Transport Committee
Oral evidence: Scrutiny of the draft Heathrow Expansion National Policy Statement, HC 482
Wednesday 14 October 2026
Ordered by the House of Commons to be published on 14 October 2026.
Transport Committee members present: Ruth Cadbury (Chair); Steff Aquarone; Dr Scott Arthur; Jacob Collier; Daniel Francis; Alex Mayer.
Environmental Audit Committee member present: Chris Hinchliff.
Questions 475–549
Witnesses
I: Surinder Arora, Chairman, Heathrow West Ltd.; Carlton Brown, Chief Executive, Heathrow West Ltd.; Scott Witchalls, Stantec UK.
Written evidence from witnesses:
Examination of witnesses
Witnesses: Surinder Arora, Carlton Brown and Scott Witchalls.
Chair: Welcome to this morning’s evidence session. This is the sixth and penultimate session of our scrutiny of the Government’s draft Heathrow expansion national policy statement. I would like to welcome my colleague Chris Hinchliff MP, who is joining us as a guest from the Environmental Audit Committee. We will be hosting two panels today, hearing evidence first from Heathrow West Ltd, which developed some alternative expansion proposals, and then from Heathrow Airport Ltd. Could I ask our first panel of witnesses to introduce themselves?
Surinder Arora: Good morning, Chair. I am Surinder Arora, chairman of the Arora Group and leading the Heathrow West team.
Carlton Brown: Good morning. I am Carlton Brown, CEO of Heathrow West.
Scott Witchalls: Good morning. I am Scott Witchalls, director of transport and infrastructure at Stantec.
Q475 Chair: Starting with the strategic and economic case for expansion, why do you think Heathrow expansion is critical for national growth, and do you feel that this is adequately demonstrated in the draft NPS?
Surinder Arora: Yes, I think it is. We have been talking about expanding Heathrow for more than three decades. As a nation, I think we need it not just for expansion growth, but for connectivity for businesses and people. If we do not do it, other countries and other airports, such as Istanbul, Dubai, Charles de Gaulle and Schiphol will, and we will be left in the back of the queue. As a nation, we certainly do not want to do that.
Q476 Chair: Okay. On timing, before January 2025 and Rachel Reeves’s Chancellor’s statement, you met myself and other MPs with airlines concerned about the current operation of Heathrow for you as tenants, in effect. Were you working on a runway 3 proposal at that point, or has your work only started since the Government announcement?
Surinder Arora: No, we have been working on the expansion for more than a decade now. I always give my own views on this. When I came to this great country in ’72, Heathrow airport was the busiest international—
Q477 Chair: So the answer is, “Yes, you were.” Sorry—we are on a time limit, I’m afraid. As promoters, you will be required to provide an assessment of the project’s economic impacts across the country. Is it clear what you will need to provide to satisfy the economic growth test?
Surinder Arora: Yes, we do, but we have also been feeding information into the NPS to make sure that all our views and other expert views are taken into account.
Carlton Brown: The economic benefits cover lots of areas, whether it is growth or employment. There are lots of different areas. It is clear that you have to demonstrate the benefits across the piece. I guess the issue is the relative importance of each of the areas that you need to demonstrate. From our perspective, more clarity on the relative merits of different types of benefits would be helpful.
Q478 Chair: So you are saying it is not clear at the moment what evidence you need to provide to satisfy the economic growth test.
Carlton Brown: I think it is clear. The question is the assessment criteria on which it will be judged whether we or HAL have the more beneficial scheme.
Chair: My question was particularly about economic impacts across the country.
Carlton Brown: The benefits need to go across the national benefits and the local and regional benefits. You have to cover all those areas and the impacts, whether it is the construction or the ongoing operation of the business once it is up and running. You have to cover all those benefits to the wider economy. It is clear that we need to demonstrate that. There is no issue with that. I guess the question is the relative benefits to the UK in total—the regional and local benefits. That is where some more guidance would be helpful. In the absence of that, it is ultimately up to the Secretary of State to decide which one is the most important.
Q479 Chris Hinchliff: I am interested in your perspective on a square that I am finding it difficult to circle in terms of how the assumptions on affordability and viability underlying the national policy statement balance against some of the environmental questions. The DFT central forecasts used in the appraisal to come up with the carbon impacts of an expansion assume that 74% of Heathrow’s additional passenger increase through expansion would come from other airports. As a commercial group, how do you feel about that? These other airports are expanding themselves. They are approved to do that. They will inevitably want to fight for their share of the market. Is it a realistic prospect for you to take 74% of your increase from other market share, rather than from additional demand that would not otherwise be there?
Carlton Brown: That is quite a complex question. The airlines are best placed to answer that type of question because ultimately they fly the planes and choose the routes they fly on. Heathrow is a hub airport. It is the only hub airport in the UK. What is important here is making sure that we have improved domestic connectivity to and from Heathrow airport, which then brings in the benefits from around the country to Heathrow. Where you have local connectivity around the regions—direct flights to x, y and z—that is great, but because of the critical mass at Heathrow, certain flights can only go from Heathrow. It is only warranted at Heathrow airport itself because of the hub impact. You need that feeder traffic coming from the regions to feed the international traffic through Heathrow. That is where the real benefit comes.
Surinder Arora: If anything, Heathrow expansion would support the other regional airports from a connectivity point of view. Do we want our passengers from Scotland, the north of England or Wales going via Paris or Amsterdam, or do we want them coming through and connecting from Heathrow? Again, that all creates jobs, opportunities and expansion growth.
Carlton Brown: It is worth saying that the UK uses Schiphol more as a hub airport than Heathrow today. I think easyJet made the same point when they were in front of the Committee a few weeks ago.
Q480 Chris Hinchliff: It sounds like, from your perspective, the assumption of displacement from other airports is not a concern.
There is a second step on the affordability question. We had the Climate Change Committee in front of us yesterday on this inquiry. It has made a very clear recommendation to the Government that no DCO should be granted until the Government have legislated for 100% of costs in terms of environmental impacts to be covered by the aviation industry. It is also clear about the need to have contingency plans if, for example, that displacement is not where all the growth comes from and there is additional travel instead, resulting in more emissions. There would therefore be a higher cost on the aviation industry to offset that. The committee said that it is down to the scheme promoters to decide whether that is a concern for viability. Given your written evidence about the importance of affordability, does that leave you with concerns? In the future, you could be legislated for 100% of the costs, and it is possible that you would have to bear additional costs in a contingency situation.
Carlton Brown: In our submission, we said that affordability needs to be a pass or fail test. If the scheme is not affordable, it should not proceed, whether that is us or Heathrow Airport Ltd. We are quite clear that it should be a pass or fail test and it should not be overridden by anything else, otherwise you do not bring the benefits to the UK economy and more widely.
