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Heathrow

I gather that the hon. Member for Ealing, Acton and Shepherd's Bush (Mr. Slaughter) is a regular sparring partner with my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith and Fulham (Mr. Hands), who spoke before him. The hon. Gentleman led Hammersmith and Fulham council and my hon. Friend led the opposition, but such is the proposal that the Government are likely to table that they are now making common cause. The Secretary of State is to be congratulated on bringing together this Molotov-Ribbentrop-style pact across the Chamber against his proposal. What is motivating this atmosphere of reconciliation in the House? First, I sense that there is an atmosphere of betrayal—that is a theme that I draw out of the debate. Betrayals have happened over many years, but it is now a betrayal over alternative runways and the third runway at London Heathrow. That is where I come into the debate. As a callow youth in the early 1980s, just down from university, I was elected to Matching parish council during the public inquiry on Stansted. The outcome was that we were promised a cap of 15 million passengers per year. As time has passed, that assurance has been betrayed, just like all the other assurances that Governments of both parties have ever made about airports policy in the south-east, to comfort their way through the planning process. We are now looking at the prospect of 35 million passengers a year—or even 65 million passengers a year—and not one but two runways at Stansted. This is the story that colours the development of London airports. That extraordinary industry has been built up successfully, but from cottage industry airports dotted unsatisfactorily around London. The Government now confront extraordinary choices if they wish to continue with the present policy. Now, as the Member of Parliament for North Essex, I represent Dedham Vale, which is already suffering the depredations of overflying from Stansted. There has already been a substantial legal case involving moving the overflights to a different part of the country, but I fear for Dedham Vale, which has been designated an area of outstanding natural beauty particularly because of its tranquillity. If Stansted is allowed to expand, the noise pollution in Dedham Vale will continue. The second theme of the debate that comes over strongly is that, if we had the choice, we would not start from here, and London’s major hub international airport would not be where it is today. I commend the tremendous speech by the right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr. Raynsford). I do not need to repeat in the limited time available many of the things that he rightly said about the merits of reopening the consideration of a Thames estuary airport. Let me say that the debate is not necessarily about continuing the expansion of capacity, but about the creation of viable capacity and asking whether we are going to expand capacity. The Mayor of London’s proposal has invited a certain amount of derision from some quarters in the Chamber this evening. However, I believe that he is absolutely right to help to reopen the consideration of a Thames estuary airport. He is taking the matter extremely seriously. He has done what the Government failed to do, namely to appoint a proper person to investigate the viability of the proposal. I have a copy of the Government’s consideration of Thames estuary airports for the 2003 White Paper. It consists of one report, on a mere 22 pages, that considers five or six different sites. It was clearly a desktop exercise. There has never been proper consideration of many of the sites that should now be in play. The Mayor has appointed Doug Oakervee to conduct a preliminary inquiry. As the Secretary of State knows, he is the chairman of the Crossrail consortium. He also has an unrivalled record in airport construction. He is a civil engineer and, believe it or not, he was the project manager for the construction of Hong Kong international airport, which is on an offshore island. That was a British project. The British built Hong Kong international airport, yet the Secretary of State says that it is impossible for us to build our own island airport. Mr. Oakervee will consider all the issues, not least the possibility of a new north-south link between Kent and Essex; the opportunity to re-orient the whole development of London to the east, which successive Governments have tried for many years to do, for example through the Thames Gateway; and enabling 24-hour operation without overflying a single residence. Just think about that—not a single home will be disturbed by overflying to or from a Thames estuary airport. We should compare that to the absolute lunacy of disturbing millions of people every night as planes overfly so many residential homes near the various London airports. I invite the House to reflect on one final theme. What we have heard in tonight’s debate is enough to confirm that the third runway at Heathrow will never happen. We have heard about the falsification of evidence designed to get the project to comply with already crumbling environmental requirements, which shows that this is nothing more than the Government parading their pro-business credentials in a very aggressive way to curry favour with certain quarters in the business community. This project will never happen. I see the Secretary of State in his place; he must be regretting the tone he struck in his most unfortunate speech earlier this afternoon. He must be thinking that he will not be here to see this third runway opening; he will not be where he is sitting today and he will not have the responsibilities he has now. He will not even see the first sod of earth turned on this new project, which is miles down the track. This is a pre-election exercise. My goodness, if Boris Johnson’s proposal was window-dressing, what is this in comparison? I doubt that it will happen. Once the nail has finally been driven through the heart of this proposal and once it becomes clear that constraints on the expansion of Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted are fixed by public opinion, which does not want airport capacity so close to where people live, the proposal for a Thames estuary airport so ably floated by the right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich—and, perhaps not so ably, but just as vehemently by me—will move rapidly up the agenda as the only viable alternative, providing a real hub international airport to the east of London. That will be to the benefit of this country and, I believe, the whole of Europe.