Heathrow (Third Runway)

Almost all the people who contacted me about today's debate believed that it was about climate change and the impact on it that airport expansion has, not just at Heathrow, but in general. However, we are talking about an early-day motion in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Selby (Mr. Grogan) that the Conservatives adopted to entice as many hon. Members as possible to follow them into the voting Lobby. The idea was that Members would feel duty-bound to do so because they signed that early-day motion, believing that that was the right thing to do. It is a mere device not just to bring the issue to the Floor of the House, as some people have suggested was the intention, but to use it as a political football. When I began to think about what I might say in the debate, I expected to see an Opposition motion setting out what, if anything, we should do about airport expansion and laying out the criteria by which the Opposition would measure whether they would introduce any airport expansion and where that might be, but we do not have that. What we have is a motion that is purely about the third runway at Heathrow. Many of my colleagues feel that, because of their constituency situation, they have to state their position in relation to Heathrow and support the early-day motion that has been presented as an Opposition motion today.