Mr Will Forster

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair this afternoon, Sir John. I thank the hon. Member for Putney (Fleur Anderson) for securing the debate, and for the way in which she introduced it. I know that my two Liberal Democrat colleagues from south-west London, my hon. Friends the Members for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney) and for Twickenham (Munira Wilson), will completely agree with her. They have a long history of standing up against the unreasonable plan to expand Heathrow. I want to talk about my Woking constituents’ point of view. Despite Woking being the busiest railway station in Surrey and less than 20 miles away from the airport, we have no rail link to Heathrow. I say to the Minister that if Heathrow airport is to expand, the Government must ensure that southern rail access is paid for by the airport so that my constituents in Woking, and the whole southern region under Heathrow, can have proper access. It is not reasonable that we cannot access it at the moment via any form of public transport. Thankfully, Heathrow Southern Railway Ltd, a private company with which I recently chaired a roundtable, has put together a business case to ensure that we can have southern rail access. It would also enable Woking and the broader west Surrey area to have a second route to London via Heathrow, and then on to Paddington. Has the Minister met with Heathrow Southern Railway Ltd? If not, will he or a ministerial colleague do so? I want to draw parallels with the planning requirements for Gatwick’s second runway. As a planning condition, the airport was required to ensure that a certain percentage of travellers could come via public transport, particularly trains. Will those requirements be applied to Heathrow, if it expands? If it does expand, it should have those requirements. I know that the Department for Transport was looking at this issue via the airports national policy statement review and the public transport requirements, but I hope it makes Southern Railway access a legal requirement if Heathrow expands. That would ensure that if the expansion happens—many colleagues do not want it—passengers will be able to get to Heathrow as sustainably as possible.