Heathrow (Third Runway)

A commitment to investigate by a Government who have had more taskforce investigations, commissions and the like is a meaningless commitment, and we all know it. The truth of the matter is that there was no intention at all to push this forward until it was seen that this was a realistic and reasonable alternative, and that we could make the present Heathrow work better by having a hub there, along the lines of the Ove Arup suggestion. So there is an alternative, and it is one that delivers for both the needs of British industry and for our climate change policy. I should point out in British industry's defence that more and more businesses are seeing that we travel much more than we need to, and we will come out of this downturn with many more people taking seriously this part of their commitment to sustainability. So I find it difficult to argue at this moment that we need to have the particular answer that has been put forward. I do not believe that we can meet this requirement in this curious, two-handed way—a new runway, and our support for the Committee on Climate Change—above all because someone has to say ““stop””. The European Union is not going to carry forward a policy in which we restrict airport expansion in Europe as a whole as part of its climate change programme if the country that puts it forward is the one that has just done the last development. That is precisely the way to make nobody follow us. That is why we have to take what is the brave step of being the leader on this. I know that the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change has a difficult role to play here. Instinctively, he knows what a difficult balance it is. He has come down on one side, after a great deal of argument, and I do respect him in this because at least he believes in climate change. I have to say that, to judge from the speeches of the Secretary of State for Transport, I am beginning to wonder whether he really has that commitment to the belief that climate change is happening. He does not really take it seriously—at least, that seriousness has not come through in his speeches. Perhaps a little tutoring over the years will make him better at feigning, at least, some sort of enthusiasm. I want to make the time spent by the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change in Copenhagen the most productive it could be. I want to make him the man who made the difference in the European Union, and the EU the body that made the difference to save this world from the effects of climate change. This issue hampers him—it makes it almost impossible to take this Government seriously, and because I believe that climate change is the biggest physical threat to the world, I believe that we should not have a third runway.