The debate over airport expansion, particularly in the South East, has been raging for decades. Later this year, it is due to reach a crucial moment as Howard Davies and the Airports Commission publish their final report. Ahead of this, CentreForum has published a report looking at the liberal case for aviation and explaining how genuine concerns over environmental challenges, noise and regional growth should be addressed.
Though not directly concerned with Liberal Democrat policy, the report does raise questions over the wisdom of the party’s current position.
The pre-manifesto commits to “carefully consider the conclusions of the Davies Review”, but it also states that the party “remain opposed to any expansion of Heathrow, Stansted or Gatwick and any new airport in the Thames Estuary” and commits to “ensure no net increase in runways across the UK as a whole”.
This is incoherent at best. Davies has already made clear that he will recommend new runways, and that his main contenders are Gatwick and Heathrow. And with good reason. Heathrow Airport is already full and Gatwick will be by 2020. In fact, all London’s airports are expected to be operating at capacity by 2041. If the Lib Dems are really want to “Ensure our airport infrastructure meets the needs of a modern and open economy” they will need to allow the capital’s airports to grow.
Flying may not sound like one of the fundamental freedoms that inspired John Locke, David Hume and Adam Smith, but many core liberties are affected when airports are prevented from expanding. It is, for example, deeply regressive. Governmental constraints on runway capacity act in the same way as a quota, pushing up prices and so making flying even more of a luxury reserved for the rich. These higher prices also transfer wealth from consumers to producers; it is hard to understand why liberals would support a policy that encourages (arguably, necessitates) the extraction of monopoly rents by airports.
It also affects our ability to play a part on the world stage. Whether you want the Prime Minister to attend world summits, or you want to go there yourself and picket the global elite, it is going to require a plane. It would be a tragic irony if constrained airport capacity meant that, in the future, climate activists were forced to take indirect flights, thus pushing up their carbon emissions, and global poverty campaigners were forced to pay more to fly, thus diverting money away from aid projects in the developing world.
The economic case is well known. Airports support £32.2 billion of economic activity (2.1% of GDP) and between 200,000 and 1 million jobs. They are essential for the UK’s competitiveness, for both inward and outward investment, trade, tourism and immigration. The Treasury receives £20 billion due to aviation and related sectors.
There are real challenges. But the best way to resolve these is to tackle the problem rather than attack the industry. Surely the biggest of these is climate change. There is no question that we need to reduce the carbon emissions. But it is total UK (indeed, global) emissions that we should be targeting, not those of individual sectors. The independent Committee on Climate Change believes that the UK can accommodate a 55% increase in air traffic movements by 2050 without aviation adversely affecting greenhouse gas emissions. What matters is that we get the overall emissions framework right. Aviation is already incorporated in the EU Emissions Trading Scheme, and the International Civil Aviation Organisation is assessing the feasibility of a worldwide cap-and-trade scheme. This is the most efficient and most effective way of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
By comparison, constraining capacity at airports is likely to push emissions up. Planes “stacking” added 2% to aviation emissions in 2006. If travellers are diverted to European rather than UK airports, it increases the length (and thus emissions) of journeys. What is worse, it effectively exports emissions. Constraining London airports to the benefit of Paris and Amsterdam simply allows environmentalists in the UK to flatter themselves that our emissions are falling by passing the problem off to our neighbours.
Noise is a very real problem – though people who bought their houses in the past 40 years can hardly claim an unexpected one. In fact, over the past half century aircraft noise has fallen by approximately 95%. But the aviation industry should not rest on its laurels. More can and should be done to reduce noise, including through technological improvement, operational restrictions, and (if necessary) noise quotas, budgets and envelopes. What is more, airlines and airports should directly compensate those affected, as the CAA has suggested.
Much of the debate at the 2014 Autumn Conference revolved around the effect on other UK regions, however. This showed a remarkable amount of confusion. Firstly, delegates appeared to think that investment should be directed away from London. But this is not public investment, and we do not live in a planned economy. Government cannot and should not be trying to dictate where private investment goes; the choice is not between investment in the South East and investment elsewhere but between investment in the South East and no investment at all.
Secondly, airports outside the South East are not constrained. Bristol Airport is operating at 31% capacity, Birmingham at 60%, Glasgow at 50% and Manchester at 77%. Nothing is preventing these airports from laying on more flights and they do not need extra runways to do so. The reason they do not lay on more flights is that there is not sufficient demand; by comparison, London’s airports are increasingly unable to meet the demand that is there.
Thirdly, the regions benefit enormously from the South East’s successful airports. Large numbers of non-South East exports and business travellers fly via London airports. These airports are supplied by firms from across the UK. And tourists reach all corners of Britain via South East airports. Constraining the South East to “promote the regions” risks cutting off regional noses to spite the South East’s face.
Traditionally liberals have championed progress. Expanding the capacity to travel through growing our airports enables people to pursue their own life ambitions, be it through tourism, trade, visiting friends and relatives, operating globally renowned companies or providing a vital service to their neighbours. All this freedom creates the wealth on which our society is built. The costs should be borne by those who fly, the side effects should be contained and the losers should be compensated. But the liberal case for airport expansion remains strong.
* Tom Papworth is a member of Waltham Forest Liberal Democrats
