Aviation

Debate between Mark Reckless and Nigel Mills

Wednesday 4th July 2012 Westminster Hall

[Mark Reckless]

That is certainly the position in the short-term. I am keen to see better surface travel into Gatwick. The deterioration in the train service there is most unfortunate. Investment is strongly in the national interest.

The British Chambers of Commerce initially proposed a “Heathwick” arrangement. There are some issues with the economics of it, but the existing system is the reason why it could be attractive. If we allowed Gatwick to invest £5 billion in a super-fast railway to Heathrow—by the way, BA, it would take 15 minutes airside, rather than an hour to connect them—it would be regulated capital and would lead to higher slot prices at Gatwick, which is a good thing anyway. Our problem with aviation in this country has been that we have held down the cost of landing fees at Heathrow and Gatwick, which means that they are operating at near capacity with all the problems mentioned. If we allowed landing fees to rise and entirely deregulated Gatwick and Heathrow, there would be a big transfer of economic value from the airlines to BAA.

Another way to do it would be differential APD, particularly on short-haul flights at Heathrow. Because we could get the cost back from higher landing charges at Gatwick, Heathwick, although not ideal, might make sense within the existing system; it would press out some of the leisure point-to-point flights from Gatwick and allow intercontinental flights to come there.

From Heathrow’s promoters, we hear that it is a great hub, that we need just one hub and that Paris Charles de Gaulle has more destinations than us, but those destinations are in French west Africa—Mali, Bangoui and Ouagadougou. I do not think that there is any suggestion that that should happen from Heathrow. Most demand is leisure, not business. Heathrow still flies more people and planes than other airports, even those with four or six runways.

We do not necessarily need a hub that is ideal for those who happen to operate that hub. There is a suggestion that a dual-hub is not ideal. That is true, but it is an awful lot better than no expansion and forcing more and more people to use European airports. According to the constrained Department for Transport forecast, which I find questionable in a number of ways, if we do not allow expansion in the south-east, 25 million rather than 4 million people will fly from Belfast by 2050 and 12 million people rather than 700,000 will fly from Exeter by 2030.

I question the plausibility of those forecasts, but if we deregulate air travel and allow a second runway at Gatwick in due course, after the agreement runs out in 2019—I agree with the hon. Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) that it should not be immediately—it will make it more attractive for the airline to expand in the airport. At some point, the Liberal Democrats may think that we will need at least one runway in the south-east. The strongest demand from the vested interests is for that to be at Heathrow, but there is a strong argument for the country as a whole for it to be at Gatwick. It would benefit from being there because we would then have competing hubs, with potentially another airline alliance based at Gatwick. It would drive down prices, serve more destinations and operate for the benefit of UK consumers as a whole, rather than just those who happen to have the strongest vested interests and shout loudest in current consultations.

[Nigel Mills (Amber Valley) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. If I may intrude on the London and south-east grief with a question about the midlands, what are his views on encouraging passengers from the midlands and further north not to go to Gatwick or Heathrow for their leisure flights, but to use the airport they are driving past? Does he support the idea of a congestion charge around London to make regional airports more competitive?

[Mark Reckless]

Higher APD on short-haul flights from Gatwick and particularly Heathrow could allow airports beyond the south-east to compete for marginal business that might make more sense at those airports, particularly the leisure flights of people based in the midlands and the north who are flying point to point. Similarly, if we deregulated our international air agreements, there would be a better chance that intercontinental networks would base themselves at Birmingham airport, for example, which now has a longer runway.

Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Debate between Mark Reckless and Nigel Mills

Wednesday 30th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Nigel Mills (Amber Valley) (Con)]

On the point that the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe) just made, I note that my hon. Friend’s amendment states that

“the police and crime commissioner shall have no involvement in decisions with respect to individual investigations”.

If there were a high-profile murder, would my hon. Friend think it appropriate for the commissioner to say to a chief constable, “I think you should put more resource into that investigation. What you are doing now is not sufficient and there is real community concern”? Or is my hon. Friend saying that that would be inappropriate?

[Mark Reckless]

That is a very good example, which helps to elucidate the point. It would not be appropriate for the elected commissioner to say, “On this particular individual investigation I would like fewer”—or more—“police”, or, “You should investigate it in this way rather than that.” We do not look to the elected commissioners to do that, but I see a strong role for them in ensuring that justice is colour blind and that the police do not make assumptions about a witness or potential suspect on the basis of ethnicity or any other inappropriate basis. We have seen strong progress by the police in that area, but, with the Macpherson inquiry and the way in which some measures have been rolled out, there has not necessarily been the sensitivity that there might have been. The elected commissioner will have a relationship with the wider electorate, however, so they will sometimes be in a position to lead the police in particular areas regarding social attitudes.

I have huge respect for the police, given my work with them in Kent, but there are particular traditions in policing and the work force are made up in a particular way. Those things have changed, with a very welcome and greater number of women now working as police officers, and there has been a significant improvement in black and minority ethnic representation. In Kent, we had the first black chief constable in Mike Fuller, who did an extraordinary job of engaging with the public and involving them closely with the work of Kent police. The police have a significantly smaller proportion of graduates, although it is higher than it was, and the elected commissioner will be able to lead in those areas. I look to him to do so.

I emphasise to the House that the distinction I draw, going back to the 1962 royal commission at least, works both ways, and I am very concerned about budget setting, priorities and some of the management of public protest. My hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase (Mr Burley) asked some probing questions of various witnesses, but the question of whether there should be a presumption that police officers will travel in pairs, and the extent to which officers might be on bicycles, on foot or in cars, are very properly areas for elected oversight, and inevitably political decisions. If we do draw that distinction, the Bill will help chief constables.