Oral Answers to Questions

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Thursday 10th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

My right hon. Friend has made her point succinctly. She will understand, though, that if an application comes forward from Heathrow to change the current rules, it would be wrong of me as Secretary of State to pass comment one way or the other at the moment.

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State has mentioned the Piccadilly line upgrade, but he knows that that—and, indeed, Crossrail—is there to cope with existing and future passenger demand, and not Heathrow expansion. Given that we know that Heathrow, as always, will do nothing to cope with the problems that it causes, what will the Government do when there is this massive increase in passengers, a 50% increase in flights and no capacity on those lines to deal with those?

[Chris Grayling]

Even an expanded Heathrow is forecast to need only 6% of capacity on the Piccadilly line and, as I said a moment ago, we are already moving ahead with western access and starting the process of southern access. I am making provision for a Chiltern route into Old Oak Common, connecting to Heathrow by Crossrail, and HS2 will come to Old Oak Common as part of the first phase of that project. I think we are doing rather a lot to prepare for surface access to Heathrow.

National Policy Statement: Airports

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Monday 25th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

I will give way to two more Members who have a particular interest in the issue.

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

The last time this House took a decision on this matter, in January 2009, the Secretary of State voted against a third runway. Since then the case for Heathrow has got worse on every indicator, whether it is the economic case, the cost to the public purse, the environmental case or the effect on the regions. Why has he changed his mind in the face of all that evidence?

[Chris Grayling]

We commissioned an independent review that asked where we should site new capacity in the south-east of England. The Airports Commission came back with a very clear view. We have studied that view and talked to all those who are promoting individual schemes, and as a Government we believe that this is the right thing to do. We stood on this in our election manifesto last year. I believe it is the right thing to do for Britain.

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[Andy McDonald]

I thought the right hon. Gentleman was going to provide some clarity from the Dispatch Box about the breach of the CO₂ limits that I have just described, but instead he asks that question. In fact, we know that we are talking about considerably more than that. It is utterly absurd for the Government to ask the House to vote on expanding Heathrow without a plan for reducing aviation carbon emissions. Under the revised NPS, there is a very real risk that aviation’s carbon emissions will be higher in 2050. Furthermore, the Department for Transport is not due to publish a new aviation strategy until 2019.

[Andy Slaughter]

My hon. Friend is right that the environmental case against Heathrow expansion has always been unarguable; what has changed is that the economic case is also now very strongly against it. The net present value is plus or minus £2 billion to £3 billion over time. The case for Gatwick, which would be much easier to build and would involve far less grief, is much easier than that, so whether on economic or environmental grounds, Heathrow is a non-starter.

[Andy McDonald]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention. He makes a powerful point, which many commentators have identified, about the various economic arguments.

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[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

I thought it might be difficult to do justice to 30 years of my own and my constituents’ opposition to Heathrow expansion in three minutes, against a series of reckless, greedy and selfish operators of Heathrow airport, but actually I can simplify it down to three propositions. First, can the third runway at Heathrow be justified given its catastrophic human and environmental cost, especially if there are alternatives? Secondly, are those alternatives better or worse than Heathrow? Thirdly, is it feasible and will it actually happen? To the last, I would say, whether we believe in it or not, that it simply will not.

We have heard in the debate the fact that thousands of homes will be demolished; that Heathrow has been exceeding pollution targets for 10 years already and there is no plan to get those levels down; that the effect on public transport will be to suck up all the spare capacity in London, for which we worked for decades; and that there are no plans to expand the M25 and the M4, which are already two of the most congested roads, because apparently there will not be any additional cars. We have heard about the issue of safety, with 700 additional planes going across London a day. We have also heard about safety within Heathrow and the tragic case of John Coles, who was killed at Heathrow airport, and it took an hour and eight minutes for an ambulance to arrive there.

We have heard that 9,500 people die prematurely in London every year because of air pollution; that 300,000 additional people will be severely affected by noise, with 3 million people affected in total; that 28% of everybody severely affected by aircraft noise in Europe will live around Heathrow; that the cost is 40% to 50% higher than other airports; that the gearing ratio is over 80%; that there will be a 24% suppression in the growth of regional airports; that there will be a £10 billion to £15 billion cost to public transport, which the public purse will have to pay; and that the net present value over 60 years is somewhere between plus £2.9 billion and minus £2.5 billion, which is a worse economic case than Gatwick, and if we take out transfer passengers, it is worse passenger growth than Gatwick.

Are we really going to fall for this? If the House does fall for this tonight, there is a well-organised and well-funded operation. My borough has set up a residents’ commission chaired by ex-senior civil servant Christina Smyth, and we, along with the Mayor of London and other boroughs, are funding legal action that will delay this until people’s eyes are opened. When the flight paths are revealed and when the economics fall apart, Heathrow will no longer have the support that we may see today. I resigned 10 years ago to fight this, so I hope we are not back here in 10 years’ time debating this, because it is a doomed project.

Airports National Policy Statement

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Thursday 7th June 2018 Westminster Hall

[Lilian Greenwood]

I cannot comment on the pay and benefits for staff who work at Heathrow. Undoubtedly, both Heathrow and Gatwick airport have sought to influence the decision made by hon. Members here today. The Select Committee’s role is important in ensuring that people have independent and objective information that enables them to make a decision.

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making a good case, and I look forward to hearing the “buts”. It is correct that for a brief moment Gatwick was in the frame, but for many years before that, Gatwick was simply a satellite of Heathrow and controlled and silenced by it. Now that the Government have been so partial and so partisan, again the only name in the frame is Heathrow, so my hon. Friend is making exactly the right point, which is that Heathrow is the dominant voice, but does she agree that it is perhaps much more so than she has said so far?

