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Heathrow

I welcome this debate about the huge proposed expansion of Heathrow, which would obviously affect my constituents considerably. Many hon. Members will be wondering what problems Reading might have with such expansion. After all, we are more than 30 miles away. I will try to explain to the House over the next few minutes. Reading already suffers from considerable flight traffic, as most of the traffic flying out of and into Heathrow goes over some part of my constituency. I have written to Ministers on a number of occasions to express my concern about the growing levels of noise and pollution. I have also raised concerns about the proposals for increased air traffic with NATS. The general arguments about Heathrow expansion are well rehearsed, including from the Front-Bench spokesmen today, and I do not wish to repeat them. I want to focus on local matters that are important to my constituents. Their quality of life is every bit as important as a flawed decision to expand Heathrow with a third runway. I acknowledge that Heathrow is operating at capacity, handling nearly 68 million passengers a year, when it was designed to deal with many fewer. Heathrow plays a disproportionate role in UK aviation—it caters for 35 per cent. of the UK’s aviation business traffic, is used by 90 per cent. of airlines and handles nearly 500,000 air traffic movements a year. Heathrow is already a colossus in aviation terms, however we measure it. However, is the answer to the problem really to build a third runway and add terminal capacity at Heathrow? The Government looked into the issue in their White Paper, as the Secretary of State said, and set out three conditions. I do not want to repeat them in detail, but they can be summarised as noise, pollution and public access. My constituents are interested in the first two—noise and pollution—both of which I have received regular complaints about. It was therefore a great disappointment to them that the Government appear to be focusing the case for expanding Heathrow on the airport’s role in supporting the UK economy. It is almost as if the Government have decided that the best way to get their own way is to frighten or bully the public into agreement, rather than fulfilling their own criteria for any decision. Indeed, that was reiterated somewhat by the Secretary of State’s performance at the Dispatch Box today. The conditions that the Government have set have been overlooked and I am deeply concerned about how the expansion will play out among my constituents. As I am sure hon. Members can imagine, I have had a sizeable postbag on the matter, as many of my constituents, especially those living in the north of my constituency in Caversham, are getting a daily taste of life under the flight path. The strength of feeling about the issue cannot be ignored. Indeed, I have received many letters urging me to oppose any third runway. My constituents in the north of Reading already believe that they are experiencing a substantial increase in flight traffic and all the noise that comes with that. They are rightly discontented with that. I know that many hon. Members have constituencies that are much closer to Heathrow and constituents who suffer the daily torment of low-flying aircraft. My constituency is 30 miles away and yet we, too, suffer similar problems with noise and pollution. I have corresponded with several Ministers in the Department for Transport over the past 18 months or so. I recently wrote again to the Minister who is due to wind up this debate. His reply confirmed that Reading, East suffers from substantial air traffic noise. Indeed, I have become quite a nerd on the subject, because it has become so important to my constituents, although I shall try not to go into too much detail. It has been confirmed that a westerly preference for take-offs, owing to prevailing westerly winds, has been operating at Heathrow since 1962, as the airport attempts to reduce the number of departing aircraft taking off over areas to the east of the airport. That is quite sensible, because the areas to the east of the airport are more densely populated. Generally, the westerly preference operates for 70 per cent. of a typical year. An aircraft taking off towards the west is slightly less of an issue for my constituents, because departing aircraft have to follow set routes known as noise preferential routes or NPRs. When an aircraft reaches 4,000 ft, air traffic control can leave it on that NPR or put it on a more direct route to its destination. The key point, aircraft experts tell me, is that aircraft today can reach 4,000 ft pretty quickly. Normally, an aircraft would be above 4,000 ft by the time it reached Reading and still ascending. In those circumstances there is not really a problem. But—and it is a pretty big but—because aircraft departing to the west must have a vertical separation of 1,000 ft from arriving aircraft, which descend from the southern holding stacks for safety reasons, they have to lower their altitude until there is a clear crossing area. That basically means that aircraft have to lower their altitude at Reading for safety reasons. Many aircraft are now so low that my constituents have written to me to express their concern that they are in fact flying below 1,000 ft. I do not know whether that is true without getting out my measuring tape. It seems unlikely, but even so, it may be worth the Minister taking a look at that claim, because it could be quite dangerous if it were true. Matters are made much worse for my constituents when Heathrow changes to an easterly operation for 30 per cent. of the year. The Department for Transport has sent me the landing maps, which show that Reading is a blizzard of low-flying aircraft. Aircraft are held in holding stacks and then join the airport’s instrument landing system. That brings aircraft much lower over my constituents. Again, the situation is not as bad as it is in the areas closer to Heathrow, but the noise makes a difference to my constituents’ quality of life. Expansion will mean more noise and pollution for them, and the number of flights to and from Heathrow could rise from 480,000 a year to nearly 800,000 with a third runway. More and more people, including my constituents, will be under Heathrow’s flight paths, and the effects will be intolerable. We all know that the south of England is increasingly overcrowded, particularly regarding road transport. Any expansion of Heathrow will make matters much worse. One constituent who wrote to me put it simply:"““I feel very strongly that we cannot just keep accepting this endless expansion without question.””" In the absence of anything like a compelling case from the Government, my party has decided to oppose the building of a third runway at Heathrow, and is instead advocating high-speed rail as part of the alternative.