Sarah speaking in the European Parliament about airport capacity and ground handling

Speech by Sarah Ludford delivered to European Parliament on Thu 11th Oct 2007

Mr President, this report makes good sense in saying that there should be an overall EU approach as regards the need for extra airport capacity. This might mean that there would be seen to be less justification for all airports which see themselves as major hubs to expand. If you look at Paris Charles De Gaulle, Schiphol, Frankfurt and London Heathrow all together, the conclusion might be, for instance, that there was no justification for a third runway at Heathrow.

I would not, though, want the report's call for a master plan for enhanced airport capacity to be misunderstood as Brussels muscling in and telling national, regional and local authorities where to build new airports; obviously, it just means pooling information and objectives. Subsidiarity rules on any decisions whether or not to expand airports.

But there is a second danger of misunderstanding. The report cites forecasts of demand increasing by around 5% a year and says that, in 2025, the demand for flights would be two and a half times higher than 2003. This, I am sure, should not be taken as succumbing to the discredited 'predict and provide' policy. I am not sure that the call in the report to accompany the growth of air transport by measures limiting its external cost is quite enough, because we know there is a lot we can and must do to at least moderate aviation growth to a sustainable level - whether through emissions trading, proper and fair taxation, building high-speed rail alternatives and so on - in order to combat global warming and safeguard against the dangers of air pollution and noise nuisance.

I was surprised to see that there was no opinion from the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety, so I am sure - and I hope - that the risk of lack of consistency between this report and the resolution last year on reducing the climate change impact of aviation will be avoided. This report must be seen in the light of that resolution, and not in any way - and I am sure it is not the intention, at least of the rapporteur - giving comfort to this idea that you simply build airports based on predictions, many of them from airlines, about increased demand, without all the other measures that we know we need to take to have sustainable aviation.