[Lilian Greenwood]

I think Heathrow is the dominant voice, but in part that is because it is our only hub airport. Many of the arguments that the Government have put forward are predicated on the importance of that hub status, although I will address some of the other points, which I am sure my hon. Friend will want to hear.

Right hon. and hon. Members will have seen the Department for Transport’s latest summary, which rehearses some of these arguments with some very nice graphics, so I need not say more about it than that. Our inquiry sought to get into the detail of the scheme and how valid concerns about the Government’s approach might be addressed in a final NPS before Parliament was asked to approve it. I confess that when we sought this debate, we did not anticipate that the Government would have already laid their final version of the airports NPS, which happened two days ago. I commend them for their speedy actions. I welcome the Secretary of State’s remarks in the Chamber on Tuesday in which he thanked the Committee for the scrutiny we completed. I also recognised the shadow Secretary of State’s acknowledgement that we “left no stone unturned” in our report.

Conducting detailed scrutiny is absolutely critical, and I am immensely proud of the detailed work that our Committee completed within the time available. The Heathrow plans have been more than 20 years in the making. The implications of Parliament’s decision will last even longer. It is important that we get this right.

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[Lilian Greenwood]

The hon. Gentleman is of course concerned about the impact on his constituents. I think that he is right, and the Committee identified that only one set of flightpaths was used in the NPS. Of course it is important that people understand who might be affected and how they might be affected before we reach a decision. That was precisely why we asked for more evidence to be presented on the scale of noise impacts.

On surface access, we recommended that a condition be included in the NPS that ensures approval can be granted only if the target for no more airport-related traffic can be met. Heathrow has ambitious targets for modal shift, as it aims to increase the proportion of passengers and staff travelling to the airport by public transport. While there is a plan for significant investment in London’s transport network, whether that will be sufficient to cope with the extra demand remains uncertain. Without the condition recommended by our Committee, what incentive or enforcement mechanism will be in place to ensure that Heathrow meets its pledge?

[Andy Slaughter]

Unlike the Government, Transport for London has done a lot of work on this issue. The substantial improvements to public transport—Crossrail and the upgrade of the Piccadilly line—will be made to deal with additional pressures in London that are already priced in. Not only is there this huge bill for £10 billion to £15 billion that ultimately the public will have to pick up, but London is losing out by losing that additional capacity, and neither of those absolutely vital factors appear to have been taken into account by the Government; I hope that they have been by the Committee.

[Lilian Greenwood]

My hon. Friend is right that the Committee will look closely at what the surface access needs are. It is fair to say that in the evidence we have heard there was considerable disagreement between the Government and Heathrow Ltd, and Transport for London. However, it is clear that if additional investment is needed the airport would be required to make a contribution to cover the costs of those improvements that would impact on their passengers and workers.

Our support was premised on suitable mitigations being in place to offset impacts on local communities affected by noise, health and social impacts. Now is the time to set the criteria and the limits of environmental impacts that Parliament deems necessary for the scheme to go ahead. That will enable the planning directorate to do its job and ensure that Heathrow’s detailed plans can be judged against the criteria set by Parliament.

Our Committee also wanted to ensure that the conditions of approval in the NPS provided enough safeguards for passengers. People will rightly say that this is a privately funded scheme, but investors expect a return on their capital. It is airlines and their passengers who will pay for that return and ultimately bear the financial risk of this scheme. The CAA has done some preliminary work on the scheme’s ability to be financed, but questions remain over whether it can be paid for without increasing charges for passengers. Heathrow is already the most expensive airport in the world, and the evidence we received suggests that if airport charges were to increase significantly the benefits of expansion would be diluted. Fewer passengers would use the airport and Heathrow’s competitiveness as a hub, particularly in comparison with its European counterparts, would be undermined.

The Secretary of State expressed his desire to keep charges flat, but desire is not enough; we recommend that it be translated into a firm condition of approval in the NPS. Every single airline that we heard from reiterated this view. The Government are relying on the CAA to meet their ambition to keep charges flat, but can the Minister give us confidence that that ambition will be achieved, given that history suggests that Heathrow’s charges have increased each time it has made a significant investment in infrastructure?

Our support was also premised on suitable measures being in place to guarantee benefits for regional passengers. There is a risk that domestic routes will be priced out of an expanded Heathrow and that the non-London regions and Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland will be left with fewer direct connections from their own airports and potentially no new domestic slots into Heathrow. We recommended that the Government outline more clearly how they intend to secure 15% of new slots for domestic connections, including the policy levers they will use to achieve that target.

The Government have said that they believe most routes will be commercially viable and that public service obligations will be their main policy lever to secure domestic routes. Can the Minister explain how PSOs can be used to secure domestic slots, because I believe that they could be used only on a city-to-city basis, provided there is an overriding social need? What other mechanisms are available to secure slots for the regions and nations?

The final objective of our scrutiny was to ensure that any risks of a successful legal challenge were minimised. The north-west runway scheme can be legally challenged at two stages of the approvals process, the first of which is the immediate period after the NPS is designated by Parliament. A legal challenge can be mounted, not on the contents of the NPS document but on the way in which the consultation was conducted. We recommended that the evidence base be comprehensively updated and that its robustness be improved, to ensure that the consultation has been completed in a comprehensive manner and to avoid a successful legal challenge at the first hurdle. Is the Minister confident that he has done enough to address our concerns?

The scale of this project and the grounds upon which a legal challenge can be mounted suggest that there are still more hurdles for this scheme to overcome if it obtains Parliamentary approval. Even in a best-case scenario, a scheme is not going to be delivered until 2026. It is therefore essential that we make best use of the UK’s existing airport capacity in the interim, and our Committee has recommended that the Government develop a strategy to do so. Can the Minister tell us whether the Government intend to develop and implement such a strategy, so that aviation growth can continue across the country while the Heathrow scheme is being developed?

