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Transport Infrastructure

The difficulty that I have with the hon. Gentleman's question is that, as I set out in my statement, and as he knows well, having considered the issue over a long period, the numbers affected by the 57-decibel limit, which has been the standard limit for many years, have fallen dramatically from 2 million in the mid-1970s to a quarter of a million and falling today. The impact of noise has dramatically changed over that period. The hon. Member for Chipping Barnet (Mrs. Villiers) talked about devastation. The last time I looked at property prices in places such as Maidenhead and west London, there was no shortage of people willing to move to those areas, and apparently no impact on property prices. [Interruption.] Property prices are far higher there than they are in my constituency simply because people want to live in those places. [Interruption.] They want to live in those places knowing full well that they will be living in the proximity of Heathrow airport, so there is something seriously inconsistent about what Opposition Members are saying. [Interruption.]