Chris Grayling (pictured outside Downing Street) has urged Tory MPs to back the expansion of the airport to help the UK’s trade drive as it prepares to leave the EU
Conservative MPs need to stop prevaricating and back a third runway at Heathrow, the Transport Secretary said last night.
Chris Grayling has urged them to back the expansion of the airport to help the UK’s trade drive as it prepares to leave the EU.
Ahead of a crucial Commons vote today, he said Britain has put off the extra runway for ‘nearly half a century’ and demanded an end to years of political uncertainty.
‘We need to demonstrate clearly that our future lies very much at the heart of the world stage,’ he told The Daily Telegraph.
‘There is no better way of doing that than by finally taking the decision to equip our hub airport with the capacity it needs for that future.
‘It really is time for the big decision on Heathrow. We have prevaricated as a nation about this for nearly half a century.
‘We are ambitious for the future of this country. I hope the House of Commons will back that ambition, and give the green light to an expanded Heathrow airport.’
Heathrow is finally expected to get Parliament’s backing for a controversial third runway in a vote today, although environmental campaigners and homeowners living nearby are likely to mount a series of legal challenges.
Mr Grayling’s remarks came after the boss of Heathrow said Brexit presents an opportunity for the UK to become a more outward-looking nation that embraces free trade,
John Holland-Kaye, who voted to stay in the EU, said trying to re-run the referendum and complaining about its outcome were counter-productive.
Heathrow (runway pictured) is finally expected to get Parliament’s backing for a controversial third runway in a vote today
He argued that Britain remained a highly competitive place for business, and that bosses should now be looking to the future.
‘I campaigned for Remain but Brexit is happening and we have to look for the opportunities,’ the Heathrow chief executive said.
‘It’s very easy to focus on all the problems but we’ve got to have a plan to become a great, outward-looking, trading nation. We need to give the Government the space to do the best negotiation they can. We need to give them our support.’
Mr Holland-Kaye, 53, claimed that the expanded hub airport will turbo-charge trade and put Britain ahead of rivals on the Continent.
He said: ‘Heathrow is a real Brexit bonus. It only takes one runway at Heathrow to give us more capacity than the French and Germans have at their hub airports.
‘We can start to open up China, flying to places I can barely pronounce but which are as big as London. We could be the connecting point between these places and North America and that’s an amazing place to be.’
He also hit back at fears that moving goods across borders will inevitably take longer after Brexit. Remainers have claimed that unless the country remains tied to Brussels through a customs union, delays are inevitable at the border.
Environmental campaigners and homeowners (Vote No Heathrow protest outside Parliament pictured from June 22) living nearby are likely to mount a series of legal challenges
But Mr Holland-Kaye said he hoped to double the speed at which goods get through Heathrow – regardless of what happened in negotiations with Brussels. He told The Sunday Telegraph: ‘Some of the ways goods come through the country haven’t changed since the Seventies. We’re going to redesign and simplify the way goods flow.’
Passport control could also be boosted to make it easier for business travellers and tourists to get in, he said.
Mr Holland-Kaye played down the fears that leaving the EU without a deal would trigger major problems such as grounded aircraft and food shortages due to legal disruption.
Dozens of Labour MPs are thought likely to back the third runway proposals in today’s vote, after leader Jeremy Corbyn promised a free vote and no whip.
Lord Adonis, a Labour peer and former chairman of the National Infrastructure Commission, told the BBC he believed that the overwhelming majority of Labour MPs supported the expansion of Heathrow. ‘We can open up to China’
Campaigners are pictured with a ‘Vote No 2 Heathrow’ banner in Parliament Square