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Civil Aviation Bill

My Lords, I thank the Minister for that comprehensive reply. This issue is rather different. From my local government career, I am very familiar with blight for all sorts of reasons and in relation to all sorts of issues. The area of this airport expansion is enormous—miles by miles. The proposal is not just to add a bit to a runway or to an airport. It encompasses several villages and a great chunk of Essex and therefore affects lots of people. The Government came up with a policy statement, which has since been overruled in a judicial review, about siting a runway miles away from the existing runway. That would blight a great chunk of the county. If the runway had been close to the existing airport, one could perhaps accept a lot of the Minister’s arguments. I hope that the Government will have learnt a lesson from this for the future. If you come up with a policy statement, you can blight great chunks of countryside even when the development might not happen. Of course, the whole process takes seven or eight years, so you have blighted these properties and this area of land for a long while. I will not press the amendment today, but I wanted to air the issue again. It is a policy area that any government must consider. I am talking about blighting a whole area. It is not like what would happen with a waste plant, road or rail line; a great chunk of countryside is affected. Before announcing such a proposal, any government must think carefully about how it will impinge on hundreds of people’s lives, properties, homes and livelihoods for many years. Whatever wealth is ultimately generated from the expansion of the airport, the process takes so long that it harms a lot of people and makes a lot of people unhappy. I hope that we have had enough debate to ensure that, any time the issue arises again, governments will think rather more deeply about it. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.