My Lords, I welcome the three main aims of this legislation, which were well set out by the Minister. The Government are right that the aviation industry has been growing reasonably well and could make a bigger contribution to growth and prosperity in our country. The Government are right that safety is a vital priority behind which all parties in this House would unite. They are right to realise that, as technologies change, aeroplanes evolve and our airspace becomes ever more congested, it is necessary for a Government to accept the prime safety responsibility and ask whether the rules and guidance are still correct, and whether the regulatory authorities are doing their job in carrying out their task of enforcing safety.
We all want to see good conditions for passengers. That has to be a balance, because if you go too far in regulating in favour of super service then the price can go up too much. The Government must form a judgment on what is an appropriate minimum level of service quality to require so that no one is left in a bad way. This is particularly true of disabled people, as we have
been hearing. However, they have to be careful not to overdo standards, which then prices people out of the market and it becomes a middle-class indulgence.
Where I have more doubts about the Bill is when it comes to the detail. I found the 316-page impact assessment heavy going. I do not know whether other colleagues bothered or whether they did not get to the exciting conclusion at the end—I must have missed the exciting conclusion at the end. It was repetitious, very generalised and very high-level. It was clearly a piece of work done by officials who were given an impossible task. They were meant to work out what regulatory changes are going to be made and ask the usual questions of an impact assessment, on the costs of these regulatory changes and the benefits of carrying them through, as some things you will have to do because they are for safety but, for lots of other things, you will have to make a judgment about the trade-offs. Are the costs too high or are the benefits exciting enough to go for it?
Remarkably, this impact assessment concludes that there will be just a small net loss, as a result of the legislation, of just a few million pounds for a multi-billion-pound industry, and so this is well within the margin of error. When you try to find out why the figures are so small, you find that there are practically no benefits identified because this Bill will ensure that nothing happens for quite a long time. It is arranging the regulatory furniture but it will not change what will apply to airlines and passengers any time soon.
The Bill has delay built into it at every opportunity. We read in the impact assessment that it may take a year for us and the other place to get the legislation through and finally into effect. Then, apparently it will take another year before the Government come up with changes to use the very large powers that this legislation will give to Ministers and to regulators without further reference to Parliament. We are being asked to sign a blank cheque, but Ministers have no idea who they will want to make the cheque or cheques out to, let alone how much there may be on them.
The House needs to understand that this is what I would call officials’ legislation. This is not a burning desire of a Minister who knows his subject very well to make changes which are soon going to make a difference to aviation and to economic growth in this country. This is “good management-type” official legislation, saying that we may need these powers and need to copy a whole load of EU regulations that have already passed—or, more likely, that are going to come out soon—so let us have these powers and make sure that most of these things can be done by a regulatory body without any reference to Parliament or by statutory instrument with minimum debate. That way we do not need to trouble people about it. When the House proceeds to investigate the legislation, it will want a bit more from the Ministers on how they would use these considerable powers.
I would like more urgency from Ministers. The impact assessment says that nothing is going to happen before three to five years have elapsed, because of the year legislating, the year thinking about how to use the powers, and then the powers coming into effect. In other words
words—and Labour Peers should think about this—this legislation is basically saying that it cannot make any improvement to aviation or provide any extra growth in the lifetime of this Parliament. That is disappointing.
I am a bit more ambitious than the Government. I find myself saying there are things that could be done now, on a shorter timetable, which could make life better for the aviation sector, its passengers and its users. Take the prime one of growth—that is my main concern. I have always said how much I admire the fact that the Government want to be a growth Government, but I have been critical about how many of the things they do actually achieve the opposite. Here is one thing that is not actually going to achieve the opposite—it is just not going to achieve anything, according to the papers before us—where more could happen.
The Minister says that we will have an opportunity in due course to discuss the expansion of Heathrow. Heathrow is the dominant airport of the UK aviation sector, and the success and growth of Heathrow will be a dominant factor in how well this sector does. Delaying a debate seems a little odd, because surely this should be the prime concern of the Government at the moment. When I look at the plans, I believe the Government have backed the plan that takes the longest and is the dearest. They have gone for the plan where the M25 needs to move, which adds more than £20 billion to the total cost and I suspect will add quite a lot of delay to the whole thing, as well as the actual cost of building the additional runway. There is a rival scheme, at considerably less cost and to a tighter timetable, where the runway would fit on to the existing land extending more eastwards so that we do not have to rebuild the M25.
