Aviation: UK Civil Aviation Debate
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Lord Spicer
Main Page: Lord Spicer (Conservative - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Spicer's debates with the Department for Transport
(12 years, 10 months ago)
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Lord Spicer
My Lords, I had not intended to join in this debate, but I would like to make one point. As has been said already, Heathrow has, for the past 40 years—certainly since I was Minister for aviation—been the number one international interchange airport in the world. Gatwick, as it happens, has been number three for some time. Heathrow is now full up. There is no doubt about it. It is full. The only question before us is what we do about it.
Various ideas have been put forward. One is to run trains to Birmingham. That will take a bit of time, if it comes about, and is not going to do an awful lot for international travel. Heathrow is an international hub interchange airport. The idea that the noble Lord, Lord Lea of Crondall, called “Boris’s island” is a wonderful one, but has been around for the past 40 or 50 years. Maplin was the first attempt at it. Even if it is a good idea, it is going to mean a decision about shutting down Heathrow—the noble Lord was absolutely right about that—and it is not going to happen for the time being. It is not going to happen for another 30 or 40 years.
The solution to Heathrow, which is an immediate problem, has to be found pretty well immediately. The only solution available—and I have put this to Ministers in Questions several times in the past year or so—is that of a third runway. There is no alternative. I was the Minister who laid the first sod at Stansted. We attached to Stansted a 20 million air traffic movement condition, so Stansted is not available. Anyway, airlines do not want to fly to Stansted. They want to fly to Heathrow and change there.
The issue is, do we have an asset which is going to grow with the market, or do we allow ourselves to have the competition from Schiphol and all the other places that people have talked about? This is an immediate decision. It needs to be taken straight away and there really is no way round it, other than making a decision about the third runway.