Nicholas Soames: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what steps she intends to take to improve capacity at Heathrow airport. [109410]

The Rt Hon Theresa Villiers MP; Minister of State  [holding answer 24 May 2012]:In accordance with our programme for government, the coalition has cancelled plans for a third runway at Heathrow. We are pursuing a number of measures to improve our airports and get the most out of existing capacity. These include:

(i) Taking legislation through the House of Commons to reform airport economic regulation, giving the CAA much more effective powers to intervene to protect the consumer interest if an airport is failing its passengers;

(ii) Going forward with major improvements to surface access including Crossrail;

(iii) Supporting the work under way by CAA and NATS to enhance airspace management, which has the potential to improve reliability and reduce the need for stacking;

(iv) Progress on the Single European Sky project, including the establishment of the Functional Airspace block for the UK and Ireland, which is already delivering operational benefits;

(v) Reform of aviation security regulation to move to an outcome-focused risk-based approach which is expected to enable security checks to be delivered in a more efficient and passenger-friendly way;

(vi) Phase one of a trial of operational freedoms at Heathrow has taken place. We believe that these measures have the potential to improve operational performance at the airport, as well reducing late night departures, stacking and carbon emissions. Phase two is scheduled to commence on 1 July and a careful assessment of potential benefits and impacts will be made based on the evidence produced by the trial and the public consultation follows.