In conclusion, the Committee’s support for the north-west runway was conditional on the concerns that we identified in our report being addressed by the Government in the final NPS laid before Parliament. The Committee has not yet had the opportunity to discuss whether we believe our conditions have been met. Ultimately, it is for every Member to form their own judgment on the Government’s proposal. I hope that our report has provided Members with a strong foundation upon which to make that judgment.

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[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

It is real pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Hanson. It has been an enjoyable debate so far—it has cheered me up, as did the report from the Select Committee, ably chaired by my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood). It also cheers me up that, with each document we have collected from the Vote Office over the past week, we are further away from having this ridiculous third runway built than we were a week ago.

I share the incredulity of hon. Members on both sides of the House about this Government and successive Governments, but not the Committee, save in respect of its clinging to the conclusion despite its own evidence. I scratch my head and puzzle about why a private company that clearly does not have the interests of the population or the economy of this country at heart is constantly taking in Government after Government, despite the evidence presented to them again and again.

We have another Minister here who will get up and gamely defend the conclusions, which look increasingly threadbare. The Government have not just been an unfair referee biased towards one side; they have joined one team. They have closed their ears to the glaring anomalies, to anything inconvenient and to the negligence in many of these documents.

The right hon. Member for Putney (Justine Greening) mentioned in her urgent question this morning the probity issue of giving indemnities to such a company. Sooner or later that will come to light and people will come to their senses. I hope that will happen in the next two weeks in the course of the vote. I will be interested to hear the comments from the Scottish National party and from colleagues from other regions of the country—not just London and the south-east—that are increasingly waking up to the problem. If we do not win the vote, I suspect we will come to our senses during the course of the very substantial legal proceedings over the next few years.

I hope that it does not take the actual fulfilment of the scheme, or the attempt to fulfil it, to show how misplaced it has been, because then we will have wasted not only huge sums of public money, but a huge opportunity, because there is a need for airport expansion, but in a way that is balanced throughout the UK and, as the right hon. Member for Putney says, is a national airport strategy. I cannot understand, with all the resources that the Department and the Government have, why they are settling for such a scheme.

I shall go back a few years to show how the arguments have changed. Those of us who represent constituencies affected by Heathrow used to be classified as nimbys. I do not think we mind being nimbys when we stand up for our constituents on a significant issue for which there is no justification on the other side. We are talking not about a small inconvenience, but about villages and hundreds of people’s homes being destroyed. My hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard) talked about how air quality has real effects on people’s quality of life and actual survival. We must not put additional pressure on an area that already has some of the worst air quality in the country, and additional congestion in one of the most congested parts of the UK.

The M4-M25 junction is constantly the busiest part of the motorway network in the area, risking safety and health. Leaving even terrorism and the airline industry’s safety record aside, we will be attempting to fly over the most crowded and densely populated area that any airport serves. With three runways, there will be little opportunity to avoid a cataclysmic disaster in the event of a crash.

On the issue of noise, I sometimes wonder why we do not stop this farce at a time when the 28% figure is used: 28% of all serious noise caused to people living around airports in Europe is caused to people living around Heathrow, and the Government want to make that significantly worse. According to Transport for London and the Mayor of London, an additional 200,000 people will be seriously affected. I am not sure that would be countenanced in many other civilised countries, but we quite blithely seem to go forward with it. Those are the nimby arguments, and I do not apologise for such important arguments. On balance, they should have meant that we never considered Heathrow because there were alternatives. The obvious alternative, with none of those consequences, would be the expansion of Gatwick, but the argument has moved on, which is why we should be particularly grateful to the Select Committee

Most of the evidence that the Select Committee considered was more about the national situation and the economic case. Heathrow used to be trumpeted as being streets ahead in terms of the economic benefit, but shortly after the Committee reported it turned out that it was barely ahead and now appears to be some way behind Gatwick. That is a significant change. If I were an aviation Minister, I think I might stop and think about that and decide whether I was doing what was in the best interests of the economy of this country.

If we look at the increasing passenger numbers, taking out transfer passengers, the figures are finely balanced, perhaps in favour of Gatwick. If we look at destinations, it is the same thing. I will not repeat the points ably made by the hon. Member for Windsor (Adam Afriyie) about the effect on regional airports and the fact that not only is there no guarantee that there will not be a loss of direct flights, as the Chair of the Committee has said, but that they will be competing for access into Heathrow with more lucrative flights, and we know the way Heathrow sells those flights. That is a disaster for the regions.

I think the Minister was in the House earlier in the week when the statement was made to hear Birmingham MPs asking why, when Birmingham Airport is going to be 30 minutes away from London and is the UK’s second city with one runway, do we want to put a third runway into Heathrow, particularly when most of the Members around that third runway are saying, “We do not want it. It is a ridiculous idea. Do not bring it here.” For all those reasons, I entirely endorse the conclusions that the Select Committee came to.

The right hon. Member for Putney raised the issue of risk in the main Chamber this morning. I am sure that the Minister will explain whether Heathrow was given beneficial treatment in that regard, relative to Gatwick, because I understand that is what he said in the main Chamber this morning. He perhaps needs to clarify that point.

I am increasingly annoyed by the way in which, without any evidence at all, the Government dismiss the evidence put forward by the Mayor and Transport for London. They know what they are talking about in relation to London’s transport network. They know how much pressure it is under and what the additional costs are likely to be. I have seen nothing to indicate that the Government have prepared their own robust figures on that. If they accept the TfL figures, or even part of those figures, will the Minister repeat the assurance that I think he gave to me this morning, which is that every single penny of additional cost and opportunity cost arising from the construction of a third runway, and indeed every aspect of risk, will be borne by the private developer and not by the Government? I do not know whether he can give such assurances.

I do not want to take up a huge amount of time, but I do think that the way Heathrow has conducted its case has been misleading. I have seen that for 30 years. We have seen that with the justifications for building additional terminals, the mitigation that does not happen and the promises that are constantly broken, and now we hear that those promises should never have been made in the first place. Well, that is a great comfort to my constituents, as I am sure the Minister can imagine.

