Chancellor George Osborne in airport meetings with backers
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Lord Foster's plans for a
hub airport, unveiled last year
by political editor Paul
Francis
Chancellor George Osborne and his
officials held a string of private meetings with the backers of
plans for a new airport in Kent, including the London Mayor Boris
Johnson, it has emerged.
The previously undisclosed contacts
stretched over a four-month period between May and August last
year, according to details obtained by the KM Group under the
Freedom of Information Act.
The government has refused to say why
the meetings were held and who asked for them, saying that it is
not in the public interest to do so.
It did reveal that Mr Osborne held a
face-to-face meeting with Boris Johnson in July last year to
discuss his plans for an island airport - dubbed Boris Island.
But the Treasury has refused to say
exactly what was discussed at the meeting because it involved the
formulation of government policy.
The meeting will reinforce speculation
that the Treasury and the Chancellor have been instrumental in
pushing the government towards backing the highly contentious idea
of a new hub airport after David Cameron had, a year earlier,
publicly vetoed the prospect.
Those suspicions are underlined by the
disclosure that Treasury officials also had regular contacts with
Foster and Partners and Halcrow, the backers of an alternative
Thames Estuary airport scheme.
Four meetings took place between May
and August last year, with Treasury officials being hosted for one
of those meetings at the London headquarters of Foster and
Partners.
In November, Lord Foster unveiled his
company’s vision for a new £50bn international hub airport in Kent,
and last month the government announced it was consulting on the
idea as part of a review of aviation capacity.
But it seems the Treasury was actively
involved in listening to the case for an airport several months
before. The first meeting officials had with representatives of
Fosters and Partners was held in May, followed by a second just a
month later.
After the first meeting, Foster and
Partners sent an email which said: "We found the conversation we
had both stimulating and highly reassuring as you both made points
we passionately believe in."
This meeting was followed by two more
in July and August, this time involving both Foster and Partners
and Halcrow, infrastructure consultants working on the scheme.
The government has refused to release
any information about what was discussed at any of these
meetings.
In its response to our FOI request, the Treasury confirmed
"the issue of an Estuary airport was covered to an extent" but said
there were "weighty arguments" for withholding the information.
The response said: "There is a strong
public interest in effective policy development.
"If ministers and officials were not
able to conduct a free and frank discussion it would result in in
people providing less candid opinions and therefore impact on the
quality of policy development.
"We do not think this would be in the
public interest, particularly as this is currently a very live
issue."
Wednesday, February 08 2012
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