Justine Greening
Main Page: Justine Greening (Independent - Putney)Department Debates - View all Justine Greening's debates with the Department for Transport
(5 years, 2 months ago)
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Chris Grayling
As the House will know, it is often custom and practice to share the cost of a public service obligation with a local authority. It is right and prudent for the Government to seek to share the load when we can.
Justine Greening (Putney) (Con)
Next week, I will hold a public meeting in my constituency on Heathrow expansion. Many of my constituents are concerned that Heathrow is just like Seaborne. It is another case where the Department for Transport has fallen hook, line and sinker for impossible claims made by a company that has very little chance of ever delivering on them—“Not a single extra car going to the airport,” and, “Air pollution not a problem,” even though we know that it is a huge problem in that part of London. It is exactly the same. The difference, though, is that when the Heathrow proposals go utterly pear-shaped, taxpayers will pick up the bill, and this is not just a £14 million project, but an £18 billion project.
Chris Grayling
My right hon. Friend is very committed to her view on this matter, but this House voted by a majority of nearly 300 to pursue this project and give Heathrow the green light. It now has to go through detailed consent processes, but I believe that it is a project that is strategically important to the United Kingdom.
Anna Soubry (Broxtowe) (Con)
You’ll be lucky, Mr Speaker. [Laughter.] And—blatant creeping—happy Valentine’s day.
Anna Soubry
Speakerdate—hashtag! I should like to thank the Minister for her excellent visit to my constituency last week and for the HS2 meeting that she convened. On Sunday, I attended the AGM of the Toton, Chilwell Meadows and Chetwynd neighbourhood forum and saw its bold, realistic and exciting plans for the area, based in part on HS2 coming to Toton sidings. Do she and the Secretary of State agree that it is vital that, when the development body is formed for HS2 at Toton, the neighbourhood forum is fully involved in all its workings?