Meeting of the Parliament

Meeting date: Thursday, April 27, 2017

Official Report 903KB pdf

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Edinburgh Airport (Consultation)

The next item of business is a members’ business debate on motion S5M-04708, in the name of Neil Findlay, entitled “Flawed Airport Consultation”. The debate will be concluded without any question being put.

Motion debated,

That the Parliament notes what it sees as the growing concerns about Edinburgh Airport’s plan to introduce new flight paths; understands that around 120 people attended the latest in a series of public meetings in Livingston to voice their opposition; believes that a number of flaws within the consultation have been identified, including the lack of inclusion of a health impact assessment of the proposed changes to airspace use since 2014, despite a number of residents reporting mental and physical health effects due to increased noise over their homes, the lack of evidence for the assertion that 25,000 fewer properties will be overflown as a result of the changes, that Winchburgh and East Calder residents were informed through the first consultation that they would not be affected by any proposed changes but have since found that they will be affected by new plans, and the use of outdated census data from 2011 as the basis for the consultation, and notes calls for the Scottish Government to urge the Civil Aviation Authority to demand that Edinburgh Airport scraps what is considered this flawed consultation and begins the process again with up-to-date information and a more robust and credible consultation process.

12:51  

I thank colleagues from the Labour Party, the Scottish Green Party and the Liberal Democrats who signed my motion. It is a matter of regret that no Scottish National Party or Tory member has signed it.

Air travel is a modern necessity, whether for work or leisure, and many of us use it at some point. People who live near an airport know that they must endure some disruption. However, it is incumbent on the airport authorities and the Government to keep the impact of air travel to a minimum and to reduce the disruption to people’s lives.

Airports might need to expand at some point, but that should happen only when they reach capacity, when there is an unanswerable evidence base for expansion, when actions are taken to ensure that there is widespread community support for it, and when real and genuine mitigation measures are put in place that carry public confidence.

None of that has happened with the current proposals that Edinburgh airport has put forward. There is no evidence base for expansion; the airport is not at capacity; there is huge community opposition to the proposals; and the mitigation measures do not carry the confidence of the communities that will be affected.

From the outset, the consultation process on the proposals has been shambolic and flawed in so many ways. As I said, Edinburgh airport is not at capacity; it is operating at below 2007 levels. The airport claims that it has scheduling issues at peak time, around 7 am only. Is it not ironic that to address those issues, the airport has brought in charges on airlines to manage peak demand for slots? Edinburgh airport is one of the most vocal advocates of scrapping air passenger duty to increase demand, yet it imposes its own flight duty to manage peak demand. Of course, it imposes drop-off charges for its passengers, too. Its brass neck is something to behold.

In the initial phase 1 consultation process, more than 200 consultation responses were lost. Residents in places such as East Calder, Winchburgh, Kirkliston, South Queensferry and Kirknewton were advised by the online tool to check their postcode, or their future postcode, to see whether they would be affected by new flight paths. Thousands of people were advised that there would be no impact on them, so they never made submissions to the consultation, then—lo and behold—the phase 2 route options came out and those same people found that they were very much affected by the plans, having just spent their hard-earned money and life savings on a new home.

That occurred because the consultation process is based on the population from the 2011 census, which is six years out of date. It fails to take into account the huge number of new houses that have been built in East Calder, Winchburgh, Kirkliston and other areas. It is astonishing that the developers in Winchburgh, where 4,000 new houses, a secondary school and much more infrastructure will be built, have not been consulted on the proposals. I have spoken to a number of residents who bought houses in new developments on the basis of their belief that they would not be affected, only to find out that they will be.

The airport claims that 25,000 fewer people will be overflown, but the methodology behind that claim is nowhere to be seen. Yet again, there is no evidence base for this flawed process.

The consultation process has been heavily loaded in favour of the airport. Community councils, whose members are ordinary people with limited expertise in the highly technical world of aviation, have been asked to comment on very complex documents without any support or technical advice being available to them. That is completely unfair and it loads the process in favour of a big, wealthy, powerful and influential business that has consultants, technicians and spin doctors coming out of its ears. That is neither fair nor just, and I pay tribute to all the community councillors and people in the community who have committed huge amounts of time and effort to the cause and to submitting their views.

