Airports Commission: Final Report

Mark Menzies Excerpts

Thursday 26th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mark Menzies (Fylde) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Dr Mathias) for initiating this debate. She cheered up so many Conservative Members with her feistiness on election night, and we can see why she was elected. However, I have to say, as a member of the Transport Committee, that I am an avowed supporter of a third runway at Heathrow.

We have one of the biggest airports in the world, with a proven track record of success, at the edge of one of the greatest cities—possibly the greatest city—in the world, so it is frustrating that we have spent all this time prevaricating and being sucked down by, in effect, glorified nimbyism. I say to Members from west London: “It is not about you; it is about the future of the United Kingdom.” I find the stance taken by some people in recent years quite frustrating; it really is starting to wear a bit thin. This is not about electoral or mayoral campaigns; it is about the economic future of the UK.

[Stephen Hammond (Wimbledon) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. My constituency is not affected by the airport, either as it is or as it is likely to be, but I gently say to him that this is about evidence. If he reads the report, he will have to recognise that most of its conclusions are undermined by its own evidence. This is one of the most flawed public policy documents ever created. We should base the policy on evidence, not emotion, as he says.

[Mark Menzies]

Actually, I have read the report and the one thing very clear from it is that Davies has given a very strong indication of a preference. It is very frustrating that those who are viscerally opposed to Heathrow refuse, time and again, to provide clear alternative options. Today we have even heard Members say, “Let’s have more reviews and more discussions. Let’s kick it into the long grass.” We have even heard threats that the runway will never be built because of legal challenge.

[Ruth Cadbury]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mark Menzies]

No, I will continue. It is frustrating that national infrastructure issues that affect not just London but my constituents in Fylde are being sucked down to the lowest common denominator of what is right for a handful of constituencies in west London.

[Dr Mathias]

Does my hon. Friend not agree that one of the most damning points in the report is about the lack of connectivity domestically and to long-haul destinations?

[Mark Menzies]

Let us therefore pay tribute to Heathrow, because next March it will introduce direct flights to Inverness. I do not accept some of the arguments that I have heard from right hon. and hon. Members. If we build a third runway, we will increase capacity and the opportunity for improved regional connectivity. People say that there would be no improvement, but that is absolutely a red herring.

[Zac Goldsmith]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Mark Menzies]

No, I will not give way.

Everyone aged 70 or less has grown up with Heathrow airport. If people grow up beside what was the busiest airport in the world, they should not be surprised to hear aircraft noise or see planes flying overheard. That is what happens if people choose to live beside what was the busiest international airport in the world. But guess what? It is no longer the busiest international airport in the world, because Governments of several hues have failed to take a decision.

There have been spurious suggestions, such as Boris island. I admire my hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson) for many things, but to hold that out as a solution is just kicking the problem on to someone else’s turf—kicking it so far down the road that no decision will be taken.

[Sir Simon Burns]

Will my hon. Friend bear in mind that, with improved technology and advances in engineering, the noise of plane engines is decreasing, which will help to address that problem?

[Mark Menzies]

The former Transport Minister makes a valuable point. The Dreamliner A350, for example, not only has 20% lower fuel emissions, but 60% less noise emissions.

For people who grew up or lived beside an airport when aircraft were far noisier than now—we are moving to a future in which aircraft noise is diminishing—the noise argument and, given the more efficient engines, the pollution argument really do not add up. I urge anyone who flies to Heathrow to look at the TV screen in front of their seat and watch whether they fly straight in, or whether they circle in figures of eight for perhaps half an hour or 40 minutes, pumping pollution into the air. Why? Because the aircraft cannot get straight in to land.

[John Mc Nally]

Will this ever get built? I sit on the Environmental Audit Committee, and according to the evidence of one Lord—I cannot remember his name—it will never be built, and the whole £20 million spent on consultation will prove totally useless. What makes the hon. Gentleman think that, in perhaps three, four or five years, we will not end up with more long-haul flights coming in and circling and circling, while regional airports get further squeezed out? Now—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. I want short interventions.

[Mark Menzies]

With Blackpool airport in my constituency, I am a passionate believer in regional airports, so I will not bow to the hon. Gentleman on that.

