 Rydw i'n gwneud hynny, ac mae'r next item of business yw'r debate ond Motion 4708 yn the name of Neil Findlay on flawed airport consultation. Y debate will be concluded without any questions being put, and I would ask those who wish to speak to please press the request to speak buttons now. I call on Neil Findlay to open the debate. Around seven minutes, please, Mr Findlay. I would like to thank colleagues from the Labour Party, the Green Party and the Liberal Democrats who signed my motion that is put forward with regret that no SNP or Tory member has signed. Air travel is a modern necessity, whether that be for work or leisure, many of us use it at some point. For people living near an airport, they know that they have to endure some disruption. However, it is incumbent upon the airport authorities and government to keep the impact of air travel to a minimum and to reduce the disruption on people's lives. Airports may need to expand at some point, but that should only be when those airports reach capacity, when there is an answerable evidence base for doing so and when actions are taken to ensure widespread community support and real and genuine mitigation measures are put in place that carry the confidence of the public. Under the current proposals put forward by Edinburgh Airport, none of this has happened. There is no evidence base for expansion. The airport is not at capacity. There is huge community opposition and the mitigation measures promoted do not carry the confidence of the communities who will be affected. From the outset, the consultation process on those proposals has been shambolic and flawed in so many ways. Let me set out why. As I said earlier, Edinburgh Airport is not at capacity. It is operating below 2007 levels. The airport claims that it has scheduling issues at peak time around 7am only. It is not, therefore, ironic that, to address the 7am scheduling issues that it has, 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 to impose its own flight duty to manage peak demand. Of course, it imposes drop-off charges for its passengers. Its brass neck is something to behold. The initial phase 1 consultation process saw over 200 consultation responses lost. Residents in places such as Winsborough, Curt Liston, South Queensferry and Curt Newton 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. No impact on them, so never made submissions. Then, lo and behold, phase 2 comes, route options come out, and the very same people find that they are now very much affected by the plans, having just spent their hard-earned money and life savings on a new home. That occurred because the whole consultation process is based on the population from the 2011 census, a whole six years ago, six years out of date. That completely fails to take into account the huge number of new houses that are built in East Calder, Winsborough, Curt Liston and other areas. Isn't it astonishing that the developers at Winsborough, where 4,000 new houses and a secondary school and much more infrastructure will be built, have not even been consulted on those proposals? I have spoken to a number of residents who have bought new houses and new developments on the basis that they believe that they would not be affected only to find out that they are now. The airport claim that 25,000 fewer people will be overflown, yet the methodology behind that claim is nowhere to be seen, yet again no evidence base for that flawed process. The consultation process itself 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 with no support or technical advice available to them. That is completely unfair and loaded in favour of a big, wealthy, powerful and influential business that has consultants, technicians and spin doctors coming out of their ears. That is neither fair nor just. However, I want to pay tribute to all those community councillors and people in the community who have committed huge time and effort to submit their views and to that cause. The most disconcern of all is how the new consultation sets community against community. They are effectively 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 data has been presented and the failure to adequately address noise, health and environmental impacts. However, we have to be clear on that. Edinburgh airport is not developing those plans in isolation. A freedom of information request that I have just received lays bare how it is absolutely complying with Scottish Government policy. A meeting between the First Minister and the chief executive of EasyJet in November said that the Scottish Government will continue to support all airports to grow the number of routes to and from our airports. The paper goes on that 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. Now I notice that we have some cabinet ministers sitting in to listen to the debate. Isn't it hypocrisy for cabinet ministers to sit around the cabinet table agreeing this policy affecting people in their constituency in places such as Broxburn, Lynlithgow, Uppall, Dekmont and East Calder? They are campaigning in the community saying that they are gravely concerned about the airport's proposals. The same Government and Cabinet ministers who agreed a policy to cut air passenger duty to these policies are designed to increase the number of routes and flights and they will increase pollution and noise impact as well. Although they have been rumbled on this one trying to ride two horses at one time, I am more convinced than ever that this plan for more routes and more flight paths is about one thing, one thing only, that is fattening up in the airport for a future sale at an inflated profit. As my view that this consultation is as fundamentally flawed as the airport's expansion plans itself, both of them should be scrapped. Can I say to our visitors in the public gallery that I would appreciate no clapping, cat calls or any show of how you feel about any of the speeches that is not allowed in this Parliament? Thank you very much. We move on to the open debate. Speeches of up to four minutes, please. I call Liam Kerr to be followed by Alex Rowley. