---

Transport Infrastructure

Although there is not nearly enough in the Transport Secretary's statement to drag me into the Lobby to vote in favour of a third Heathrow runway, it would be churlish not to acknowledge that the dropping of mixed mode lifts the immediate threat of intensifying aircraft noise across communities as far afield as Reading, Watford and High Wycombe. The longer term prospects, however, are grim. Surface access to Heathrow from the west is a joke, as his Department acknowledges. We need direct rail access into London Heathrow airport. Is he giving the go-ahead today for a third runway at Heathrow, or two and a half runways, as suggested by the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change?