Communities and Local Government/Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

Does the hon. Gentleman not accept that the length of the inquiry into terminal 5 at Heathrow airport was, to most minds, unacceptably long? How would he try to balance the national interest to ensure that we have proper infrastructure, whether airports or roads and the like, with the public interest locally? This is a much more complicated problem than he is perhaps giving it credit for. I am not necessarily suggesting that the Government are getting it right, but there surely needs to be a more open debate about ensuring that such projects are put in place much more quickly.