On the issue of flight paths, how can the 2 million people who live around the Heathrow catchment area in west London possibly know what to expect? They are being sold a pig in a poke. One thing the Government could do is put pressure on NATS and on Heathrow to produce at least provisional flightpaths to show what the effect will be. Otherwise, the assumption is that things are being done deliberately so that people do not realise until it is too late what the consequences will be.

I entirely agree with what the hon. Member for Windsor said about the energy from waste plants: 450,000 tonnes a year of non-recyclable household and commercial waste, mostly serving NHS trusts. That is an essential facility and there is no provision for its replacement. Such inconveniences are simply ignored.

We got a letter today from the former chair of the Commission, which purported to look at the arguments against Heathrow, about why it dismissed them, but it did not. The arguments are perfectly right. The obsolete nature of a hub model that has been the only possible model for a city such as London, given the changes in aircraft and aviation practice, is not dealt with. The issue of detriment to regional airports is not dealt with, and the issue of carbon emissions is not dealt with. We know what the arguments are and what the evidence is. We are constantly amazed by how the Government will not properly address those issues. I know that the Minister will have another go today, but we will see where we get to on that.

I will end by repeating what other Members have said. The Select Committee has done us a real favour, because it can be seen, particularly in the light of its conclusions, to be independent and rigorous and to have put forward many caveats. Rather than the inadequate response we have had so far, we would like to see, before we are called on to vote on this in a few days’ time, robust responses to the points that have been made. If not, it is difficult to see how any Member—I hope the Government will allow its own Members a free vote—could in conscience vote for a proposal that, however much they might see the advantages, has not satisfied any of the points of mitigation that were put forward and has not dealt with the evidence that there are better and less damaging alternatives.

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[Andy Slaughter]

While we have been here, a constituent sent me a letter that had been sent to The Scotsman, the end of which reads:

“Scottish airports not pursuing a more independent approach will fail to break a dependency that could be vital for an independent nation. Surely a better approach to accepting Heathrow offering breadcrumbs is to build vibrant international capacity…By using modern point-to-point aircraft this will create air passenger-friendly economic activity independently of the mores of the south-east and the outdated hub-and-spoke.”

Does he not regard that as a call to arms?

[Alan Brown]

I agree with the call for independence, and it was great to hear the right hon. Member for Putney (Justine Greening) giving advice on what an independent Scotland would look like. However, even if Scotland becomes independent, we can still have the same connectivity, as that is separate from being independent. We want to be an independent country with connectivity all over the world. However, the truth of the matter is that, with regard to the expansion of Scottish airports, many of the chief executives of Scottish airports I have spoken to want Heathrow expansion. Truth be told, they would accept Gatwick expansion, but they all say that they need that extra connectivity into the main London airport. That is the reality; it is not a factor of independence. In an ideal world we would have a major international hub in Scotland, but we do not have the critical mass.

People either support Heathrow expansion, support it with a “but”, or outright oppose it. Those who oppose it are more likely to be here on a Thursday afternoon to make their contributions heard. It has been a really good debate. Every Member, no matter their viewpoint, has complimented the excellent work done by the Transport Committee. It has published an excellent report, and I must pay tribute to the Committee’s Chair for the thorough way in which she presented it.

I am pleased that a briefing was provided for MPs. Unfortunately, I was unable to attend, but the briefing notes were excellent, giving a concise summary of some of the issues that still need to be teased out. It will be good to hear the Minister’s response. Like others, I pay tribute to the work the Clerks have done. Although I have not been involved, I know how the Clerks work, and it is great to see the report and information presented concisely.

The Committee Chair highlighted fairly that this issue is not just about connectivity; it is also about the individual people who will be affected. I am conscious that I am a Scottish MP who will be asked to vote on a decision that affects people who are not my constituents. I accept that and understand that some local people affected might be a wee bit angry about that, but unfortunately the reality of a major infrastructure project is that some people will be affected. We must look at the pros and cons, and these people should be adequately compensated and looked after. That is the flipside of a dynamic—other MPs are now advising me as a SNP and Scottish MP on what view I should take—so it works both ways.

The Committee Chair also importantly outlined the risks of inaction—decisions not taken and no further expansion of a hub airport—in terms of the potential loss of business to other European airports. She and others highlighted the risk of the project not being delivered in Heathrow’s timescale by 2026. A pertinent point is that it could be built by 2026 and operating at full capacity by 2028—it seems counter-intuitive that it could be at full capacity just two years after its projected opening. That suggests that it is not a forward-thinking business plan. It would be good to hear comments on that.

The Chair and other Members highlighted surface access issues, particularly road traffic, the required air quality updates and the fact that there are openings for legal challenges. Again, the Minister’s response must cover that in detail. The Chair concluded by saying that the Committee’s support is conditional. It clearly has yet to meet to discuss further the Government’s response, but it is a fair comment that the report must surely have helped other Members decide how they will vote when the time comes to make this big decision. I again pay tribute to the Committee for the work it has done.

I congratulate the hon. Member for North Thanet (Sir Roger Gale) on his 35 years in Parliament. He highlighted the success of and threats from competing airports. He touched on the personal aspect of understanding how Heathrow can affect constituents but still laid out his support for the plan. I commend him for shoehorning in a connection to Manston airport and for suggesting that it could be used as a stopgap for freight transport.

We then heard from the hon. Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Ruth Cadbury), who has been campaigning against Heathrow expansion for a long time. I respect her view. She correctly highlighted flightpath concerns, and I agree that there should be more transparency on flightpaths so that people fully understand the implications. She also highlighted issues about other traffic movements.