Maybe the Government are right. I would be interested to hear their case. But we would need reassurances that the M25, during all those difficult works, would not be disrupted. Look at the important transport infrastructure of this country. The M25 is one of the dominant and most important pieces of infrastructure that we have put in, saving all those journeys through London and allowing so much commerce and passenger traffic to flow around the city relatively quickly on a good day. We do not really need a big disruption of that.
As someone who some years ago had as my main business career offering financial advice to Governments around the world, I had to fly quite a lot, rather more than I wanted to in those days. To me, as a travelling businessman earning revenue for my firm and for the country as a whole in selling overseas services, what mattered was timeliness and accessibility. I was interested in total journey time from my house to the office I was going to advise. Quite often there was disproportionate time, trouble and delay in getting from my house, some 35 miles from the airport, to Heathrow to get on the plane, which might even have been on time. Ministers looking at growth of airports and accessibility to airports have to consider surface transportation. There have been improvements in recent years to get better rail access to Heathrow. It took a very long time for those of us who wanted that to break through with the authorities to get it to happen. That now has happened with both an extensive Tube option and a link to the
old Great Western main line. But we need to make sure that road access also works for those who wish to use the airport.
It would be useful if the Minister could give us an update on Gatwick, the second very large airport in the London area. There was a plan to have a much cheaper and faster progress to many more passenger movements, with the idea of having a constant-use second runway. That requires shifting the existing relief runway a little, so there is quite a bill of cost. That was meant to be coming along before the end of this decade, and it would be very interesting to hear an update on whether it is going to happen.
The relevance to this Bill is that, of course, as those airport expansions happen, many more slots will become available. We owe it to those who are thinking of venturing very large sums of money to expand Gatwick and Heathrow to let them know what the rules of the game will be when they come to place those slots, and to look to see how they are going to remunerate the large sum of money in the case of Gatwick and the absolutely colossal sum of money in the case of Heathrow, even in the original budgets. Heathrow has all that additional risk from complexity, which could result in needing to remunerate even more capital than is currently envisaged.
While I welcome the three main aims of the Government and think that this legislation could be improved by telling us in detail how they can do things that will improve all those, we need more on the environmental impact on surrounding communities living close to airports. I speak as someone who used to represent a constituency that was some 35 miles or so out of London to the west, where there were problems with Heathrow noise. There are solutions that could be woven into this legislation or general government policy. A new generation of planes should be considerably less noisy. It is possible to construct flight paths that are less intrusive, and it is certainly possible to increase the angle of ascent and descent, which reduces the magnitude of the area affected by the noise nuisance. The more that can be done to encourage quieter aviation, the better. There are also other environmental issues relating to surface transport; I gently sketched them in relation to Heathrow and the M25, but there are similar issues for other airports.
My final point is that while, if you are interested in UK economic growth, of necessity you clearly concentrate on how you develop Heathrow and Gatwick—the giant two—regional airports well outside London can also be extremely important to economic prosperity and commerce. I would welcome more thoughts on how they can promote themselves with a good network of routes that do not require interchanging in London—or in Schiphol, as happens so often at the moment for people flying from northern and western airports. I urge the Government to look again at why this is all taking so long, why there is no sense of urgency and why there is not a much clearer refrain in this that we can go for growth here. One of the great triumphs of the UK economy over the last decade has been the big, successful surge in the export of services. Above all, services need really good aviation links, in the way I briefly described from past personal anecdote. I urge the Minister to see himself as a growth champion and to say to his colleagues in government that we can do better than this.
June 4, 2026
It has always seems to me that London and the UK lacks a decent hub airport and that a new runway at both Gatwick and Healthrow plus a rapid transit (circa 20 minutes) between the two airports is the quickest and most cost effective way to achieve this 5 runway hub. it should have happened about 20 years ago.
Airlines are also being forced to use Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) through legally binding government mandates. Both the European Union and the UK require airport suppliers to blend their jet fuel with a minimum of 2% SAF, with escalating targets scaling up to 70% by 2050. A vastly more expensive entirely pointless and totally policy.
