Heathrow (Third Runway)

The House will be aware that I have set out my constituents' concerns about the expansion of Heathrow many times both in the House and outside. We feel that the consultation that the Department for Transport and Ministers went through was utterly shambolic. To that end, many Members will remember that I asked the Secretary of State to come and meet residents of my constituency and talk to them. I asked him whether he had ever met any residents who would be affected by his decision, and he said:"““I visited the area, and went carefully around the perimeter of Heathrow.””—[Official Report, 15 January 2009; Vol. 486, c. 368.]" I hardly think that that can have given him a particularly good understanding of how residents will be affected. However, he seemed to suggest that he would come to Putney. I was therefore very disappointed when we had yet another broken promise on Heathrow; I received a letter a couple of days ago telling me that the meeting would take place not in Putney but in the safe confines of Westminster. Apparently, I am allowed to bring three residents, but for every resident I bring, thousands would have relished the chance to talk directly to him. Will the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, the hon. Member for Poplar and Canning Town (Jim Fitzpatrick), who is in his place, explain why the Government received legal advice that, perversely, they could not meet residents before the decision was taken? They clearly met BAA, so why not residents? That is clearly inequitable, but in the world of the DFT and this Government, somehow residents do not seem to come even remotely high up the list of people who should be talked to directly about decisions that will affect the public. I wish to tackle the impression, which the Secretary of State gave in his statement last week, that he would somehow be able to reassure Members by making concessions. On noise, the concession was apparently that there would not be mixed mode. None of my constituents is convinced by his assurances, because not one promise on the expansion of Heathrow has ever been kept. We were promised that environmental tests would be met, and that without them no expansion would go ahead. That promise has been broken.