That is our starter for 10, but there is the balance between growth and the environmental impacts. It is how you balance those two out. The national policy is trying to tread the path between those two areas. How do you balance the impacts to the environment and local communities versus growth to jobs locally, regionally and more generally for UK GDP? The reality is that you can put in more requests and requirements on the environmental side, but ultimately that needs to be paid for and it should be paid for, in simple terms, by the travelling public. If you tip it too much, the growth no longer becomes, in your words, viable. It is that balance between the two.
Q481 Chris Hinchliff: I suppose what I am asking is that, given what the CCC recommended to the Government on Heathrow expansion, would it give you cause for concern about the viability of your proposal if the Government accepted all the CCC recommendations?
Carlton Brown: I think you have to run through all the numbers and see how you can actually make it work or not make it work. Climate is one of those issues; surface access is another. Obviously, it is interrelated in terms of people coming to and from the airport by sustainable travel. How do you get modal shift over time? For me, that is one of the biggest issues for people coming to and from the airport, but there is also the environmental impact that has. How do you demonstrate that surface access can be sustainable in the long term, when you grow the airport by a significant amount?
Q482 Chris Hinchliff: Does anyone else on the panel want to comment on that question?
Scott Witchalls: I think the finer point would be that, yes, it needs to be assessed properly. It is a concern because it needs to be properly assessed. As Carlton says, we do not have the numbers yet to be able to do that properly, but because we are promoting a smaller, lower-cost scheme, we are more confident that we can offset those costs, because there is more headroom in there. That is the key point about trying to promote a smaller-scale, more sustainable solution to the ask. It is still a concern, but it needs to be taken into account in the cost-benefit analysis of the scheme, when we get to that stage.
Surinder Arora: To add to what Carlton said, at the end of the day, any scheme has to be affordable. If it is not affordable, people will not use the airport and the airlines will not be able to afford coming to Heathrow.
There is another point, from Scott’s side, that our scheme is so much more efficient, with less land take and less cost in billions. That is something for the Committee and the Government to consider. At the end of the day, we are here in a democratic system. We must do what the Government decide. We have to follow the rules and regulations, and we will deliver if we can afford to, where it works for the airlines and the consumer. What we cannot do is build something and be three or four times the price of Schiphol, Charles de Gaulle or other airports. Then you will become a ghost town.
Q483 Chair: We have had the airlines in front of us, and I know you have close relationships with the airlines at Heathrow. Taking into account that your capex is lower than the HAL scheme but that the carbon costs, the surface access costs that you mentioned and the noise mitigation costs—which we will come on to—are roughly the same, is the scheme viable in the context of the amount the airlines are prepared to pay?
Surinder Arora: Again, we will leave that to be judged by PINS and the authorities.
Q484 Chair: Presumably you have done a business case?
Surinder Arora: Yes, we have a business case.
Chair: And it stacks up?
Surinder Arora: Absolutely, from our point of view. A lot more work needs to be done, but we are spending millions. I have always said, “Surinder knows nothing,” but what I have always done in life is bring the best team of the best people around me. We have not had a new runway built at Heathrow, or in the south-east, since the second world war. We have brought in companies such as Bechtel, which has worked on more than 180 airports, and Stantec, which has worked on more than 200 airports around the world. We have the best team around us to deliver it.
Chair: Okay. Could you keep to the specifics, please?
Surinder Arora: Sure.
Chair: Other runways have been built in the UK since the second world war, and one is about to be built at Gatwick.
Q485 Dr Arthur: Very quickly, Surinder, on the question of the regional airports connected to Heathrow, I do not think that people going to Edinburgh airport want to be choosing whether they go via London, Paris or Frankfurt. They want to go direct to China, North America and so on. When you talk about all these extra flights going from, perhaps, Edinburgh to London, that worries me. I want direct flights from Edinburgh to my destination, not to go via Heathrow, Paris or Frankfurt.
Surinder Arora: Scott, I would love that, but life is never ideal for any of us. If you turned around and said, “Actually I would like a similar amount of connectivity from Edinburgh or Glasgow as from Heathrow,” it just cannot be done unless you are going to build three or four runways at Edinburgh or Glasgow.
Dr Arthur: No.
Surinder Arora: It is about trying to get the best connectivity for not just holidaymakers but businesses. Yes, there might be one airport that you can fly to from Edinburgh—now you have flights to Dubai and other places from Scotland, which is great—and that is something we should always cherish, but we are trying to look at UK plc and say, “What’s the best we can do?” Instead of losing out to Schiphol, Charles de Gaulle, Madrid or other places, we want to bring the business and jobs into the UK.
Carlton Brown: Just to add to that, the route viability is the issue there. On well-trodden paths where there is lots of demand for those routes out of regional airports, that works. For the more long-haul flights, it is more difficult because you need the critical mass. That is where Heathrow comes in. That is why Heathrow is the only hub in the UK: you have to have that critical mass somewhere, and at the moment it is at Heathrow airport.
Chair: Scott’s point was from the perspective of the passenger. If they need a hub, they do not really mind where it is. The benefit is which country they buy a cup of coffee in, to summarise.
Dr Arthur: You might say that the reason that Edinburgh has so many of those direct connections around the world is that those flights cannot run from Heathrow just now. Edinburgh is benefiting from that, and to me a disbenefit would be having to go via London to go to Washington or New York—I am not trying to advertise for Edinburgh airport’s routes, by the way. That seems like a disbenefit to me, but I know there is a balance.
Q486 Chris Hinchliff: I want to probe one last time for clarity on one point. The CCC is very clear that the Government need to have contingency measures in place that would, if they needed to be brought into play, apply additional costs to your industry. That would of course affect the affordability and viability of the scheme. I have not yet heard a direct answer as to whether you are confident at this stage that your scheme is not at risk if the Government say, “We are going to have a whole bunch of contingency measures and, hypothetically, here’s the additional cost you will have to bear if we bring them in.” I would like a clear answer as to whether that is a risk you are willing to take on a commercial basis at this point.
Chair: Or are any of the mitigation measures to meet the four tests—not just on carbon, but on communities, surface access and so on—at risk of not happening if the Government decide to go ahead whatever? Is there a risk that they will be set aside, but the airport will still grow?
Carlton Brown: The Government have been clear that there are four tests that you cannot obviate, so you have to deliver on them. We are suggesting that there is a fifth test, on affordability, because you need to balance out the other four tests with whether you can actually make it work from a business case perspective.