Most disconcerting of all is the fact that the new consultation sets community against community. In effect, the airport is saying to people, “Okay, you might not want flights over your property, so tell us which community you want to send them over.” That is a divide-and-rule strategy, if ever there was one. Other concerns include the way that data has been presented and the failure to adequately address noise, health and environmental impacts.

We must be clear that Edinburgh airport is not developing the plans in isolation. The response to a freedom of information request that I have just received lays bare the fact that the airport is absolutely complying with Scottish Government policy. At a meeting between the First Minister and the chief executive of easyJet in November, the First Minister said:

“The Scottish Government will continue to support all Scottish Airports to grow the number of routes to and from our airports.”

The paper goes on to say:

“We are keen to explore further route development options with easyJet and to support their aspirations to expand in Scotland.”

The policy could not be clearer. I notice that there are some Cabinet ministers in the chamber listening to the debate. It is hypocrisy for Cabinet ministers to sit around the Cabinet table and agree to that policy, which affects people in their constituencies in places such as Broxburn, Linlithgow, Uphall, Dechmont and East Calder, then to campaign in the community and say that they are gravely concerned about the airport’s proposals. They are the same Government and Cabinet ministers who also agreed a policy to cut air passenger duty. Those policies are designed to increase the number of routes and flights, which will increase pollution and noise impact. They have been rumbled trying to ride two horses at once.

I am more convinced than ever that the plan for more routes and flight paths is about one thing only, which is fattening up Edinburgh airport for a future sale at an inflated profit. The consultation is as fundamentally flawed as the airport’s expansion plan, and both should be scrapped. [Applause.]

I say to our visitors in the public gallery that I would appreciate it if there was no clapping, catcalls or show of feelings about any of the speeches. That is not allowed in this Parliament.

12:59  

I thank Neil Findlay for securing this topical debate. Edinburgh airport is coming towards the end of a 13-week second-stage public consultation on changing its flight paths, which were designed in the 1970s when the airport had around 1 million passengers each year; that figure is now more than 12 million.

I note that the modernisation is intended to improve efficiency and capacity of the airspace, and that it will potentially reduce noise impact, increase runway capacity and reduce flight delays. However, any changes to flight paths are very important to residents. I know that, because I grew up underneath the current flight path. It is local people and communities who live with the effects of aircraft flying overhead every day.

Mr Findlay’s motion highlights various failings in and concerns about the consultation. Edinburgh airport disputes much of that analysis and, among other things, suggests that the process has been independently assessed and audited, and that it is following the Civil Aviation Authority’s CAP 725 process.

I want to make two related points. First, I spent 14 years litigating in the employment tribunal. In considering an unfair dismissal, a tribunal was not permitted to decide retrospectively that, because the dismissal process could have been better, or the tribunal could have done better in the circumstances, its “better” decision should be substituted. Instead, it could come to a decision, highlight areas where flaws in the employer’s process had been exposed and look forward to ensuring that any inadequacies were not repeated.

At the end of the process, I would advise clients that it was imperative for them to learn from those flags and to ensure that, in future, their processes were robustly challenged and rigorously scrutinised, and that they constantly ensured that all stakeholders were best served. Every process can be improved, and I urge Edinburgh airport to listen carefully to today’s debate and to take on board those learning outcomes.

The second point is related. Buried in the consultation’s online frequently asked questions is the statement:

“It is in everyone’s interest that our information is clear and concise so that as many people as possible can comment and inform future decision making.”

I agree, which is why I decided to respond to the consultation to find out whether it met that criterion. To do that—which I would only know how to do if I got the letter on the airspace change programme, which I did not—I had to access the website, which, for those who need to do so, is www.letsgofurther.com. I could have written to a freepost address, but without the maps, diagrams and FAQs I would have been hamstrung. I could have downloaded and printed the 158-page full-colour guide via the website’s hyperlink, but as I was there already, I did it online.

That troubled me. There is a serious risk of disenfranchising some groups, such as the elderly, who might not be information technology literate, those of more limited means, who might not have IT access, those in potentially affected areas who do not have broadband access, and those whom Mr Findlay flagged up, who might not be so au fait with a lot of the technical language that is used. I have a real concern that those people whose voices are raised and heard in consultations might be those who are best networked and best connected in a number of senses, and those with financial and social means. I am not convinced that that is fair to those who, for whatever reason, are less able or willing to engage, including those who are not notified in time.