[Zac Goldsmith]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Mark Menzies]

I will not; I am conscious of the time. I firmly believe in the importance of Heathrow as the only realistic, viable and deliverable hub airport. In terms of transport connectivity to London, we have the Heathrow Express, the M40 and the M25—I could read out a list of roads connecting to the regions of the United Kingdom—and Crossrail is being built. Also, HS2, which some Members like and some do not, will have a stop at Old Oak Common. If that is not true regional connectivity, I do not know what is. Anyone who suggests that building a second runway at Gatwick will deliver that form of surplus regional connectivity is kidding themselves; that is for the birds, I am afraid. [Interruption.] We keep hearing Members with well-heeled constituencies saying from a sedentary position that they are opposed to this airport, but my constituents—

[Zac Goldsmith]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Mark Menzies]

I will not give way. My constituents, and many others in the regions of the United Kingdom, would be delighted by such an opportunity for jobs and growth—they would absolutely bite your hand off—but we have been pulled down into a very narrow debate about what is right for west London. What is right for the United Kingdom is that we build a third runway and identify Heathrow as the hub airport for western Europe. What is right for the United Kingdom is not that we have a fudge, but that the Government’s decision is clear and timely, and that we get on with it. Let us get it built.

[Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)]

I say to my hon. Friend the Member for Fylde (Mark Menzies) that I, too, believe in getting on with things and in clarity. They are good, but getting it right is better. The problem with the Davies report is that it gets it fundamentally wrong. My hon. Friend the Member for Wimbledon (Stephen Hammond), in a powerful intervention, made the point that although the report puts options on the table, they are not deliverable, because it is so chock-full of internal contractions. The contradictions have been well highlighted by my hon. Friends the Members for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith), for Twickenham (Dr Mathias) and for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson), the hon. Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Ruth Cadbury) and others.

The Heathrow option is so shot through with contradictions that it will be delayed time and again. It is a recipe for judicial review. Attempting to expand Heathrow will be a field day for well-heeled west London lawyers, but it will not deliver the connectivity that is required for the rest of the country. It is a blind alley to go down the Heathrow option. The process is flawed, the consultation is fundamentally flawed and it is not, in my judgment, legally sound.

My second point is that the Heathrow option is economically flawed. It is clear that the case does not stack up. Willie Walsh does not make the comments he is making for the sake of his health, but because the case is economically illiterate.

[Mark Menzies]

The reason Willie Walsh has taken this position is that BA acquired BMI to get its hands on more Heathrow slots. Having spent a vast sum of money acquiring BMI and the Heathrow slots, he does not want lots more Heathrow slots to come along and weaken his economic case.

[Robert Neill]

With respect to my hon. Friend, this is not about one company any more than it is about one individual constituency or one part of London.

The fundamental problem, as has been well demonstrated by other hon. Members in this debate, is that a third runway at Heathrow would be but a sticking plaster that, almost immediately, would be over capacity. There would then be a need for a fourth runway, which would not be achievable in legal or environmental terms because, whatever one thinks about the matter, the Supreme Court judgment has changed things. We cannot ignore that. The truth is that we would be sinking a huge amount of capital into something that would be a white elephant by the time it opened. That is not what I regard as getting on with things or with doing something that is deliverable. That is the key distinction.

We do need to move forward and there is an alternative. Heathrow may well have been the optimal place for an airport in 1948 or 1950. At that time, London was a shrinking city. Its population was reducing and nobody anticipated the massive population growth to come. Heathrow is no longer in an appropriate place. We therefore have to look at the alternatives. Nobody is saying, and I am certainly not saying, that we should close Heathrow down. It is an important part of the west London economy, but there are more readily deliverable options to increase capacity. I am in favour of increasing airport capacity in London and the south-east.

My constituents, like many of us who wrote a letter to The Daily Telegraph today, are not from west London. My constituency is not directly affected by the flight paths, although we do suffer from stacking. The irony is that the stacking would be removed for only a very temporary period by a third runway, because the overcrowding would return, meaning that the stacking would be back until people tried to get a fourth runway, which would be impossible. It is a complete canard or red herring to suggest that it would solve things.

We need to get on with the option that can be most quickly delivered. No option is perfect and I might not have started from this point. I have sympathy with my right hon. Friend the Member for Saffron Walden (Sir Alan Haselhurst). If we had looked at the Foulness option many years ago, perhaps it would have been attractive, but we are not in that place now and revisiting the idea will not improve its deliverability.

