Heathrow Expansion: Surface Access

Ruth Cadbury Excerpts

Tuesday 28th February 2017 Westminster Hall

[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

May I also congratulate the hon. Lady, my neighbouring MP, on securing this debate, so soon after being elected. Does she agree that many minds would be put at ease by knowing not only that Heathrow will not need to increase road access but that the crazy proposal to expand the M4 from four lanes to eight between junctions 3 and 2 will be pushed into the long grass as a result?

[Sarah Olney]

I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention. We really need to see detailed plans of the surface access strategy before we can properly consider the consultation.

On 23 February, the Environmental Audit Committee published its follow-up report to the Airports Commission report, looking at carbon emissions, air quality and noise. The report directly quotes the Secretary of State for Transport’s evidence to the Committee. He said:

“the air quality issue, even around Heathrow itself, is about the traffic on our roads.”

In his statement to the House of Commons on 2 February, the Secretary of State said:

“Heathrow airport will be required to demonstrate that the scheme can be delivered within legal air quality obligations.”—[Official Report, 2 February 2017; Vol. 620, c. 1182.]

It seems crucial therefore that the questions surrounding surface access links to Heathrow airport are resolved before any undertakings are made in relation to air quality targets. The Environmental Audit Committee agrees, stating in one of its conclusions:

“The Government has not yet published a comprehensive assessment of the infrastructure requirements of an expanded Heathrow, including an outline of costs, responsibilities and accountability. The Government must publish such an assessment and consult on it before publishing a final National Policy Statement.”

Will the Minister today confirm that his Department is working on detailed plans for surface access upgrade, in response to the Environmental Audit Committee’s report, and that those will be made public before the consultation period ends? I am sure he will agree that no meaningful consultation can take place on the ability of Heathrow airport to meet its landside traffic pledge or its air quality targets without publication of those plans.

[Ruth Cadbury]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right about the need for the Government to be clear. Yesterday I went to Hounslow civic centre to see the Department for Transport’s exhibition on the proposals there and talk to very senior and expert officials of the DFT about the surface access plans. I was surprised that they could not answer questions about the expectation of traffic increases, given the different types of traffic that will be going to Heathrow should expansion go ahead, with a 47% increase in air traffic. Does she agree that that makes the consultation somewhat of a sham?

[Sarah Olney]

I thank the hon. Lady for once again underlining the importance of making available these plans to the public in order that a meaningful consultation can take place.

Details of these plans may well affect how people respond to the consultation. One project being discussed as part of the surface access plans is the southern rail access project to improve rail links to Heathrow airport. My constituents living in Mortlake and Barnes will be particularly interested to know whether rail upgrade plans will increase the length of time that level crossing gates block the roads in their area. One current estimate is that Mortlake is currently blocked for three quarters of an hour, every hour, to allow trains to cross. Residents are entitled to know whether the plans for Heathrow expansion mean that level crossing gates will be down for even longer. That will surely affect how they respond to the consultation.

Of particular interest to those who live not only in my constituency and the surrounding areas but much further afield is the cost of surface access upgrade and how that is to be funded. In the absence thus far of any detailed figures from the Department for Transport, our best guess of the cost of surface access upgrades is that provided by Transport for London, which estimates the cost at between £15 billion and £20 billion. Heathrow has committed to meeting just £1 billion of that cost, leaving a black hole of between £14 billion and £19 billion. I have twice challenged the Secretary of State to tell me how that shortfall will be funded, but both times he has responded only to say that he does not accept TfL’s figures. That is all very well, and I eagerly await the publication of his Department’s own estimates, as requested earlier, but he has failed to answer the key part of the question about who will pay for that cost.

