---

Heathrow

No, I am sorry, but time is against me and Mr. Deputy Speaker urged us to be brief. We would lose even more routes, including those to such places as Madras, Seattle, Bangalore, Osaka and Johannesburg. Heathrow is losing passengers to continental competitors, and that is already costing us jobs. Heathrow is losing passengers as businesses start to relocate because a declining Heathrow no longer meets their needs. The computer firm Dell has begun to move its operations from London to Frankfurt for that very reason. Heathrow’s inability to accommodate new intercontinental airlines, especially from such crucial places as India and China, is forcing those airlines to set up their European hubs across the channel. Jet Airways, one of India’s most successful new airlines, can get only two slots at Heathrow and has therefore decided that its European hubs ought to be Brussels and Paris. That will cost us routes and jobs and will damage Heathrow. I am sure we all agree that we want a better Heathrow. ““Better, not bigger”” has in fact become something of a mantra. However, there is one thing wrong with that analysis. A better Heathrow requires additional runway capacity, not so that Heathrow can expand but because that is the way to sort out its problems. Terminal 5 was not all about expansion, but represented an effort to sort out the chaos in the four other overcrowded terminals.