Bedd, you need to put your comment on to one of my entries if you want me to see it. I try and read many of the posts and comments but you can’t read all of them but obviously I am more likely to spot a question to me if it is linked to one of my entries. You linked them to Lord Tyler.
You asked about my involvement with Future Heathrow http://www.futureheathrow.org/. You will find details of this organisation and my involvement with it on the web site quoted. It is a coalition of trade unions, business, airlines and professional associations concerned about the decline of Heathrow. The following link will take you to a speech I made about the problems that would face west London and the Thames Valley if Heathrow was closed in favour of a hub airport elsewhere. http://www.futureheathrow.org/press-release.php?id=74 . The Sunday Times and other newspapers and organisations campaigning for its closure usually want a new airport in the Thames Estuary or at Stansted.
As a west London MP for many years I know just how devastating that would be for jobs and prosperity. When the London docks closed 50,000 jobs went. There are 72,000 jobs at Heathrow – the biggest single site employer in the UK. People do need to think about jobs – it’s not some academic point. The speech also deals with the climate change argument. We need clever solutions to climate change – not ones that simply throw people out of work.
Finally, as long as interests are openly declared in the House or elsewhere I see no reason for not being involved. Especially as in this case I see it as a very real threat to the area that I gave 30 years of my life to as an MP and councillor. I am not prepared to sit back and watch it go the way east London went when the docks closed. I was brought up in east London and was one of the people who argued (wrongly) in the 1970’s that the docks would never close – they were too big and too successful. By 1980 every one of them had closed. Economic and technological change happens fast – very fast.
A fair point about posting on the right thread, but I must admit when I first read this I was so incandescent that I had to post right away.
And Lord Norton did post a general response about the ‘rights and wrongs’ of ‘interests’ and how to deal with them.
I agree that you have been more transparent about this than I had realised and I apologise if any impression was given that this was ‘underhand’ in any way. And I have some sympathy for your view that jobs may be at risk, or that business will go to Schipol etc.
What I find particularly galling, and this is more of a reflection on the way that the Lords are, quite rightly, seen as having a measure of independence from the Commons is the disconnect between your views and the manifesto commitments of the Labour party.
Many things frustrate me about politics, such as incompetence. But I am afraid that hypocrisy trumps them all. The impression is clearly given that solving climate change is the ‘most important issue of our generation’ and this is ‘even more important than terrorism’ and so on.
There is a massive ‘Public Relations’ bombardment when the Stern Report is issue, and the IPCC manage to get all nations including America to row behind the consensus on man-made global warming.
Far less emphasis is made of the following points.
1/ Airline emissions are currently outside the scope of Kyoto, so even if we hit ‘Kyoto’ targets, they could be ruined by increases in CO2 emissions from flying.
2/ The ‘Government’ [or the Labour party in the Commons, as I see it] is perfectly willing to sacrifice its commitment to reducing climate damaging emissions on the altar of increased flights from Heathrow.
I wouldn’t particularly mind if the Government banged the drum for Heathrow – we could decide whether or not that was a good thing and vote accordingly. But it does make a complete mockery of attempts to manage carbon emissions by the ‘price escalator’ on car fuel.
I appreciate that your views don’t have to be congruent with the Government policy in the that a Minister of the Crown, bound by ‘collective responsibility’ would be. But it rather sticks in the craw that people of your ilk come up with the ‘Aviation is only 3% of emissions’ type argument, knowing full well that the increase which your policies would inevitably see, might result in that increasing to 10-15% if nothing was done to look for sustainable alternatives !
The other question people, rightly, ask is how on earth our refusal to allow a third runway will help if India and China aren’t going to ‘do their bit’. But we are beginning to establish a hard-fought for consensus that even the Indians, Chinese and, yes, the Americans will sign up to a global carbon market.
If I was in their shoes I would look at Lord Soley in the UK and think – ‘Hey, this guy knows that aviation can be increased without affecting Kyoto, so he is quite willing to ‘game’ the system for his own ends, and the UK is struggling to meet Kyoto commitments anyway. Why on earth should I bust a gut when the Brits are paying lip service to this whole thing ?’
Lord Soley, I have a lot of respect for you as you are clearly an intelligent, hard-working guy with a lot of integrity – but on this issue you need to wake up and smell the coffee. I recommend you buy James Lovelock’s excellent book ‘The Revenge of Gaia’. Mind you, he thinks ‘carbon trading’ is tinkering at the edges and we are already too late on that.
Which brings me to the final point – Nuclear Power. On that I have to confess I have changed my mind, and might support a stance like yours of standing against the ‘green protesters’ and running counter to ‘conventional wisdom’. I would railroad in plants that Greenpeace don’t want and which might be subject to protests by the same people writing to you about Heathrow !
So maybe my ‘democratic credentials’ are no better than yours – but the needs of the planet may make for some unlikely bedfellows ?
Oh no, not another climate change binge, please. While the scientists have a good row, I see opportunistic taxes and cuts in services in the UK as the heads of states fly miles to rather fetching locations in order to have a chat about ‘aims’.
Whilst Heathrow may be the biggest single site employer, this does not have much meaning beyond that stated. I had a quick look at the BAA, Heathrow, site:
“Heathrow offers a wide range of exciting jobs. 68,000 people work at the airport, 4,500 of them employed directly by BAA.”
http://www.heathrowairport.com/
Apart from the discrepancy, it is apparent that there are many employers on this one site. Further, there is no breakdown for permanency, hours worked, or quality of jobs. Nor is there relevance to the workforce available…I’ll shut up now.
Except for one last thing: technology may be speeding up where you are but up my way (rural North East) broadband = 0.5Mbit. Could you have a word with BT please?
Thanks, Tiz
There is no need to stop Heathrow expanding, a bigger airport does not equate to more carbon dioxide emmisions or climate change. There is no reason for planes in the future to give off carbon dioxide. New concepts like the A2 (designed by Reaction Engines in Oxfordshire) runs off hydrogen and would be able to travel at up to 4000mph and I don’t see any reason why Heathrow should be shut down.
Lord Soley:
It seems there is still an MP in there somewhere? I will wager you are one of those who when addressing another in the House lets slip with: “My Honourable Friend”. Err! “My Noble Lord…”.
Do you sometimes miss the constituency surgery?
Lord Soley, any chance of moderating my earlier comment, which may stimulate a debate about the role of nuclear power and its role [or not] as part of a ‘sustainable’ energy policy. Perhaps others have views on the controversy over bio-fuels and the ‘people first, cars second’ comments by some south american leaders ?