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Heathrow

No, I have given way twice. That is the detailed side of the argument, and there has to be a debate about those issues. My hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) said that this had become an iconic issue. I agree. It is iconic: it is symbolic of the role of aviation in the economy and the environment. The aviation industry makes a relatively small contribution to global warming. The figures given vary between 2, 3, 4 and 6 per cent., so it is increasing, and it is said that it will reach a certain level in 50 years’ time. I do not trust any politician—because I have yet to meet a politician who can do differential equations—who talks about rates of change over a 42-year period. That is another absurdity. People say, ““This will happen.”” And yet when it comes to the economy, we do not know what will happen next week. Aviation has become symbolic because of the way in which it is modern. We do not see the same level of savage attacks on the contribution to global warming made by the computers and services that are necessary to make the internet work. Those factors make a huge contribution to it, but we do not talk about it. I talked to the people who opposed the second runway in Manchester on many occasions, and when we went through all the improvements to the environment and all the damage that the 2 miles of concrete would do, I came to the conclusion that we were having a symbolic debate about the future of society in which it was not possible to convince people that aviation and modern technology was the way forward. I hope that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will bear that in mind. I do not think that the alternatives that have been proposed are realistic. Let us take as an example the proposal to build an airport out on the Thames estuary, with all the extra infrastructure and costs that that would require. My guess is that even without the airport, changing the roads, the railway tracks and the access routes would make a much greater contribution to global warming and greenhouse gases than anything else in the package. It took 25 years to build the new Munich airport, at a time when environmental standards were less stringent. Quite simply, the Thames estuary airport is not going to happen. It is on the agenda only because it was the Mayor of London who decided Opposition policy—in the interests not of the country, or even of the Conservative party, but because he wanted votes in west London so that he would win the mayoral election. It was as simple as that, and the Conservative party should be ashamed of itself for allowing its policy to be tweaked like that during the mayoral election. I shall finish by making two points. Some people say that we cannot meet our climate change objectives but, even though such things are very difficult to predict, restricting Heathrow expansion is not the same as restricting emissions. We will merely be exporting them, just as we will be exporting jobs, and those emissions will come instead from Copenhagen, Schiphol or somewhere else. We will not make a contribution to the environment in that way. I shall conclude by stating that I agree with some of my hon. Friends that we should not be in this position. It is absolutely extraordinary that only one new runway has been built in this country over the past 60 years or so, and we are suffering as a result. The Department for Transport, under different Governments, has seen BA and BAA as clients, even after privatisation. Because of that, it has not looked after the country’s interest; instead, it has been advising those companies and looking after their interests. That is why complaints that I consider to be completely reasonable have been made about the commitments that have been made to the effect that there would be no third runway or fifth terminal. Those commitments were wrong. If this country is to make its way in the world economically, it needs a hub airport. I wish that that airport could be in Manchester, but it can really only be in west London. The hub is not going to be transferred. Had the people who planned it known what was going to happen in the 60 years since it was built, they would not have put it where they did, but it is where it is, this country needs it—and needs it to expand.