Heathrow Airport

Lord Lea of Crondall Excerpts

Wednesday 15th May 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

I hope that I can reassure my noble friend. Heathrow is working closely with the communities around the site. I am pleased to say that the compensation being proposed is 10 times that which was proposed 10 years ago. It will amount to £2.6 billion-worth of compensation, which will also cover noise insulation and public facilities. I should also remind all noble Lords that this is being done at no cost to the taxpayer; the compensation will be funded by Heathrow.

[Lord Lea of Crondall (Lab)]

My Lords, is it not the case that since the Earth Summit in 1992 we have all been committed to proportionate measures to deal with the rise in sea and air temperatures? To go from that to shutting down airport capacity, which I think is the policy of the Green Party, would simply reduce Britain’s market share in airlines—and in some other industries by the same criterion—and allow other countries to have a bigger market share. We have to keep all these factors in some sort of proportion.

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

The noble Lord is completely right. The UK has the third-largest aviation sector in the world; it is very successful indeed. The way in which we will achieve decarbonisation of the aviation sector is twofold: first, by working with all other countries around the world to reach international agreements and, secondly, by making sure that it is successful and able to put money back into innovation so that we can decarbonise aircraft and look for other sustainable fuels.