Airports Capacity

Tom Brake Excerpts

Monday 14th December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr McLoughlin]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. While he talks about Manchester, I also talk about Birmingham, Newcastle, Edinburgh and Glasgow. I think it is absolutely essential to try to get more connectivity from airports so that people do not necessarily have to travel to Heathrow or to Gatwick to get the flights they want. That is very important.

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

I like the Secretary of State, so I feel for him, as he is like a sheep snagged on barbed wire: the harder he tries to extricate himself, the more firmly entangled he becomes. To help the Secretary of State, may I suggest he takes this opportunity—no ifs, no buts—to abandon environmentally unsustainable plans for a third runway at Heathrow and pledges instead, first, to improve surface access to Luton and Stansted airports to make better use of spare capacity there, and, secondly, to deliver HS2 on time so that we can see far more people travelling by rail, instead of taking short-haul flights?

[Mr McLoughlin]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his question, and remind him that the Davies commission was set up by the coalition Government to make and examine the case fully for what we should do for the future. I was proud of serving in that coalition Government, and I was proud of a lot of the things they achieved. The Davies commission and setting it up was just one of them, and now the right hon. Gentleman is wanting us to back away from the difficult questions it poses to us.