How the Airports Consultation Was Spun

Alistair Darling

Spin has become a live political issue since Labour came to power. The more extreme forms of spin are quite sinister and threaten the integrity of public affairs and democracy in this country. An area of spin which is perhaps unequalled for its subtlety, consistency and depth of deceit is the government's airports policy. In this page we expose some of what has been going on.

It is possible to go straight to our analysis of the government's consultation on its airports policy. However, you are recommended to read the next sections - 'a history of bias' and 'Labour abandons environment and democracy'. These give compelling evidence as to why the government cannot be trusted on its airports policies.

BAA first in the door  When Labour came to power, virtually the first people through John Prescott's door were BAA, the operators of Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted. They have been in ministers' offices, metaphorically at least, ever since. Every government study and every policy seems to involve BAA. Meanwhile, ministers are far too busy to see organisations such as Friends of the Earth, who might give a different perspective.

Start of the love affair  The first real evidence of the government's love affair with BAA and the air transport industry was in August 1998, when the government announced it was going to widen the M25. When in opposition, Labour shadow ministers had described the idea of widening the M25 as "lunacy" and "this £100 million motorway madness". When Labour came to power, they immediately ordered a review of the Conservative's roads programme. But then they heard that BAA wanted the M25 widened because this was part of their plan for Heathrow Terminal 5 (T5). So eager was the government to do BAA's bidding, they announced widening of the M25 along just the section that BAA wanted (Junctions 12 to 15). They did not even wait for the results of their own roads review, let alone the end of T5 Public Inquiry. See Press Release [archived file]

T5 stitch-up  During the Public Inquiry into T5, it became increasingly clear that the government had made up its mind on T5. The inquiry was just going through the motions and the Inspector, Roy Vandermeer was a stool pigeon. When giving evidence at the T5 inquiry, the government, particularly the Department for Transport, carried out studies and gave evidence that was exactly in line with BAA's. They attacked the evidence of groups such as Friends of the Earth, but never BAA or the rest of the aviation industry. They even employed the same consultants and expert witnesses as BAA. So the same people paid by BAA to present the most flattering evidence in favour of T5 were then employed to give evidence on behalf of the government! These 'experts' could hardly change their story without losing all credibility. So the government was, in effect, re-presenting BAA's case for them.

Pressure mounts  There was also mounting pressure outside the T5 inquiry as New Labour's over-riding interest in doing the bidding of big business became more apparent. Direct evidence was an attack from Labour minister Richard Caborn on people who opposed schemes at public inquiries. The most conclusive evidence was the decision of the government to widen the M25 to facilitate T5 (see above). If the government had had the slightest intention of taking any notice of the public inquiry on T5, it would not have announced M25 widening until the inquiry had finished and the decision on T5 had been announced.

Attorney General supports law breakers  Part of the T5 scheme involved building a spur road from T5 to the M25. Research by Friends of the Earth revealed that the alignment of the road chosen by BAA and supported by the Department of Transport would have caused hedges to be destroyed illegally. Despite this, the Attorney General refused to give leave to bring legal action. In effect he was endorsing law-breaking by BAA and the Department of Transport. The Attorney General is one of the most senior political figures in the land and is a political appointee. Apparently, government support for the industry extends as far as breaking the law!

Sustainable Development  In the wider environmental arena, the government was also losing its green credentials. The promises of 'Sustainable Development' were quietly given up when it was realised these might conflict with the desires of big business. Sustainable Development, which was to be instrumental in protecting our planet and its people from catastrophes such global warming, has been cynically subverted by the government. It was quietly re-defined, without any announcement, debate or consultation thus : "striking a balance .. between the social and economic benefits and any environmental effects". What this means in practice is that the environment can be traded off for (alleged) economic benefits. A far cry from the heady days of the World Summit at Rio in 1993 or even from Labour's election win in 1997.

