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Monday, November 07, 2005

The Lord's Diary. Civil Aviation 1.12.05

The Civil Aviation Bill gave me the opportunity of raising the issue of Heathrow's position as a hub airport.

I also put down a marker for a policy that could make ground operations at airports carbon neutral.

Lord Soley: My Lords, I have an interest to declare as the campaign director of Future Heathrow, which is a coalition of trade unions, airlines, businesses and professional organisations. I also have another interest to declare: I am a long-term resident of west London and for 30 years have lived under the flight paths of Heathrow. Like everyone else, particularly in the 1970s and 1980s when Trident and Concorde were flying, we would have closed the airport the next morning if, and only if, personal interests about noise were put above the prosperity of the area. Most of us who live in west London or, I suspect, near most airports know that they are amazing generators of wealth, prosperity and jobs. Heathrow employs 70,000 people, and probably well over 100,000 indirectly. If it ceases to be a hub airport, we will pay a terrible price in west London and the Heathrow region, but the country will also pay a high price. So we need to get that right. I am not here to speak predominantly about that issue. I am here to speak about the Bill, which I welcome, and to raise a couple of issues in the debate. Obviously, I will not ignore the importance of noise and so forth, because I suffer that and I know what it means, but it is important that people understand the balance. As an MP, people used to write to me and I would write back saying, "Yes, noise is a problem, but there are advantages. Would you kindly tell me how many times you have flown this year?". It is amazing how many people would not reply. That is like people who say, "I am fed up with the traffic jams. I have just got back from driving my kids to school, and it was horrendous". We have to address that. There is a problem about how people perceive their own behaviour in relation to a wider social economic problem. I do not want to turn to the Bill before I address the really big issue of climate change, which several noble Lords have addressed. It is so enormous that we cannot ignore it. In the nightmare scenario of climate change, it will not be a matter of discouraging people from flying or driving. If scientific evidence evolves in the coming years that is so serious as to suggest really drastic action, people will be stopped from flying, driving and doing many of the things that they take for granted in our society. Frankly, in those circumstances, the economic consequences would be so severe that it is difficult to imagine what our society would look like. That is the nightmare scenario and let us not ignore it, because it could become real. The other way of looking at the problem, which we can do at the moment, is to say that the evidence is alarming and we had better start bearing down on carbon emissions generally, which means that we have to address that issue across a very wide field. That is not totally new. Indeed, I rather naively wrote about the issue in my first ever election address as a prospective councillor, which must have been about 1960. It was the only election that I ever lost, so it was very good training. I complained about the dangers of population growth and what that meant for the world. I am sure that one of the reasons that I was rejected was that local residents thought that having me in the town hall trying to impose limits on population growth might have implications for the locality that they had not planned on from their local councillor. I am sure that they were quite right in rejecting my candidature at that stage. How we provide standards of living for large numbers of people without polluting our environment has always been a difficulty. It is not a new problem; it goes back a long way, but is now particularly serious. If we want to bear down on carbon emissions, many of the provisions in the Bill are very good and I welcome them. Charging extra for aircraft that are particularly dirty is important, but we also need to understand that modern airports and aircraft actually reduce emissions as they are developed. I know that that does not answer the question of more people and more aircraft flying, but it does mean that the aircraft industry, which is as aware of this problem as anyone sitting here today, knows that it has to bear down on noise and pollution. It is important that we do not lose sight of the fact that technology and science are part of the answer to that problem. I am not complaining about what is in the Bill, but I have a suggestion for my friend on the government Benches about something else to include in it. A few months ago, a British company, Arup, a developer and designer, won the award to design and build a city for 1 million people in China—the first city designed to be carbon neutral. The Minister should consider a provision to require airports to operate within a carbon neutral basis on the ground. They cannot do that in terms of aircraft emissions, because we do not have an alternative to the propulsion fuels for aircraft, but we do have biodiesel for all vehicles on the ground, the opportunity to tow rather than taxi aircraft and a number of opportunities to design the buildings to be carbon neutral. I know that the Minister takes global warming seriously like the rest of us, but the way to bear down on this problem is to use every department of state and private company to bear down on carbon emissions. Simply pleading with people not to fly or drive will not work. People do not behave like that. Things will only happen in a crisis and heaven forbid that we get into that situation. Something could be included in the Bill—probably in Clause 5—where the Minister could consider a requirement on airport operators to impose an aim of achieving carbon neutrality on the non-aircraft operations of the airfield—or aerodrome, to go back to the days of Biggles, when I am sure pollution was significantly less, unless he was machine-gunning you. The issues are profoundly important on the wider level, but this Bill is a small but significant step in the right direction. As a west London resident who was an MP for the area for 26 years, I am inevitably concerned. I do not want to see areas that depend on major airports go down the tubes. I am particularly worried that Heathrow is in decline relative to major continental airports. It has already been overtaken by Frankfurt, Paris and Amsterdam and it will be overtaken shortly by Milan, Munich, Rome and Madrid. That process will continue, unless Heathrow gets its third short runway. So I make no apologies for my belief that we must have that third, short runway. That does not mean to say that I want it done in a way that ignores the noise problems or emissions problems or whatever. We do not do it that way. My view is that, actually, at the moment Heathrow is a pretty unpleasant experience as an airport. We could make it infinitely better. One of the things that we need to get better in this country is the way that local authorities work together with airports, to stop seeing airports as problems and to start to see them as possibilities: what they provide in terms of employment, what they provide in terms of prosperity, what they provide in terms of training and education for young people. Heaven knows what would happen to many of the high-tech jobs in my area if Heathrow became a point-to-point airport. We would probably lose about 20,000 jobs. If we had to produce another hub airport somewhere else to replace Heathrow, and Heathrow disappeared entirely, which is not totally impossible, the consequences would be horrific. That is why I have often made the analogy with the London docks. I was one of the people stupid enough to say that the London docks would never close, that no one would want to go to Felixstowe or Rotterdam. They did, they went and 50,000 jobs went with them. East London has only recently recovered. People need to be careful about this issue overall. My argument is a plea to the Minister. Will the Government include in the Bill a provision requiring airports to operate towards a carbon-neutral basis on the ground? There is no reason why we cannot do that. It would send out a strong signal that we are serious about the issue and at the same time recognise that the threat from the continental airports to places like Heathrow is enormous. People do not know it, but you can fly to far more British regional cities from Amsterdam and Paris than you can from London's Heathrow: 21 from Amsterdam; 19 from Paris; and just nine from Heathrow. If you want to scare yourself about this, go home tonight and, when you type into your computer, book yourself a ticket somewhere. Try to book a ticket from Newcastle to Tokyo or from Edinburgh to Beijing—places that have links, like with the Toyota car plant or the medical school. You used to go via Heathrow. Now you go via Amsterdam and Paris. That will go on very dramatically. People who say to me that Heathrow is safe and that Heathrow will always be there are saying exactly what I said about the London docks. It is a dangerous complacency. We need to make sure that local authorities and airports work together to develop airports in as sustainable a manner as possible. If we include a carbon-neutral provision in the Bill, I say to the Minister that many people will remember him as one of the people who took a very important step on the road to sustainability for air travel.