The simple answer is that the more requirements you put on to the scheme and the more that costs, the more you jeopardise the viability of the scheme. Surface access is a good example of that. If the airport pays for absolutely everything on surface access, that makes the viability of the project challenging. The more requirements you put on there, the more difficult it is.
I think these issues will only get a proper debate once we have gone through all the work and looked at all the different things that the national policy statement has asked for during the examination, which will not be until 2028. When it is properly examined in 2028, you will get to the point of, “Is this affordable or not?” But, clearly, we will not move forward if a scheme is not affordable, because it just does not work commercially.
Q487 Jacob Collier: We have heard that point about affordability and deliverability from airlines, and you have stressed it today. What do you think are the biggest risks to your scheme, and what are the biggest advantages compared with the other proposal?
Surinder Arora: One of the things that has been a huge plus in our organisation is that, from the day we started, we have listened to our customer. We do not go out there and dictate, “This is the length of the runway we are going to do. We’re going to go over the M25.” We have always sat down with the customer—which is the airlines—and said, “What works for you? What do you want?” One of the things they and us—everyone—is saying is: affordability. We need to make sure that whatever scheme it is, it is affordable, deliverable and for real, rather than something we keep talking about for decades.
We have spent a lot of time and effort, hence why we came up with our proposal of doing the runway in two stages. Plus, we can do it a lot quicker—five years quicker—than the HAL scheme. If you start building and you are not going to deliver until at least early 2040, billions will go in—we worked out that the cost for those 11 years is more than £10 billion. That is not even spoken about. Although people say, “Oh, it’s no cost to the taxpayer,” the actual payer is the taxpayer. People who use the airport are taxpayers—most of them are—and they are paying for it. Hence we have come up with a scheme that meets the Government’s timescale, is affordable and is deliverable.
Someone said to me in a meeting a few weeks ago, “Your 2.4 km scheme can only take narrow-body aircraft.” Currently, 60% of the business mix at Heathrow is narrow-body aircraft. We do not want to ban narrow-body aircraft. We want the connectivity to regional and other airports around Europe. Forty per cent of the business mix today is wide-body aircraft.
The aircrafts are getting more efficient, even from an environmental point of view and a noise point of view. If you look at the numbers, the noise levels have gone down over the past decade. When we worked on the scheme pre covid, our customers—the airlines—said the optimum size was 3.2 km, and yet four or five years later, they said that actually the optimum size today is 2.8 km, so what will happen in one, two or three decades? God knows—if I knew that, I would not be sitting here. We feel that we have a scheme that works for the consumer and that is real, deliverable and on the Government’s timescale.
Carlton Brown: The other thing is that, with a smaller scheme, you have less land take, less impacts and less environmental impacts more generally. In summary, it is cheaper, it is quicker and it has less impact, so it delivers growth quicker.
Q488 Jacob Collier: What do you think is the biggest risk of this project around affordability and deliverability? Is it that you do the first phase and then do not have enough money to complete the second part of it?
Carlton Brown: There need to be clear tests around the second phase, extending from 2.4 km to 3.5 km. We do not think that is viable today, but once it becomes viable, it is something that should be delivered in due course. But today it is not viable, in our view. There are clearly lots of risks around the 2.4 km affordability. We have covered a few of them already: what are the climate requirements, what is the local community, what is the compensation and what is the surface access? What are all those costs that come with building a third runway? How do you manage all of that and can you make the scheme viable? There are significant risks in the affordability case. That is why ours and the airlines are calling for affordability measures to be enshrined and be a pass or fail test.
Surinder Arora: You make a very good point. What happens if you cannot afford it after phase 1? For an infrastructure project in a country’s capital, such as Heathrow, there is a queue of investors who would love to invest in a project like that. It goes back to that million-dollar question of it needing to be affordable. If it is affordable, there is no issue in funding. You can now check that with any lender.
Jacob Collier: If only it was a million dollars.
Q489 Chair: There are two points I need to pick up on. One is on your phase 1 and then phase 2. If phase 1 is built and up and running, and then it is decided that there is demand for a longer runway, you would not be able to keep runway 3 open while you are building the extension. How would that work?
Surinder Arora: That is a very good question. Maybe you have my office bugged, because the airlines asked us the same question. They were not fully convinced when we first came up with the scheme last year.
Q490 Chair: Can it be done?
Surinder Arora: It can be done. We have proved it because the airlines did not want to come out formally and say we support this. We had a meeting with the previous Chancellor.
Q491 Chair: You would have construction going on to the west of the airport underneath the take-offs—is that safe?
Surinder Arora: We have proved it to the airlines and we had that discussion.
Q492 Chair: And the construction industry is okay with that?
Carlton Brown: Yes. Bechtel have looked at it. The OLS obviously goes off—it goes up as you go from the runway. We have pre-built the riser—the safety zone at the end of the runway—as part of phase 1. You would not build that if you were not ever going to extend it. In our 2.4 km runway, we have an additional 300 metres of, effectively, runway grade concrete, which can then be extended later. That is the critical area that you cannot work on, so we pre-build that as part of the 2.4 km scheme.
Q493 Chair: But 400 metres to however long beyond that—500 metres or 700 metres—is one of the most dangerous areas for landing aircraft. Are you saying that the construction industry, while tunnelling the M25 and rebuilding it, is prepared to work in that environment?
Carlton Brown: Yes. That is quite normal. Bechtel have studied that and said that there is a limit on the size of cranes and stuff.
Q494 Chair: I want to go back to this issue about regional airports. Effectively, we have an open market—a free market—for slots at Heathrow. There is a declining number of flights from regional airports, and the affordability, as you keep saying, is a major issue. Apart from protected routes, of which there are very few, such as Belfast and, I think, Aberdeen—which are funded by the taxpayer—the landing charge for all other flights is paid for by the airlines and therefore their passengers. How can you realistically protect those regional flights, which work at lower price points, against the inevitable growth in long-haul flights in and out of Heathrow?
Surinder Arora: Again, we will have to leave that decision to, first, the airlines, and secondly, the regulator, and how they actually police it.
Q495 Chair: Assuming that there is no taxpayer funding, which has been a condition for this airport, the airlines would have to cross-subsidise those routes that are not going to achieve however much per head. Obviously, for the HAL scheme, they say £65. I know for your scheme, they say less per head. But are you saying that they would have to manage the cross-subsidy within themselves?
Surinder Arora: Yes. It is not something that we will be able to dictate, manage or direct. At the end of the day, the airlines have their own business models, and they need to make sure that they work for them. What we are doing is creating the extra capacity. Again, the short runway is also playing another major part. It is creating extra slots for narrow-bodied aircraft, which is what is used—
Q496 Chair: Although those are increasingly being used for long-haul flights.
