UK Treasury Select Committee asks for the data to support Heathrow third runway.
Andrew Tyrie MP, Chairman of the Treasury Committee, has written to Chris Grayling MP, Secretary of State for Transport, about the economic case for airport expansion.
The letter states that it is the fifth time that the committee has written asking for the details about the economic case to support a third Heathrow runway.
On 27 November 2015, Mr Tyrie tabled a number of Parliamentary Questions, requesting more detailed information on the economic case that supports the conclusions of the Airport Commission’s final report.
These questions are included in an annex in the letter.
The Parliamentary Questions focus, in particular, on Table 7.1 in the Airport Commission’s Final Report (PDF 6.08 MB), published in July 2015.
Over the period 25 January 2015 to 13 June 2016, Mr Tyrie had three exchanges of letters with Rt Hon. George Osborne MP, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, in an effort to get him to back up the government’s economic case for an expansion of the UK’s airport capacity.
Each time, Mr Osborne responded with a request for Mr Tyrie to speak to the Transport Secretary before the questions would be answered.
On 21 July 2016, Mr Tyrie wrote to Rt Hon. Philip Hammond MP, Chancellor of the Exchequer, to urge him to respond to the same request put to his predecessor.
Mr Tyrie spoke to Rt Hon. Chris Grayling MP, Secretary of State for Transport, on 15 August 2016.
Mr Tyrie said:
“The economic case to support the conclusions of the Davies report lacks crucial information.
This is the fifth time that I have written to require it to be provided.
In November 2015, I tabled parliamentary questions to secure it. These have yet to be answered, over 10 months later.
Without this information, the evidence in support of any decision that the Government takes on airport capacity will be incomplete.”
PDF 1.79 MB)