June 4, 2026
& totally idiotic policy rather. The government have similar mad policies for diesel and petrol which pointlessly pushed up their costs too and quotas for sales of new petrol and diesel vehicles which does the same for them.
Some daft token lefty on GB News (they have rather a lot of dire dim lefties is this forced on them by OfCom) the other day said EVs are 90% cheaper than petrol/diesel cars. Total drivel the fuel might be if charged at home on a very cheap tariff but even that is mainly tax differences. But add in finance costs, depreciation, extra tyre wear, the short lived battery costs, extra insurance, the need for parking at home which is very expensive… then a medium size new EV is likely to cost nearly £1 a mile over its expected useful life. My old four cars more like 30p and about half of that 30p is just tax differences. Plus I can “recharge” them in three mins to do another 600 miles or so so far more flexible too and they will not need a new £15k battery every 8 years or so.
June 4, 2026
And the ‘charm’ of a city is important in attracting talented people in business to come and work in your city (and attracting tourism – and tourists with money).
For example, many families in business are put off coming to live in Frankfurt simply because it’s a BORING place to live. But somewhere like London is the opposite. People in business want to come and live here not just because of business opportunities but also because it’s a great place for the family to live, to go out (socially), great vibe overall, and sort of city you’d want to bring your kids up in. Increased air travel would damage this. I know someone who was saying that she had to move out of Richmond (and London) because the airplanes flying over were just too noisy – even though she absolutely loved Richmond (excluding airplane noise pollution).
June 4, 2026
I see 33 Temu hybrids caught fire at Southampton docks yesterday, another reason not to buy one. I see Milibrain has signed us up to 87% reductions in emissions by 2040 so I fail to see how aviation is going to meet these targets.
Today I read that Reform are planning on at least a £40 billion reductions in welfare spending with detailed policies lacking from other parties.
Does anyone really think work will commence in airport expansion whilst thesr morons are in power.
June 4, 2026
Ll,
What’s the data that London is not as well airport-hubbed as other cities/countries of similar GDP? And what’s the argument we strongly need another runway at Heathrow. How exactly would another runway at the airport significantly expand our economy overall (there are a lot of vague arguments on this – nothing concrete).
Also, Heathrow’s passengers are only 30% business.
So what’s the point of building another runway into Heathrow and the cost of noise pollution to London, cost to local authorise to increase road capacity and more, and the inconvenience to Londoners whilst it is being built as well as increased traffic congestion in general.
Not forgetting lots of talented people come to work in London (in the City) and visit it as tourists with lots of money because it’s such a charming and interesting city. Noise pollution would simply help to erode this charm and so its attraction.
Istanbul is the best hubbed-aiport in world (or up there). Does this significantly increase its economy? And doesn’t geography also play a role in how far one can go in hubbing one’s airports. Istanbul is in a great geographical position for air travel.
How about just expand away at Gatwick, Stanstad and Luton.
And expand at Stanstead as part of helping to increase Cambridge as world’s second Silicon Valley.
I might he wrong.
June 4, 2026
In the 1950s, you could drive directly up to Heathrow (then known as London Airport) and park right by the entrance.
June 5, 2026
That’s called charmed life. You can’t pay for that. We earn all this money but it’s nothing compared to charmed life, humour, good friends, feeling relaxed and enjoying life etc, a great relaxing holiday.
Money / good jobs / GDP essential. But we have to get the balance right, otherwise we’re like frenzied rats, running about, gnawing without really enjoying ourselves. Not worth the gnaw and the frenzy.
June 8, 2026
Having a sensible number of people in the land would be better balanced. It is presently far too overpopulated, lacking free space.
Populations and attractions are crammed far too close together, causing people to block each other’s path in virtually whatever direction they intend to go.
In some villages however, there are no traffic lights, traffic furniture or yellow lines. People can move freely and live happily out of the crush.
June 4, 2026
In relation to the “independent” investigation regarding the death of Henry Nowak, IOPC Engagement Director Derrick Campbell has asked the public to stop speculating on the ongoing commentary about the evidence as doing so risks prejudicing proceedings and hinders efforts to get the family involved the answers they deserve.
Well we do not really need to “speculate” do we Derrick the two tier approach of the police we have the video, endless examples and the policy is written down in black and white. They even wanted equality of outcome for police action against different racial groups a totally moronic policy.