The questions in the consultation are somewhat concerning. There are eight maps in the interactive section, which talk clearly and concisely—for the avoidance of doubt, that is sarcasm—about design envelopes, ICAO design criteria, which preclude certain routes, EDIBO holds and vectoring areas. I was asked to what extent I agreed with the preferred flight paths, before being asked to rate the non-preferred options, again by the extent to which I agreed with them. What does that mean? “Liam ‘partly agrees’ with non-preferred route A3.” So what? How is that consulting me to find the best solution? It begs the question, what is the best solution that I am trying to help the airport to find?

Finally, at the bottom of the form, there was an opportunity for me to explain my answer, but what was I supposed to say? “I have got a better idea than all the technicians.” Presumably, as Mr Findlay pointed out when he said that the consultation is pitting communities against one another, if someone lives underneath the flight path, they will say, “I do not like it because I am underneath it,” and if they are not, they will say, “Great—let’s go with route C3a. That looks the best to me.”

I thank Neil Findlay for lodging the motion and highlighting areas of concern. I have sought to flag up some of my own concerns, and I hope that Edinburgh airport will review its processes and ensure that the consultation is the best and fairest that it can be. I am not persuaded that Edinburgh airport should scrap the consultation, because recommencing from the start would incur cost, delay resolution of the issue for all stakeholders and, perhaps most concerningly, dangle uncertainty and fear over huge numbers of people in our Lothian communities and beyond for so much longer.

13:04  

I, too, thank my colleague Neil Findlay for bringing to the chamber this important debate on the Edinburgh airport flight path consultation. I must say at the outset that I believe that, such is the public concern over the proposals, and such is the belief that the consultation is flawed, full of contradictions, lacking vital information and misleading, that there is no public confidence in the consultation. The Government must step in and put a stop to the process, and tell the airport authorities to begin again.

I have been contacted by constituents from across Fife, who have all voiced their concerns and highlighted the flaws in the consultation process. There has been a disregard for the potential health impacts on the communities that would be affected. Major changes appear to have been made to the original proposals, yet those who would be most impacted by the changes were never informed of them.

I have raised my concerns on the issue publicly since the consultation was launched in order to draw it to the attention of local people so that they would be aware of it and would be able to examine the likely impact of the proposals on their communities. In the short time that I have available today, I will highlight a few of the many concerns that people have raised with me.

A constituent from North Queensferry was concerned that she had not been informed of changes to the proposals. She said:

“Similar to Winchburgh, North Queensferry was not expected to be affected by the proposed changes, but is now due to be directly overflown by two separate routes, with separate wind directions such that it will be overflown every single day of the year if the proposed changes go ahead.”

One constituent raised concerns for Dalgety Bay, pointing out that:

“The combined impact of these new routes means that there would be aircraft over or near Dalgety Bay 365 days a year compared with only 69 days at present. With the addition of Route D0 this is around a further 15,000 flights per year by 2023. There will be no trial and little recourse for residents to change flight paths once in place.”

On the actual consultation document, one couple had this to say:

“The consultation document itself is severely flawed. It is not at all clear what the flight frequencies will be, nor what noise levels mean or even clear what heights what types of planes will fly at. There is no environmental impact assessment in terms of health impacts, wildlife impact or economic impact and the inconsistent and incomplete information in technical jargon does not allow any confident consideration”.

They go on to say:

“There have been no trial periods to test presented impacts against reality so the presentation as is, is based on technical guesswork.”

There is a severe flaw in the process, given that residents received a letter when the first consultation document came out in summer 2016 but were not notified that there was a second document—they have still not been informed about that by Edinburgh airport. The public have no confidence in the consultation, and it is time that the airport authorities and the transport minister listened to the widespread concern coming from both sides of the Forth. The minister must bring the consultation to an end. There is no other sensible way to proceed—it is the right thing to do.

I should say that silent clapping from those in the public gallery is not really on, either.

13:09  

They may be allowed to think it, Presiding Officer.

I thank Neil Findlay for raising an issue that has been steadily filling my inbox since the phase 1 consultation was launched last summer. That consultation ended with nearly 6,000 responses, the overwhelming majority of which were negative. That does not include the 200 responses that the airport managed to lose.

In Fife, as we heard from Alex Rowley, two thirds of the people who responded to the consultation said that the airport’s plan would have a negative impact on their lives. The airport said that it had taken the findings of phase 1 and listened, but here we are debating a deeply flawed and divisive phase 2 consultation that has addressed none of those concerns.