Carlton Brown: In our analysis, when you look at the additional expansion that comes from the 260,000 movements, a small proportion of those are long-haul flights. At the moment, the airport is 60:40. The DFT is saying that less than 20% of the overall increase in movements is going to be long-haul, wide-body planes. To get better connectivity, the most important thing is to get your cost down. The reason why passengers are using Schiphol is that it’s cheaper. That is the simple fact of the matter. So, what you need to get to is Heathrow being a competitive airport—reduce the costs and reduce the cost of expansion. That will then lead to better connectivity.
Chair: There is analysis to be done as to whether Heathrow can be as cheap as Schiphol. Okay, Scott is going to ask about competition.
Q497 Dr Arthur: I will try to be quick. You talked about investment in response to Jacob’s question. A criticism of the HAL scheme is that the money comes from overseas and all the growth money is going to go back overseas. What is the situation for your scheme, in terms of where the investment is coming from?
Surinder Arora: Well, I am proud to have been here for 54 years, and I intend to be here for the rest of my working life—always. I think it’s a great place to do business, and we as a company are investing over £2.5 billion in the next three years on projects within the UK. So, we don’t really see an issue at all.
Q498 Dr Arthur: It is a great story about the power of immigration, so thank you for mentioning that background.
What is amazing about you guys is that this is a challenge to the status quo. You have turned the tables upside down. But it is about more than just challenging the status quo—you want actually to do something. So how concerned are you about the NPS itself and that it might just be tailored around the current operator, rather than supporting the challenge that you are providing?
Surinder Arora: Well, we have been on this project since the Davies commission report and nothing has been easy for us. It’s the David and Goliath story. I always say, and give as an example to my team, that we are in the Grand National and jumping high fences, but the other party is at Royal Ascot, running on the flat. So, we have to keep fighting and putting our case forward.
Q499 Dr Arthur: Do you think you are disadvantaged in the HENPS, in terms of being the outsider trying to get in? Do you feel disadvantaged? Can you talk about specifics?
Surinder Arora: There are always issues or concerns that people have, whether within the Government, the regulator or the DFT, and we have to prove ourselves, which is what we are doing, and I feel that we have done so. The one thing that Surinder has always done in his working life is that I know nothing, but I will bring the best team around me. If you look at all our projects, even our lenders—NatWest, Santander and others—wrote to the Government last year to say that all the projects that we have delivered over the past 25 years have been on time and on budget. That is the one thing that I have always challenged my team on: I want to deliver value for money. The thing is that you can’t totally blame Heathrow, because it is the regulatory model that is broken. Through Heathrow Reimagined, we are saying—
Q500 Dr Arthur: When I speak to my constituents about how there are two rival bids for expanding Heathrow, they can’t believe it. They can’t believe that this is happening. The airlines support you guys, but are my constituents not right in thinking, “Well, really this is HAL’s airport. It should be them investing in it, not these outsiders”?
Carlton Brown: HAL own the existing airport; we are founder members of Heathrow Reimagined, looking to change the regulatory model at Heathrow, because Heathrow is the most expensive airport in the world. So, we have got to where we have got to. If you take a step back and say, “Look, HAL are proposing to spend £49 billion, and that is not subject to competition”, which is just—
Q501 Chair: It is £33 billion or £35 billion for the new runway; the rest is the work they have been doing on the existing airport.
Carlton Brown: There is the third runway and expansion, and people conflate the two. On expansion, they are looking to spend £49 billion. The third runway is £33 billion, plus £15 billion for expanding in the central areas. That is £49 billion. That is a public reference number. So, they are looking to spend £49 billion, which is a lot of money. For that not to be subject to competition is, in our view and the users’ view, the wrong approach. In fact, one of the CAA’s fundamental duties is to promote competition.
You have asked whether the HENPS is a disadvantage to potential other promoters. We think so, yes. One of the aspects is modernisation of the airport. The national policy statement requires modernisation of the airport, and the only party that can do that at the moment—subject to regulatory change—is Heathrow Airport Ltd, as owner. We think that that is flawed. So, we have put that to the DFT, and the DFT have agreed that that is not the intention. We would like that to be clarified; otherwise, the only party that can do expansion and modernisation is the incumbent. We think that that is an issue.
There are other elements around system. There is a focus on the capability of a new runway, but that is not how international airports are managed; they are run as a system. If you have three, four, five or six runways, you run them as a system. It is about what the system can deliver, not what one individual runway can run. From our perspective, the system needs to be looked at. Whether it be wide-body aircraft, the number of movements, or access to and from versus surface access, it needs to be looked at as a system rather than as a runway itself.
Q502 Dr Arthur: There has been all this talk about the length of the runway. The reality is that you guys did not want to build that longer runway, but you have been forced to by the way this has been presented.
Carlton Brown: To compete we had no choice, other than having to do the whole thing or nothing. What we do have, though, is phasing, which is great. We have the ability to phase expansion. We think that is the only viable solution.
Q503 Dr Arthur: I did think it was odd that it focused on how long the runway is, rather than just performance.
You also said that the HENPS does not have clear objectives. Can you be clearer about what you mean?
Carlton Brown: There are clearly objectives in there, but they are spread across the document.
Q504 Dr Arthur: So, is it first a formatting issue?
Carlton Brown: For us, it comes back to the conservation that we started with, which is that there are lots of requirements, objectives and benefits set out in the HENPS, but there is no marking of their relative importance. You have the four tests, and then the fifth test of affordability. You have those key tests and then lots of other criteria, but there is no real guidance as to the relative importance of one versus another, and they are not all mutually inclusive. How will the Secretary of State ultimately decide on which scheme they move forward with? We think there should be more clarity in the HENPS so that promoters can focus on those areas when they are looking at what is more important to the nation. We do not want to be caught out later down the line saying, “This was more important than that, but we have focused on the other thing.”
Q505 Dr Arthur: Looking at performance rather than the length of the runway, the expected benefits are greater freight capacity, operational resilience and domestic connectivity. How does your proposal differ from that of Heathrow in terms of your ability to deliver those benefits, because those are the benefits we will feel as individuals and as a country, aren’t they?
Carlton Brown: From a regional connectivity perspective, cost matters. The more cost-effective your scheme is, the better you can have domestic connectivity. That is first and foremost. Ultimately, customers are price sensitive, so for airlines to make those routes viable, they need to make them as cost-effective as possible. From a resilience perspective, having a third runway, regardless of the length, will increase the resilience of the airport.
