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Heathrow

There is a clear difference between consulting individuals and bodies with a perfectly proper interest in the future of air transport and stripping out inconvenient details in order to ““achieve compliance””, which is what the Government have done here. The hon. Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin) referred earlier to his time as aviation Minister. He said in 2003 that"““the demands of the aviation industry are insatiable””" and that"““successive governments have usually given way to them…It wants more of everything—airports, runways, terminals””." That appears to be absolutely the case. Other elements in our society have learned to live within their carbon footprint to some extent. Predict and provide has been abandoned for the road network, albeit not entirely, but it seems that the aviation industry, rather than cutting its cloth accordingly and changing its operating procedures to improve its service, simply wants more of what it already has. If it wants more concrete, the Government simply say, ““Yes, how much do you want?”” That appears to be the policy that the Government have now embarked upon. Let me remind the House what a former Secretary of State for Transport, the right hon. Member for North Tyneside (Mr. Byers), said in 2001. He said that the Government had endorsed the public inquiry inspector’s recommendation that terminal 5 be given the go-ahead, but with a cap on the number of flights. That would rule out a third runway. I agree with the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington, and others who have spoken, that that is a broken promise. We were given clear assurances that if permission was given for one piece of infrastructure, that would be the end—but like some kind of drug addict, the Government come back for more and more each time.