Clause 43 - Major infrastructure projects
Planning and Compulsory Purchase Bill
10:30 am
Mr David Wilshire (Spelthorne, Conservative)
If, Mr. Amess, as this debate and the following debate unfold you conclude that a stand part debate is not necessary it would be helpful if you could let us know. There are a number of issues that go over and above the specifics of the amendments that need to be considered.
The amendment is topical. The judicial review on London Gatwick airport is a classic example of what can go wrong if we do not think economic issues through on major infrastructure projects. For technical planning reasons—proper reasons, which I respect—it was felt inappropriate to include one aspect of the runway debate in the south of England. The court found that it was sensible to look at the whole pattern of runways in the south-east. That seems right. The economic implications of where that runway is put are crucial. If one part of the equation is left out, a
sensible planning decision cannot be reached on the others. I am sure that that is a cause dear to your heart, Mr. Amess, because Southend airport could well figure in all of this if Gatwick is left out. I am sure that you understand the point that I am making.
Whenever a major national, or even regional, planning application is before us, it is easy for everyone to focus on the environment. From past experience that is what happens, particularly with the lay community in an affected area. They will immediately see the environmental consequences and so it is easy for that planning application, when it starts on its tortuous route, to be seen as an environmental issue.
Therefore if we are to have a balanced debate about these sorts of projects, the environmental matters that will become blindingly obvious should not be allowed to stand in isolation. Minds are made up during the early part of these debates and then ears become closed and it is difficult to reopen them. It would be an enormous step forward to have, at the beginning of the process when the matter is called in and when the debate gets going, a clear economic impact report that could be considered alongside the obvious environmental issues. The debate could then be started on the totality of the issue.
It may be tempting for the Minister to say, ''It does not matter because these things will be teased out as time goes by.'' That is not so. I shall use Heathrow as an example. I want to talk about the terminal 5 issue on the next group of amendments, but for the moment I shall concentrate on the Government's suggestion that there should be another runway at Heathrow. It must be beyond dispute across this Committee that that would be called in should it come to an application. This is a major infrastructure project.
The debate has started and two things have happened quite predictably. The moment that the project is suggested, the local pressure groups limber up and start developing all the environmental arguments about why it should not happen there but preferably somewhere else. It is a nimby field day. Within moments all of the environmental issues are rehearsed. An environmental report from the Government is not needed for that to happen. It breaks out instantly. The Minister may be tempted to say that all that is needed is to let local people consider the economic impact on their community, but that is not possible. My experience both of terminal 5 and now of the runway debate is that local councils, for whatever reason, do not appreciate the need to consider the economic impact of such major issues.
I can give no clearer example than Spelthorne borough council, which was asked to consider the Government's consultation paper. The environmental issues raised were rightly considered and a report was presented to the council, asking it to reach a view on the consultation document. That report has just over 20 pages of reasons why the environmental damage to the local community would be so great that local people should oppose the plan. The report contains only one short sentence about the economic issue—not even a full page—dismissing it as being of no relevance. Neither local pressure groups nor, in my
experience, local councils can be relied upon to give a fair hearing to the economic aspects of such matters.
I therefore believe that it is an enormous step in the right direction to require the start of the debate to be focused equally on economic and environmental issues. For once, I am prepared to agree that that should start with the Secretary of State. I exempt that from my earlier complaints about the jackboot powers that the Minister has taken for the Secretary of State.
As I have suggested, it is not possible to rely on anyone other than the Secretary of State to put the economic arguments into the public domain, and so I agree that he should be required to do so. It is inevitable that when that happens there will be tensions, conflicts and disagreements within the community.
The choice of the words ''economic impact assessment'' in the amendment is significant. The amendment does not specify a national, regional or local assessment. It must therefore be made clear that the assessment should cover national and regional issues, because those are the issues that will be called in. However, my support for the amendment is based on the fact that there must be a local consideration in any such assessment.
I shall attempt to explain that by reference to Heathrow. Any economic report about an application to develop Heathrow would focus on UK plc. It would say that the financial base of the City of London depends on ease of access in and out of the City to the rest of the world via Heathrow. It would also undoubtedly say that UK tourism is hugely dependent on the very large proportion of tourists who, surprisingly, arrive on scheduled airlines through Heathrow.
Such a report would also focus on our ability to do business with the rest of the world, because the routes from Heathrow are routes to the right places. It is often said that Charles de Gaulle airport has more routes, but that is only if one wants to go to Niger or to the Ivory Coast. The routes out of Heathrow are crucial to UK plc.
These arguments are well known, and an economic impact report on these sorts of issues would rightly say that when considering the environment, the national economic interest should also be considered. These two aspects will quite often conflict.
It is also self-evident that, in the case of Heathrow, the regional issue would have to be considered. The regional economy of the Thames valley and the M4 corridor all the way to south Wales and the economic prosperity of Greater London are dependent upon international business and international routes in and out of the world's busiest international airport.
I should stress that that is not all that I would expect to see in an economic impact assessment on any of these infrastructures. That is why local people are reluctant, or find it difficult, to get their minds round such issues. About 26 per cent. of my constituents who are in work depend directly or indirectly on Heathrow
airport for their livelihoods. That is a huge proportion, comparable to a coal-mining or shipbuilding community. After the tragedy of September 2001 at the World Trade Centre, there were tens of thousands of redundancies, at Heathrow airport and elsewhere. There were several thousand redundancies in my constituency. Such redundancies might seem trivial, but I use the example to make my point about the need to consider local economic issues.
There was somebody near my constituency office who made the most wonderful pasta—far better than one would expect to find in a community the size of Staines. That was a huge joy, yet it suddenly disappeared. I was curious about that because, as you can see from my shape, Mr. Amess, pasta figures in my diet. It so happened that the local community lost that joy because that person's biggest customer, Alitalia, had lost so much business owing to the World Trade Centre crisis that it stopped buying anything like as much pasta as previously. People might say that that is trivial, and wonder what it has to do with the issue.