Q506 Dr Arthur: But the reason why it is not resilient is that it is completely utilised, so how much of the capacity will you not use in order to assure—
Chair: How much headroom?
Carlton Brown: There is capacity and what you actually use. The trade-off is around noise and respite. You can use the runways more, but then you are trading off more noise and respite to communities. Our 2.4 km runway will easily do 260,000 or 276,000 movements per year, but we have to be cognisant of the impact on local residents and communities from the noise that comes from 276,000 movements. One of the trade-offs I have been talking about is being cognisant of growth, but also looking at—
Q507 Dr Arthur: But we do not yet know what resilience means in terms of how many additional flights there will be. You cannot use all that additional capacity because then you will end up with no resilience.
Carlton Brown: We are working with the airlines and our consultants—the likes of NACO and ANSL—to model how many movements we can do and what impact that has for respite and noise. We are trying to find a sweet spot, because the more movements you have, the less respite you have and the more noise there is. The question for us is: where is the sweet spot where we can deliver enough growth to make it viable, but not so much that we cause problems locally?
Dr Arthur: I am sure that local MPs will be interested in the noise issue as well.
Scott Witchalls: I have an additional point on that. In the “Heathrow Expansion Appraisal Report” from the Government, they are forecasting only up to 217,000 additional air transport movements by 2055. That is a hell of a long way into the future and there is a lot of uncertainty in there. Looking to deliver to a capacity of 260,000 goes way beyond their own forecasts in 2055.
Q508 Chair: The other issue on resilience is the night period, which is regularly breached because of the need to bring planes in later. An ops director told MPs that they would not mind the third runway just to provide some resilience so that they would not need to breach the respite period. Respite periods and headroom in the permitted periods are two different things—is that right?
Carlton Brown: At the moment you have two runways and are looking to do a third. In simple terms, if you increase the capacity by 50%, you will have the same resilience issues you have today in the future; you will just have three runways versus two runways. What our scheme is doing is phasing that increase in over time so that you get better resilience in the next 10 or 20 years. However, when you go back to 3.5 km and 150 million passengers and 260,000 movements, you will have exactly the same resilience issues as today in the future.
Q509 Jacob Collier: I want to make a point about resilience. Your scheme cannot take wide-body aircraft. We know that most air freight to Heathrow comes in the hold. Do you not see that as a potential issue regarding the resilience that we have heard is such a key part of why the airport wants the expansion? Yet, you will not be able to take wide-body aircraft.
Surinder Arora: First, we can take some wide-bodied aircrafts already on the 2.4 km runway. It all depends on the loads, wind direction, temperatures and everything else.
Carlton Brown: On that point, we estimate 35% wide-bodied on take-off and 65% on landing. At the moment, we have simplistically ignored that and said that we would just do narrow bodied.
Surinder Arora: But if the current two extra-long runways are only carrying 40% wide bodied today, there is not an issue. When we had the meeting with the Chancellor, the CEO and the chairmen of British Airways and Virgin all said, “Actually the 2.4 km scheme works for us, because we have enough capacity between the three runways at Heathrow.”
Q510 Chair: Within the context of an appropriate alternation scheme— which will be for three runways—whereas currently it is for two runways.
Carlton Brown: It comes back to the point of running the airport as a system. If you run the airport as a system, you could run all the wide-bodied planes off one runway, so you do not need two or three.
Q511 Chair: But you have to plan for that in advance when you do not know the wind direction and other factors—with easterly or westerly being the main consideration.
Carlton Brown: The detail is in the modelling. When you are looking at the detailed modelling of the exact number of flights coming through every day—day in, day out—for a year, and for all different routes, that is what will tell you. You have to do all that analysis to be able to demonstrate the point.
Chair: Right. Thank you. We will now be moving on in more detail to an issue we have already touched on: surface access.
Q512 Daniel Francis: The Government view enhanced rail connectivity as a key enabler of sustainable expansion, whereas Heathrow West appears to regard it as a beneficial but separate development. Is that a fair characterisation of your position?
Carlton Brown: Our scheme does not rely on rail infrastructure coming in, but we think that it is a good idea. If we can facilitate that and deliver it, we think that it is worthwhile doing. There is a challenge on timing in getting passenger rail open in time for 2035. Parking that to one side, we are looking to build a southern railhead to the south of the airport for construction purposes and bring all the construction materials by rail rather than road. It is the same route you would use for southern rail. You can then repurpose and use that, and we will design it such that you can do that. You can then link southern rail into what is effectively our new terminal 6. We are building a box under terminal 6 to facilitate that. The box of terminal 6 that we are building can facilitate both western and southern rail, but we are working with various stakeholders, including Network Rail and the southern rail guys as to how we make that work. It comes back to the affordability point and who pays for it. Our belief is that users should pay. That infrastructure will be benefiting both airport users and non-airport users. How do you balance the cost between the two? Ultimately, if you put everything on to the airport and non-airport users are benefiting from that, can the passenger afford to pay?
Q513 Chair: Sorry, the rail passenger or the air passenger?
Carlton Brown: Both. Passengers coming in can either be staff or passengers on the rail, or you can be nothing to do with the airport at all. It is how you determine who gets the benefit and therefore users should pay for that.
Q514 Daniel Francis: On both the southern link and the western link, do you believe they would be operational by the time the third runway opened? If they were not, how would you meet your modal targets in the policy statement?
Carlton Brown: We think there is risk of those opening by 2035, just being candid. As for how you meet the modal shift, it comes in over time. When you open the runway, it will not be that the runway is immediately full and having 200,000 movements on it; it will build over time, so how do you build in your surface access improvements—your modal shift—now? You can start working on that today, before you open in 2035. That is a combination of active travel, whether that is coach, increasing bus, tube or additional train. There is much talk about the Elizabeth line and whether you can expand the Elizabeth line with Heathrow Express, because Heathrow Express is currently underutilised. How do you manage all those things over the next eight years to start improving that modal shift before you even open the runway? The rail schemes, when they come in—hopefully sooner rather than later—will then further improve that.
Q515 Daniel Francis: Obviously, like your constituents, Chair, my constituents use the Elizabeth line from the other side of London. That did have an impact, but a marginal one in percentage terms; still the majority of people travelling to Heathrow go by road. The question really is: at what timescale do you think you would need to deliver those two extra railways, and who do you think should be funding that?
Carlton Brown: As I say, our scheme does not rely on rail coming in—that is the critical thing. Although we do not rely on it, we would like to explore bringing the rail links forward to actually get them in. On who funds it, it comes back to my user pays point. If the airport is using it to deliver their targets, then actually it is right that the airport should fund that. However, if it is non-airport users using the surface access and train stuff, the question is should the airlines or consumers of the airport pay? That is the debate that needs to happen between the various parties, with the DFT looking over all this as to how we can deliver that and square that circle.