The right hon. Member for Putney has been dogged on this issue. I commend her for securing an urgent question today. She highlighted what she sees as the financial considerations and risk to the Government in having to underwrite the project. We need further clarity. I am well aware that the Government say that there is no financial risk involved because it will be fully by the private sector, but we need absolute clarity on that. She touched on massive concerns for Scotland relating to infrastructure and growth. I welcome her conversion to Scottish independence. I appreciate what she said about Transport for London’s commitments to surface expansion potentially drawing away further investment, but the reality is that Transport for London has a different borrowing model, so that will not directly affect infrastructure spend in Scotland. That is a bit of a red herring, to be honest.

The hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard), having analysed this and being a member of the Transport Committee, was another “Yes, but.” He highlighted the real importance of western rail access not just for Heathrow, but for wider western connectivity. It seems that that project should have gone ahead sooner rather than later.

The hon. Member for Windsor (Adam Afriyie) came at this from the national interest approach. He made the argument that it is not in the national interests, and as a Tory he argued about the financial implications. Interestingly—this is almost a conspiracy theory—he believes that Heathrow is not going to develop and that this is just a mechanism to control competition. Depending on what happens with the vote and how we go forward, we will see whether those chickens come home to roost, but I suggest that Heathrow seems to have spent a lot of money and effort so far, and to do so for a scheme it does not intend to progress with would be quite surprising.

[Alan Brown]

I take the hon. Gentleman’s point that there is a financial benefit to spending the money if it eliminates the competition, but clearly if Heathrow stymies routes and development going forward, it opens up some of the other opportunities that at the moment we are saying do not exist. I am not sure it would be in its long-term interests to be able to do that.

The hon. Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter) said that this debate has cheered him up. I presume that is because quite a few people spoke in opposition—I am not sure that I will cheer him up as I continue. He highlighted concerns about flightpath and cost. As a flippant aside, I must commend him for the coherent speech he has made from the scribbles he makes on his paper. I do not know how he manages to do that, and I commend him for it.

[Andy Slaughter]

It is not me; it is Hansard.

[Alan Brown]

We all have to thank Hansard for making us seem more coherent.

The hon. Member for Keighley (John Grogan) gave us a Yorkshire perspective. To cheer him up, one of my grandparents was from Yorkshire, so I am one quarter Yorkshire—maybe I am an honorary Yorkshireman. He suggested that there should be a three-line Labour Whip against this. It will be interesting to see what the shadow Minister says about that recommendation; maybe he can give us some guidance in his summing-up speech. The hon. Member for Keighley was another one giving advice to the other SNP MPs and me on what is in Scotland’s interests. I take his point about the possible risk to direct, point-to-point, long-haul connections and some of the threats predicted for regional airports. I also have concerns and would want some protection. I want to hear what the Minister says about that.

The final Back-Bench speech was from the hon. Member for Ealing Central and Acton (Dr Huq), who again highlighted the environmental and social impacts and how traffic can affect air quality. I was trying to follow her logic. It seems that she wants the Tories to U-turn on their decision not to overturn the previous Labour decision. That seems to highlight how long this has been kicking around, how much prevarication there has been and, if nothing else, why we need to get to a decision.

Heathrow

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Thursday 7th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Jesse Norman]

I know you place a premium on brevity, Mr Speaker, so I will say, yes, and £74 billion to £75 billion of expected boost to the economy.

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

The whole process of forcing through the third runway has been the opposite of transparent—from overstating economic benefits to understating the cost to public funds, including the £10 billion to £15 billion on surface access. Will the Minister say that he will define the costs and the risks to the public purse in total, and will he give an absolute assurance that this private company will bear the full costs?

[Jesse Norman]

I think that it is perfectly clear that the NPS, a national policy statement, sets the guidelines within which this is to be elaborated. We expect Heathrow Airport Ltd—and other private entities, as may be required—to bear the full cost of the expansion, as has been indicated, and we have been perfectly clear about that all the way through.

Airports National Policy Statement

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Tuesday 5th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend on that latter point. I am working with HS2 to make sure that provision is made in the development of Old Oak Common to put in those Chiltern line platforms. The Oxford-Cambridge corridor is crucial to the development of our economy. It will need connections into our premier hub, and this is the best way of achieving that.

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

This is not even a robust plan for London, and it damages and stunts regional airports. The Secretary of State has given no details about flight paths, and has no coherent plans for air quality, surface access, jobs or controlling public subsidy. He is well known for his reverse Midas touch but, on this issue, should he not listen to the right hon. Member for Putney (Justine Greening)? She said this morning that we need a UK-wide airport strategy, not this expensive and incompetent botch job.

[Chris Grayling]

I know that the hon. Gentleman has a particular view on this proposal, so I did not expect to find him supportive of it. We will work very hard to ensure that the areas affected by expansion are treated as decently as possible and supported by what will be a world-leading package of community support, which I hope will mitigate the impact of this project of national strategic importance.

Heathrow Airport: Public Consultation

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Wednesday 24th January 2018 Westminster Hall

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Henry. This consultation is really just the latest consultation for Heathrow—the fruit of the poisoned tree. The issue has been heavily politicised over a long time, under successive Governments, but things really went wrong during the period of the Airports Commission. Prior to 2010, David Cameron made promises, which he then decided he did not want to keep, and we had the protracted and rather embarrassing saga of the commission stringing out the process, using assumptions that were already out of date, and producing a report that in the end said what the Government then wanted it to say and allowed them to change tack. Those are tactics that Heathrow has used for more than 30 years, and nothing really surprises me, but both the NPS consultations and the latest one are tarnished by that.

Nothing in this consultation, as my constituency neighbour to the west, my hon. Friend the Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Ruth Cadbury), has just said, tells us about flight paths. That is the key point that people want to know. Without that, it becomes an almost vacuous exercise. Yet we are not to know the flight paths, we are told, until 2021, after all the major decisions are made. There is nothing in the consultation about who will pay—particularly, as has been mentioned, who will pay the estimated £18 billion for public transport. Getting these glossy pamphlets through the door, as one does on a regular basis from Heathrow, sends the subliminal message, “This is a done deal. Get used to it. Get what you can out of it by way of mitigation.” It simply is not good enough.