Promoting false agendas  Along with its partners in business, the government has consistently promoted the idea that there has to be a conflict between economic development and environmental protection. That there an inevitable conflict is probably wrong and certainly unproven. The government has not produced any evidence for such an assertion or explicity said it considers it to be true. It has nonetheless allowed and encouraged the idea to be widely accepted. As important and equally indefensible is the idea that the provision of jobs and protection of the environment have to be in conflict.

Preventing public participation  Another area of concern was the government's proposal to overhaul the planning system. One of its main proposals was to abolish the system of planning inquiries for major planning applications. This system, despite its disadvantage of cost, has the great merit of allowing environmental, social and economic issues to be fully scrutinsed. The government's proposal, in contrast, was to decide on the application in a short debate in Parliament. None of the impacts could be properly debated, and the debate would in any case be meaningless since the government could 'whip' its MPs to vote in favour of the decision they had already made. The government explicitly included airports in this proposal and furthermore made it clear that this was the one type of type of scheme where, unlike some others, they were adamant. Needless so say, the industry was a strong supporter of the changes. Due to massive and unexpected protest, the government had to withdrew its proposals. Nonetheless, the episode shows the lengths to which the government will go to help its partners in the industry, even to the extent of trying to remove well-established democratic rights of people to have a say in their local environment.

Pro-airport spin - the campaign plan

Having established its private agenda, to help big business with whatever it wants, and having re-defined 'sustainable development' to ensure that it could not impede this agenda, the government was in a position to start a major campaign of spin in order to promote expansion of airports across the UK. For more on the reasons for our rather cynical view of this, go back.

Key to the campaign of the government and industry is to promote an "economy and jobs versus environment" agenda, as described above. This can then be used to push ahead the expansion of airports despite the severest environmental impacts. If the government and its partners in business go on about the employment and economic benefits of evermore air travel and downplay the environmental and any other downsides, eventually the public will believe the stories. Or they will at least acquiesce to expansion of airports across the country or to the building new ones. The strategy is clear. Use every opportunity to 'hype up' economic or employment arguments of air travel. Meanwhile downplay and under-estimate any environmental impacts.

The environmental downsides, such are noise, air pollution, concreting the countryside and even global warming are generally well understood. The government has therefore not attempted to deny them, but has instead systematically tried to downplay and under-estimate them. We give just a few examples. More detail can be found in the Airport Watch briefings and the West London Friends of the Earth response to the airports consultation.

Noise  The government has systematically understated the areas affected by noise by using the '57 decibel (dB) contour' for noise around airports. Research carried out for the World Health Organisation and various EU countries shows that noise down to about 50dB can cause nuisance. If 50dB were taken as the cut-off, the area affected by noise would be some 3 times greater. The government has also made optimistic assumptions on the noise of planes. While not proposing any measures to force airports and airlines to use quieter planes (for fear of offending the industry), they have assumed the fleet will get far quieter. As if this were not enough, they have, for Heathrow at least, continued the history of constant underestimating of flight and passenger numbers.

Air pollution  The government has taken a wholly 'legalistic' position, taking account only of cases where the EU could take action against the UK government. The government has ignored the actual health effects of air pollution - its own committee estimated that up to 24,000 people a year die from air pollution. It has ignored ozone - a major killer - and it ignored the effects of pollution on vegetation, buildings and structures. Local authorities have a statutory duty to produce 'Action Plans' to improve air quality, but these are likewise ignored.

Global warming  The government addresses the issue by estimating a charge or tax that might be imposed on air travel to pay for the economic cost or 'external cost' imposed on society by aircraft emissions. (See below for explanation of external costs.) A charge equal to the external costs, by virtue of reducing demand and improving efficiency, would reduce emissions. But at the same time as hypothesising about this charge, the government suddenly assumes that the low cost airlines will cause prices to fall faster than previously expected, so that any improvement as a result of an environmental charge will be "comfortably" offset. This is taken, in some bizarre way, as a reason to ignore the issue of global warming.