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I thank Neil Findlay for securing this topical debate. Edinburgh Airport is coming towards the end of a 13-week, second stage public consultation into changing flight paths. They were designed in the 1970s, when the airport had around one million passengers each year, with a figure now over 12 million. I note that this modernisation is intended to improve efficiency and capacity of the airspace, potentially reducing noise impact, increasing runway capacity and reducing flight delays. However, any changes to flight paths are very important to residents. I know, as I grew up under the current flight path, it is local people, it is communities who live with the effects of aircraft flying overhead every day. Mr Findlay's motion highlights various failings and concerns in the consultation. Edinburgh Airport disputes much of that analysis and, among other things, suggests that the process has been independently assessed, audited and is following the Civil Aviation Authority's CAP 725 process. However, I want to make two related points. First, I spent 14 years litigating in the employment tribunal, and considering an unfair dismissal, a tribunal was not permitted to retrospectively decide 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, but often highlight areas where flaws in the employer's process have been exposed and look forward to ensuring that any inadequacies were not repeated. I would advise clients at the end that it was imperative to learn from those flags and ensure that, going forward, the processes were robustly challenged, rigorously scrutinised and constantly ensured that all stakeholders were best served. Every process can be improved. I urge Edinburgh Airport to listen very carefully to this debate today and to take on board those learning outcomes. The second point is related. Buried in the consultation's online FAQs is the statement that it is in everyone's interests that our information is clear and concise, so 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 if they had met that criteria. 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 www.letsgofurther.com for those needing to do so. I could write to a free post address, but without the maps, diagrams and FAQs, I would have been hamstrung. I could download and print the 158-page full-colour guide via the website's hyperlink, but if I am there already, I will do it online. That troubles me because I think that there is a serious risk of disenfranchising some groups such as the elderly who might not be IT literate, those of more limited means who might not have IT access, those in potentially affected areas without broadband access and those who, Mr Findlay, flags, who might not be so ofei with a lot of the technical language used. I have a real concern that those people whose voices are raised and heard in consultations might be those that are best networked, best connected in a number of senses and those with the financial and social means. I am not convinced that that is fair to those who are not, for whatever reason, so able, willing or indeed notified in time to engage. Secondly, the questions are somewhat concerning. There are eight maps in the interactive sections, talking clearly and concisely—that is sarcasm for the avoidance of doubt—about design envelopes, ICAO, design criteria that precludes certain routes, editable holds and vectoring areas, and I am asked to what extent I agree with the preferred flight paths before being asked to rate the non-preferred options again by what extent I agree 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? Begging the question, what is the best solution that I am trying to help them to find? Finally, at the bottom of the forum, I get an opportunity to explain my answer, but what am I supposed to say? I have a better idea than all of those technicians. Presumably, as Mr Findlay raised when he said that it is pitting communities against each other, if I am underneath, I will say that I do not like it as I am underneath it, and if I am not, I will say that I am great. Let us go with route C3A. That looks the best to me. I thank Neil Findlay for bringing this motion and highlighting the areas of concern. I have sought to flag some of my own concerns, and I hope that the Edinburgh airport will review its processes and ensure that it is the best and fairest it can be going forward. I am not persuaded that the Edinburgh airport should scrap the consultation because the recommendation from the starting curve's cost delays the resolution of the issue for all stakeholders and, perhaps most concerningly, dangles the uncertainty and fear over huge numbers of people in our Lothian communities and beyond for so much longer. I call Alex Rowley to be followed by Mark