Airports: Expansion

Lord Tebbit Excerpts

Thursday 4th February 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Tonge (Ind LD)]

My Lords—

[Lord Tebbit (Con)]

My Lords—

[The Lord Privy Seal (Baroness Stowell of Beeston) (Con)]

My Lords, I think the House is calling for my noble friend Lord Tebbit.

[Lord Tebbit]

My Lords, should we not recollect that major international airlines cannot be compelled to fly into airports they do not wish to go to? Should we not all agree now that the alternatives to Heathrow are not Birmingham or Stansted, but Schiphol, Paris and Frankfurt? Either we can have the business in this country, in London, or it will go to the continent.

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

My noble friend raises an important point. On the first element, the commercial decisions on air slots are very much for the airlines to make. As for the competitiveness of London vis-à-vis competitors in Europe, that is one reason why the Government are committed to further expansion of air capacity in the south-east.