Severe Winter Weather

Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts

Monday 20th December 2010 Lords Chamber

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, the noble Lord makes an interesting point, but he needs to understand that local authorities should regard central government as a supplier of last resort.

[Lord Browne of Ladyton]

My Lords, I flew down this morning from Glasgow Airport to London City Airport, and I pay tribute to the people both at Glasgow and at London City Airport who made that journey, although slightly delayed, a successful one. They did so for many hundreds of people this morning from Scotland to London. As I passed through Glasgow Airport this morning, it was very clear to me just how important Heathrow Airport is to the travel plans, whether for family reunions or business or holidays, of many of my fellow west of Scotland citizens at this time of year. I heard the Minister, in repeating the Statement made in the other place, pray in aid the statistic that Heathrow is used to 98 per cent of its capacity as a reason for the fragility of that environment—and I agree with him. As I understand it, the Government have no plans to increase the capacity of Heathrow, so they must have strategic plans to reduce its usage. Are those going to be part of the discussions that take place between his right honourable friend Philip Hammond, the Minister, BAA and the operators out of Heathrow? If they are not, we are going to face this problem repeatedly every time it snows, and that airport will be closed.

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, yet again a noble Lord rightly raises the importance of Heathrow Airport and the fact that most of the time it is running at 98 per cent efficiency, along with the fact that we are not going to have a third runway at Heathrow. What we will do is to make Heathrow Airport more effective and more efficient.