Keir Mather

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Vaz. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton South and Walkden (Yasmin Qureshi) for securing this important debate. As she so clearly and eloquently expressed, this issue affects many of her constituents, and indeed many airport users across the country, as other hon. Members have outlined. I commend her commitment to advocating for those impacted by what can sometimes be unfair and disproportionate airport drop-off charges, and I will engage closely with the points that she and hon. Members of all parties have raised. Turning to the specifics of her speech, my hon. Friend clearly set out how airports are nodes of economic productivity. They are essential to UK growth, but they are underpinned by the lived experiences of people in the communities we serve as Members of Parliament. She spoke powerfully about the impact on people with disabilities, young families and those who need to be dropped off in the middle of the night, including on their ability to use airports, if parking charges are not set in a way that is fair and proportionate. I thank her for doing so. My hon. Friends the Members for Manchester Rusholme (Afzal Khan) and for Slough (Mr Dhesi), the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney) and others subsequently spoke about the underpinning principle of fairness being required within the system. Whether through apps or websites, the rules must be clear and transparent, which the Opposition spokesperson, the hon. Member for Broadland and Fakenham (Jerome Mayhew), also spoke about. The rules must also be easy to navigate, regardless of when someone drops off a passenger or when they come to pay the charge. I turn to the issues raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham West, Chadderton and Royton (Jim McMahon). His point about the fairness of penalty charges for non-payment was well made. It is incredibly important that there be transparency about that aspect of the charging system, and airports must express it clearly to their consumers. That point was buttressed by the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester Rusholme, who used the specific example of a failure to pay a fee for staying an extra minute ending up in a £60 fine. That goes to the heart of the fact that there are people who serve the economies connected to our airports—particularly taxi drivers, as my hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Danny Beales) mentioned. It is really important that we make sure that those people are at the heart of designs for parking systems at our airports. Important points were also raised about airport signage being clear, and I will take those away. The hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Dr Pinkerton) and my hon. Friend the Member for North West Leicestershire (Amanda Hack) made valuable points about rural connectivity and access to airports. My hon. Friend noted that a dial-a-ride service can work very well in certain instances, but consumers cannot always trust a bus to show up when they need it to so that they can get to the airport on time, often at night. I understand the concern. We need to make sure that surface access across our airports, whether for people who live in rural or urban communities, is improved. That is a key priority for me as Aviation Minister.