Airports Commission: Final Report — House of Commons, 2015-11-26
Topic: Transportation
Zac Goldsmith (Conservative, Centre-right): I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Dr Mathias) on her speech and on promoting me to a right hon. Member. Giving the looming decision on Heathrow, that has never been less likely, but I thank her all the same Big infrastructure is always disruptive. That is why we are having this debate, because whenever a big infrastructure project is discussed, it always causes pain. Often, however, the gain justifies that pain. Clearly that is the view of those who support Heathrow expansion, but I implore them to look properly at the costs and benefits of this project before taking a view, because I think the figures speak for themselves Let me revisit some of the cost—much of it has already been discussed, so I will be brief. Noise is the principal concern. Heathrow is already Europe’s biggest noise polluter by far—720,000 people are already affected, and a third runway would increase flights from 480,000 to around 740,000 a year and affect well over 1 million people. In addition, people would lose half the respite periods, which they treasure, because those would be cut from eight hours to four hours When Heathrow says that fewer people will be impacted by noise under an expanded airport with a third runway, that merely tells us that Heathrow as a company is so used to getting its way with the Government that it no longer feels the need even to appear reasonable. The Government have admitted—we might get clarity on this later in the debate—that they have not analysed the impact of noise on residents if Heathrow expands. I do not believe that they have even seen the proposed flight paths, but perhaps the Minister will clarify that point later in the debate Then there is pollution. With only two runways, air pollution around Heathrow already massively exceeds existing legal limits. A third runway would see 75 million more people using the airport and travelling to and from it—Transport for London believes that an extra runway would add 25 million more lorry and car journeys each year. Nobody in the world believes that Heathrow expansion can be reconciled with any of the aspirations, legal or otherwise, on air quality—nobody except Heathrow that is, which tells us that a third runway would take place with a zero increase in car movements. It is hard even to know how to respond to that assertion Howard Davies has begun to nuance his position on air quality on the back of the Volkswagen scandal, because the data on which he based his assumptions have been revealed to be entirely fraudulent. A few days ago he said to a Committee of MPs, including me: "I do think the Government will need to satisfy itself on this particular point, clearly some things have moved on. The Government will need to satisfy itself that this can be safely done." The financial cost has already been mentioned, and we have an unlikely new ally in this campaign in the form of Willie Walsh, the head of BA. He described the proposed costs as "outrageous", and said that they make the project impossible and undeliverable. If we consider surface transport costs alone, he is obviously right. How do we accommodate 25 million extra road passenger journeys per year? The Airports Commission puts the cost at £6 billion, while Heathrow puts it at £l billion. Transport for London has put that cost at around £20 billion—it goes on, and on That is just some of the downside, and it is big. People might consider accepting that downside if the economic case was utterly overwhelming, but what is amazing about the Howard Davies report is that it makes the economic case against Heathrow expansion for us. There is a giant gap between the report and the conclusion it reaches. It is as if Howard Davies began with a conclusion, spent £20 million and three years—or however long it took—cobbling together analysis, data and information, and then stuck the same conclusion on the end of the report In the report Howard Davies tells us that in the most optimistic scenario, an expanded Heathrow would give us just 12 additional international routes. Even worse, much of the additional activity—if not all of it—would be at the expense of neighbouring airports such as Stansted and Gatwick. In other words, we would not be creating new activity; we would be centralising existing activity. We would be recreating the old monopoly—a giant, foreign-owned, subsidised monopoly on the edge of our city. It is a pitifully small upside, even more so when compared with the colossal dose of pain that Heathrow expansion encompasses.