Wildlife and habitats  The airport studies categorised adverse impacts as high, medium and low with additional categories of neutral and positive. Only damage to sites with a very special designation or development affecting a few of our rarest or most endangered species were deemed to be of high or medium impact. Anything else was low. This means that any amount of habitat loss and any amount of loss of population of most of our native species can be deemed 'low impact'. So much for government's commitment to the 'preservation of biodiversity'!

Mitigation  A clear thrust of the consultation and of the industry's PR campaign is to gain support for unconstrained expansion as long as there is "regard for environmental concerns" and there is "mitigation" for adverse effects. Such expressions are virtually meaningless - it would be possible to 'have regard' and to 'mitigate' while allowing any level of impact and any rate of increase. To have any meaning, environmental standards and limits to impacts need to be quantified and built into any airports strategy. These standards must then be adhered to in any expansion plans. Merely referring to 'mitigation' is tantamount to putting a spin on lack of environmental protection.

External costs  External costs are cost which are imposed on society, but which are not paid for by the induustry or its customers. For more information on the external costs (and tax avoidance), see tax dodges. The government says that it believes that air transport should pay its external costs. But all the consultation and all the proposals for airport expansion are based on the assumption that the external costs will not be paid during the next 30 years. It now becomes clear why the government is so desperate to under-estimate the external costs of air travel. If it admitted how large they are, the significance of the omission would be seen to be huge and this would totally undermine their proposals for expansion and their economic arguments.

Great play is made by the government about the economic benefits of air travel. This is used as an argument to support a rapid increase in the volume of air transport. The arguments do not stand up to close scrutiny, but the government avoids any real analysis, instead relying on 'sound bytes' and inference. Even more sinister, it rigorously suppresses information and counter-argument which might weaken its 'hyping up' of the economic case. We give a few examples. More detail can be found in the Airport Watch briefings and the detailed West London Friends of the Earth response to the airports consultation.

Contribution  The 'contribution' of air transport to the UK economy is referred to in glowing terms, although it actually represents a mere 1.4% of Gross Domestic Product or GDP (not mentioned in the consultation of course). The consultees are led to infer that if air transport grows, there will be a corresponding growth of the economy. This is not the case, because, as any economist will explain, resources and economic activity are transferable. If we choose to spend less on air travel, we will have more money to spend on other things. Those other things, whatever they are, will equally contribute to the economy. So the volume of air travel or its proportion of GDP has no direct implications for the size of the economy. This absolutely crucial factor was never mentioned in the consultation.

Economic benefits  Various options for airport expansion are subject to an economic analysis to show their 'net economic benefit'. However, all the 'external costs' and all the taxes that air transport avoids are left out of the calculation. It has been calculated (Aviation Environment Federation) that the total costs and taxes avoided amount to an astonishing £9 billion pa. If these were factored in, the economic case for expansion would be completely undermined. See Tax-free Aviation.

Tourism  The consultations make claims about large benefits from air travel by virtue of it bringing tourists and money into the UK. It hides away, shamefully, the fact air-borne tourism takes far more money out of the country than it brings in.

Business  The consultation also makes great play about the fact that air travel can bring investment and jobs into the country. But it makes no mention of the fact that it can equally suck investment and jobs away. It also fails to point out in this context that the great majority of air travel and the great majority of the forecast growth is for tourism, not business. So the large growth being promoted by the government has little to do with business anyway.

Rigged study  This campaign of misinformation on the economic benefit of air travel was launched by a study called "The Economic Benefits or Aviation" in 1998 by a firm of consultants called Oxford Economic Forecasting (OEF). It purported to be a government study, one of a number of studies to underpin the government consultation "The Future of Aviation" and the current airports consultation. In fact, 90% of the cost was paid for by the aviation industry and it read like lobbying document for them. The report was even given a high-profile launch by the chairman of British Airways, Sir Colin Marshall, not by the government for whom it was meant to be done.

