Airport Capacity

Bill Esterson Excerpts

Tuesday 25th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

I am not in any doubt that there will be obstacles on the road towards delivering this project, but that will not stop us seeking to move ahead as quickly as we can, and clearly the scheme promoter will want to do so as well, but we are also subject to due process and in a democracy we have to respect that due process.

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

This is indeed a hugely important project for the whole country, and the Liverpool city region stands to benefit, as other regions do, especially through freight and business travel, so I welcome the Government’s wholehearted support for the expansion of Heathrow. On the nine-year promise that the Secretary of State has now made, that will be challenging and there must be robust planning and consultation processes, so how will he make sure he gets through that and delivers on the nine-year programme?

[Chris Grayling]

Essentially, the way it works is that we have this overall process of the national policy statement over the next 12 months, which we will publish in the new year. Now that the recommendation has been made, my officials will prepare that detailed policy statement. It will be published in the new year, and then there will be a statutory period of consultation both outside and in this House, followed by a vote. That effectively seals the big picture stuff for the Planning Inspectorate. There is then the formal process of its submitting its detailed plans and the debate about the minutiae of the application. The Planning Inspectorate does not look at the big decision of whether we should have the runway in the first place; it looks at matters such as the details of the design for consistency with local planning laws.