It is clear that the proposals will impact heavily on west Fife, with Dalgety Bay alone going from being overflown on 70 days per year to potentially facing flights 365 days a year for 18 hours a day, with no respite. However, to focus on the detail of specific routes plays into the hands of the unfair consultation, which pitches communities against each other and encourages residents to say, “Not over my head—stick the flight path somewhere else.” Instead, we need to agree that the consultation is not fit for purpose and should be halted immediately.

Last week, I held a meeting in Parliament for community councils that are affected by the proposals. Representatives from 20 community councils across six local authority areas attended and each had their own story to tell about how they had struggled to make sense of the documentation and how they felt misled and misinformed. They will be writing an open letter to the Civil Aviation Authority asking for the consultation to be halted because they cannot make fair and informed submissions on behalf of their residents. I will give the Parliament some of the reasons why they cannot do that.

The consultation booklet runs to 156 pages and is full of technical jargon, which constituents have repeatedly told me they find impenetrable. However, the amount of information that it manages to leave out is staggering. Professor Greenhalgh of Glasgow Caledonian University said that it is the most flawed technical document that he has seen in 30 years as it has no baseline statistics for flight numbers or noise and contains inaccurate flight data and blatant inconsistencies in how populations have been accounted for. The booklet contains no information on the social, economic or environmental impact of the proposed routes because those assessments have simply not been done. In addition, the document with that flawed information has not even been readily available to communities. Consultation booklets were not available for the first three weeks of the consultation and some communities, such as North Queensferry, have been missed out of household notification.

The CAA has already agreed that its rules on consultation, as laid out in the guidance that Liam Kerr mentioned, are not fit for purpose. The CAA is undertaking a full review of how consultations should be carried out, but it has given Edinburgh Airport Ltd permission to carry out its own consultation during this time so that any potential routes can be introduced by April 2018. I say to Liam Kerr that it is now time to scrap the consultation because we do not have a proper process in place. He talked about the CAP 725 guidance, but it is going and a new regulatory regime is coming in. Why not wait until we get that regime, which will be able to look at the true environmental impacts of Edinburgh Airport Ltd’s proposals?

In all my time in politics, I have never come across a consultation that has been carried out according to rules that have already been deemed unfit for purpose. Let us face it—the consultation is being run by a private business, as Neil Findlay said, that is attempting to fatten itself up from duty-free sales, supported by a free-for-all approach to regulation. The Scottish Government must step in and force the CAA to put a halt to the consultation. I call on members of the Scottish Parliament to join their constituents on the matter and to lend their support to the letter that we will be sending to the CAA next week.

13:13  

I, likewise, welcome this debate, which has been brought to Parliament today by my Lothian colleague Neil Findlay. Like him and other members in the chamber, I have been struck by how important this issue is not just to my constituents but to people in other constituencies and regions that are represented in the Parliament.

It is important, when looking at some of the issues that have been raised, also to bear in mind the context and why the process is taking place. Changes to flight paths have already been mentioned by my colleague Liam Kerr. Although it may be true that aircraft are now bigger and carry more passengers et cetera, the attractiveness of Edinburgh airport to carriers has seen demand skyrocket at peak times such that the airport says that it can no longer meet the demand.

Edinburgh airport uses the slogan

“Where Scotland meets the world”.

I see it as a positive that the world wants to meet Scotland, and many in the world choose to do so through Edinburgh airport. However, let me be clear, as I have been in my motion on the same issue, that there are aspects of the consultation that the airport must reflect on and concerns that it must respond to. My motion, like Mr Findlay’s, highlights concerns about the use—or lack of use—of up-to-date data reflecting existing and planned housing. The 2011 census data is not enough to go on. It is a start, and it is perhaps the most comprehensive data that is available but, as we have seen in the past weeks, a lot can happen over the course of a short space of time, and it is six years since that census was carried out. In many communities, a lot has changed in the intervening period in terms of housing make-up and location. Residents in new developments in places such as East Calder and Winchburgh should not be forgotten by focusing on census data alone.

At a community council meeting that I attended in Ratho, the airport representatives told us that local development plans also form part of the consideration of new flight paths. I understand, too, that the airport has engaged with developers and local authorities to assess how housing will change in particular communities over the coming years. That is all well and good, but my motion urges the airport to fully consider all the aspects of future population trends and densities. That is only fair to those who are already committed to new communities, who did not know before they moved there about the mooted changes to flight paths.

