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Mr. Paul Marsden: The US has been one of the fastest-growing and wealthiest nations on the planet. Is the hon. Gentleman seriously telling me that it has the most environmentally friendly policies to reduce the environmental damage it has done over the past 50 or 60 years?
Mr. Stringer: I would say that a poor country such as Russia or China does not even have the potential to improve its pollution and environmental mess. The United States is a huge country and some of the environmental responsibilities rest with state and city governments. Some of the toughest environmental legislation anywhere in the world can be found in California and all the way down the west coast, including Washington and Oregon.
Mr. Marsden: In that case, the hon. Gentleman would surely join me in castigating the current American Government for refusing to sign the Kyoto protocol. [Interruption.]
Madam Deputy Speaker (Sylvia Heal): Order.
Mr. Stringer: I would like to continue with my speech; I know that other hon. Members want to speak.
I wanted the White Paper to respond to two major questions, the first of which is how London—by which I obviously mean Heathrow—is going to maintain its premier position as a major international hub. The second is how we should deal with the obvious imbalance in this country whereby 20 per cent. or more of traffic originating from the regions is forced into the already overcrowded south-east system. Those are the two questions that I wanted answering more than anything else. We have had 20 years of silence in respect of transport policy, so I congratulate the Government on introducing clear proposals in the White Paper, although I do not believe that they have answered those two difficult questions.
I believe that a third runway at Heathrow airport is absolutely vital for the economy of London and the UK. Heathrow is in direct competition with Frankfurt,
Schiphol, Charles de Gaulle and, increasingly, with Brussels and Copenhagen. As a result of overcrowding, the number of destinations that Heathrow serves is already reducing. As passenger numbers go up, the number of destinations goes down. Connectivity within Heathrow—some hon. Members will not like that word, but it has become current—and the punctuality of passenger transfers are worsening. Heathrow has been the premier European hub, but in five or 10 years' time it will not be the premier hub either for destinations or for passenger numbers. Indeed, it is no longer the premier airport for destinations within the UK, because about half of the destinations that it used to serve have gone.Why is that important? It is vital because of the City of London, which forms the core of the UK economy, and because of tourism in London and the rest of the UK. If people cannot get into London, they will choose to do their financial business in Frankfurt—a major competitor of the City of London—or start their travels around Europe in Paris, Copenhagen or somewhere else.
I am often accused of being too pro-Manchester and too anti-London—I have been accused of worse things in my political life—which is rather unfair, because I believe that London should have all that is appropriate for a capital city to have, and one of its major needs is to maintain its position as having the premier airport. It cannot do without a third runway, and I am afraid that the decision had been dodged on a very strange basis—pollution and NOx figures. If the Minister considered the evidence seen by the Transport Committee, he would find that various professors cast doubt on the objective basis of the evidence. They pointed out that the NOx measurements were a worst-case scenario—they were taken some way from where most people lived—and that all the other projections were done by modelling and calculation, not by direct measurement. The third runway is crucial.
I will not move on from London and the south-east without making two other points. First, the Government—I mean all Governments over the past 60 years—bear the responsibility for not having provided runway capacity in the area, but since privatisation BAA has been a regulated monopoly. If Gatwick, Stansted and Heathrow had been separate and competing airports, there would have been more pressure on the Government to take more sensible decisions about runway capacity. The fact is that BAA can make a profit by providing a worse service by flying bigger and bigger aeroplanes to fewer places. That is not good for London or for UK plc.
The regulation of London airports is also perverse. When many people want to use a scarce resource, it is a perverse regulatory system that charges less and less for that resource. Passengers went to Heathrow because the internal financing of the major airlines meant that, until the funding requirements of T5 came along, it was cheaper to land there. That cannot be a sensible way to proceed.
London is congested and needs another runway, so how can we use the capacity in the regions? That is a difficult question. The Government no longer have the power, as they did when the previous White Paper was written, to direct where aeroplanes land and take off, but I believe that two things can be done.
First, the infrastructure of the major regional airports at Birmingham, Manchester and Glasgow can be improved. Increasing from four to six the number of tracks leading out of Manchester Piccadilly station to Manchester airport by way of Oxford Road station would benefit the airport and allow more heavy rail access to it. It would also remove one of the 16 or 18 pinch points from the national system, with the result that the system would be improved. That is good, sensible politics in respect of the environment and transport, which I commend to the Government. Such an approach would give people more incentive to use the capacity available in the regional airports.
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport for allowing me to discuss privately with him the possibility of extending the light rail link to Manchester airport. I hope that some positive announcements will be made about that, but ground transport to the regional airports needs to be very good if we are to promote extra use of their capacity.
My second point is more controversial. The industry has been privatised and in Europe operates in a deregulated environment, yet the Department for Transport retains a protectionist approach when dealing with airlines whose ownership is based in the UK. However, I see no reason why the skies should not be opened up for any of the regional airports, if that is what they want. Although it is unlikely that those airports will get many intercontinental routes, I think that aeroplanes from the Indian subcontinent and elsewhere should be allowed to land there, pick up passengers, and take off again. In that way, those regional airport routes for which there is relatively small demand would be able to become more substantial and thus work in commercial terms.
I understand that the only reason why the Government do not adopt that approach is because BMI, Virgin and BA do not like it, but they have nice protected slots at London Heathrow. Opening up the skies would be a good way to ensure that the economic benefits that accrue from aviation go to the regions and that some congestion is taken out of the south-east.
I do not like to refer to good behaviour by the previous Conservative Government, but when the right hon. Member for North-West Cambridgeshire (Sir Brian Mawhinney) was a transport Minister he opened up the skies from the regional airports to north America. That helped a little bit: some services have arrived here that would not have done so otherwise. The changes that I propose would not be so dramatic that BMI, BA or Virgin would go bankrupt, but they would ease the congestion a little and help the economies of the regions.
I turn now to an example of how the Department is not being very helpful, and I should be grateful if the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, East (Mr. McNulty), would agree to a meeting on this matter if he cannot reply directly today. Pakistan International Airlines has applied for fifth freedoms to all the regions. That would allow them to fly from Karachi, or elsewhere in Pakistan, stop at Manchester, Glasgow or—most likely—Birmingham, and then fly on to Toronto, Chicago and Houston.
I do not think that that would inflict much competition on BA. Most of the passengers involved would originate in Pakistan. One or two people would
get on and off when their plane landed at one of our regional airports, and then the flight would continue on to north America. That would not amount to competition in BA's market—partly because PIA does not serve alcohol on flights—but it would mean that more destinations could be served from airports such as Manchester.I have spent a long time on my feet, but it is good to have this debate. Aviation is vital to this country, and it is very important that people understand how it works. We are not at the 12th hour today—we are past that. Heathrow is losing its position in international aviation, because the regional connections do not go there. People are going to the European hubs—probably causing more pollution in the process—and they are taking their money with them.
When he came before the Select Committee, I asked my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport whether an analysis had been made of the negative economic impact resulting from those passengers being lost to the UK economy, and the lack of capacity. I understand that no study has been done. It would be useful for us to understand how much past the 12th hour we are. That would provide an incentive to investing in runways and giving the planning permissions necessary to support the transport infrastructure and the country's economy.
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