Civil Aviation Bill

Debate between Lord Davies of Stamford and Lord Bradshaw

Wednesday 13th June 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

Our policy was to expand Heathrow and build a third runway. That was the policy which I supported then, which I support now and which I trust my party will support again at the next election. It is the only policy that seems to make any sense. As regards the third runway that we were planning to build—the BAA third runway—I read an interesting proposal the other day which I recommend to the noble Lord, who knows a lot about this subject. It was produced by the Institute of Directors. Noble Lords may be surprised to hear a member of the Labour Party referring to the Institute of Directors but I thought that it came up with an interesting proposal for a third runway to be built within the existing perimeter of the airport to the south, which would be something like 2,600 metres in length and would greatly improve the situation. The scheme has been well documented and the noble Lord may like to look at it. However it is done it is clear that all the airlines and BAA are of one mind on this—the solution is the one that, had we won the previous election, we would have implemented, I am proud to say.

Of course, the whole of this is against the background of the present Government’s neglect of infrastructure generally. We have had the postponement of the high-speed rail project.

[Lord Bradshaw]

As regards neglect of the infrastructure, under the Labour Government nine miles of railway were electrified. Under this Government, I think that 833 miles will be electrified. I also draw attention to the fact that a lot of money is being spent on Manchester and Birmingham Airports and a great deal of investment is going into Gatwick.

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

I commend all that but there is no question that this neglect applies to a number of vital major projects. One of them is the third runway for Heathrow and another is the high-speed rail project, which is unaccountably delayed. Perhaps it has been pushed off sine die; I do not know. I do not think that we shall ever see it again under this Government, although I hope that we do, of course.

Another such issue is nuclear power. I have asked about this in the House. We are 10 years away from the date when all the AGRs have to be decommissioned but the Government have not succeeded in getting one new project launched. It takes a minimum of eight to 10 years to build a new nuclear power station. These are major areas of neglect. I have to say to the party opposite that any Government who govern with two eyes focused simply on the next morning’s headlines or opinion polls and do not think about the long-term interests of the country are betraying the public interest and will be seen in historical retrospect as a historical failure.

I have to say another thing that the Government will not like, which is that a recession is rather a good time to bring forward investment in social overhead capital—in infrastructure—because factor costs are lower during a recession. It is also rather a good idea to create some demand and jobs during a recession because—I know that the Government do not want to hear this—the fact is that austerity alone will not relaunch growth. I would have hoped that all these important infrastructure projects would have been brought forward, which they would have been by an imaginative Government genuinely concerned with the long term.

I hope that my strictures will have some effect. I am sure that the Minister will not say now that he agrees with my criticisms of the Government but I hope that the Government will think very carefully about these matters and come forward with a policy on all of them which is a little bit more worthy of the enormously important role which they have in looking after the interests of the country during their mandate of office.