Aviation Strategy

Debate between Bernard Jenkin and Jim Fitzpatrick

Thursday 24th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

May I join others in congratulating you on your election to your new office, Madam Deputy Speaker? It is a great pleasure to be speaking in one of your debates for the first time. I also congratulate the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Mr Goodwill), on his appointment as the Minister responsible for aviation. Welcome to the hot seat!

I commend the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs Ellman) and her Committee for tackling this important issue at a time when it is very topical. As a fellow Select Committee Chairman, I can vouch for the fact that policy inquiries such as this are the most difficult in which to engage. Certainly the evidence is the most difficult to assess. However, while I agree with the right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr Raynsford) that the hon. Lady has got some things right, I think that some of her Committee’s decisions were wrong.

I congratulate the hon. Lady on recognising that London will not survive as a global city unless we maintain its connectivity. Being a city is about being connected. If we want London to remain the world’s global financial centre—the premier international city—we must have international connectivity. Aviation services are the new rivers of our generation. Along with the airwaves and the internet, aviation is what connects cities nowadays, and if we cut ourselves off by persevering with a patch-and-mend aviation policy in London and the south-east, we shall see an end to London’s global status in our lifetimes.

The hon. Lady is right about “Heathwick”—it just would not work—and she is entirely right about hubs. However, she is wrong about Heathrow. As the right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich pointed out, experience and the political reality tell us that there will simply not be any new runways at Heathrow. Have we not learnt from the fact that, although every member of the last Government was absolutely committed to getting that proposal through, it did not go through? That was due to the sheer scale of opposition from west London constituencies. Far more marginal constituencies would be affected by the development of Heathrow than would be affected by the choice of any other possible site for an airport. It is simply not possible to generate enough political support for development at Heathrow—one party or another will always oppose it.

Which mayoral candidate will stand, and be elected, on a pro-Heathrow policy? That will never happen. Ken Livingstone was against development at Heathrow, Boris Johnson is against it, and I guarantee that all three members of the main political parties who stand in the mayoral election will be against it. It is never going to happen.

[Jim Fitzpatrick (Poplar and Limehouse) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman is making an interesting point, to which I hope to return if I am lucky enough to be called to speak. Given that the Conservative party went into the 2010 general election as the only party that was totally opposed to the third runway at Heathrow, why did it not win that sweep of west London marginals?

[Mr Jenkin]

I can tell the hon. Gentleman that we would have won even fewer seats in London had we supported the Heathrow case. There is no doubt about that. Why does he think that my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith) is so strongly opposed to a new runway at Heathrow?

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[Jim Fitzpatrick]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for pointing out that, as we all know, the Lib Dems are not consistent in opposition and in government. He rightly says, however, that this is one issue on which they have been consistent—consistently in denial.

When we look at the international competition from Schiphol, Charles de Gaulle and Frankfurt, and from the new airports that have been built or are being built in Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Berlin and Istanbul, we see the importance of aviation and having a aviation hub. We are falling behind the times. However, when the Prime Minister indicated that the Government were appointing the Davies commission, we saw the beginning of one of the longest U-turns in recent British politics. The moving of the right hon. Members for Putney (Justine Greening) and for Chipping Barnet (Mrs Villiers) to other Departments and the appointment of the current Secretary of State for Transport clearly indicated that, after three years, Conservative Back Benchers who had been arguing the case—as did the CBI, the British Chambers of Commerce, London First, the TUC and others—had gone to the Government and said, “This issue is too important. We’ve got it wrong and we need additional capacity.”

I think that the Conservative manifesto for 2015 will have a commitment to the Davies commission’s conclusions, although I want to hear what the Minister says about that because he has history on this issue, given his support for the village opposed to the third runway at Heathrow. When the right hon. Ladies were moved and the new Ministers were brought in, that was a sign of encouragement for the aviation industry and those who support additional capacity. However, when the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, the hon. Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Mr Goodwill), and Baroness Kramer, the predecessor of the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith), were appointed, it was almost as if the Government were going back to where they were before the last reshuffle. I would like reassurance from the Minister about what that means.

For me, the Transport Committee’s key recommendation is No. 34. Whether we support the Heathrow plan, the estuary plan or point to point, there is general agreement that capacity is an issue, as well as about the importance of aviation to UK plc and the significance of a hub airport. The Davies commission at least gives us a chance of a fresh start and an opportunity to try to build consensus so that there is not the party political squabbling of the past 10, 20 or 30 years and the piecemeal approach to aviation that was cited by the right hon. Member for Saffron Walden (Sir Alan Haselhurst).

[Mr Jenkin]

Will the hon. Gentleman reflect that if Davies comes down in favour of some cobbled together compromise on Heathrow, we will go straight back into that kind of paralysing debate? If he comes down in favour of a Thames estuary airport, that will be decisive and a way forward. There will be far more consensus around a long-term solution than around a patch-and-mend, short-term one.

[Jim Fitzpatrick]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for making the point. He said that there was no showstopper for the estuary option, but for me the showstopper is the £50 billion to £70 billion—depending on the estimate—of public sector money that it would cost. The options for Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted and elsewhere involve private sector money, which is a whole different ball game.

If the Davies commission says that Heathrow is the answer, some people will oppose that—the Lib Dems, my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) and, I suspect, my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter). Some have been consistently against aviation or Heathrow, but I hope that the general consensus will be, “Davies has been given three years to do the job. We have wasted 20 years already—we can’t waste another decade.”