The airport should redouble its efforts with communities that have been brought into the flight path envelopes following the first consultation. I have been contacted by constituents who checked the airport’s postcode tracker during the first consultation. Some of them—understandably—did not respond when they realised that they were not within the swathes. To their surprise, they are now within the design envelopes. The airport must ensure that sufficient attention is given to those who did not respond to the first consultation for that very reason. They feel that they are on the back foot. Some people may have had two bites at the cherry, yet for others the news that the new flight paths may now be directly overhead has caused them to distrust the consultation process. The airport should address that.

The emails that I have received from constituents include some very real and legitimate concerns. Although the Consultation Institute has given the let’s go further process a good practice rating so far, the airport must be conscious of the anomalies in the process. Local concerns must be heard. I look forward to airport officials reflecting on today’s debate, listening to the concerns of local people and taking action to ensure that all voices are heard in the process.

13:17  

I thank Neil Findlay for securing this vital debate. Like other members, I have been deluged with emails from constituents over the past few months in relation to the proposals for an airspace change. I do not have time today to describe in full the anxiety, stress and impact from the proposed changes for families in Winchburgh, South Queensferry and places elsewhere who have contacted me. Suffice it to say that the consultation has been seriously flawed and that the airport operators have misled the public and displayed arrogance and a contempt for public opinion. In my short contribution, I want to say something about why that is happening.

Behind many such issues lie questions of governance. Tony Benn famously asked five questions of those in power. He asked,

“What power do you have? Where did you get it from? In whose interests do you exercise it? To whom are you accountable?”

and, famously,

“How do we get rid of you?”

In order to answer those questions, let us first understand what is going on. The governance and control of airspace is governed by the Civil Aviation Authority and by National Air Traffic Services, or NATS. An airspace change is being proposed by Edinburgh Airport Ltd and the decision maker is the Civil Aviation Authority. The CAA’s predecessors were the military, which controlled airspace from the 1930s through to the 1950s.

The CAA’s costs are substantially met by charges on those whom it regulates. In 2015-16, that amounted to £78 million out of total income of £132 million. Meanwhile, NATS is a private company that is owned by the UK Government and airlines and funded by airline operators. Therefore, airspace changes are initiated by private operators—in this case, Edinburgh Airport Ltd—and the plans are then evaluated by a regulator that is in the pay of that same private company. That is not a governance framework that can work in the public interest.

I turn to Edinburgh airport. Who is Edinburgh Airport Ltd? The company is owned by another company, Green Midco Ltd, which in turn is owned by a company called Green Topco Ltd. No such company exists in the United Kingdom. Green Topco might be a company that is registered in Luxembourg or it might be a company of the same name that is registered in Grand Cayman. When members of the Scottish Parliament, members of Parliament and councillors engage with the wide range of issues relating to the provision of aviation services in Edinburgh, where exactly is the line between the public interest and the private gain, and how can we ever know? Critically, are the proposals in the public interest or are they designed to boost the asset value of a company that is to be sold off at profit in the years ahead by a bunch of faceless offshore speculators?

I turn to Tony Benn’s famous five questions. How might we answer them?

“What power do you have?”

Edinburgh Airport, NATS and the CAA have virtually all the power.

“Where did you get it from?”

They got it from Conservative Governments that privatised the airports and NATS and created the modern CAA, whose statutes privilege commerce and the needs of the private airline industry.

“In whose interests do you exercise it?”

Edinburgh Airport exercises power in the interest of its faceless shareholders in faraway tax havens.

“To whom are you accountable?”

Edinburgh Airport is accountable to its shareholders. The CAA and NATS are nominally accountable to the UK Government and Parliament but are funded by the airline industry and, thus, are accountable to private interests as well.

“How do we get rid of you?”

We cannot do that without substantial political effort directed at bringing the governance of airspace and airports infrastructure under public control, regulation and oversight. The CAA’s most recent annual report states that

“our airspace is a key part of our national infrastructure”,

but to all intents and purposes it is a private realm.

Gordon Dewar, the chief executive of Edinburgh Airport Ltd, told constituents of mine who are campaigning against airport expansion:

“The people that you need to blame are your politicians. They’re the ones who sold the airport to us in the first place. What do you think we are going to do?”

