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Thursday 4 December 2008

Privatise Manchester airport

The case for privatising Manchester airport

It is 12 years since Tony Blair did battle with the socialist dinosaurs and forced them to abandon their commitment to nationalisation with his celebrated ‘Clause 4 moment’ — the very birth of New Labour.

In doing so he argues, incidentally, that we would effectively buy off the government’s attempts to blackmail Manchester into adopting a congestion charge. I think this would be a mistake, however. Britain’s second city is already paying enough taxes: why should we sell the airport simply to relieve the government of its responsibility to deliver investment in the transport system? The Manchester congestion charge proposal should stand or fall on its merits — and so should the entirely separate question of airport privatisation.

Instead of tying up our money in runways and terminals, our £3 billion could be put to some exciting alternative uses. By investing all or part of the revenue raised in a ‘Fund for Manchester’, we would exchange a barren goose for an annual cash injection of perhaps £200 million a year for investment in Greater Manchester. This kind of money wouldn’t quite put us in the same league as the investment funds held by oil-rich Kuwait or Norway, but it would buy a lot of youth clubs, all-weather pitches and skate parks. We could use it to give free bus travel to our kids, and new resources for our already impressive cultural scene that would leave other regional centres in the shade.

Or how about giving free shares to every household — some £1,200 for each of the two and a half million men, women and children in the conurbation? For some this would be a welcome nest egg; others might put it into Child Trust Funds to help support their children through college or use it to top up their pensions. It might fall short of the old Clause 4 commitment to ‘common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange’ but it would certainly meet the aspiration of the new Clause 4: that power, wealth and opportunity ‘in the hands of the many not the few’.

A combination of both approaches would fund continuing benefits for the community as well as giving millions a real stake in a successful local enterprise. Conservatives might see in this a unique opportunity to spread popular capitalism and the experience of ownership in some of the more deprived communities. For Labour, now that Gordon Brown has pulled the rug from under Manchester’s proposed super-casino, this could be just the ticket for delivering alternative sources of investment and kick-starting regeneration in the less prosperous parts of town.

Today Manchester’s residents get all the convenience of proximity to a major regional hub airport. The airport and its associated businesses provide thousands of jobs, but for owning the airport we get a pretty poor deal. Whether the proceeds of a sale go directly to the people or are held in trust to fund good works, privatisation would allow us to have our £3 billion cake and eat it.

Graham Brady is MP for Altrincham & Sale West.

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