Airports (Amendment) Bill [HL]

Lord McKenzie of Luton Excerpts

Friday 16th March 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

My Lords, I apologise for rising to speak in the gap, although I have given notice. I readily accept the importance of air transport in connectivity. We should congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Empey, on bringing forward this important discussion. I will speak briefly about the role of—even—London Luton airport, and why its position should be enshrined as part of the air infrastructure, and to make sure that that is fully acknowledged and encouraged.

The Bill seeks to amend the Airports Act 1986. I remember that Act being introduced. It was a means of forcing local authorities to put their airport into separate corporate entities. We railed against it at the time—in retrospect, wrongly. It is bizarre to think that, before those days, we operated Luton Airport as a committee of the council. Things have moved on. London Luton Airport has had the benefit of a public/private partnership. It was the UK’s fastest growing airport last year. It plans to deal with some 10 million passengers in the current year, and is consulting on a planning application that could increase capacity to something like 16 million passengers a year, or maybe even higher. Not in any way to deny Heathrow or the arguments advanced for it, I would argue that the airport should be seen as an integral part of the London air transport network. It already serves a significant part of the collective catchment area of London airports.

Issues about connections are important. If the issue is how quickly you can get from Belfast to the capital, going via Luton could be just as fast as going via Heathrow, if you have to get off the flight and get on the train or underground, get a taxi or whatever. That is not to argue against improvements to those rail networks. The point about connecting flights is a fair one. Clearly that is more difficult to do. Even within Heathrow itself, it depends where your connecting flights are going from. With five terminals in Heathrow itself, it is not like stepping from one platform to another.

My point is that, in all this debate, the contribution of airports such as London Luton Airport should not be overlooked. It is not a perfect solution to all the issues of connectivity that have been raised by the Bill, but while there are constraints on Heathrow, whatever the future of its expansion entails, airports such as London Luton Airport have a real contribution to make. They have the benefit of having the strong support of their local communities, principally because a big franchise fee comes into the local council and helps to keep spending up, or council tax down, or both. London Luton Airport should feature, and I urge that it does feature, in the Government’s consideration of airport policy to deal with these issues as well as others.