Business of the House

Alistair Carmichael Excerpts

Thursday 25th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

With projects of this scale, local effects will unfortunately be unavoidable. The Department for Transport encourages close co-operation and engagement between such projects and local councils, including parish councils. The HS2 Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Pendle (Andrew Stephenson), has been looking at this issue closely and, as set out in detail in the parliamentary report published last week, has taken a number of further steps to improve HS2 Ltd’s approach. The Rail Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris), is also supportive of the recently introduced monthly meeting between the leaders of Buckinghamshire Council, East West Rail Company, Network Rail and the EWR Alliance, which can act as a point of escalation for construction issues if required. As regards a debate in Government time, I am sorry, but I cannot promise that. I do think that an issue concerning the councils, including parish councils, of my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (Greg Smith) is ideal territory for an Adjournment debate.

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

May we have an early statement from the Secretary of State for Transport on air safety? For whatever reason, the trade and co-operation agreement with the EU did not include access to the EU EGNOS—European geostationary navigation overlay service—satellite system, which is used to provide 3D glide slope for instrument approach procedures for planes coming in to land at airports. As a consequence, come 21 June, the limits at which planes will be allowed to approach a runway without visual contact will be significantly increased, which will be particularly acute across the highlands and islands, at exactly the same time as we will be wanting more people, hopefully, to come back and start to visit us again. We need a memorandum of understanding with the EU on that, and we really need to hear from the Secretary of State for Transport what he intends to do if we do not have one.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I cannot claim that I know a great deal about that particular issue, which may not surprise the House, but this is absolutely one of those things, as I said to an hon. Gentleman earlier, that I will take up with the relevant Minister, and I will try to get the right hon. Gentleman a detailed response to what sounds a very serious matter. Obviously we want transport to resume as safely as possible, so that tourists are able to come back. He raises an important point, and I shall do my best to get a detailed answer.