Airports (Amendment) Bill [HL] Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Transport
Lord Spicer
Main Page: Lord Spicer (Conservative - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Spicer's debates with the Department for Transport
(12 years, 8 months ago)
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Lord Spicer
My Lords, I had not planned to speak in this debate but I gave notice that I intended to speak in the gap and want to ask the Minister one short question. My credentials for doing so are that I was the Minister who took through Parliament the 1996 Act that this Private Member’s Bill attempts to amend. The context to my question is what this debate has been all about: the absolute shortage of capacity at Heathrow Airport. We have run out of space—we are full up at Heathrow. My question to the Minister is: what will the Government’s response be to the 70 businessmen who wrote in the Sunday Telegraph two weeks ago that they wanted a third runway at Heathrow Airport? The other part of the article said that No. 10 was beginning to change its mind about this matter—or the paper thought that it was, although we should not believe everything that we read in the papers. I should be very grateful for an answer to that question.