Anyway Derrick I shall speculate as much as I wish to thank very much.
Then we have another stitch up they claim “mistake” by the dire BBC Newsnight accusing Farage of saying “cold white rage” and of the vile Starmer (no two tier policing here) saying just Farage called for “rage”. He actually said “cold rage”. A “mistake” almost is vile and misleading as the cut and paste Trump libel. A few billion for Farrage too perhaps.
June 4, 2026
anti white racism is baked into the British state allover the place, not just police training and leadership. the rationing of prostate cancer screening to black men only, most of whom are at far less risk than white men with family history of the illness is unscientific racism. there are plenty of illnesses which affect white people more than other demographics but in none of those cases is detection and treatment rationed to white people only.
June 4, 2026
Rather sexist too, slightly more men die from prostate cancer than women (and a tiny few men) die from Breast Cancer. Yet they screen for breast but not prostate cancer. Even the breast cancer is only every three years which can sometimes mean it is too late. Plus cancer rates do seem to be rising, possible due in part to Covid “vaccines” but as they refuse to release the figures broken down by vaccine status! So why might they do this? Do they not want to know or do they know and not want the public to know?
June 4, 2026
Racism of white against black has been a feature of policing. The answer is to tackle that racism, not introduce more racism the other way to balance up the figures.
Questions that need to be asked are – did the police behave improperly of their own initiative or were they acting in accordance with faulty police policy?
It’s unfortunate that some right wing anarchists have jumped on the opportunity to be hooligans under the pretext of protest. This allows the establishment to distract from their duty to correct policing and engage in their preferred activity of far right condemnation.
June 4, 2026
If one group is far more susceptible to a specific disease it is sensible to priorotise or even ration in favour of them.
June 5, 2026
the group that is most susceptible to prostate cancer is men with fathers or brothers who have died from prostate cancer. they should be top of any list being brought forward for screening.
June 8, 2026
Agreed Iain, and it is daft and dangerous if they are not.
June 4, 2026
Indeed it is; anti white racism is everywhere.
Men have the right to a PSA test if you ask your GP.
Anti white DEI racism is baked into all companies in the private sector as well as the state, which is why UK is not investable. The CEO of a USA tech firm called Bolt, has sacked his entire HR department, because all they did was create problems that didn’t exist.
More and stronger riots are required, because the state only responds to violence. etc ed
June 4, 2026
A single PSA test is not the same as screening which actively tracks you down and encourages you to get tested, and does scans etc as well as PSA tests.
June 4, 2026
Planning and squatting laws do not seem to apply for certain “travellers” but if you so much as want to change a window?
June 4, 2026
Edinburgh Airport ran out of jet fuel the other day. the only planes using it were ones which did not need to refuel there. our resilience in the face of supply shocks, such as the iran situation, is not good enough. same with our electricity and gas supply.
June 4, 2026
There are so many serious problems to our country. We can only begin to resolve them properly by:
1) Helping to boost Cambridge/Oxford as world’s second silicon valley
2) Helping to create a car industry in the UK where we build our own German-like British-branded cars
3) Working with those in the churches, education, media and arts to reintroduce traditional Christian values and the best of our Greco-Roman values into our country (values such as 1. Work Ethic 2. Being responsible for self 3. Family values 4. Relying on family over state 5. Community values 6. Patriotism 7. Masculine men and feminine women etc.
Traditional politics of socialism just vastly increases the problem. And focusing on creating an economy where ‘greed is good’ (to quote Boris) just doesn’t work either as that leads to corruption (in various forms – soft and hard corruption) and utilitarianism and laziness and low productivity (as millions of people want to work in a job they enjoy and feel they are valued – not being used like a cog in a wheel etc just to line someone else’s pockets). And WOKE just emotionally and psychologically scars people costing the tax payer lots of money and reducing level of productivity.
Not easy. But only way forward if we’re serious about really improving things. And it IS possible!
June 5, 2026
to have any manufacturing of anything, cars included, electricity prices needs to be fixed (inc all the reasons the price is silly), anti pollution regs need to be reformed to be in best quartile in the world not the most extreme, safety regs need a cost/benefit review, cars being imported from countries with child labour, IP theft, no pollution control, no safety kit, all need to be given tarrifs and quotas to level the playing field,
June 5, 2026
I boringly agree with most you say (you’re NOT boring but agreeing too much with people can be boring I meant ..). And agree completely with what you say here.
