Lord Harper (Con)

My Lords, I declare an interest as a non-executive chair of an aviation company, albeit one that does not operate from Heathrow. I have a couple of points to make. I strongly support what the Government are trying to do in expanding Heathrow. I was very surprised that the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, who speaks for the Liberal Democrats, did not mention any of the technology improvements, including to aircraft, sustainable aviation fuel, hydrogen fuel cells and all the technology that will enable us to fly in a way compatible with our climate obligations. She did not mention any of those things, nor did she mention the Elizabeth line, a fantastic, environmentally friendly solution to get enormous numbers of people to Heathrow. Lots of that progress is going in the right direction. As we have heard, there are lots of people who absolutely do not want this to succeed and will use every tool so that it does not. My concern, notwithstanding what I have said about the compatibility of expanding Heathrow with our climate change obligations, is that I am convinced that when—as I hope—the Government make the right decision to expand Heathrow, there will be a judicial challenge on climate grounds. I want to know what the Government are doing, first to speed up the process of that challenge, but also to make sure that, ultimately, that challenge will fail and we can make sure that this very important hub airport—not just important for passengers but also incredibly important for the amount of freight that it moves in and out of the United Kingdom—is able to expand and benefit the people of the United Kingdom.