Q516 Daniel Francis: Just to clarify, are you saying that in the long term—in 20 or 30 years’ time—you do or do not need the two extra rail links, or one of them, to achieve the modal targets?
Carlton Brown: We need to model it, but our initial view—Scott can come in—is that we do not need the rail links to meet the modal shift targets that are in the NPS.
Scott Witchalls: Yes, as Carlton said, there is a series of other things that can be done, and will be done, before any heavy rail links go in. We are projecting forward beyond 2055. Looking at those passenger growth numbers and the forecast growth, again as Carlton said, you are chipping away year on year. It may only be 1%, 2% or 3% a year of shift, but you can do that and work towards it.
The other thing we have got to do is design a scheme that is entirely focused on public transport access, not just heavy rail. Heavy rail is a key part, but wider public transport access—connectivity of buses and coaches—is poor. We need to improve that by having two access points. We need to run through bus and coach services. We need to put a lot more bus priority and bus lanes in, to improve the resilience, reliability and therefore the affordability of those services.
Investing in all those areas earlier, as Carlton has said, is what will make a difference before you open. There are also a lot of potential changes in mobility trends. There is a trend towards electric vehicles. There will be a trend towards more autonomous vehicles by that stage.
Q517 Chair: Have you modelled the contribution to modal shift from those?
Scott Witchalls: We are still in the process of doing all the detailed modelling, so we do not have the exact numbers yet.
Q518 Chair: Can I just go back to who pays? I accept the point that the airport user funds their proportion and the non-airport user/rail passenger pays for their element. Say you get through to the end of this process and are the allocated promoter. How are you saying the cost of the airport-related heavy rail infrastructure should be split between you and Heathrow Airport Limited, which would continue to run the existing airport?
Surinder Arora: That really has to be overseen by the likes of DFT and the CAA, the regulator.
Chair: So you would expect them to sort it out and tell you what to do. Okay, thank you.
Q519 Daniel Francis: I would be interested to see the detail of that shift. As we are in south-east London, for my constituents, it is mainly the Elizabeth line or the car, and most of them choose the car.
Chair: This goes back to the point that Heidi Alexander made about making sure the M25 and M4 do not grind to a halt because of the lack of split not from our side of Heathrow, but from the western side of Heathrow, where there is no rail access, which is a long-standing issue.
Q520 Alex Mayer: Have you looked at whether improving surface access could reduce the need for certain connecting regional flights?
Carlton Brown: That is probably one for Scott.
Alex Mayer: You can take that away and come back to us.
Scott Witchalls: We will come back. You are talking about things like HS2, presumably.
Q521 Alex Mayer: In your written evidence, you did not make extensive reference to the climate test. On what basis do you consider that your scheme is compatible with the UK’s climate objectives?
Scott Witchalls: The fundamental point about our scheme is that it is a smaller scheme with a smaller footprint. It will have a lower carbon footprint to build, and it will have a lower whole-life carbon footprint. Those are the things we are in direct control of. We will be doing a lot to reduce the carbon footprint of the construction and the operation of the scheme itself. That does not mean that it will not have an impact, but it means it will be a lower impact, because it is designing the appropriate infrastructure to the scale of growth and user demand. That is the first step in reducing carbon impact—to design the appropriate scheme in the first place.
The wider point is that the bigger carbon footprint obviously comes from the air travel itself. That relies on lots of partners working together—Government, airlines and fuel suppliers—to continue to invest in sustainable aviation fuels and to bring in new technologies and innovations to achieve that target. That cannot be achieved by us, as a promoter, delivering the scheme itself. It relies on others continuing to invest in those measures, which they are already investing in, to get to the net zero 2050 objective.
Q522 Dr Arthur: This is interesting, isn’t it? We are going to generate all these additional emissions, but we are going to manage them using technologies that do not exist yet. Given where we are with the climate and nature crisis, that does seem a bit—
Chair: And SAF production.
Dr Arthur: Exactly. It is not just you; other promoters are in the same position. You are going to be generating all these additional emissions, but you are saying that these other people are going to have to invent technologies to deal with the problem that you are investing in.
Scott Witchalls: We are not in control of those other parties.
Dr Arthur: But you talked about systems earlier. You are part of the system, aren’t you?
Chair: Let’s try to keep it to HENPS.
Scott Witchalls: In terms of HENPS, we alone cannot deliver net zero 2050. What we can do is make the design of the airport and the operation of the airport as efficient as possible to reduce the whole-life carbon footprint of the infrastructure and how that infrastructure is operated. Delivering net zero by 2050 involves many more parties.
Q523 Chair: Heathrow is already an outlier in the wrong way in terms of electric vehicle and machinery usage on the apron, because it has inadequate grid power. Have you identified that? Lots of developers in west London certainly have. How does that affect your risk profile?
Surinder Arora: From our perspective, we always try to have the best people and the best teams around. We are working with Singapore Changi airport, which is coming in as our partner from the operating side and advising us.
Q524 Chair: That is not going to bring power in.
Surinder Arora: No, but I would highly recommend that the Committee, for your own knowledge and benefit, make a trip to—
Q525 Chair: I am not sure Singapore is comparable to the UK in terms of our grid capacity.
Surinder Arora: No, but it is about what we want to bring into Heathrow. Our nation deserves to be the best in Europe. We want to be the best.
Q526 Chair: Do you have a power source? No.
Surinder Arora: Carlton and I were there last month; all the technology they are using meant that, from the time we came through the aircraft door to the time we picked up our luggage from the carousel and got in the car, it was 12 minutes. What we want to bring to Heathrow is the hospitality experience.
Chair: I was thinking more about the tugs and the aircon that clips into the into the aircraft when they are standing. At the moment, all those things are spewing diesel at the moment, but the same equipment at other UK airports is not.
Q527 Chris Hinchliff: This does bring us back to the question which, heroically, I will try one more time. Let’s say there is a scenario in which the two main ways the aviation sector has to offset its emissions are SAFs and direct removals. As we have just heard from other members of the Committee, those are both risky technologies. At this point they are not as developed as we would like them to be to have confidence in them.
Let’s say the direct removals do not accelerate at the speed we need, which might mean that the Government say to the aviation sector, “You are going to have to invest more in SAFs now to get yourself where you need to be for our decarbonisation pathways.” Presumably, that makes it more expensive to fly, which may reduce the demand for the additional capacity that you are proposing to invest in, which then comes back to whether you will make the return you hope to make on a commercial investment. That is the point I keep coming back to. How do you feel, as a commercial operation, about that uncertainty?