June 5, 2026
thanks
June 4, 2026
And the Brave New World of turning our back on our Christian heritage and best of our Greco-Roman values is NOT working. Most people know or sense there is something weird going on in the West at the moment (in the economy, society and culture). And I know personally lots of people who are really spooked by it.
But I’m an optimist. I believe our great nation still has a GREAT future! But only if we focus on the right things mentioned in another comment here (instead of just burying our head in the sand over the dark cloud facing Western Civilisation and just hoping it will blow away without us trying to do something about it).
June 4, 2026
Not very sensible or energy efficient to have to carry tons of extra fuel round on your aircraft as the airport has run out and cannot refuel you. Longer take offs and landings and also less capacity for passengers or cargo.
June 4, 2026
and slighty off topic ….33 chinese EVs on fire at southampton docks https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c392gxk1x82o not even headline news
June 4, 2026
@iain gill – the preferred future as defined by ED Miliband
June 4, 2026
Allister Heath today.
Anti-white racism is real, and there’ll be more Henry Nowaks until it’s crushed
Critical race theory has taken us from Martin Luther King’s inspiring vision of a colour-blind society to today.
Disingenuous (and surely evil and immoral) people like Starmer denying two tier policing and justice exist just adds fuel to the fire. It is there for all to see printed in their evil equality of outcome agenda and the fact that certain religious groups can legally carry 8in in murder weapon knives.
June 4, 2026
Dominic Grieve claimed there is no Two-Tier policing and that Nigel Farage’s suggestion was divisive.
Farage stated evidence that the police guidance states that minorities should be treated more favourably that the indigenous population, and he added that all people should be treated the same.
Grieve was wrong on both points.
June 6, 2026
At least EU-phile Grieve did not become Chancellor of Oxford University not that EU-phile, climate alarmist lefty Hague is much better.
AI wrongly tells me Europhile (or EU-phile) is someone with a deep fondness for European culture, history, and society. In a political context, it describes a passionate supporter of European integration and the institutions of the European Union, standing in direct opposition to Eurosceptics.
I personally have a deep fondness for European culture but I cannot stand the EU who are and have wrecked Europe in so many ways. Europhiles and EU-philes are very different.
June 8, 2026
Yes. European countries were far better when they had their own borders and currencies. Differences are important to retain and preserve. The EU sloshes so much together into an unpleasant soup tasting like kippers custard, pickles and curry.
Japan has done much better in preserving its distinctive culture. Fortunately visiting there does not involve being greeted by 47 British folk camping in caravans, sitting in deckchairs unscrewing thermos flasks.
June 4, 2026
@Lifelogic – it does bring into question the situation with Lucy Connolly, were did the punishment motivation come from? and who has the right to define ‘hate crime’ its personal not definitive. Was murdering 3 young girls a ‘hate crime’ or just murder? The UK Parliament needs to look at itself, its not thinking it is itself becoming the swamp of ‘hate’ good intentions becoming the knee jerk response to very isolated incidents and then taken out of context. Bad, very bad law making, just festers hate. The UK Parliament is now the root of all evil that takes place daily in this once fine proud country
June 4, 2026
Not sure about you but I was totally unaware of the knife rule for certain religious groups, so can we now expect a lot of religious conversions amongst gangsters?
June 4, 2026
John, a couple of points.
1. You raise the spectre of legislation being put in place to enable adoption of EU rules and regulation around air travel by this bill, specifically via use of the statutory instrument process.
That enabling of legislation, without debate or scrutiny, is a key feature of our troubling anti democratic direction of travel. There should be a formal part of Parliamentary time and process every week, where every use of a statutory instrument implementation is announced and possible challenged.
2. The much touted government policy of growth is clearly misunderstood.
There is little if any actual economic growth impacting the citizens of the UK. The small and some would argue insignificant growth in GDP is an illusion and could be nothing more than manipulation of data. The trend is within the margin of accounting error, often even down to the weather patterns experienced in any given period!!
Many of us suspect the growth mentioned by Labour is a cover for growth in the Public Sector which has certainly grown since 2024. Growth could simply be code for wage increases again seen in the Public Sector in very dramatic percentage increases for doctors and train drivers, to mention two well documented examples.
