Airports National Policy Statement

Lord Swinfen Excerpts

Wednesday 6th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sugg]

My Lords, the noble and gallant Lord is quite right to point out that there may well be judicial reviews around this. Obviously, we are expecting that. The Airports Commission asks that the runway is delivered by 2030. As I said, Heathrow is working to 2026, and we have independent appraisals on that and will work closely with it. We will of course follow correct judicial processes on this, but we will work with Heathrow to get this delivered for 2026, as I say.

[Lord Swinfen (Con)]

My Lords, what consideration is being given to using Manston Airport on the Isle of Thanet, particularly for freight, to relieve both Heathrow and Gatwick? I know that it is some way from London, but it is easily reached by road and rail, both of which run alongside the airport, which has the longest runway in Europe. Aircraft can go straight out over the North Sea and down the Dover Strait and into the English Channel.

[Baroness Sugg]

My Lords, I know that there are some very interesting proposals around Manston Airport. One of the reasons why we chose Heathrow was because of its freight capacity and the expansion will deliver doubling of freight on that. Alongside that, we are already full at Heathrow, and expect to be full at other airports very soon. Alongside the laying of the final NPS, we announced the policy on making best use of existing capacity to ensure that other airports can do that.