Carlton Brown: That is a great point. Surinder’s opening statement was about working with the airlines and our customers. Ultimately, the airlines are our customers—that is how we see it—and they are effectively a proxy for the passenger. Only by working with the airlines on how they will operate the airport can we then determine whether it will work in the future.
It is all very well producing the pieces of infrastructure, but as you say, if the airlines themselves cannot use it because it is not viable—you cannot do the routes, and you cannot meet the standards that you need to by 2050—you are then going to have a really expensive piece of tarmac not being used. So 100%, it is a critical issue for us, and we need to be comfortable both on that side and with surface access to ensure that we can meet these targets. Otherwise, it threatens and undermines the scheme viability.
Surinder Arora: Chris, what we also do not want to do is sit here and just give you a load of waffle or chat. There are so many things outside our control. As Scott said, when it comes to buildability and running the actual airport or terminal, it is not just about the hospitality or a passenger’s experience of the service; it is about how we run it as efficiently as anyone can. Beyond that, whether it is the aircraft, engines, noise or how much fuel they use—
Q528 Chair: It is an ideal. We are just trying to get some numbers on it.
Scott Witchalls: If I can quickly come back to the energy point, as part of our scheme, we are also proposing to build a new energy centre with a very extensive ground-source heat pump network and PVs on routes, wherever it is practical. Obviously, the buildings will also be more efficient, so we will have lower energy consumption. That strategy includes having enough recharging capacity for those electric vehicles to be used airside, which you referred to. As far as the bit we can control, we will be able to run all of that as an electric set-up.
Q529 Chair: So it will be a dedicated power source, rather than relying on the grid.
Scott Witchalls: Yes. As Carlton said, we need a system-wide approach to the whole airport, but we can do our piece.
Q530 Alex Mayer: To what extent have you future-proofed the design, such as the length of the runway and the fact that climate change is obviously happening? We are having much more strange weather in the UK, including periods of really heavy rainfall, and that heavy rainfall obviously affects the stopping distances of planes. To what extent have you modelled that?
Surinder Arora: That is a really good point, and it is not just the rainfall but the wind and temperature—they all play a major role. We actually looked at it and said, “We need to look at this.”
Chair: You have modelling on that.
Surinder Arora: As it is getting warmer and hotter, we need to look at things such as temperature and rain.
Q531 Chair: Sorry, do you have the modelling on that? Is it doable?
Scott Witchalls: It is doable. For the runways themselves, one in 100 plus climate change is the design case, which will ensure that there is enough capacity for run-off so that we take away that risk on the runway itself. The same principle applies to the whole design: one in 100 plus climate change.
Q532 Dr Arthur: This is a very quick question. We have spoken a lot about noise compensation for local communities, and there are lots of different options. Do you think we should just simply adopt what was in the Gatwick DCO? Is that affordable?
Surinder Arora: Again, we will work with all the authorities—DFT, the regulator, the Government and everyone. We are not here to dictate anything.
Q533 Chair: Have you looked at the Gatwick DCO conditions for insulation levels within certain contours and at how that relates to Heathrow and the cost? To runway 3 and the cost, I mean. Obviously, we have an existing noise mitigation scheme for people living quite close to the airport.
Carlton Brown: For noise, it is looking holistically as a system where all the noise goes. Talking about aircraft modelling and use of the third runway, we have to model that and its noise impact. The requirement of no more noise across the entire airport we are cognisant of, but that comes to another point, that we do not manufacture engines for aircraft, so we have no control over that. In terms of how we compensate the communities, our approach has been no less favourable than what Heathrow Airport Ltd put forward, but we are absolutely happy to talk to communities, the CAA and airlines about what else could make improvements for local communities.
Q534 Chair: With your runway starting further east than HAL’s one, the impacts of the landings and the close proximity of take-offs affect far more residents, and therefore that would be a bigger insulation scheme than the north-western one. That was the original reason under the Airports Commission for why Heathrow went for the offset to the west location for the third runway back then.
Carlton Brown: The reality is that where we are talking about here, the noise curve is moving less than half a decibel. The human ear cannot detect anything less than 2 dB, so I think the reality is yes, our runway starts 195 metres to the east, as you rightly say, but in terms of the impact of noise, residents are not going to notice the difference between the landing of a plane displaced 195 metres versus not.
Q535 Dr Arthur: May I confirm what you said? You said that the human ear cannot detect anything less than 2 dB, but I think you mean 2 dB variation, rather than 2 dB absolute.
Carlton Brown: Variation, I think.
Q536 Steff Aquarone: Aside from the fact that the HENPS does not provide for any enforceability of air quality targets, do you accept the difference between passing an air quality test and actually worsening air quality—or otherwise—from a public health perspective?
Carlton Brown: I would start by saying that the biggest issue for air quality is surface access and cars. That is the biggest issue for us to focus on, so part of the surface access strategy is on not only how we get more people on to active travel and public transport, but how, frankly, we make the vehicles cleaner. Our modelling takes in where we are today, the fact of the uptake in EVs and all the different parties coming in by different means, and then what levers we can pull to incentivise or disincentivise people in how they travel to and from the airport.
Q537 Steff Aquarone: That is admirable and I am sure could apply to a number of different transport scenarios, but that does not rely on airport expansion. Should we really be giving away the headroom of the gains to further airport expansion? Can we not just let the local populations breathe cleaner air? Scott, you have seen this in other projects, I am sure.
Scott Witchalls: It is back to a broader principle about airport expansion in general and the link to economic growth. As Carlton said, there is always that sustainability challenge for the economy, environment and society, and how we balance the three. We are still in that conundrum of what the right answer is here. There is not a fixed answer yet.
Q538 Steff Aquarone: That is welcome clarity. You are saying, basically, that if the economic case stacks up, we should sacrifice the gains in air quality that have been made to the service of airport expansion.
Carlton Brown: That is not for us to decide. We are promoters, and the Government will come up with the policies.
Q539 Chair: Do you think that the pollution or air quality tests are sufficient, or that the air quality tests could be better defined in the NPS?
Carlton Brown: We understand what the air quality tests are and that we have to demonstrate that we can meet them, so we understand the size of the task, but it is not for us to pass judgment as to whether it should be better or worse. That is more of a strategic debate for, frankly, the local population to decide as to where that should sit.
Q540 Steff Aquarone: But do you accept that the HENPS, as it stands, is asking you to meet a target? It is not actually requiring you to make any impact on air quality aside from that legal target.
Scott Witchalls: It sets the planning parameters, which will form part of the judgment and the assessment of the DCO.