The point on mitigation is interesting. We hoped that campaigns such as the one the Mayor of London is fighting; the action he is taking to improve air quality; advancements in air transport, which can lead to noise reduction; and planned improvements—such as Crossrail and upgrading the Piccadilly line—to public transport in London, would improve quality of life and enable Londoners to go about their business better, but they will all be sacrificed to mitigating the additional burdens, inconveniences and health hazards that Heathrow intends to inflict on us. Why should that be the case? Why should Londoners have to pay financially, through their health and through the inconvenience in their daily lives for this white elephant project to go ahead?

We are still talking about hub airports here, which to a large extent have had their day. There are alternatives. We are talking about London as if it was going to have a single airport, rather than a number of airports, each serving different areas, because of the size of the community in London and the south-east that they serve. It is no more than propaganda. It is out of date.

We have heard today that the financial figures have been looked at again. Let us see who we are serving here. We are serving a company that is 90% foreign-owned, that is debt-laden and that, as far as can see, pays no tax other than the VAT it pays on the sales from shops— increasingly it is a business in that way. We have opposition from the airlines that are unwilling to pay the greatly enhanced landing charges that will be levied in order to pay for this white elephant project. Everybody seems to pay except the shareholders of Heathrow Airport Holdings. Yet at the same time we are being told that Gatwick is a better option, not only, as we have always known, in relation to congestion, noise and pollution, but in terms of financial effects, both locally and on the national economy. There is very little left to recommend Heathrow as an option. Once again, as has been set out, we are going through a farce of a consultation.

I will end on that point. We will be here again, probably in another month, having another debate on Heathrow. We will be here in 10 years, wondering why London does not have additional airport capacity, as we wondered 10 years ago. The sooner the Government grasp the nettle, the better. I wait to hear with interest the speech from my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull East (Karl Turner) on the Front Bench. Very wisely, the Labour Front-Bench team has set a series of tests and not prejudged the issue. As time goes on, we will see that those tests will not be met. I hope to hear encouraging noises from my hon. Friend, as I often do.

[Zac Goldsmith]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Andy Slaughter]

Very briefly.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

That’s not fair.

[Andy Slaughter]

I am so sorry; I will not give way, as there is a further speech to come. I will end on that, and I wait to hear what the Minister has to say.

[Sir Henry Bellingham (in the Chair)]

I call Jim Shannon. It might be helpful if the Member was aware that I will call the Scottish National party spokesman to wind up at 5.8 pm.

Airport Expansion: Economic and Environmental Impact

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Wednesday 25th October 2017 Westminster Hall

[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the economic and environmental impacts of airport expansion.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray. I thank the Minister for attending. I am bringing this issue to the House because of the impact that a third runway will have on significant parts of my constituency—those areas not already under the approach path to Heathrow—and because of wider regional and national concerns about the environmental, fiscal and economic cost of expanding Heathrow.

It is a year to the day since the Government’s announcement that the preferred option for an additional runway was Heathrow. Fortuitously, it is also the day after the release of the Government’s revised national policy statement. The Government decision to support expansion at Heathrow was based on reports produced by the Airports Commission, but since the publication of those reports in 2015, further analysis has significantly undermined their conclusions, particularly on the economic and environmental impacts and costs of Heathrow expansion versus those of Gatwick expansion. Yesterday’s releases undermine the conclusion further.

I will outline a few of the key points, the first of which is reduced net economic benefits. To begin with growth figures, I see that yesterday’s Government report revised assumed demand for flying upward, but I wonder if account was taken of UK economic growth: we have in the past year lurched from being one of the fastest- growing G7 economies to one of the slowest. Looking at the comparative figures in the Department for Transport calculations, the new estimates for net economic benefit arising from a third runway at Heathrow compared with Gatwick in yesterday’s figures changed the picture further. A year ago, the net economic benefit from a third runway at Heathrow was given as £61 billion over a 60-year period—a negligible net benefit. Yesterday the Government revised those figures upward: the figures given for a second runway at Gatwick are between £74.1 billion and £75.3 billion over 60 years; but this time the figures for the Heathrow option are lower than those, at £72.8 billion to £74.2 billion.

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is right to highlight yesterday’s figures, which completely blow the Government’s cover and show that there is no environmental or economic case for Heathrow that compares with the case for Gatwick. Does she agree that what is outrageous is that the figures have been suppressed while Heathrow’s cause was advanced? Now that we have the true figures, we should see that the Heathrow option is a totally inappropriate development for London.

[Ruth Cadbury]

Yes, my hon. Friend is right. The election delay and other excuses meant that figures that could have been in the public domain have only just come out.

Job creation figures are often used to justify Heathrow expansion, but those from the Airports Commission report have recently been revised downward. The total number of jobs that it is claimed will be created is down from 78,000 to 37,000. It is disappointing; the first draft of the national policy statement supported the higher figure and I have not had a chance to read the revisions to see whether that has changed. Analysis by Transport for London demonstrates that the 37,000 jobs are not genuinely new jobs, but merely displaced from other parts of the economy. That is not insignificant in terms of ensuring continued employment for thousands of people, but it is completely different from creating new economic activity. It is not clear that Heathrow’s promises to local communities about mitigation, to the regions about connectivity, and to the country about jobs remain the same, given the reduction in the figure for total economic benefit.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for Transport Legislation and Maritime (Mr John Hayes)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray. The hon. Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Ruth Cadbury) has been assiduous in her defence of her constituents’ interests. She and my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith) are beyond question in both the diligence they have exercised and the passion they have shown. Nothing worth while is ever achieved without passion, and no one is more passionate in defending their constituents’ interests than she and he. On that basis, I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing the debate. I note that my hon. Friend has already briefly contributed and is here to listen to what I have to say.