Ruskell. Presiding Officer, I would like to thank my colleague Neil Findlay for securing this important debate regarding the Edinburgh airport flight path consultation. I have to say at the outset that I believe that such is the public concern over those proposals, such as the belief that the consultation is flawed, full of contradictions, lacking vital information and misleading. There is no public confidence in the consultation. I believe that the Government must therefore step in, put a stop to the process and tell the airport authorities to begin again. I have been contacted by constituents from across Fife all voicing their concerns and highlighting the flaws that have taken place in the consultation process. There has been a disregard towards the health impacts on communities affected. There would appear to be major changes to the original proposals, yet those most impacted by those changes were never informed. I have raised my concerns on the issue publicly since the consultation was first raised in order to draw it to the attention of local people so that they would be aware and be able to examine the likely impact on their communities. In the short time that I have today, Presiding Officer, I want to highlight just a few of the many concerns that people are raising. A constituent from North Queensferry raised the issue of not being informed of changes in the proposals. She said, similar to Winsborough, that 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 direction such that it will be overflown every single day of the year if the proposed changes go ahead. Raising concerns for Dalgete Bay, one constituent pointed out that the combined impact of these new routes means that there would be aircraft over or near Dalgete Bay 365 days a year compared to only 69 days at present. With addition of route DO, that is around a further 15,000 flights per by 2023. There will be no trial and little recourse for the residents to change flight paths once in place. I highlight in the actual consultation document one couple had this to say, that 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 up. There is no environmental impact assessment in terms of health impact, in terms of wildlife impact or economic impact, and the inconsistent and incomplete information and technical jargon does not allow any confident consideration. They go on to say that there has been no trial periods to test presented impacts against reality, so the presentation, as is, is based on technical guesswork. Surely there is a severe flaw when residents received a letter when the first consultation document came out in the summer of 2016 but were not notified that there was a second document and have still not been informed by Edinburgh airport. The public have no confidence in this consultation. 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 this consultation to an end. There is no other sensible way to proceed. It is the right thing to do. I say that silent clapping is not really on either. I am going to have Mark Ruskell to be followed by Gordon Lindhurst. I may be allowed to think it, Presiding Officer, but I thank Neil Findlay for raising an issue that has been steadily filling my inbox since the first phase 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 have already heard from Alex Rowley, two thirds of people responding said that the airport's plans would have a negative impact on their lives. The airport said that they had taken the findings of phase 1, listened, yet here we are debating a deeply flawed and divisive phase 2 consultation that has addressed none of those concerns. As clear as those proposals were impact heavily on West Fife, Dalgetty Bay alone will go from being overflown on 70 days per year to potentially facing flights 365 days a year, 18 hours a day, with no respite. To focus on the detail of specific routes plays into the hands of this 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 this consultation is not fit for purpose and should be halted immediately. Last week, I held a meeting in Parliament for affected community councils. 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. Those councils will be writing an open letter to the CAA asking for the consultation to be halted, because they cannot make a fair and informed submission on behalf of their residents, and here are some of the reasons why. The consultation booklet runs to 156 pages. It is full of technical jargon, which constituents have repeatedly told me they find impenishable. Yet the amount of information that it manages to leave out is staggering. Professor Greenhull of Glasgow Caledonia University said that it is the most flawed technical document that he has seen in 30 years, with no baseline statistics for flight numbers or noise, inaccurate flight data and blatant inconsistencies in the way that populations have been accounted for. There is simply no information on the social, economic or environmental impact of the proposed routes, because those assessments have simply not been done. This flawed information has not even been readily available to communities. Consultation booklets were not available for the first three weeks, and some communities such as North Queensbury have been missed out of household notification. The CAA has already agreed that its own rules on consultation are laid out in the guidance mentioned by Liam Kerr, and they are not fit for purpose. They are undertaking a full