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Heathrow

I must reach a conclusion. The global environmental issues that I have mentioned are also important in terms of the potential local impacts on people in and around Heathrow. That brings me back to the consultation we completed this year and the conditions contained in the air transport White Paper. The ““Adding Capacity at Heathrow Airport”” consultation was a vast exercise, publicised extensively online and through local and national media. The Department for Transport sent out more than 217,000 summary documents to households in the Heathrow area. In addition, the Department held a series of public exhibitions from Hounslow in the east to Windsor in the west to West Drayton in the north. The Department also published 14 technical reports containing the evidence that we relied on. More recently, we also completed a further consultation on the potential equalities impacts associated with Heathrow development. This examined the possible differential impacts on equality priority groups by reason of race, age, gender or disability, and closed last week. We made it clear in the 2003 White Paper—and repeated in last November’s consultation on ““Adding Capacity at Heathrow Airport””—that our support for further development at Heathrow was subject to the three critical tests on air quality, noise and public transport. In the November consultation, we set out the results of our analysis and showed how we believed those conditions could be met in the future under the various development options, and we invited views, both generally and in response to specific questions. The first condition concerns air quality. We do not intend to compromise on our European air quality obligations, especially concerning local nitrogen dioxide limits, the key pollutant of concern around Heathrow.