Contribution
My Lords, this group concerns airport expansion capacity. I am grateful to noble Lords for their amendments.
I will address Amendments 69, 105, 110 and 114 in turn. Before doing so, I will make two points that apply across the group. First, as I made clear at Second Reading, the Bill is not a route to airport expansion. It does not grant planning consent, remove environmental safeguards or predetermine the outcome of any expansion proposal. Secondly, where airport expansion is proposed, the relevant issues, including noise, carbon emissions, air quality, economic benefits and local impacts, are considered through national policy statements and the development consent order processes, with consultation, assessment, scrutiny and independent examination. Those are the common justifications, which I will refer back to. Expansion decisions sit within the planning regime, while this Bill concerns aviation consumer protection and regulatory reform.
I turn first to Amendment 69 spoken to by the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon. This amendment would require the Secretary of State to undertake consultation impact assessments before laying slot regulations that facilitate airport expansion. I reassure the noble Baroness that the Government are fully committed to meaningful consultation with communities and to thorough environmental and noise assessment before airport expansion proceeds. However, slot regulations do not grant planning for physical expansion, nor do they increase the legally permitted cap on aircraft movements. They determine how capacity at co-ordinated airports is allocated between airlines. The slots measure in the Bill would allow regulations to be updated if needed so that any capacity already approved through the planning process can be used effectively. Amendment 69 would therefore duplicate consultation and assessment processes that already take place before slot allocation becomes relevant, and for that reason I ask the noble Baroness to withdraw the amendment.
I turn next to Amendment 105, also tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Grender. This amendment would prohibit the powers in the Bill being used for the purposes of airport expansion. The Bill and the question of airport expansion are distinct. The Bill is focused, as I said, on consumer protection reform of the aviation regulatory framework. The Government would take forward these measures, irrespective of any expansion decision. The Government support Heathrow expansion, but any decision on the third runway is subject to the national policy statement and the development consent order processes, both of which include consultation and scrutiny. Airspace modernisation is also needed, whether or not a third runway is proceeded with. Its purpose is to make UK airspace more efficient, resilient, quieter and cleaner, not to provide a shortcut to expansion. Similarly, slots regulation does not create airport capacity; it manages capacity after it has been approved through the planning process.
Amendment 105 would undermine the workability of the Bill’s regulatory framework. For example, it could prevent reforms to slot regulation where those reforms are needed to manage new capacity that has already been approved. I therefore ask the noble Baroness not to press it.
I turn next to Amendment 110, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Harper, on a third runway at Heathrow. The Government agree that decisions on airport expansion should be evidence-based and subject to transparency, consultation and scrutiny. However, Amendment 110 is not necessary to achieve that, because decisions on Heathrow expansion will be taken through the national policy statement and development consent order processes.
As noble Lords have noted, the department has today published the revised airports national policy statement, which has been renamed the draft Heathrow expansion national policy statement, to clarify that it applies only to Heathrow expansion and its associated infrastructure for consultation.
In response to the noble Lord, Lord Harper, and others, I am not going to be in a position to respond to the detail of what has literally just been published, which I am sure he and others will understand. However, I have no doubt that the points he and others raise will be discussed both in your Lordships’ House and in the other place. I have also heard the noble Earl, Lord Russell, the noble Baroness, Lady Foster of Oxton, and the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, but as I say, this is for discussion at another time.
I have also written today to all noble Lords with further details. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, will accept that I am not going to answer his questions now, because the Written Statement was laid less than two hours ago.