A considered and informed speech from Clive here; clearly his experience over London Docks has shaped his views and warnings from history.

I am just wondering here whether Heathrow in fact can compete as a transfer hub with Paris CDG or Amsterdam. Paris CDG has huge capacity, but a reputation for bad customer service; Heathrow is seen as a necessary evil for London originating travellers. But transfer airports (where you fly to change planes rather than arrive) make a real competitive difference - as Clive pointed out Newcastle passengers for Tokyo go via Paris or Amsterdam rather than Heathrow. Heathrow is seen as tatty AND limited in capacity.

Would a third runway solve these problems? Paris CDG and Amsterdam are transfer airports, but they have lots of space in which to build. Heathrow - even if Harmondworth were demolished for a short-haul jet runway could not overcome its competitive shortcomings here. Heathrow needs to rebuild its terminals - like Toronto Pearson did with Terminal One.

But ultimately if Heathrow wants to be a Paris CDG, maybe the tougher solution is to use an airport with lots of space to expand - namely Stansted, with fast London and regional rail links to the rest of the country. Heathrow is like Paris' old airport Orly. The French had reached the end with Orly and started afresh with CDG. Maybe in turn we need to turn attention from Heathrow and use Stansted to become Britain's CDG . But that is a long term thirty year plan.

So

Hi Clive,

'I also put down a marker for a policy that could make ground operations at airports carbon neutral.'

Carbon neutral eh, sounds good, but it's spin*.

Carbon neutral is not about using biofuels in airport transport, it means that there is a balance of zero carbon used for the fuel to run the machines AND to make the machines - they don;t just sprout from non-carbon trees at the bottom of Terminal 5; they are created using lots of carbon.

Thus, carbon neutral is a nice ring-a-ding line, but it's a bit like calling someone (not our resident Iraq geezer) a virgin who used to be a whore for 20 years and then decided not to have sex at the age of 40.

Regs, Andy

Nick: I live near Stansted Airport and we don't want the place growing any more than is planned. There has to be a way for Europe to develop sustainable transport instead of more airports.

That is totally understandable Dan. The sustainable transport is for encouraging more rail and less unneccessary air travel; this concerns short-haul European and domestic flying, the bulk of which is now done by low-cost carriers flying out of Luton and Stansted. Heathrow caters mainly for air journeys that cannot be rail-based - long-haul or medium haul European (London to Istanbul, Larnaca, Athens etc). Aviation-wise changing the traffic at Stansted to more trunk-route Heathrow scheduled might be less worse than trying to expand Heathrow and demolish large parts of London. Stansted has its residential areas too so i sympathise with your view

Nick: Growth at Stansted has been mainly in the form of budget airlines. Personally, I would rather travel Eurostar than Ryanair, but to travel by rail to Brussels costs far more than a Ryanair flight to Charleroi. I think a lot of people feel the same. High speed rail links, tax breaks for rail operators (airlines already escape many taxes, such as fuel) and a fully integrated European rail system would help create fairer competition between rail and short-haul air travel and free up airport capacity for long-haul and freight (although I think that a large proportion of air freight could be carried by sea or rail). I believe that aviation growth should be stemmed in favour of other forms of transport - which are more labour-intensive, cost-efficient and less polluting. What is clear is that airport expansion is fiercely opposed by many living near airports (90% opposed near Stansted in a local referendum which ahd a turn-out of 70%), airport expansion would bring unsustainable development to the southeast and aviation is fast becoming a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions.

