Heathrow Airport: Public Consultation

Debate between Vince Cable and Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park

Wednesday 24th January 2018 Westminster Hall

[Sir Vince Cable (Twickenham) (LD)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered public consultations on Heathrow airport.

It is a privilege to introduce this debate. The whole issue of Heathrow expansion is of course massive and will be debated extensively in the next six months, but I want to focus on the various consultations and ask the Minister how they fit together, how the Government are responding to them, how responsive the Government are to evidence and how far they have committed themselves to fundamental decisions.

I will refer to three specific consultations. The first is the major consultation on the national policy statement—the basic strategy document—which finished in May and was reported on by Sir Jeremy Sullivan. The second is the more recent consultation on the adaptation of the NPS, which finished in December and related to new bodies of evidence on air quality and passenger numbers. The third is the consultation that is taking place at the moment. A glossy document came through my door a few days ago, and it is probably going through hundreds of thousands of others. That raises a fundamental question, because the proposal in it is different from the Government’s. How do the proposals fit together, and how many residents in London are supposed to respond to that consultation?

I will concentrate on the second consultation, and the main document I will refer to is the response of the four councils—Richmond, Wandsworth, Hillingdon and Windsor. It is worth mentioning in passing that those councils between them incorporate the constituencies of the Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary, the shadow Chancellor and me, among others, so they are not totally devoid of political interest. Let me focus on the two main respects in which the questions in December’s revised consultation were framed—air quality and passenger numbers—and how they change our perspective on this subject.

Air quality is important because it involves not just aesthetic considerations but matters that directly impinge on human health and mortality. We start from a position where NO_x emissions and particulates are at dangerous and illegal levels according to internationally recognised standards, and the most recent evidence suggests that emissions are rising, not falling. That is the context in which we have to look at the new evidence on air quality.

Since the original NPS consultation, the Government have produced their own national air quality plan. One of the problems with that is that it does not specifically take into account Heathrow. Will the Minister say how it would differ if it did? It also does not take into account the plans of the Mayor of London, who is in the process of formulating proposals for what I think he calls an ultra-low emissions zone. There are issues with how that will be implemented, given that the Government will not give special consideration to funding it. The arithmetic of London government suggests that the Mayor’s plans for reducing emissions will be almost entirely offset, if not worse, by those originating at Heathrow.

The bigger question is whether those emissions need to be produced at all. On the basis of the Government’s original estimates, it is possible that there might be such a switch to public transport that there would not be any additional cars on the road. I believe the Government used the phrase “no more cars on the road” in the original formulation of their NPS. However, to achieve that, they would have to achieve an enormous change in modal split: something like 70% of vehicle journeys would have to be by public transport.

[Zac Goldsmith (Richmond Park) (Con)]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for giving way and apologise for arriving just after he had started. He is right, but does he acknowledge that, according to Transport for London’s own statistics, to accommodate the projected increased traffic to and from Heathrow would cost around £18 billion? That assumes that current trends would continue—in other words, that the same proportion of people would drive to and from Heathrow. Even based on those status quo assumptions, we would require £18 billion of additional investment, which Heathrow will not pay, the Government have said they will not pay, and TfL is unable to pay.

[Sir Vince Cable]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. I want to dwell a little on that £18 billion figure which, as he says, is based on rather conservative assumptions. Where that will come from is one of the big unanswered questions. The Government say that they will not provide financial support. The airport itself has come up with £1 billion towards the £18 billion, but it is already a highly leveraged company. Questions have been raised about its balance sheet, and particularly about the large-scale tax-avoidance schemes that have enabled it to finance its debt so far, so how will it raise yet more to fund the infrastructure? The only way that could happen is if the airport very substantially increased landing charges. One of the reasons why major airlines such as British Airways have turned against Heathrow expansion is that they realise that that would be a necessary consequence. The other potential source of funding is TfL, but it is highly constrained by public sector borrowing restrictions and the need to fund Crossrail, which will be a major burden on its balance sheet in coming years.

TfL has spelled out in detail how the public transport infrastructure would have to be provided, and much of it is highly problematic. It would have to go a lot further than some improvements to the Piccadilly line and the Elizabeth line. It would involve, among other things, improving southern rail access. However, as the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith) well knows, that is problematic. The southern rail route runs through my constituency and his. If the route to Heathrow ran through his constituency, there would be serious problems with prolonged closures of level crossings, and the line through Kingston and Wimbledon is already congested. It is not at all obvious how that improvement is feasible— it has not even been sketched out—and there is a big question for the Government about how it would be funded.