review into how consultations should be carried out, and yet they have given permission to Edinburgh airport to carry out their own consultation during this time, so that any potential routes can be introduced by April 2018. I would say to Liam Kerr that now is the time to scrap this consultation, because we do not have this proper process in place. You talk about the guidance from cap 275—that is gone, that is going. There is a new regulatory regime coming in. Why do not we wait until we get this regime, which will actually look at what the true environmental impacts are of Edinburgh airport's proposals? In all my time in politics, I have never come across a consultation that has been carried out according to rules that are already deemed unfit for purpose. Let us face it. It has been run, this consultation, by a private business, as Neil Findlay says, attempting to fatten itself up on 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 this consultation. I call our members of this Parliament to join with their constituents, lend their support to the letter that we will be sending to the CAA next week. I call Gordon Lindhurst to be followed by Andy Wightman. Deputy Presiding Officer, I likewise welcome this debate brought to Parliament today by my Lothian colleague Neil Findlay. Like him and others in the chamber, I have been struck not just by how important this issue is to my own constituents but also the fact that these constituents span other constituencies and regions represented in this Parliament as well. It is important when looking at some of the issues that have been raised to bear in mind the context and why this process is now taking place. Changes in flight paths have already been mentioned by my colleague Liam Kerr. Whilst it may be true that aircraft are bigger, carrying more passengers, etc., the attractiveness of Edinburgh Airport to carriers has seen demand skyrocket at peak times, demand that the airport says that it can no longer meet. Edinburgh Airport uses the slogan where Scotland meets the world. Deputy Presiding Officer, I see it as a positive that the world wants to meet Scotland, and many of those in the world choose to do so through Edinburgh Airport. However, let me be clear, as I have been in my own motion on the same issue, there are aspects of this consultation that the airport must reflect on and concerns that it must respond to. My motion highlights, as does Mr Finlay's, the concerns about the use or lack of use of up-to-date data, reflecting existing and planned housing. 2011 census data is not enough to go on. It is a start and perhaps the most comprehensive available, but, as we have seen in these last weeks, a lot can happen over the course of a short space of time, and it has been 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 the location of housing. Residents in new developments, in places such as East Calder and Winshborough, should not be forgotten by focusing on census data alone. At a community council meeting that I attended in Rathaw, the airport representatives there 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 good and well, but my motion urges the airport to fully consider all those aspects of future population trends and densities. It is only fair to do so for those already committed to new communities who did not know about the changes being mooted on flight paths before they moved there. The airport should redouble its efforts with communities brought in to the flight path envelopes following the first consultation. I have been contacted by constituents that checked the airport's own postcode tracker during consultation 1. Some of them, understandably, did not respond when they realised that they weren't 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 this very reason. They feel like they are on the back foot. Some people may have had two bites at the cherry, and yet for some people, 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 those anomalies within the process. Local concerns must be heard. I conclude by saying that 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 this process. Andy Wightman, to be followed by Alex Cole-Hamilton. 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 relationship to the proposals for an airspace change. I do not have time today to go into full anxiety, stress and impact that those changes have had on families in Winchburn, South Queensfair and places elsewhere who have contacted me. Suffice to say that the consultation has been seriously flawed. The airport operators have misled the public and have displayed an arrogance and contempt for public opinion. In my short contribution, I want to say something about why that is happening. Behind many issues such as the lie questions of governance, Tony Bennett famously asked five questions of those in power. He asked, what power do you have? Where did you get it from? In whose interest 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 here. The governance and control of airspace is governed by the Civil Aviation Authority and the National Air Traffic Service, or NATS. Airspace change is being proposed by Edinburgh Airport. The decision maker is the Civil Aviation Authority. The CAA's predecessors were the military who controlled airspace in the 1930s through to the 1950s. The costs of the CAA are met substantially by charges on those whom it regulates. In 2015-16, this amounted to £78 million out of a total income