Airport Capacity

Tom Tugendhat Excerpts

Tuesday 25th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge and Malling) (Con)]

I welcome my right hon. Friend’s announcement, but will he assure the people of west Kent, in particular the residents of Edenbridge, Penshurst and Tonbridge, that a decision regarding Gatwick will not come up in the next few years and continue to blight their lives? Will he also say a little more about the six-and-a-half hours’ relief that he is quite rightly offering to people near Heathrow? Could that ban on night flights, from which we suffer all the time, be extended to Gatwick?

[Chris Grayling]

I am very aware of the issues around Gatwick, including the concern about noise, which is very much on my desk. I have talked to the CAA about how best to find the right balance for residents in areas under Gatwick’s take-off and landing routes. Today’s announcement is about the decision to add new runway capacity. The Airports Commission’s view was that we needed one new runway in the south-east by 2030. That is what the Government have sought to implement.