Airport Capacity

Lord Soley Excerpts

Monday 14th December 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

If I may, I will write specifically on the issue of cost, but it is not being ignored; estimates have been made of that. The important point my noble friend raises is about the commission. Yes, the previous Government initiated the commission in 2012. As I have said previously from this Dispatch Box, we have committed ourselves to ensuring that the report of the commission is duly considered, which we are doing and have done since its publication, and that will form the basis of however the Government choose to proceed. We are not discarding the findings of the Davies commission—on the contrary, we are supportive of them and are ensuring that all elements raised within the Davies commission and through the Audit Committee’s recent report are built into our response. We will move forward in a positive frame in that regard in the summer of next year.

[Lord Soley (Lab)]

My Lords, this is government with a vengeance: everything to do with the date of the mayoral elections in London and nothing to do with the environment. This has been trawled over for years. I will ask the Minister two specific questions. First, if the Government are going to resurrect the Gatwick proposal, has Gatwick local authority been consulted on the amount of storage space that will be required for all the cargo that arrives? Secondly, and very specifically—this is particularly important for the rest of the UK economy—have the Government taken into account the impact on the regional airports in the regions of Britain if Heathrow does not get that extra runway, thus enabling those regional airports to link into the global economy? Without that, there will be immense damage to business.

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

The noble Lord raises an important point about air freight, which of course contributes over 40% of the UK’s non-EU trade and over £140 billion in total, which is a very important part of the offering. As the noble Lord rightly pointed out, this is an important issue and one of the many factors we are considering. We will be working on the proposals in front of us from the Davies commission to ensure that the best decision is taken for expansion of airport capacity in the south-east. It is an important consideration and it will be part of our discussions going forward.