National Policy Statement: Airports

Lord Dodds of Duncairn Excerpts

Monday 25th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

Unlike the hon. Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi), who kept us waiting for four minutes—until the last sentence of his speech—to know whether he was going to support this project, may I say at the very start that I and my colleagues will be supporting the Government on this tonight? This is a project of national interest. It is one on which our economy depends, and that will help us in our pursuit of increased productivity, in our pursuit of being a global trading nation and in regenerating the regions. As someone from Northern Ireland, that is an important aspect of this particular project, because we rely on connectivity.

We have had Members telling us today that we can have regional airports or hubs in different regions all across the country, but the truth of the matter is that most regional airports are not in the centre of populations that can support all the international connections that are needed, and we therefore need an international hub. If we are going to have an international hub, we need to have local connections. Given that places are currently at a premium at Heathrow, the only way to get those connections, despite what the Scottish nationalists have argued, is to expand Heathrow. They cannot wish for more flights into Heathrow and say that they are ambivalent about whether it should be expanded. This is important to us for that reason.

Northern Ireland is of course an exporting part of the United Kingdom. High-value engineering exports and high-value food exports depend on having a good cargo infrastructure to enable us to send our goods across the world.

[Nigel Dodds (Belfast North) (DUP)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that the biggest domestic cargo trade between Heathrow and any regional airport is that to Belfast City, which will double if Heathrow is expanded?