I cannot help but think of Renton in “Trainspotting”, who said:

“It’s a shite state of affairs to be in”.

Our job should be to clean it up.

I know that that was a quote, but I remind members that they should be careful about the language that they use.

13:22  

I congratulate Neil Findlay on bringing the motion to Parliament for debate. I say for the record that although I had some reservations about it, I signed it, so that the debate could proceed. There are important issues that need to be aired.

As the MSP for Edinburgh Western, I am in many ways proud to host Edinburgh airport in my constituency. It is the source of 23,000 jobs in the Lothians, 6,000 of which are at the airport itself. It does good work for charities and community groups through the community board, which I chair. However, although the airport is unquestionably an asset, it has a duty to be a responsible neighbour.

For many years, inbound and outbound flights over the village of Cramond have been a major source of casework for me and my forebears. We may now be nearing progress being made on inbound flights. Through a combination of use of RNAV—area navigation—technology and discussions with the Civil Aviation Authority, there may be an opportunity to divert inbound aircraft over the River Almond, through a type of diversion that has previously been offered only over Tel Aviv as a means of avoiding surface-to-air missiles, although I am certain that the good people of Cramond are not quite at that point, yet. That type of diversion would be a positive development.

On outbound flights, the first iteration of the flight path consultation saw more than 2,000 signatures being attached to a petition in my name and the name of my Liberal Democrat colleague Kevin Lang, which called for the left turn that is currently undertaken by outbound aircraft to be commenced earlier, at the end of the runway, in order to avoid Cramond altogether. I am gratified that the airport seems, as I understand it, to have acted on that call, so I thank it for that.

My principal concern around the consultation process centres on the community of South Queensferry. In the first iteration of the consultation, the design envelope for westerly outbound routes covered an expanse of territory over West Lothian; such was the proposition that was mailed out to tens of thousands of homes across the Lothians. Not unsurprisingly, the airport received a deluge of responses from residents in West Lothian—some of whom are in the gallery today—stating their absolute opposition to that design envelope. I fully understand that.

What happened next however, was, to be frank, astonishing. In its second iteration of the consultation process, under the moniker “You spoke and we listened”, and buried in a heavy document, the airport revealed that its preferred route for westerly outbound flights—route D0—would now avoid West Lothian entirely and would, instead, overfly the Echline estate on the western periphery of South Queensferry.

On learning of that, I contacted the airport directly, which explained that it had received no objections from South Queensferry in the first round. I immediately pointed out that no such responses were forthcoming from South Queensferry because residents were under the impression that they were some 10 miles east of the preferred design envelope and did not know that they were even in consideration. They know now—my Liberal Democrat colleagues and I are working round the clock to make sure that citizens in that community are aware of that fact and are responding to the consultation. They shall do so in great numbers, and not only because of the density of the population in the area—which is far greater than was cited from census data that are, as we have heard, six years old—but because of the houses that are still to come with the Builyeon Road development, to name but one.

South Queensferry is a beautiful community that I am proud to represent, but it is often taken for granted. Its citizens pay Edinburgh council taxes, yet it is not served by adequate public transport links. We cannot blame the citizens of South Queensferry for feeling that they are being taken for granted yet again. I am keen to work with the airport on the matter, and I have already engaged with colleagues at the airport and from across the chamber on taking South Queensferry out of the design envelope. That issue represents a red line for me. I urge the airport to think again, to act as the responsible neighbour that it needs to be and to protect the skies above communities that never thought that they were part of the consultation.

13:26  

I thank Neil Findlay for bringing the debate to the chamber and I thank members for their contributions. Many of the points that have been made have been very reasonable, but there were some that I take issue with. I will try to address some of the points of consensus, and Edinburgh Airport Ltd should be able to move forward on the issue.

The first point that I will address was made by Neil Findlay about colleagues on my left and on my right. They are cabinet secretaries, but they are also constituency MSPs. For those who are not familiar with parliamentary or governmental protocols, processes and conventions, it should be highlighted that it is not a protocol or, indeed, a convention for cabinet secretaries to take part in a members’ business debate—that is for the minister who has the appropriate remit and responsibility. However, I should say that Angela Constance and Fiona Hyslop have both, in their constituency MSP roles, made representations to me on the matter on behalf of their constituents.

