Airport Expansion: Road and Rail Upgrades

Debate between Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon and Baroness Ludford

Wednesday 27th April 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

As my noble friend will appreciate, the Government are making the biggest investment in transport infrastructure not just for a generation but, in the case of the railways, since the Victorian age. Aside from the HS2 project we are making more than £60 billion of investment in this Parliament alone, which underlines the Government’s commitment to ensure expansion of the transport infrastructure across all modes of transport.

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

My Lords, the environment committee in the other place has today called for urgent action to stop 50,000 premature deaths a year from air pollution-related illnesses. Is it not mad to expand Heathrow Airport when we are already in serious breach of European air quality laws? Would it not also be mad to pull out of the protective umbrella of EU pollution rules?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

I am sure that the noble Baroness was not suggesting that I was mad—but I will read Hansard carefully. She is quite right to raise the issue of air pollution. As I said, it will be given due consideration in the wider environmental impacts that the Government are looking at.

Asylum

Debate between Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon and Baroness Ludford

Wednesday 16th September 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

My Lords, the EU directives, like the refugee convention and UK national policy, are based on individual need rather than nationality. That need may, as the noble Lord said, arise from indiscriminate violence, but that is again based on an assessment of the risks to the individual claimant. Briefly, on his other points, as noble Lords are aware, this Government have already introduced a series of tough domestic measures to restrict access to benefits for EU jobseekers, to punish the abuse of free movement rights on which we are leading the way in Europe. The Government maintain that free movement is an important principle of the EU, but that it is not an unqualified right and must be grounded in freedom to take up work.

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

My Lords, the question was about the secondary movement of people claiming asylum in another EU member state, so I do not understand the answer, which was about EU nationals and free movement of people who have EU citizenship. Can the Minister confirm that the only possibility for secondary movement of asylum seekers is a small one if, under the Dublin rules, they have a family connection to someone who is already a refugee here? Otherwise, someone can move only if they have become fully settled in another member state and some years later acquire EU citizenship. There is little evidence of substantial such movement. Is this not just an example of how Eurosceptics are trying to confuse the issue by conflating EU free movement of EU nationals with the unfree movement of non-EU asylum seekers, with which the Government, unfortunately, seem to be colluding?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

The Government adopt responsible measures and have taken a responsible attitude in addressing the issue of the migration crisis across Europe. On the noble Baroness’s assessment of the Dublin convention, she is correct: that does stand.