You touch an important point here about cost of rail over air - cheaper air fares in turn leading to more pollution.

It is absurd that rail should be so expensive that it is cheaper to fly - though like you i prefer train travel out of central London than going to Luton.

In the USA rail travel is slower than the 1930s; such is the neglect of rail and the growth of aviation - but of course a lot more pollution.

It is interesting to note that domestic air travel in France has plunged since the early 1980s when the TGV began. The TGV makes Paris CDG a major rail hub as well as airport; so that in turn Lyon and Nice serve much less long-haul traffic than before 1990. Of course this all in turn demands very high speed train times to compensate for the loss in air travel. The Uk has a half-way house where the train cannot match the plane for speed (in France the difference is narrower: Paris-Lyon 1hr 50 mins TGV, 1 hour 10 by plane - compared to London-Newcastle (similar distance) 3hours by train, 1hr 20 by plane).

Air France links both forms of travel via Rail'Air which provides for check-in at regional rail stations, followed by fast travel to CDG Terminal 2. It's not without its drawbacks (Paris CDG is badly organised, but if the UK wants to stop regional traffic using PAris CDG or Amsterdam as a transfer hub, it needs to improve the rail system rather than assume stretching Heathrow as the only way forward.

In a previous life, I used to travel around Europe quite a lot, usually in a bright orange plane with a phone number written on the side. London to Paris took a similar time on the Eurostar or in the plane (including check-in times and associated messing about at termini), but the plane was cheaper by a factor of about 4, as far as I remember.

Doubtless much of the cost difference has to do with the different taxation regime, but Eurostar has never struck me as a particularly efficient or low-cost operation aside from that.

To go further than Paris, the train rapidly makes even less sense, as it takes too long. To build trains that get to their destination in a comparable time to a plane over moderate European distances (say London to Geneva, or Barcelona) is prohibitively expensive and bordering on impossible. Certainly it is not compatible with residential areas insisting that trains drive slowly through them to reduce noise, or to not run over small children. One of the big advantages of air travel is that, apart from in the immediate vicinity of the airports, the plane is up in the air where there isn't anything else. A plane at 20,000 feet can make as much noise as it likes - nobody cares.

The point that regional flights don't tend to leave from Heathrow is well made, and the lack of a sensible transport system to take you between airports is obvious. As far as I am aware, there's a bus between Heathrow and Gatwick, and that's it.

What would seem to be needed is a dedicated rail service between London's airports, with baggage transfer service and preferably airside transfer, although the latter may pose security issues. Nobody wants to fly through London to get somewhere alse when he is expected to hump his luggage around the tube.

Interesting to note Heathrow now is in the process of wanting to demolish Terminals and rebuild T2 into Terminal East.

I suspect that in an ideal world, BAA would like to replace Heathrow.

The lay out of T4 is a nightmare for transport planners; airlines want to avoid it because it is so far from the main central hubs. Wouldn't surpise me if T4 does shut down in twenty years time in favour of a more lineal terminal layout in the centre.

Competing to win more aircraft emissions strikes me as a battle worth losing to continental airports. I'm right under the Heathrow approach in Putney. Early mornings are worst. Yes, I've used those same flights myself. All I'm saying is no more please - not at Heathrow, anyway, which has to be the world's daftest place to put an airport. Airlines'and airports' continual pleading about growth rings hollow when they already rely on environmental exemptions and tax breaks, and have sufficient capacity to give seats away.

Clive's argument about 170,000 Heathrow jobs at risk is unnecessarily alarmist, and betrays signs of socialist lump-of-labour unreason. Even if we cap Heathrow now, wastage will be gradual. Unemployment is not a serious problem in the M4 corridor.

Lord Soley

You simple do not know what you are talking about, you seem to think that closing Heathrow will have a negative impact. why cant this be positive and even more than the 70,000 jobs be created.

See the proposal fro a new airport in the THAMES ESTUARY The problem with this country at the moment it is run by pappy feeble wet politicians swayed by pressure groups and vested interests.

We need a government with balls that makes this new airport happen and shuts down HEATHROW and creates in excess of 200,000 jobs. i am sure the house builders would do a very good job of turning heathrow into a pleasant place to live.

The perfect place for an airport that is future proof and terrorist proof is in the sea. All it will take is one incident over London why wait why not get on with building the airport where it should have been built.

If the planning and the Government gave the green light I know there are dozens of investors and companies ready to put up the funding to build the new airport and the jobs would surpass your number of 70,000.

Think long term stop and use your head and dont get conned by vested interests who are simple not interested in anything other than their own shareholders

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