When I have, in my ministerial role, had conversations with Edinburgh Airport Ltd about the consultation on the potential expansion of airspace, it has acknowledged that there have been flaws in the process. It heard the calls and took the advice of an independent body, which has, as Gordon Lindhurst mentioned, given the quality of the airport consultation the mark of good practice. Edinburgh Airport Ltd should not take that to mean that it has ticked every box and engaged appropriately, and that it should dismiss concerns. Some of the concerns that have been raised have been extremely valid. Gordon Lindhurst made, in a reasonable speech, the reasonable point—which was reiterated by a couple of other members—that it is not an acceptable state of affairs that people had put in their postcodes during the first stage of the consultation and thought that they would not be affected, only to find out that they possibly would be. I encourage Edinburgh Airport Ltd to listen to their concerns.

Edinburgh Airport Ltd can listen all it likes, but some people have moved their families and spent their life savings to move to properties that they believed would not be affected. Listening does nothing for those people. What is the minister’s advice to them?

That is not an unreasonable point to make.

I will go through the process and go on to address points that were made about the governance of the CAA. Ultimately, Andy Wightman and others are right to say that Edinburgh Airport Ltd will, on the back of its consultation—flawed or otherwise—make an application to the CAA and that it will be for the CAA to make a decision. The point is, of course, that there are concerns. I urge Edinburgh Airport Ltd—as I have already done—to consult local communities further. It has held 24 public meetings, which more than 1,000 people have attended. I understand from people who attended the meetings that constituents have put their views robustly to Edinburgh Airport Ltd. It is absolutely correct for them to have done so.

On my involvement in the issue, a number of members have said that the Scottish Government should demand—I think that Mark Ruskell said “force”—the airport to scrap the consultation, and a number of other members have said that it is the Government’s responsibility to step in now. However, I am afraid that it is not the Government’s responsibility: it is Edinburgh Airport Ltd’s consultation, and it will make the application to the CAA. As other members have said, the CAA will ultimately make the decision.

If the public have lost all confidence in the consultation process—we have seen lots of evidence for why—surely the duty of the Government is to stand up for the communities around the Forth and to say that the consultation needs to be halted.

The point that I was coming to is that other members from across the chamber have rightly acknowledged that Edinburgh airport is expanding, and that that is good for local communities because there are 600 jobs in the airport and more than 5,000 more that are supported in and around the campus. Furthermore, there were 1 million passengers when the airspace was designed in 1970, but about 13 million are projected by the end of 2017. There is a need to explore and examine—

Will the minister give way?

If Alison Johnstone does not mind, I would like to make some progress. I have already taken a couple of interventions and time is short.

Another concern that was raised—it was an extremely reasonable point—was about proposed future developments. Fiona Hyslop, who represents Linlithgow, invited me to look at the Winchburgh development. From my point of view—and that of members from across the chamber—it beggars belief that that development, which is one of the largest developments in the central belt, could be ignored.

There are some extremely reasonable concerns, and it is the Government’s view that the deep concerns about the consultation that have been expressed must be listened to by Edinburgh Airport Ltd. If Edinburgh airport makes an application to the CAA on the back of the consultation, that will give local communities and politicians another opportunity to reiterate their concerns about the proposed plans, so an application being made does not in any way represent the end of the road.

On governance, Andy Wightman made an interesting point—

Will the minister give way?

No. I want to tackle Andy Wightman’s point.

Hannah Bardell MP has also suggested the establishment of a substantial regulatory body to monitor noise and is independent, which would be important. By highlighting that issue at Westminster, she managed to secure a commitment from the UK Government to set up an independent aviation noise authority. Hopefully, that will allay some of the fears that Andy Wightman raises.

Edinburgh Airport Ltd will be listening to the concerns that have been raised today—I know that it is watching the debate closely. Some of the points that have been raised on behalf of constituents, many of whom are in the gallery, have been extremely reasonable. I urge Edinburgh Airport Ltd to continue to consult local MSPs, regional MSPs and communities. Ultimately, however, if it makes its application to the CAA, I encourage members who have spoken today, as well as community councils, other MSPs and—after the local elections—councillors to make representations to the CAA, if they continue to be unhappy.

We all want continued and sustainable economic growth, and many members from across the chamber want Edinburgh airport to expand—although I acknowledge that some do not. As many members have said, it is incumbent on it to take communities with it on that journey.

13:34 Meeting suspended.  

14:30 On resuming—