Contribution
I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend and I thank him for that intervention, which speaks for the views of so many people, who are saying similar things. Indeed, a long time ago they were saying, “Look at the assumptions”, but now we have even more facts about those assumptions. We know what has actually come to pass and it is not all that was promised. At a time when households, motorists and businesses are being asked to reduce emissions, and after the summer of extreme weather that we have just had, why would we seek permission to increase emissions by so much?
Seventhly, our understanding of the health impact of noise has changed. Noise is not just an inconvenience; it is not something for people to get used to. We now know the impact of noise on many health conditions, including heart conditions and mental health conditions. This new knowledge about the impact of noise and what that impact will be on so many millions more people really should give the Government pause for thought. At the very least, the Government should commit to a full seven-hour night-flight ban between 11 pm and 6 am, with a pathway towards an eight-hour ban in the future. That respite would be so important for my constituents.
Eighthly, our expectations on air quality have changed. London is now the world’s largest clean-air zone. Putney’s high street used to be one of the most polluted in the country, but is now just the same as other high streets. That has been through a lot of hard policy and hard work. The ultra low emission zone covers every London borough and has reduced harmful nitrogen dioxide concentrations in central London by more than 50%. There has been heavy investment around improving our air quality, but this pollution from Heathrow airport would take us in the other direction.
Those are eight things that have changed since 2015, and I am sure that the Minister has listened very carefully to them all, but there are three things that have not changed. First, there is no funding plan for the surface transport to go along with the airport. I have been asking this question of Treasury Ministers ever since the proposals came out: “Will the Government fund the ground transport?” No. I have been asking Heathrow, “Will Heathrow fund the ground transport?” No, it will not. We have a massive gap here given the number of people who will travel to Heathrow airport. What will they travel on? I think that that will be a real millstone around the Government’s neck in future.
The second thing that has not changed is that Heathrow is the wrong location for a hub airport of this scale, for areas such as Northern Ireland—I know that we have a Member from Northern Ireland here—Liverpool, Manchester or Scotland. If anyone looked at the UK to decide where to put a hub airport, would they really put it next to one of the most densely populated parts of the whole country, or would they put it in the middle of the country? Would they locate it at an airport that already had two runways, such as Manchester’s?
The third thing that has not changed is that we do not have a national aviation strategy. Why are these decisions being made piecemeal? We have Gatwick, Luton and now Heathrow; where is the overall strategy for this? What is the decision-making behind it? Why do we not step back, look at what kind of aviation growth we want and need and where we want that to be, and then put this decision within that?
When the Airports Commission recommended Heathrow’s expansion in 2015, it asked the public and Parliament to accept a trade-off: to accept the noise, the environmental impacts and the disruption, because the rewards would be worth it. We were promised transformational economic growth across the United Kingdom, but, more than a decade later, we find a very different situation. Those foundations and assumptions are very weak. The projected economic gains are smaller than promised.