Q541 Chair: Can I just pick you up on a point you made, Carlton, that the majority of Heathrow’s air quality emission problems are from motor vehicles? That has historically been the case; it is gradually getting better due to changes in motor vehicles. However, we have had a lot of evidence of the damaging impact of aircraft-related ultra-fine particles. Have you done any work on that? Do you have any suggestions for the HENPS on how UFPs should be monitored and whether or not there should be some kind of standards or commitment in either the HENPS or the DCO?
Steff Aquarone: Particularly with the increased reliance on SAF, which colleagues have already mentioned.
Scott Witchalls: Again, it is something that does need to be monitored. The standards are being reviewed all the time.
Chair: So it should be monitored. Should there be standards and required compliance, and how would that work?
Scott Witchalls: Again, we have targets. We have the net zero 2050 target. We are in the middle of reviewing things like the World Health Organisation guidelines. Other authorities are reviewing how they may want those standards to change. At the moment, we are working to what is in HENPS, which is the current standard. If that does change, we will look to meet those requirements.
Q542 Chris Hinchliff: The appraisal of sustainability concludes that Heathrow expansion under your scheme would result in major adverse effects on biodiversity in the area even if mitigation is achieved, as I understand it. I am interested to know what your response is to that assessment.
Carlton Brown: At a high level, a third runway is going to have a significant impact; there is no question about that. A 2.4 km runway versus a 3.5 km runway has less impact, so there is less disruption. Everything is relative. While there will be less disruption, you cannot deny there will be disruption. We are spending an awful lot of time trying to look at green infrastructure. What is the end state of the green infrastructure that we are effectively removing? How do we replace that in a considered way that can benefit communities? We are working hard to try to do the best we can with putting a significant piece of tarmac to the north of the existing runway.
Q543 Chris Hinchliff: Obviously, you are here to promote a commercial scheme, which is completely understood, but all of us are also aware of the fact we are in a nature crisis at the moment. Does it give you cause for concern to be promoting a scheme that you know is going to lead to adverse biodiversity impacts?
Surinder Arora: Chris, in life, I think we have to have a balance. If we said “No expansion, no flights. Let’s just all go green; let’s just forget the connectivity. We don’t need this; we don’t need cargo”—
Q544 Chair: We are not saying no flights.
Surinder Arora: No, I am just saying that as the population grows and the world changes—technology and everything—it is just about trying to get the best balance in life. It is a bit like, “If I don’t have food, I am going to starve to death. If I have too much food, I am going to be sick.” It is just about trying to get the right balance in life.
Scott Witchalls: On that point, we are in the middle of undertaking a detailed biodiversity assessment against the baseline and the net gain requirements. As Surinder said, that is part of our scope in detail, plus, as Carlton said, we are able, because it is a smaller scheme, to use the areas around the site to offset some of that by introducing new green spaces and ecologically enhancing them through new planting and landscaping. We are proposing an open sustainable drainage system, and we will combine that with ecological enhancement and more open water. While there will be harm—without question—we are looking to offset that and more through our strategic design of landscape and biodiversity around the site itself.
Q545 Chris Hinchliff: I have one final follow-up question—it is a classic for environmental issues in a planning context. If biodiversity mitigation measures associated with your scheme were to fail because they were inherently risky, in terms of whether you would deliver the mitigation you hoped or set out to, who should be held accountable and how? That is always the question with biodiversity schemes: if they start not working, who has the responsibility to fix that?
Carlton Brown: It is a great question. To me, that is a big part of what examination is about. We are partway through and are not submitting for another year, but once us and HAL have put forward proposals for how we would deliver expansion and meet the requirement for the HENPS, it should at that point be examined and tested to see the relative benefits and disbenefits of what we are putting forward and how it can be improved. That is the time for the debate on the relative merits and the pros and cons, as Surinder said, of growth and the impact of it.
Q546 Chris Hinchliff: So you think that the specific question of mitigation and what happens if it starts to go wrong can be dealt with at DCO stage, rather than needing to be dealt with in more detail in the NPS?
Carlton Brown: Are you referring to putting forward something that cannot be delivered?
Chris Hinchliff: For example, if you were trying to deliver a biodiversity scheme to restore or grow a certain type of habitat, sometimes these things die and fail. Then, despite the best of intentions, the biodiversity scheme is ultimately not delivered.
Carlton Brown: It is about the planning and making sure that when you do that, you give it the best chance of success. For instance, when T5 was built, they created a very nice biodiversity site to the west of the airport, which has done extremely well. I am not saying that the past is an indicator of the future, but it is about giving it the best possible chance of success. Then, it is about who has responsibility for managing that site going forward, as that is the critical point. It is about whether when the developer hands the site over, the person receiving it is comfortable with it or not. That is the critical point.
Q547 Steff Aquarone: Surinder, the compensation for communities and property, and the funding for acoustic insulation, in the HENPS draft is based on the 2018 proposals of the other promoter. Do you want to comment on how your proposal differs to that?
Surinder Arora: I have always run my company on the basis of surprise and delight, Steff. As Carlton mentioned, we will deliver at least what Heathrow promised, but we hope and want to do better. Again, that is in consultation with our local residents and people in the neighbourhoods that will be impacted, as best we can. That is the way we work and the benchmark for me and my team.
Q548 Steff Aquarone: Does this belong in the HENPS, or should it be part of the DCO?
Carlton Brown: Obviously, the national policy statement has requirements for promoters to meet. If we can deliver better than that, it comes under examination of which scheme is better. If we can deliver something of less impact to the community than the HAL scheme, and it resonates with locals, PINS and the Secretary of State, that is a good thing for us.
Q549 Steff Aquarone: So set the minimum in the HENPS but leave flexibility in the actual applications to the DCO process.
Carlton Brown: Yes. It comes back to the point about the relative assessment of different criteria that I talked about before. For instance, if community compensation is a higher test than something else, we as a promoter can go, “Actually, we need to make sure that we do better on that to deliver a better outcome than HAL does, and then hopefully the Secretary of State will choose us.” If you open it up to competition and give clearer guidelines on what is important, the nation can decide whether, say, they think the climate, biodiversity sites or noise and community issues are more important than x, y and z, and then you can rate them.
As always—we come back to the fundamental—there is always a cost to all that. You can put all this stuff on, but does that ultimately jeopardise the business case of the airport? That is the bit we cannot decide. It is up to the CA and DFT to examine the pros and cons and whether this can work or not.
Chair: Thank you very much. That brings us to the end of our first panel. Thank you for your evidence, for the time you spent preparing for this session and for coming today. If there is anything that you did not have the chance to cover or want to provide more details on, please feel free to send it to us.