The other question that the revised consultation raises is about increased passenger numbers. It is important to stress that the revised figures—the Government’s own numbers, not anyone else’s—suggest that the national economic benefit of airport expansion would be significantly greater at Gatwick than at Heathrow. That is a reversal of the Airports Commission’s analysis. Do the Government accept that conclusion? If they do not, perhaps they will explain why not. If they do, how do they propose to respond? They could say, “Well, we don’t care, because we’re not really interested in national economic benefit. We’ve decided we’re going to have a hub airport.” However, that would raise two big questions: why proceed with a national hub airport if it is less economically beneficial than the alternative, and why not ask or expect Gatwick to provide its own hub facilities, which it is perfectly keen and anxious to do?

The other factual information that has emerged from the new passenger numbers is that Heathrow airport will fill up very quickly. On current assumptions, it will start in 2026 and be full by 2028. That has knock-on consequences. There will be very little resilience, the airport’s authorities will be tempted to switch from domestic routes to more profitable international routes and it will make it much easier, given the monopolistic position, to push up fares even further.

Then there are the consequences of the higher passenger numbers, which are new. There is the impact on noise, which I think is of concern to all the constituencies whose MPs are in the Chamber. The original assurance given by the Secretary of State was that, when Heathrow was expanded, no more people in London or the areas around it would be affected by noise. The current numbers suggest that an additional 90,000 will be. Again, do the Government accept that?

What is important is not simply the aggregate numbers, but how that very large number of individuals—we are now talking about 1 million people—are directly affected. That relates to take-off and landing routes and the trajectory of the aircraft. At the moment, we have no information on flight paths, which is crucial to making an informed decision on how the project will affect our constituencies.

My final point on the data is that, although connectivity is one of the major reasons why Heathrow expansion is being considered, the new data suggests that connectivity to other British cities will decline with Heathrow expansion, from eight major destinations at present to five, and will be smaller than were Gatwick to proceed. I ask the Minister to consider how the Government regard this new evidence, which casts doubt on the feasibility of the proposal.

I will round up by raising the more basic question of how the Government are approaching consultation. Have they come to a conclusion, in which case we are going through a ritual, or are they meaningfully engaging in dialogue, listening to evidence and seeing it as a genuinely iterative process? One important step is how we are to see the consultation that Heathrow airport itself is now engaging in. It is important for our constituents to understand that what Heathrow airport is proposing seems substantially different from what the Government are proposing.

One of the options the airport is looking at is moving and substantially shortening the runway. I understand why it would want to do so, because that avoids all the horrendous problems of tearing up the M25 and rebuilding it under a tunnel, with all the costs involved. If it is changed in that way, that substantially affects the noise contour; I think there are 20,000 people who would face much more intense and intolerable noise levels, many of them in the constituency of the shadow Chancellor. There is a question how that would be dealt with.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Vince Cable and Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park

Thursday 13th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Vince Cable]

The hon. Gentleman and his colleagues have quite rightly raised this issue on many occasions. There is an issue of price competitiveness for industries such as steel and aluminium, and we have addressed their concerns. He will know that the Treasury has funded a compensation scheme. We have been through a consultation process. Payments will be made quickly in respect of the European Union emissions trading scheme. The Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change has also made a commitment to ensuring that the electricity market review implications do not fall on energy-intensive industries.

[Zac Goldsmith (Richmond Park) (Con)]

T4. It is one thing the Government not following through on their promises to tackle plastic waste in this country, but what on earth was my right hon. Friend doing complaining to the EU about Italy’s plans to ban or phase out the use of single-use plastic bags, and why was the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs not even consulted, given that it is one of its policy areas?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Vince Cable and Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park

Thursday 7th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Zac Goldsmith (Richmond Park) (Con)]

I am sure my right hon. Friend agrees that it serves no good purpose at all in the context of certainty to delay airport decisions until way after the next election. Will he confirm that he has put pressure on his colleagues in government to use the opportunity of the interim report at the end of this year to provide clarity for businesses, residents and communities?

[Vince Cable]

I know that the hon. Gentleman shares many of my concerns about airport expansion. The wider national interest must be safeguarded and we have commissioned Sir Howard Davies to do a proper and thorough investigation into the extremely difficult issues associated with Heathrow expansion.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Vince Cable and Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park

Thursday 13th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Vince Cable]

That is an utterly absurd question. The hon. Gentleman knows that after the massive banking crisis that happened under the last Government as a result of poor supervision of an overweight banking sector, this Government are trying to introduce measures to make it more stable and to contribute to the real economy. That will happen; it did not happen under the last Government.

[Zac Goldsmith (Richmond Park) (Con)]

Following the coalition’s commitment to phasing out fossil fuel subsidies via the Export Credits Guarantee Department, has any progress been made on agreeing a definition of such subsidies?