There were fundamental flaws in the study which were pointed out by Friends of the Earth, other non-governmental organisations and by independent economists. These flaws, which could not have been overlooked by any competent economist, were not disputed by the OEF or the government. Given this scandal, the correct course of action would have been for the government to employ fresh consultants who were not beholden to the air transport industry. But instead of doing this, the government engaged OEF to undertake further studies!

The thrust of all the Consultation Documents (CDs) is to show how important it is to hugely increase airport capacity. To that end, much of the CDs consist of evaluating a series of options for exanding existing airports and/or building new ones. However, all the alleged benefits depend on an assumption that air transport continues not to pay its external costs or its fair share of taxes. The government has carried out further computer modelling that shows that if taxes were payed, there would be no need for any new runways. See Tax-free aviation page.

Another key plank of the government's strategy is to 'hype up' the issue of employment and use it to justify massive airport expansion. As with its economic arguments, the issue of jobs is used to lead consultees into supporting a rapid increase in the volume of air transport by relying on 'sound bytes' and inference. As with the economics, the consultation rigorously suppresses information and counter-argument which might weaken its 'hyping up' of the jobs argument. The issue is summarised below. More detail can be found in the Airport Watch briefings and the West London Friends of the Earth response to the airports consultation.

Air transport accounts employs some 180,000 direct staff and about 200,000 indirectly via the supply chain. However, the number of people employed in industry does not directly affect the total number of jobs in the UK. This is because money spent on air transport is money not available to be spent on something else. If the money were spend on goods and services other than air transport, the supply of those goods and services would generate jobs. The amount of air transport and its rate of growth therefore have no significant effect on the total number of jobs in the UK. This conclusion is supported by economic consultancies.

This crucial fact - that employment in the UK is not affected by the growth of air transport - is never mentioned in the consultation. The consultation is biased because the reader is led to believe that growing air transport will create extra jobs in economy as a whole, not just in the air transport industry. The figures of jobs are clearly quoted without qualification or context in order to lead the reader towards the response the government wants.

Massaging the consultation process

As well as presenting material that is partial and biased, the government has attempted to 'massage' the consultation.

Hyping up air travel  Before the consultation, government ministers were constantly trying to impress upon the public the importance of air travel. Interestingly, there is little evidence of lobbying in support of the other sectors of the economy that make up 98.6% of our GDP. We do not see lobbying for more road traffic or energy consumption on the grounds that it would be good for the economy, despite the fact that many similar arguments could be put about how growth generates economic benefits and creates jobs.

John Spellar  A particularly keen lobbyist for the air transport industry is John Spellar, Minister for Transport. See John Spellar's diary. A special piece of lobbying by him was to draw from the then unpublished studies the conclusion that if extra runways were not provided, air fares could go up by £100. Now that the studies have been published, we can see that his claims were untrue.

Dodgy questionnaire  One form of response invited in the consultation is to answer a questionnaire. It is obvious on reading the questions that the reader is being led down a path of supporting airport expansion. The opportunity to question 'predict and provide' or to comment on external costs, tax avoidance or other issues that could challenge the concept of unlimited expansion are minimised. Professional market researchers share our concerns.

Exactly who is responsible for this continued campaign of misinformation and deceit? It is always hard to pin responsibility onto individuals in government, but there are 4 people who must bear the prime responsibility. They are:

Mike Fawcett Head of the Airports Policy Division at the Department for Transport (DfT) (Moved in Feb 04)	Roy Griffins Head of the Aviation Directorate at the DfT (Fawcett's boss) (Moved in Feb 04)	John Spellar Minister for Transport (replaced by Tony McNulty)	Alistair Darling Secretary of State for Transport (Spellar's boss)

Links to Related Pages

• Government airports consultation
• John Spellar & Co
• Heathrow (more dodgy dealings)
• Return to Air transport introduction