Finally, how much longer will it actually take for the third runway of just one airport in this country to be built? The time scale of our most basic infrastructure improvements is a national embarrassment,
More HS2 anyone?
June 4, 2026
I thought the objective was to end flying in the net zero cause, and use video conferencing in place. So why are we talking about expanding runways?
If demand for flying is increasing, obviously the government needs to tax it more.
June 4, 2026
The 316-page impact assessment sounds like a wasted mess. Civil Servants spend so much time, effort and expense causing uselessness.
The UK is heavily overpopulated and similarly congested with far too many facilities being crammed much to close together, getting in people’s way and preventing a smooth, efficient flow.
Too many travellers just like to fly for fun to a foreign location on business when most of what they accomplish can be achieved by phone, email and attachments or Zoom / Teams. I recall travelling to Switzerland decades ago solely to present design visuals and discuss them. Then Xerox made available what it called the Telecopier, later named Fax. That cut out a massive amount of the expense, time and waste instantly.
June 4, 2026
We need to build for the future spend the money which I acknowledge is huge but ultimately it will give us increased safety, better flow rates and greater operational flexibility.
I also acknowledge that there are different solutions available for the construction of new runways
We should build fully independent R/W’s which meet all the requirements ( distances from other R/W & obstacles etc ) so that the airport can continue to operate efficiently at night and in poor visibility.
Some of the plans I have seen will not give you the operational efficiency you require for the future.
I have spent many years operating from all the main London airports and Gatwick is the most in need of a second R/W it is an intense operation for controllers & pilots at busy times.
The current flow rates at Gatwick are only possible due to good weather and the fine judgement of controllers & pilots.There are approximately two go arounds a day at Gatwick which can happen at a late stage on final approach due to the aircraft ahead not being able to vacate the R/W in time.
Aircraft inbound to London airports plan to carry an additional minimum of 20min holding fuel due to R/W capacity. It cost fuel to carry additional fuel.
In poor weather & Low Visibility Operations I think the flow rates are reduced by as much as 50%
Modern airliners are actually already quiet with the high bypass jet engine and strict noise procedures are already in force for departures and the use of constant descent approaches.The modern airliner has enormous performance.
June 5, 2026
In very low visibility it can be 100% at many airports.
June 4, 2026
Instead of regulating for growth why not try deregulating for growth ? Instead of debating additional regulations why not debate which current regulations can be eliminated ? For example, the Heathrow 3rd runway will never be built as it will be delayed for years, or decades, by planning regulations and inquiries and lawfare challenges and by then it won’t be economic due to massive cost overruns caused by these delays – the environmental impact assessment alone will run to millions of pages even before they start building the bat tunnels and the newt ponds. .
June 4, 2026
JR a good rational as always. But the required forward thinking that is needed is in short supply, if something doesn’t swing the latest poll findings tomorrow and or the next election, Parliament, the Establishment have no interest beyond platitudes.
As vital as these transport out-lets are to generate trade and wealth that would have previously been of benefit to the Nation, we mustn’t loose site of the ‘Plan’ the UK Parliament cancelled Industry, Commerce and Trade with the World. It has become insular concerned with self, ego and the next election. On top of that they have blocked the desire and need for energy consumption – so every thing including planes are dead in the water.
There appears to be from Parliament a personal need from them to prohibit the minions using the facilities that they deem their preserve. After-all who the has money other than those that are raiding other peoples wallets?
June 4, 2026
“Then, apparently it will take another year before the Government come up with changes to use the very large powers that this legislation will give to Ministers and to regulators without further reference to Parliament. We are being asked to sign a blank cheque, but Ministers have no idea who they will want to make the cheque or cheques out to, let alone how much there may be on them.”
This appears to be the main point of this legislation and to give powers to unelected regulators and organisations such as the CCC. We need to remember that Net Zero by 2050 was put into law by the Conservative Peer, Baroness May, when PM, without a proper debate, without a vote and without a costing and then further enhanced by PM Johnson and now Ed Miliband under the direction of the CCC, climate activists and the judiciary. The Government funded report by UK Fires makes it clear that flying will be essentially banned except for the elites with all airports closed except for Heathrow, Glasgow and Belfast:
https://www.ukfires.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Absolute-Zero-online.pdf
There is no need for these draconian measures. CO2 is a trace gas necessary for all life on Earth and it is water vapour, which absorbs far more of the planet’s IR emitted radiation and is 10 to 100 times more abundant in the atmosphere than CO2, which does all the greenhouse gas work to keep us warm at the surface whilst radiating away to space the excess energy.