Let me be clear: the Government have expressed a preference for airport expansion, on which we are consulting. That is where we are with this. Final decisions will be made as a part of that process, but they have not yet been made. I will certainly consider all the matters raised by the hon. Lady, which she kindly informed me about previously. She set out with great courtesy, as she has many times before, the areas she hoped to cover. I will do my best to try to address them; time is short, but we will try to cover as much ground as we can none the less. This is a timely debate, because it was only yesterday that the Government launched our consultation on the revised national policy statement and published our response to our earlier consultation on airspace reform.

If I may, I will deal at the outset with the matter raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Gordon (Colin Clark). It is right that we see this subject in the context of what we expect of our regional airports. He is right to say that any consideration about airport expansion needs to be on a strategic basis; it would be quite wrong to see the expansion in the south-east in isolation. He can be assured that the Government think strategically about these things. Part of our ongoing consideration, and the discussion we are having on the back of the consultation, will take full account of the point made by him and others about the need for the relationship between the regions and the south to be secure.

I mention those publications because they are intrinsic to the debate. I am sure that the hon. Member for Brentford and Isleworth has already taken the opportunity to look at the statement from the Secretary of State for Transport, although she may not have had a chance to work through the full suite of documents, as they are extremely detailed. However, it is inevitable that my response today will repeat much of what was set out in the statement yesterday; she would hardly expect me to do anything else.

The important thing about this subject generally is that the Government are not frightened or nervous about taking big, strategic decisions about infrastructure. Members might think that untypical of Governments in democratic polities; over the last several decades, such Governments have often been reluctant to take big decisions, partly for fear of binding the hands of successors and partly because no one wants to be held responsible for a decision that goes wrong. Governments need to take big, strategic decisions on infrastructure and this Government are determined to do so, notwithstanding the tendency I described—perhaps the inevitable consequence of living in a democracy where we are all, quite properly, answerable to the people whom we serve.

The issue is not about taking the decision but about the process. The hon. Member for Brentford and Isleworth is right to draw attention to some of the specifics of that, which I will now deal with. We announced last October that the Heathrow north-west runway is our preferred option to deliver extra capacity in the south-east. I have no intention of being excessively partisan, but the hon. Lady knows that her own party’s manifesto made clear the official Opposition’s preference for airport expansion in the south-east. That manifesto set down four serious and unsurprising conditions, many of which she covered in her brief remarks and, indeed, in her many questions to the Government. We have received a number of responses to the major consultation that we launched originally. The draft airports NPS allowed us to solicit views and opinions, and we have received about 70,000 responses in total. In parallel, Heathrow Airport Holdings Ltd has been working with airlines to bring down the cost of the scheme.

We are now consulting on the revised draft NPS for a further eight weeks. That is in line with our statutory requirements and is the right thing to do. We expect the Liaison Committee to announce shortly which Select Committee will take forward parliamentary scrutiny. The draft NPS has been revised in the light of the consultation responses already received, to reflect changes to wider Government policy and updated evidence, such as the Government’s air quality plan and the latest aviation passenger demand forecasts.

To respond to what the hon. Member for Brentford and Isleworth said about Gatwick, I should say that it is really important to realise that some of the advantages are hard to monetarise; they are not entirely financial. I shall try to elaborate on that in a moment. Although of course money matters, it is not all that matters. There will be strategic reasons why we will come to the decision we come to when we have consulted. Further consultation is not unusual. The Planning Act 2008 requires us to consult again.

Let us be clear about the areas that the hon. Lady addressed. The first is the broad economic case—the net economic benefits and demand. The revised passenger demand forecasts, which the Government published yesterday, show that the need for additional capacity in the south-east is even greater than previously thought. They show that all five of London’s main airports will be completely full by the mid-2030s, so doing nothing is not an option.

Our revised analysis shows that the new north-west runway at Heathrow would deliver benefits of up to £74 billion to passengers and the wider economy over a 60-year period. As I have said, the monetarised benefits are part of the strategic approach, and if one looks at the monetarised effects of both the expansion at Heathrow and the possible expansion at Gatwick, one sees that they are fairly evenly balanced over the longer term. Heathrow offers the greatest economic benefits for at least the first 40 to 50 years. The figures, which the hon. Lady will be familiar with, show an evening out of those monetarised benefits in the longer term. She will know that well.

[Andy Slaughter]

The Minister seems to be rewriting history. At the time the commission produced its report, we were told that the economic benefits of Heathrow were much greater than those of Gatwick. The facts have changed. Surely the Government should be looking at the revised facts and not just saying, “We’ve made a decision. We’re going to go on with it whatever happens.”

[Mr Hayes]

The hon. Gentleman is perhaps not quite in the same league as the hon. Lady or my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park, but he is certainly right up there in terms of his interest in this subject. [Interruption.] I do not mean to be unkind to him, but I do not want in any sense to underestimate the contribution made by those two colleagues. The hon. Gentleman will understand the point that I made earlier: not all the strategic benefits, the long-term benefits, can be monetarised—a few moments ago, I said that the two were broadly the same. But let us talk about some of the additional strategic benefits, which are pertinent to the hon. Lady’s initial remarks.

The ability to secure the United Kingdom’s future as an aviation hub is an important part of expansion, as is our ability to compete with other European and middle eastern airports. In 2040, there would be 113,000 additional flights across the UK airport network, equating to 16 million additional long-haul seats. That would help UK businesses to connect to markets across the globe.