I take the view that the Gatwick option is the right one because it is deliverable. No doubt there will be challenges, but the potential for legal challenge is significantly lower around Gatwick and the issues of dispute are significantly more discrete. It is therefore much more readily deliverable and we have a much better chance of delivering it on time. Having an additional runway at Gatwick would not exclude the possibility of more imaginative options being developed for the future or prejudge other ideas, but it would give us an immediate capacity increase. It would not involve anything like the amount of sunk cost that would be involved in the potentially unviable option of a third runway at Heathrow. Those are all good reasons for opposing Heathrow expansion.

Finally—this is the only thing that I say as a London politician, as I am sure the Minister will understand—I fought the 2010 election and two elections for the London Assembly by saying that I opposed Heathrow expansion. I campaigned twice for my hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson) to be elected Mayor, while saying that we opposed Heathrow expansion. Call me old-fashioned, but I rather like to keep my promises, and I hope that we can do that for this issue.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald (Glasgow South) (SNP)]

This is the issue that will not go away. Ever since I was elected to this Parliament, everywhere I go people want to know what we think and what will happen—not on Scottish independence, although that issue might not go away for some time, but on the extra runway at Heathrow or Gatwick. I congratulate the hon. Member for Twickenham (Dr Mathias) on securing this debate. She made a forensic case in her opening remarks, and she is a credit to her constituents for doing so. She focused on the economic issues, noise and environmental questions, and she spoke very well as she made her case.

I cannot mention all the speakers who contributed to the debate, but I would like to focus on a few of them. It would be remiss of me not to begin with the right hon. Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan) and the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith), who has now rejoined us. This was the second mayoral hustings that I have sat through; the first was in a Westminster Hall debate on London taxis. I expect that both of them will be debating this issue for some time over the coming months. They highlighted a number of concerns with the report, and it is obvious from their statements that they are both equally passionate about London. I wish them both well as they seek to deal with this in more detail.

During the speech of the right hon. Member for Tooting, the most amazing thing occurred: the hon. Member for Dudley North (Ian Austin), who is no longer in his place, broke out as an ally of the Scottish National party—it surprised me probably as much as this will surprise him—when he used the line, “Why is it all about London?” That is the point from which we come at this. Although we understand that London is Scotland’s closest global financial hub and that we have to have a relationship with it, whether Scotland is part of the UK or not, we must not lose sight of issues relating to regional airports, to which I will return.

The hon. Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Ruth Cadbury) raised serious concerns on behalf of her constituents, and did so excellently. The right hon. Member for Saffron Walden (Sir Alan Haselhurst), whom I met on my first day in this House, when he gave me a few hints and tips on how to deal with some Members, said that Stansted will be “engraved” on his heart. As it is him, I will avoid the obvious joke about Tories having hearts and instead say that he gave a thorough and historical analysis of the wider airport expansion debate, and that this debate was all the better for it.

My hon. Friend the Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Gavin Newlands), who has had to leave us early, rightly stands up for and praises Glasgow airport, which has become my second home over the past six months. I am sure the whole Chamber will wish to join me in congratulating it on being crowned UK airport of the year. He rightly asks the Government to clear up any confusion as to whether this will be deemed an English-only matter, and I hope the Minister will do that.

The right hon. Member for Chelmsford (Sir Simon Burns), who kindly gave us new Members our induction in this very Chamber when we were first elected, gave an excellent speech. He illustrated the frustration, clear among Members from all parts of the House, that plagues this whole issue, and of course did so authoritatively, as a former Transport Minister. The right hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert), for whom I have great respect, also spoke with authority, demanding that we treat this as a national issue, and saying that that should be what guides us, as opposed to local concerns. I have to say that local concerns must be given consideration, although I agree that the issue is of national importance.

It was of course over this very issue, in the last Labour Government, that the shadow Chancellor protested in this Chamber by using the Mace. We may be the noble savages, but I have no ambition to do that this evening. We will of course hear the Labour spokesman’s remarks in a few moments, but I want to give some comfort to the shadow Chancellor, who, unfortunately, is not in his place this evening. I found a quote from one Chairman Mao, who once said, “To rebel is justified.” [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Simon Kirby), who sits on the Treasury Bench, still has his copy of the book.

As for the hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson), where do I begin, Madam Deputy Speaker? He spoke with his usual passion and authority in a good-natured but rather surprising contribution. I am delighted that he believes, along with the SNP, that this is not an English-only matter, and we should have a say on this; he has aligned himself solidly with the interests of the SNP and the people of Scotland as far as this debate is concerned, so for that we are grateful. My fellow Transport Committee member, the hon. Member for Flyde—

[Mark Menzies]

Fylde.