June 4, 2026
It does seem this Government has a preference to long timescales e.g. ones that lie beyond their current mandate. This is a wonderful stategy if one is devoted to sitting on your hands and covering your backside. There was a time when I was well paid to produce results – not in 3 or 4 years time but usually this quarter and most certainly this fiscal. That wasn’t to say there was no roadmap but there were also a lot of milestones to measure progress all whilst staying on budget and in profit.
I can detect no sense of direction or urgency from these people, who just seem devoted to using the expression “at pace” without ever understanding the concept of under committing and over deliverying.
June 4, 2026
I have always been against further Heathrow expansion.
The airport is already overflowing and operations are so concentrated that the slightest problems cause immense delays. Another runway is likely to make things much worse and prove far too expensive.
Instead, a second full runway at Gatwick should be a non-brainer and the money saved by leaving Heathrow alone would be more than enough to pay for a dedicated 40 mile, driverless railway track between the two airports. Built for a modest speed of 80mph, the new train would give a connecting time of just 30 minutes, not as long as it sometimes takes to walk across Heathrow between distant gates ! Gatwick is closer to central London than some other international AIrports are to their nearest population centres.
June 4, 2026
The problem with Gatwick is that it lies to the south of London so everyone north of London, so most of the country, has to travel further and negotiate the M25. Would it not be more sensible to have a second Heathrow hub to the north of London?
June 4, 2026
Airports need to sort out customs flow.Many have digital passport recognition and the machines are just sitting at the side and not used.Going through airports can be horrendous with queues lasting a couple of hours.They often let families with children through but us older people with arthritis have to stand and suffer.
June 4, 2026
I did mean passport control mainly.
June 4, 2026
Heathrow and Gatwick are both foreign owned, why should the taxpayer entertain any involvement whatsoever in these business. If they are failing in some way to meet contractual requirements in support of our economy then the question is what arrangements are there to force compliance rather than how much of our money the government should throw at them.
Shouldn’t privatisation have been about improving returns for the taxpayer whereas we seem to be experiencing loss of control in the nations interest, privatising the profits while socialising the costs and debts.
June 5, 2026
They should banned from taking drop off taking mugging charges for car airport drop offs which only take a few seconds!
June 4, 2026
Having read the speech but not the Bill my impression is this does not past the first test which is it really necessary? The second test, will it work in practice (and most legislation doesn’t) seems unanswerable since it does not seem to have anything specific in mind and is mainly enabling legislation which is in itself dangerous as Parliament may be passing legislation which could be used to enact something undesirable many years hence which Parliament now is not and maybe even cannot foresee.
I believe in minimum law (ancient legislative codes were often in their entirety shorter than even one extensive Act today and even then those ancient codes could have been much shortened if the senseless parts were removed from them) not turning Parliament into a machine for churning out legislation, so much legislation that nobody can (unlike in the ancient codes of law) know what is actually law and what isn’t even before Judges start obfuscating it further.
June 4, 2026
Saw part of your interview with JRM on GB very interesting
June 4, 2026
I see the US Department of State has tweeted “Ideological conditioning and two-tiered policing are glaring symptoms of civilizational decline. They must be rejected across the West.
The United States sends our condolences to the family of Henry Nowak and the people of the United Kingdom at this troubling time.”
We really are seen as a third world hell hole.
June 4, 2026
And the US National Security advisor complaining about the police assaulting the protester that was doing nothing but standing at the side of the protests, is a forces veteran, has a badly damaged ankle so could not jump down as the police were demanding, was hit in the head multiple times for all to see even once restrained, and has been remanded in custody while actual murderers and rapists get bail.
Why have those police not been arrested for attempted murder, such violent hitting of him while he was no threat was seen by everyone from multiple angles. There was nothing to arrest him for anyways, he was just standing there.
I hope he gets a good lawyer.
What a laughing stock this country has become.