National Policy Statement: Airports

Mike Gapes Excerpts

Monday 25th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Lab)]

Airport expansion in the south-east of England has been a deeply contentious and divisive issue for 50 years. If the motion is agreed to, it will generate many winners, not least the shareholders of Heathrow Airport Ltd, but it risks making losers of many, including the communities in which thousands of people will lose hundreds of homes. I regret to say that the Government have not been direct and clear with those communities and, as I will point out, the Government are demanding that they make sacrifices based on flawed information. Their potential loss should not be ignored or devalued.

I respect voices in industry and the significant voices in the trade union movement who have concluded that the best interests of the country are served by proceeding. Having faithfully and carefully assessed Labour’s four tests against the revised national policy statement, I have to respectfully disagree.

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend mentions the trade unions. Will he confirm that the Trades Union Congress and Unite the union—they have written to all Labour MPs—support this project? Will he also confirm that Michael Dugher, who, as shadow Secretary of State for Transport, wrote the four tests has come out in support of going ahead with Heathrow expansion today?

[Andy McDonald]

I respect the point of view expressed by my hon. Friend, who has been entirely consistent in his support for this project for many years. I acknowledge his point about union support, but there are unions that support Heathrow expansion and those that do not. My predecessor was responsible for writing the tests, and it is my job to implement them—my predecessor has a new career.

I remind the House that the UK’s aviation and aerospace industries are world leaders. They bring services to hundreds of millions of passengers, generate tens of billions of pounds in economic benefits and support nearly 1 million jobs. Labour wants successful and growing aviation and aerospace industries across the UK. The industries and their workforces deserve a sustainable and strategic plan for the future, and they currently have neither.

Mr Speaker,

“I hope that the Secretary of State recognises that as a result of today’s announcement, nobody will take this Government seriously on the environment again.”—[Official Report, 15 January 2009; Vol. 486, c. 366.]

Those are not my words, but the words of the current Prime Minister during a 2009 debate in which she opposed the expansion of Heathrow. Nearly 10 years on, I entirely agree with her. Given how she and her Transport Secretary have approached this issue, nobody should take this Government seriously on the environment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)]

Apparently the Foreign Secretary could not be with us today because he is in Afghanistan. He has got his Khyber pass—what a carry on! We are in a situation where other Members, however, have spoken honestly and passionately about their constituencies and their constituency concerns. That is partly why we are here as Members of Parliament, but we are also here, even if our constituents are put at a disadvantage, to think about our country’s national interests. The SNP seems to have taken the ball off the field, and Labour Front Benchers are telling me that officially we are to abstain on the motion, which is a bizarre position, although some of us will vote—[Interruption.] It is a free vote—exactly.

In 2009, the Gordon Brown Labour Government made the decision to support Heathrow. That position was right then, and it is right now, in the national interest. I will vote in accordance with the position taken responsibly by Labour in government—not to have a free vote, but to say that these matters are in the national interest. I do so, too, as chair of the all-party group on Crossrail, knowing that my constituents in Ilford, and many other people in north-east London, Essex and Kent, will benefit greatly when Crossrail halves travel times from Kent and Essex, and from north-east and south-east London, across to Heathrow. That will be in the interests of jobs, prosperity and inward investment in our constituencies. The reality is that Crossrail will cut travel times.

The alternative to the proposal is delaying, stopping the process, and hoping that we will somehow go to remote and badly connected Gatwick. The hon. Member for Reigate (Crispin Blunt) was absolutely right to point out the difficulties with that. There is one decision, and only one decision, that we should be taking today. We need national leadership. At last we have a recommendation from this Government, but why were nine years wasted under the coalition and the previous Conservative Government? Let us go and do it now.