I have already mentioned the support for domestic connectivity to the nations and regions of the UK. The importance of freight has often been understated in the debate. Freight is an important part of what Heathrow already handles; I think that it handles more freight by value than all other UK airports combined. We are also talking about up to 114,000 additional jobs in the local area by 2030 and—a subject dear to my heart—very many, perhaps 5,000, additional apprenticeships. I was able to visit very recently the team at Heathrow airport who deal with skills and apprenticeships and saw the effect that they can have on the prospects of, the opportunities for, so many people.

I shall deal quickly with other areas that the hon. Lady would want me to deal with. The Airports Commission estimated the potential costs of the surface access provision for the north-west runway at Heathrow at about £5 billion, but recognised that final details and therefore costs would be determined as part of the statutory planning process. Let me be clear: there will be no planning permission unless a very high bar has been met in environmental terms. It is simply a matter of fact that planning permission cannot be granted unless that high bar is crossed, and I certainly, as Minister of State, would not want it otherwise.

It is right that additional investment will be needed in the infrastructure around the airport. However, I am not sure that I would agree with the Mayor. The Mayor has had a fairly torrid time over the last week. He was criticised in the Chamber last week, and I think I had a go at him yesterday, although, as I said, I do not want to be too partisan about these things. I am not sure that the analysis done by Transport for London takes full account of the infrastructure that we are already committed to improving. None the less, it is right that we have a proper and open debate about the surface access issue, and we will do so.

I have said a little about the growth of regional airports and the Government’s support for that. The Government fully recognise the importance of air services to the nations and regions of the UK, and the draft airports national policy statement published yesterday makes it clear that the expansion of Heathrow will be an opportunity to increase frequency on existing domestic routes and to develop new domestic connections.

On the cost of noise mitigation, I have made it clear that there will be no planning permission unless that is dealt with satisfactorily. Any expansion at Heathrow will be accompanied by a world-class compensation and mitigation package, to mitigate the impact on local communities. That is the least that the hon. Lady and my hon. Friend should expect. While I am Minister of State, they can be guaranteed that that will happen; I know that that is the Secretary of State’s view, too.

Airport Capacity and Airspace Policy

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Thursday 2nd February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

I can absolutely give that assurance. My hon. Friend knows that we are now moving ahead with the development process on the A303. I have made funding available for the next stage of work to develop the right solution to the problems at Dawlish. Of course, the other thing that will benefit the south-west is improved aviation links. Newquay airport, which is a bit further west than his constituency, is one of the regional airports that will benefit from that increased connectivity.

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State wants 250,000 extra flights over one of the most densely populated parts of Britain—2 million people live in the area—but he has no concrete proposals for dealing with congestion, noise or air quality. How is he going to deal with diesel and other emissions? What about increased freight, which will go by road, not rail? Does he not know that the increases in public transport are already needed to meet local demand? Is he not just passing the buck to somebody else to solve these problems, and not for the first time?

[Chris Grayling]

No, I am not passing the buck to anyone else. If the hon. Gentleman looks at the plans for improved public transport connectivity around Heathrow, as I described, he will see that Crossrail, HS2, an improved Piccadilly line, the south-west rail access and the western rail access will entail the kind of transformation to access that Heathrow has never seen before. My belief is that, with tight commitments on the airport developers to ensure that they meet their promises, we can deliver this with lower-noise aircraft, a smart compensation package and benefits for the United Kingdom.

Rail Infrastructure (Train Operating Companies)

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Tuesday 6th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

The incidence of broken rails is a worrying coincidence, to put it mildly. I am concerned about the number of infrastructure breakdowns in recent weeks. Passengers blame the train company, but often—recently, more often than not—it is an infrastructure problem. That route is suffering intensely from low-level industrial action on non-strike days, and effectively a work to rule has been in force on different parts of that railway for months, which is adding to the intense pressure. I wish the unions would just accept that their members are not losing as a result of the change. They have more job security and better pay than a lot of people in the south-east, and they should get back to work and do the job they need to do for their passengers.

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

The travelling public support devolution, as do a number of Conservative MPs, council leaders and Assembly Members, and indeed as the Conservative Government did when they signed the joint prospectus with the previous Mayor of London. Is it not just a narrow, petty, political point that the right hon. Gentleman does not want to devolve to a Labour Mayor, who would provide more frequent trains, fewer delays and cancellations, more staff at stations and frozen fares?

[Chris Grayling]

This is the problem with the proposition. The hon. Gentleman says that more frequent trains would be provided, but the Mayor’s business plan did not provide more frequent trains. It provided no extra capacity in peak hours into the stations that serve the Southeastern route, and it would have involved the biggest reorganisation of those routes since the 1920s. My judgment is that, as it does not deliver the more frequent trains the hon. Gentleman describes, we should design the franchise through partnership, rather than upheaval.

Heathrow Expansion: Air Quality

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd November 2016 Westminster Hall

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing this debate; she is making a compelling case. The overwhelming body of legal and expert opinion on environmental and transport matters is that it is not sustainable. Does she agree that it is a welcome sign that the Mayor of London has put the resources of TfL behind the campaign, and will support all of us who are campaigning to ensure that Heathrow does not expand, because of that particular risk?

[Dr Mathias]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that absolutely brilliant point. I would think that the Mayor of London supporting the campaign would focus the minds of the Minister and the Cabinet, because four councils—Richmond, Wandsworth, Hillingdon and Windsor and Maidenhead—are taking the Government to court for noise and air pollution as a result of the proposed Heathrow expansion. Ministers have a chance to change their minds and deliver runway capacity in an area where air pollution is not so critical. No other place in the United Kingdom is as vulnerable as the area around Heathrow, close to Greater London.

If the Government continue to support Heathrow expansion without a plan to reduce air pollution to within safe medical and legal limits—it must be done in a critical time frame, as ClientEarth told the Government in the Supreme Court and the High Court—I will ask the Government to admit that they are wilfully and knowingly increasing the number of deaths attributable to air pollution caused by an expanded Heathrow.