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General Debate

It is a pleasure to be here under your chairmanship, Mr Benton. It is also a pleasure to have another opportunity for a general debate. We had one not long ago with a pre-recess Adjournment debate; I suspect we will have another one relatively soon, with the next pre-recess Adjournment debate. One can never have too much of a good thing. The only thing I regret is that both hon. Members who have taken the opportunity to speak today have raised issues about transport in their constituencies. Had we known that only transport issues would be raised in the general debate, it might have been more appropriate for a Minister from the Department for Transport to offer a response, because I fear that I am an inadequate substitute. I assure the hon. Members that their comments will be passed on to relevant colleagues. Where there are issues, which inevitably I will not be able to answer to their satisfaction because I do not have the expertise, they will get replies in due course from the relevant Departments. I also thank the hon. Member for Battersea (Jane Ellison) and the Backbench Business Committee. They were given a difficult spot to fill today, when so many hon. Members are quite properly engaged in matters in their constituencies, and they have done their best under difficult circumstances to ensure that hon. Members have the opportunity to raise matters of importance. I echo the hon. Member for Battersea regarding the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell): it takes great energy to speak in two debates simultaneously in the House on different issues that affect his constituency. He has contrived to do that this afternoon, which is to be commended. I enjoyed the history of the Middlesex communities that the hon. Gentleman gave us at the beginning of his comments. I do not think we hear enough about rural Middlesex, which has been wiped from the national consciousness. However, it is a delightful area. I felt for him when he talked of his lack of success in ringing a peal of bells. I have never tried a full scale peal of bells, but I was recently asked to open a refurbished chapel in my constituency, where I simply had to ring a single bell to mark the fact that the chapel was reopened. I was told firmly that I had to pull hard on the rope. That is not advice one should give to a former rugby player. I pulled hard and the bell remained obstinately silent, but the rope was there in my hand, no longer attached to the bell. That is an aside. I was glad that no one filmed that for people to watch on their computers. I will not fill my entire reply with anecdotes about my constituency, but I like the fact that the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington mentioned that Mr Cox of Cox's orange pippin apples came from his constituency. I am sure that he already knew that, but I am always fascinated by the fact that one continually finds out new things about one's constituency as one goes around. I recently looked at the history of the village of Rode in my constituency, which became topical due to the book and subsequent TV programme, ““The Suspicions of Mr Whicher””, about a very famous murder there. I was irritated by the fact that it constantly said that Rode was in Wiltshire, and I knew it to be in Somerset. I looked at the local history to see whether it had ever been in Wiltshire, and, no, it had not been, but the house where the murder took place was just across the county boundary. Purely by chance, I discovered that a wool mill in Rode invented the colour ““royal blue”” in response to a competition, therefore ““royal blue”” was invented in my constituency. That is the sort of detail that one discovers as an MP, which one would never have a reason to find out otherwise. I shall return to the matters about which we are supposed to be talking, which are the important issues raised by the hon. Members for Sittingbourne and Sheppey (Gordon Henderson) and for Hayes and Harlington. I ought to declare an interest in the matter raised by the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington, in that I believe I am still a beneficial owner of 1 square foot of Sipson village as part of the campaign against the third runway at Heathrow. I do not regret my position, and I am very pleased that it is now the Government's position. It was an excellent campaign that drew attention to the fact that we really need to put some constraints on airport expansion, while recognising, as the hon. Gentleman does, the economic and other benefits of airports. Getting that balance right is inevitably the purpose of Government. The hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington correctly stressed that the coalition Government made a clear commitment not to proceed with the third runway at Heathrow, but to look at how we make Heathrow, and the other major British airports, work more efficiently and provide a better service without expansion—make Heathrow better, not bigger. I think that the hon. Gentleman and I share that aspiration. He drew attention to how the long period spent aspiring to the expansion of Heathrow blighted the neighbouring villages and his constituents, and this debate is a good opportunity to have done that. He talked about its effect on people who needed or wished to sell their homes, and the fact that they were unable to find buyers in the context of an anticipated expansion of the airport. The hon. Gentleman has worked very hard on these issues over the years with the BAA and the previous Government, even in the context of a policy in favour of expansion, to see how its effects could be mitigated. Part of the result of his labours and the work of the previous Government was the home owners support scheme that the BAA set up, which he referred to as the bond scheme. It is important to stress that it was a non-statutory arrangement set up by and entirely a matter for the BAA. It was clearly persuaded that it was worth while and what it should be doing as a good neighbour. Nevertheless, the scheme had no statutory basis, therefore how the BAA operates it to protect local home owners from the effects of blight, to allow them to sell their homes without financial penalty and to move if they need to or want to is a matter for the BAA. It is interesting to see the number of home owners who took advantage of the scheme and the impact that it has had on the local area. He said that the BAA now owns some 300 houses. It had no obligation to establish the scheme; I think that it was a recommendation in the 2003 transport White Paper, and of course there is no obligation on home owners to partake in the scheme. I readily recognise what the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington said about the scheme's effect on the local area given the number of houses that are not normally filled with residents. If houses are lying empty or are subject to short-term lets or arrangements with airport employees, the situation will inevitably affect the local community. He not only listed the effects in terms of the lack of residential population, but listed the effects of the lack of a residential population on local businesses. He mentioned his constituents Jackie Clark, Shaun Walters, Gerald Storr, and Ian and Pam Stevenson, and the hairdressers, the local pub, the post office shop and the garden centre, which are all affected by no longer having a local constituency of customers or consumers, which means that their businesses will inevitably be put in some difficulty. To summarise, I think that the hon. Gentleman seeks: the BAA's acceptance of responsibility for the blight caused by the expansion plans; a new compensation scheme that includes local small businesses and special cases that might fall outside the previous criteria; a consultation with community organisations to look at whether it is possible to establish a community regeneration scheme; and the sale of the empty properties and a move to ensure that they are not retained in the ownership of the BAA, but are put back on to the general market. He also wants the various political parties to come together to create a common statement of intent with regard to Heathrow expansion. I think that he would ideally like a covenant putting a legal restraint on future development at Heathrow. There is a limit to what I can stay to the hon. Gentleman in response, as he will appreciate. I hope that I am able to communicate all his points to my colleagues in the Department for Transport effectively. I am happy to reiterate the general policy direction. I have already said that we do not want the third runway—that is clear. We want Heathrow to develop in a better, rather than a bigger, way. There are further steps afoot that I am sure the hon. Gentleman, as an expert in the area, will be more familiar with than me. The South East Airports Task Force, which was announced on 15 June last year, has an important part to play. It is engaged with the various aviation stakeholders to deliver operational improvements at Heathrow, Stansted and Gatwick, and is due to report in July 2011. It may have something to say that—““makes more concrete”” is perhaps an inappropriate phrase—strengthens the future intentions in terms of the strategic planning of aviation. The Department has issued a scoping document setting out the questions that it wants answered to develop a new vision for a competitive aviation industry, which supports economic growth and addresses aviation's environmental impacts, both globally in terms of climate change and locally in terms of noise and air quality. It put out the scoping document and set out the questions that it wants answered, and it is hoped that it can publish a draft policy framework for consultation by March 2012. That may add further weight to the direction in which the Government are working on aviation policy. There are some important issues here that need to be taken up with the BAA. To a large extent, the matter is in its hands, and there is a limit to how much the Government can insist on. The dialogue, however, must be maintained.