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Tories facing internal fight over ban on third runway
Paul Waugh, Deputy Political Editor30.09.08
Shadow transport secretary Theresa Villiers faced a backlash from her own party today as fellow Tories feared her opposition to a third runway at Heathrow had needlessly upset business.
The Standard has learned that members of the shadow cabinet, Conservative backbenchers and activists are unhappy that the pledge has closed off the option of extra capacity at Britain's biggest airport.
Ms Villiers announced her landmark decision to categorically rule out a third runway yesterday after being given the go-ahead by David Cameron and winning around a majority of senior colleagues.
The move represented a significant hardening of the Tories' position.
Green groups were delighted by the decision to come out firmly against a third runway and instead focus on a new high-speed rail link between central London, Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds. The new rail link would ensure no one had to take domestic flights from Heathrow, Ms Villiers said.
But business was furious, with British Airways, BAA and London First all warning that London's competitive edge would be badly hit and jobs would be lost.
One member of the shadow cabinet said that while the new high-speed link was a good idea, there had been no need to rule out a third runway: "Why close off an option at this stage?"
David Wilshire, Tory MP for Spelthorne near Heathrow, was "alarmed and disappointed" by his party's decision.
He said: "Heathrow's runways are full. Solving existing problems (as well as meeting future demand) requires a new runway. Lack of runway capacity is also costing Heathrow routes and passengers. If this continues my constituents face redundancies and even greater falls in house values."
Tory blogs were also full of complaints from activists.
However, other Tories said it made political sense to propose a rail link that could help win key marginals in the north-west and west Midlands.
The party is also hoping to clean up on marginals in west London, where many residents oppose expansion.
Reader views (7)
What use a high speed rail link will be to someone flying from Asia to America via a transfer has not been explained, unless they are to be transported to see the delights of Liverpool en route!
The first step should be removal of domestic mainland flights from Heathrow but of this nothing spoken..
As for suggesting using St Pancras shows how little knowledge of this station and the midland railway the speaker had.
Firstly the Midland mainline is still diesel operated as a little question of electrification has still to be made.(nb. Could have been done with the money the last tory government wasted on privatisation.) More importently the station is to small to take this idea and it is Euston that is more suitable.
As for high speed development why talk about £20 billion schemes when the simple start France would do would be to extent High Speed 1 from Stratford to Welwyn on the East Coast mainline and thus allow regional eurostars to Leeds and other northern cities in only a few years.
A cynic would say their scheme is just for a conference and in the real world nothing will happen given the time these projects take to get off the ground. A soundbite for the soundbite party who are now loosing their shirts!
So where will the money come from?
- Melvyn Windebank, Canvey Island, Essex
Ms Villiers's promise to build high-speed rail lines instead of a third runway at Heathrow is so hedged about with promises of billions in private money and slated for so far in the future that it is undeliverable - I tend to think it's just a "green" smokescreen. Plus, even if it could provide capacity to substitute for an expected growth in domestic flights, it doesn't really address the issue that Heathrow already struggles to keep on top of its current capacity, let alone the demand for expansion.
Paris's Charles-de-Gaulle airport has 4 runways and Amsterdam's Schiphol has 6 with a 7th planned. We cannot possibly hope to compete with these nearby hubs if we hamstring our key international airport.
I hate to say it, but on this - as with their (better late than never) conversion to the need for nuclear power - Labour have got this one right.
- Austin Spreadbury, London
Ms Villiers will soon learn that she can't go upsetting big business whose interests both political parties have pandered to. There's a good reason former BA chief Rod Eddington was chosen by Labour to write the Government review on high speed lines in 2006 - so that he could kick them into the long grass and preserve BA's profits in the domestic flights market!
- John Buckeridge, Harrow
I'm sick of the Government and BAA telling us that it's important for Heathrow to stay the worlds (or is it Europe's) biggest and busiest airport. The only arguament they seem to have is that we've got to have a bigger one than other cities. Why? It's like little boys boasting in the school toilets.
If London needs extra capacity (which in this day and age seems unlikely) then why not make more use of Luton, Biggin Hill and Marston. Of course, if you want a cheap and radical solution there's a virtually disused US airbase near me with runways built to carry transport planes and withstand nuclear bombs.
- Richard Meredith, huntingdon, UK
Just think of all of the stuff that was promised in the London Mayoral election that we have already seen, or are likely to see backtracks on... the same thing will happen nationally. I'm sure they will find a reason why this can't be delivered, and it will quietly be dropped.
- Mark Lee, Vauxhall
Are there any grown-ups present in Birmingham? It seems the Tory party has been taken over by a bunch of Juveniles who think that insulting Gordon Brown is the same thing as putting forth their policies. No wonder that right wingers are drifting away to UKIP and the BNP.
- Arthur Atkins, Acton
This is exactly what could pull the Tories' lead down. Is an alternative to the third runway at Heathrow their policy -- or isn't it? Yesterday's announcement seemed to say it was. Now we get the nonsense and reversals. Tories, get your act together if you ever want to form a government!
- Phil Jones, London UK
