Airport Capacity and Airspace Policy

Sarah Olney Excerpts

Thursday 2nd February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

As my hon. Friend knows, I have received extensive lobbying from his constituency and elsewhere, and from Tim, saying that that is an important part of what we are doing. Rail access to Heathrow will be a crucial part of ensuring that we can deliver the growth that we anticipate without having the impacts on the local environment that massively increased road traffic might generate. I assure my hon. Friend that we are working very hard on that.

[Sarah Olney (Richmond Park) (LD)]

I nearly missed the Secretary of State’s statement this morning because my train was cancelled, which is not an unusual occurrence—it happened yesterday, too. There are already strains on the rail network around Heathrow airport, the draft NPS commits to no net increases in journeys by road and TfL estimates that the cost of upgrading rail infrastructure to meet that commitment will be in the region of £19 billion. Heathrow has committed only £1 billion of those costs. The Secretary of State has told me that he does not accept TfL’s estimates, so what are his own estimates? Will they be funded by the taxpayer?

[Chris Grayling]

The hon. Lady and I had the same experience yesterday. My train was not cancelled but, as she is aware, a power failure caused problems on the route—that does happen, unfortunately.