The business case for Heathrow expansion rests on delivering £61 billion of benefit to the UK over 60 years. That number has already been substantially revised downwards from Heathrow’s previous estimate of £147 billion over 60 years. If it should be proved that up to £19 billion of costs have not been brought into consideration, the business case for expanding Heathrow weakens even further. Should Heathrow airport be required to fund the bulk of the surface access upgrade itself, it may find it difficult to interest investors and shareholders in its revised business case. If the costs of funding upgraded surface access should fall to the taxpayer, that may affect the level of support that Heathrow expansion is currently enjoying around the country. The public are entitled to ask whether or not that additional £19 billion could be better spent elsewhere, which is why it is vital that these detailed plans are available before the end of the consultation period.

One other point I would like to make is about freight. There are warm words in the national policy statement about increasing the number of cycling and walking journeys made to the airport and of moving passenger journeys on to public transport.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Hayes]

I will come to the issue of freight, but before I do I want to make a couple more points on passengers and then say something about air quality, which the hon. Lady also mentioned.

As part of the regulatory process, the Civil Aviation Authority is expected to decide how the costs of any capacity-related surface access schemes would be treated as part of the regulatory settlement, including which of the costs would be recoverable from airport users. That is an important additional point that was not specifically dealt with in the hon. Lady’s initial remarks, but she will be reassured that it is a further element in the package of proposals that the Government are bringing forward.

I know that many others have views and estimates of what they believe the surface access costs might be. We do not accept some of the estimates. Some people have said—others might say surprisingly, but I will go so far as to say amazingly—that they might cost £18 billion. We do not accept some of the more extravagant estimates, because no final plans or designs have been approved for the runway. While there is a range of potential options for surface access improvements, it is for the developers to produce the detailed plan, as I said earlier, as part of the development consent order, which will be properly considered through the normal statutory planning processes. In a sense, we cannot prejudge exactly what the needs will be, nor what will be necessary to meet them, but we are clear that, in principle, surface access has to be part of the process that will now take place.

[Ruth Cadbury]

Does the Minister agree that with the known 47% increase in flights that a third runway will bring, it is actually not that difficult to predict the expected increase in passengers, staff movements, freight and air surfacing? Will he consider in a little more depth whether those calculations could be done now within reasonable tolerances?

[Mr Hayes]

Yes, it is true that we could model some of the anticipated increase. I accept that, with the caveat that it is dependent on some of the other things I have already mentioned: the exact design, the balance between access by car and access by public transport, the additional investment we are making in rail, and the whole range of other variables that will affect the character of demand. It is important as we come to the end of the consultation process and listen to what people have to say, and as the application moves forward, that we get greater clarity about some of that modelling. However, at this juncture I would not want to be prescriptive about the character, the shape or, less still, the substance of that. I take the hon. Lady’s point, which was well made, but there are still a lot of variables that prohibit us from being too definitive about some of the modelling at this stage.

I am conscious of time, but I want to say a word about the Environmental Audit Committee’s report on air quality, to which the hon. Member for Richmond Park referred. I recognise the points made about both air quality and surface access following the publication of the Committee’s most recent report last week. To contextualise that, the hon. Lady will know that the Government are considering their air quality plan. We intend to bring a draft plan forward in the spring, with a final plan by the end of July in the summer. It will clearly take into account the recommendations of the Select Committee. All kinds of possibilities are being considered and there has been some speculation on what the shape and character of that air quality plan might be.

Let me be crystal clear, Sir Edward, as I know you would expect me to be: it is very important that we grasp the challenge associated with the relationship between air quality and wellbeing. I discussed exactly that with the British Lung Foundation this morning. The relationship between poor air quality and poor health is well established, and it persuasively argued the case that a range of pulmonary conditions are exacerbated and worsened by poor air quality. We take that very seriously indeed. This is not some high-flown theory about what might happen in centuries’ time; this is about the health and wellbeing of our children, in particular, and of older people and ill people who are especially affected by poor air quality.

We have been clear that as the application for the expansion of Heathrow proceeds, air quality will be salient in all we do. We have been clear that it is important that Heathrow will not proceed unless it meets legal air quality requirements. The Secretary of State made that clear on 25 October in his statement to the House, and I affirmed it in this place in an earlier debate on precisely such matters.