Airport Expansion

Debate between Kelly Tolhurst and Seema Malhotra

Monday 2nd March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Kelly Tolhurst]

I thank my hon. Friend for the support she has given me in this role in the Department for Transport. I also want to thank her for the work that she did during her two years as maritime Minister. She is absolutely right: airports are important not only for our economy, but for how we trade with the rest of the world. It is right to say that, obviously, the judgment took into account our concern over the Paris agreement, but it did not judge that airport expansion was incompatible with climate change.

[Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)]

Paragraph 285 of the judgment rightly stated:

“We have not decided…that there will be no third runway at Heathrow.”

As a Member whose constituency is dependent on jobs from Heathrow, I voted, on balance, to support expansion at Heathrow. Paragraph 285 goes on to state that

“the consequence of a decision is that the Government will now have the opportunity to reconsider the ANPS in accordance with the clear statutory requirements that Parliament has imposed.”

It seems to me that that should be the responsibility of Government. Therefore, aside from the appeal being progressed by the scheme’s promoters, what precisely is the reason that the Government are choosing not to do so?

[Kelly Tolhurst]

The hon. Lady is quite right that the court’s judgment was not to determine whether a third runway should take place, so she is right on that point. The court’s judgment was based on the consideration of climate change in the Paris agreement. As she knows, and as I have already outlined at the Dispatch Box, the judgment ran to more than 100 pages. It is a complex judgment, which we are looking at and considering, and we will come forward with our next steps as soon as possible.