather quaint and old-fashioned plan for Heathrow expansion, with its overoptimistic, fantastical mitigation factors, and felt that the Government have not learned any lessons from all the court cases they have been taken through on issues such as climate change. The fact is that the so-called benefits of Heathrow expansion cannot possibly measure up to the disbenefits for the bulk of society—not just for the people around the airport but for the bulk of us, who will end up paying for a lot of the measures that Heathrow would like to see implemented.

For starters, Heathrow expansion will contribute to air pollution. It will negate all the measures that the current Mayor of London is putting in place in and around London. It will be impossible to keep within his plans if the expansion goes ahead. Heathrow is already a pollution hotspot that breaches legal limits. The plans include schemes that have yet to be identified and laid out clearly, and they make all sorts of optimistic claims about public transport use. I am not sure whether the Minister laid this out but I would like to hear by how much Heathrow Airport is planning to subsidise public transport. Quite honestly, you cannot expect Transport for London and London taxpayers, as well as taypayers all over the UK, to pay for this extension of public transport.

What is definitely planned is expanded car parking, with at least 40,000 to 60,000 extra vehicles a day on the roads. Air pollution from Heathrow with this expanded road capacity will shorten people’s lives—there is absolutely no way round it.

Noise from Heathrow currently impacts on 1.5 million people—a figure based on World Health Organization standard levels. It does not just impact on those around the airport. It is marvellous that a lot of insulation will be installed in houses around the airport, but, quite honestly, everybody in London is impacted at some point by the noise levels from flights overhead. We were told that £40 million will be available to insulate some local schools, but it is an absolutely paltry sum which will be nowhere near enough. Added to that is the fact that children obviously have to go outside to play, and they will be playing in dirtier air and noisier playgrounds. I do not see how Heathrow Airport can justify any expansion.

A fully operational, three-runway airport, open from 5.30 am, could mean that night flights jump by a third. The safeguards that should be in the NPS are simply not there, and the final decision about flight paths will not be taken until after the NPS has been signed off. Therefore, how can the Government be sure that any of those mitigating factors will be valid? Currently, 102,000 people live around Heathrow and are exposed to very high levels of noise. They are up to 20% more likely to suffer a stroke or have heart disease. Again, the noise reduction from insulation might be very effective when they are in their houses, but what about when they want to go to the shops or travel locally? Insulation will not help them then. I guess that headphones might help if Heathrow Airport would like to supply a pair to every single resident.

The NPS forecast is that there will be five domestic routes, down from the current eight, which means that regional airport capacity will shrink. That is an optimistic forecast that ignores what will happen if a future Government enforce a cap on climate change gases and aviation is hit by increased charges. If unmanaged, Heathrow expansion will increase climate change gases by a third. How can the Government feel that that is justified?

Will the UK economy benefit from Heathrow expansion? In fact, it probably will not, but the owners of Heathrow will. Over half the new passengers will never leave the Heathrow shopping mall, as they will be on international connecting flights. The benefit might go to a few shops but the general population will not benefit from more jobs and more sales.

The NPS also includes tunnelling the M25 and diverting some major roads. I would like to know just how much Heathrow Airport is putting into that expense. I would like some clear figures, because it has been very difficult to get them. The upgrading of trains on South Western Railway and Southern rail are mere aspirations, yet there are meant to be an extra 200,000 trips per day by public transport, a lot of them relying on the Metropolitan line and the Elizabeth line, which are already being expanded to cope with other over- crowding problems.

I would like to quote from a BBC article by Roger Harrabin which has been published today. It concerns a report produced by four Commons Select Committees —the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, the Health Committee, the Transport Committee and the Environmental Audit Committee—which have been rather critical of some of the Government’s actions. They want a new clean air Act and a clean air fund financed by the motor industry. These will impact on Heathrow expansion because, even before that happens, Heathrow will again be in breach of all sorts of legal limits. I would love to read out the whole article because it is fascinating. Roger Harrabin says:

“The report—the first time that four committees are thought to have collaborated—urges the Treasury to take greater account of the costs of air pollution when setting tax and spend policy”.


But of course, allowing Heathrow expansion to go ahead is something that the Government will also have to take into account, given that air pollution will almost certainly increase. It already has a huge impact on the NHS, which is having to deal with people’s heart and breathing problems, and it will have an impact in the future because of the thousands of children whose lungs have already been stunted by air pollution and who will need care from the NHS far into the future.

The Government’s long-term target of abolishing cars driven only by petrol and diesel by 2040 is also rather feeble. The article points out that India has made the same pledge but for 2030. There is also the fact that replacing cars with more cars is not necessarily the answer. Electric cars can also be polluting if their source of electricity is not renewable.

Finally, the article states that,

“recent reports have drawn a possible link between attention deficit disorder, dementia and air pollution”.

Therefore, again, not only is air pollution having an impact now but it will do so far into the future.

I end by pointing out that there is no guarantee that air pollution will not get worse. In fact, we can probably guarantee that it will. There is no guarantee that regional airports and jobs will not go into decline as Heathrow favours international routes—perhaps the Minister could comment on that in his reply. There is no guarantee that taxpayers will not be landed with a multibillion pound bill for new transport infrastructure to support Heathrow Airport. There is no guarantee that several hundred thousand residents in the south-east—not just around the airport—will not find that their sleep is even more disturbed than it is now. And there is no guarantee that climate change will not get worse as a result of Heathrow expansion. Quite honestly, this national policy statement on Heathrow is a joke. It displays an old-fashioned way of thinking about the problems that we face, and it really is time that the Government started to think in a very much greener way.