of £132 million. Meanwhile, NATS is a private company owned by the UK Government and airlines and funded by airline operators. Airspace changes are initiated by private operators, in this case Edinburgh Airport. Those plans are then evaluated by a regulator in the pay of the same private company. This is not a governance framework that can work in the public interest. To Edinburgh Airport itself, who is Edinburgh Airport limited? The company is owned by another company called Green Midco Ltd. Green Midco Ltd is owned by a company called Green Topco Ltd. No such company exists in the United Kingdom. Green Topco might be a company registered in Luxembourg, or it might be a company of the same name registered in Grand Cayman. When MSPs, MPs 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 those proposals in the public interest or are they designed to boost the asset value of a company to be sold off for a profit in the years ahead by a bunch of faceless offshore speculators? To Tony Ben's famous five questions, how might we answer them? What power have you got? Edinburgh Airport, NATS and the CAA have virtually all the power. Where did you get it from? They got it from Conservative Governments who privatised the airports, privatised NATS and created the modern CAA, which statutes privileged commerce and the needs of the private airline industry. In whose interests do you exercise it? Edinburgh Airport exercises power in the interests 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 that is accountable to private interests as well. How do we get rid of you? We can't without substantial political effort directed at bringing the governance of airspace and airports infrastructure under public control, regulation and oversight. As the CAA's most recent annual report states and I quote, our airspace is a key part of our national infrastructure, but it is to all intents and purposes a private realm. That last bit is not part of their quote. Gordon Dure, the chief executive of Edinburgh Airport told constituents of mine, who are campaigning against airport expansion and I quote, the people you need to blame are your politicians, he said. They are the ones who sold the airport tours in the first place. What do you think we are going to do? In conclusion, I can't help but think of a quote from Renton in train spotting. It's a shite state of affairs to be in and our job should be to clean it up. I know it was a quote but can I remind members that they should be careful of the language that they use and move to the last of the open speeches as Alex Cole-Hamilton. Thank you Deputy Presiding Officer. I'd like to start by congratulating Neil Findlay on bringing this motion to the Parliament today. For the record, I did have some reservations about Neil's motion but I signed it so that this debate could proceed because I think that there are important issues that need to be aired. As MSP for Edinburgh Westin, in many ways, I am proud to host Edinburgh Airport in my constituency. It is the source of some 23,000 jobs in the Lothian 6000 at the airport alone. It does some good work for charities and community groups through the community board that I chair. While it is unquestionably an asset, it has a duty to be a responsible neighbour. For many years, inbound and outbound flight over the village of Crammond have been a major casework for both myself and for my forebears, and we may be nearing progress on the inbound flights. With the combination of Arnau technology and discussions with the Civil Aviation Authority, there may be an opportunity to divert inbound aircraft over the river Armond. It is a type of diversion that has only previously been offered over Tel Aviv by dint of avoiding surface-to-air missiles. I am certain that the good people of Crammond are not quite there yet, but that would be a positive development nevertheless. As regards the issue of outbound flights, the first iteration of the flight path consultation saw over 2,000 signatures affixed to a petition in my name and that of my Liberal Democrat colleague Kevin Lang, calling for the left turn, currently undertaken on outbound aircraft, to be commenced earlier at the end of the runway, so as to avoid Crammond altogether. I am gratified that, as I understand it, the airport seemed to have acted on this call, I thank them for that. However, Deputy Presiding Officer, my principal concern around this consultation process centres around the community of South Queensferry. In the first iteration of that consultation, the design envelope for westerly outbound routes covered an expansive territory over West Lothian, such was the proposition mailed out to tens of thousands of homes across the Lothian region. Not unsurprisingly, the airport received a deluge of responses from residents in West Lothian, some of whom are in the gallery today, stating their abject opposition to the design envelope. I fully understand that. What happened next, however, was frankly astonishing. In the second iteration of the consultation process, under the moniker that you spoke and we listened and buried in a heavy document, the airport revealed that its preferred route for westerly outbound flights, D0, would now avoid West Lothian entirely and instead overfly the Echlyn estate and the western periphery of South Queensferry. On learning of this, I contacted the airport directly, who explained that they 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 