Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what progress his Department has made on proposals to connect the High Speed 2 railway line with Heathrow Airport.

I am aware that the proposed Heathrow spur causes great concern to local residents. I would now like to make clear that we do not intend to build the spur as part of Phase 1 or 2 of the HS2 scheme.

In November 2014, the Airports Commission published a high-level review of the implications of a HS2 spur on surface access to Heathrow Airport, as part of the supporting technical documents for their public consultation on the three short-listed schemes for airport expansion. This review indicated that an HS2 spur is highly unlikely to be necessary to support any expansion of Heathrow airport.