Disruption at Heathrow

Lord Dodds of Duncairn Excerpts

Tuesday 25th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

Provided that a suitable proposition comes forward for the expansion of Heathrow, it is inevitable that all the things that the noble Baroness mentions will have to be considered in the round in that. I am sure that she also includes surface access to the airport and a good passenger experience. She will know that we await a proposition from Heathrow and/or any other interested parties in the expansion of Heathrow, but I have no doubt that, when that is received, consideration will be given to all the things that she talked about.

[Lord Dodds of Duncairn (DUP)]

My Lords, obviously, the impact of the closure of Heathrow is massive and has reputational and other consequences for this country. But travellers and business depend so much on other airports throughout the United Kingdom—such as Belfast, which has been mentioned, given the lack of alternatives, for obvious reasons. Does the Minister know what work is going on at present in airports in Northern Ireland, and throughout the United Kingdom, to examine resilience and the threats to those airports?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

The noble Lord may know that I am tolerably familiar with the essential nature of flights from Northern Ireland to mainland England, Wales and Scotland because of the Union Connectivity Review. In particular, I had to answer a question quite recently about the reliability of the first flight on Monday mornings, which clearly contains quite a large proportion of Members of both Houses. I repeat that I strongly recommend to the operator that, come what may, it operates that flight if it operates nothing else. I do not know currently what is going on in other airports in Britain to look at resilience, but I have no doubt that the outcome of the Kelly review and the—I will make sure I get the right initials—NESO review will be closely studied by all those airports because that is undoubtedly the case. Noble Lords can be reassured that the transport community as a whole takes a close interest in what happens in one place.

Incidentally, I have seen—noble Lords might have expected me to—a review that Network Rail started on Saturday morning about the resilience of its power supplies, because in these circumstances you would start those sorts of reviews before you knew even what the cause was. That is a perfectly rational thing to do. So I have little doubt that that is going on in respect of other UK airports currently; I do not know that it is, but whether or not it is, I have absolutely no doubt that they will study very closely the results of the Kelly review and the NESO review—I would rather not use the initials, but it is too easy to do—to make sure that they are all as resilient as they can be.