Aviation Strategy

Adam Afriyie Excerpts

Thursday 24th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Alok Sharma]

Clearly, that is exactly what the Davies commission should come up with. I am not suggesting that the CPS’s proposal is the only one in town, I am just highlighting it as a particularly interesting one.

We have waited a long time for a conclusion, so we might as well see what the Davies commission comes up with, but the one thing I would find disturbing in any final recommendation would be a solution that ultimately led to the closure of Heathrow. That would be bad news for business and jobs. I do not agree with the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy), who is no longer in his place, about everything, but I do agree with his points about the impact that it would have not just in London but in the western wedge, which covers areas such as the Thames valley and Reading, which I represent. As he said, a report commissioned by a range of local enterprise partnerships covering the Thames valley, Buckinghamshire, west London and Oxfordshire concluded that £1 in every £10 of UK economic output is generated in the western wedge area around Heathrow, and that aviation and related activity at Heathrow supports about 120,000 jobs there. If a new hub airport was to be built to the east of London and Heathrow was to be closed by 2030, because I do not think anybody is suggesting that we are going to end up with two hub airports—

[Adam Afriyie (Windsor) (Con)]

My conclusion differs slightly from that of my hon. Friend. I am the Member of Parliament for Windsor, where we are very much affected by our noisy but welcome neighbour at Heathrow, and there is certainly a scenario in which Heathrow could continue to operate as a hub airport if the estuary airport were to take over. This scaremongering about hundreds of thousands of jobs disappearing is not necessarily entirely helpful.

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[Alok Sharma]

I note the point my hon. Friend is making, but the idea that we would have two hub airports operating—

[Adam Afriyie]

Regional.

[Alok Sharma]

Well, let us see what the Davies commission comes up with, but I personally think that it is unlikely that we could operate a system with two hub airports.

The report goes on to say that the closure of Heathrow would put at risk another 170,000 jobs in the western wedge area. We can have a discussion about the number of jobs at risk and about the fact that, if there was going to be an estuary airport, things would not just change overnight. There is no doubt, however, that there would be a huge economic impact in a region that is the powerhouse of Britain in driving the economy forward.

The Davies commission must clearly take into account the economic benefit of any of the recommendations it makes and, of course, the environmental impact. We have to take into account what business wants and what airlines want. If we build another airport, will airlines come? Will British Airways move to a new hub airport? Ultimately, it comes down to the cost to the public purse resulting from any new expansion.

Those who have been in this place for many years will see this debate as another groundhog day in the life of Parliament’s debates on aviation policy. I suspect we will see a lot more groundhog days. Of course, the question is very difficult, but once the commission makes its final recommendation what we want is politicians who will show a bit of backbone and implement the recommendations on expanding airport capacity in the south-east, whatever those recommendations might be. To duck the question for another electoral cycle will do a huge disservice to Britain’s hopes of succeeding in the global race.

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[Adam Afriyie (Windsor) (Con)]

We are debating aviation strategy today, but a lot of the comments I have heard—particularly about the sticking-plaster solutions for Heathrow and all sorts of other complicated, detailed, short-term fixes—do not deal with the strategy we need for the nation. We used to be a great island global trading nation in the 1700 and 1800s, and we had a fantastic period even in the early 1900s. If we are talking about strategy, we should be talking about a long-term vision for where we want our country to be, and having a new offshore airport is a very good idea for the long-term economic growth of our country.

A short runway at Heathrow would not do it, while an extra runway at Gatwick would not deal with the hub issue. All those small fixes for the short term would just lead us straight back to where we were: putting off the long-term decision again, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Saffron Walden (Sir Alan Haselhurst) described. I very much welcome the Davies commission. I differ somewhat with the timetable for the reporting and the decisions, but it is right that someone is going to take a calm, long-term view of the situation.

There have been a lot of scare stories saying that, if a new hub airport were to be built over a period of 20 or 30 years, Heathrow would somehow cease to exist. However, we already have regional airports, and Heathrow could continue in that capacity and gradually evolve over time. I must declare an interest, in that I live under the flight path in my Windsor constituency. The biggest challenge is to ensure that, with 480,000 air traffic movements a year, the number of flights does not increase. A second concern relates to night flights. I was involved with the recent Civil Aviation Bill. Thankfully, Heathrow has only 16 night flights at the moment, but with an extra runway, that number would increase massively. I will certainly continue to go on marches and to work with hon. Members across the House to ensure that a third runway does not become a reality.

We need to step back and look at the interests of the nation over the next 50 to 100 years, then make this decision in a cool, calm and collected fashion without focusing on short-term, sticking-plaster solutions. I hope that, when the Davies commission reports, it will have taken a long-term, mature look at the matter. I believe that an offshore airport would solve all the problems, despite the short-term challenges involved in getting it built.