contention while 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 this and are responding to the consultation as such and they shall do so in great numbers, not only because of the density of populations in that area, far greater than the figures of the airport site from the census data that is, as we have heard, six years old, but because of the houses still to come with the Bullion road development to name but one. South Queensferry is a beautiful community. I am proud to represent it but it is often taken for granted. Its citizens pay Edinburgh council taxes yet it is not served by adequate public transport links and we cannot blame the citizens of South Queensferry for feeling taken for granted yet again. I am keen to work with the airport on this and certainly I have already engaged with colleagues at the airport and across the parliamentary chamber in terms of taking South Queensferry out of the design envelope. This very much represents a red line for me and I urge the airport to think again, to act as the responsible neighbour it needs to be and to protect the skies above the communities that never thought that they were part of the consultation. I now call Hamza Yousaf to respond on behalf of the Government. Around seven minutes, please minister. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I thank Neil Findlay for making this debate to the chamber and I thank members for contributing as well. I thought a lot of the points were very reasonably made and very reasonable and some of them I would take a little bit of issue with and I will try to address some of those points of consensus but also where I think we may be in Edinburgh airport in fact should be able to move forward on that issue. On the first point that Neil Findlay made about the colleagues on my left and my right, the cabinet secretary, there are also, of course, constituency MSPs. It should be highlighted for those who are not familiar with parliamentary or governmental protocols, processes and conventions that it is not a protocol or indeed a convention for cabinet secretaries to take part in a member's debate, as for the minister, with the remit and the responsibility, but I should say that both Angela Constance and Fiona Hyslop in her constituency role have both made representations to me on this matter on behalf of their constituents. What I would say is that when I have had conversations in my role with Edinburgh airport on this process, on the consultation, on the potential expansion of airspace, they too have recognised that there has been flaws in the process. They heard those calls and took the advice of an independent body. As Gordon Lindhurst has mentioned, that independent body has given them that quality of good practice, given them the mark of good practice. What I would say is that Edinburgh airport, of course, should not take that to mean that they have ticked every box and therefore they have engaged appropriately and that they should dismiss any of the concerns. Some of the concerns that have been raised have been extremely valid. I think that Gordon Lindhurst made a reasonable point, a reasonable speech, which I think was reiterated by a couple of members around the chamber, that, for those who put their post codes in in the first stage of consultation, they did not consult, they did not think that they would be affected, and then only to find out that they possibly would be. That is not an acceptable state of affairs. Therefore, I would encourage Edinburgh airport to listen to those concerns. Edinburgh airport, tell me and I ask them, of course I will. Neil Findlay? The airport can listen all they like, but some people have moved their family, some people have spent their life savings, moving to a property that they believed would not be affected. Listening does nothing for those people, so what is the minister's view? What advice would he give to those people? Again, I would not say that is an unreasonable point to make. I want to go through the process, because, ultimately, Andy Wightman and others are correct. Of course, the CAA will make the decision. Ultimately, Edinburgh airport and the back of their consultation, flawed or otherwise, will put forward an application to the CAA that will then be for the CAA to then make a decision. I will address some of the points that were made in and around governance of the CAA as well. The point being is that, of course, there are concerns. Edinburgh airport, I would certainly urge some strongly, as I have already done, to consult with local communities further. They have held 24 public meetings, and more than 1,000 people have attended. From my understanding of those meetings, for those who have been present, the constituents have put their views robustly to Edinburgh airport, and that is absolutely correct for them to do so. On my own involvement, a number of members have said that the Scottish Government should demand force to scrap the consultation. A number of others have said that it is a Government's responsibility to now step in. I am afraid to say that it is not the Scottish Government's responsibility. It is Edinburgh airport's consultation. They would then have to make the application to the CAA. As others have said, it is a civil aviation authority that would then ultimately make that decision. Alex Rowley, the Minister for Given Way, if the public have lost all confidence in the consultation process and we have seen lots of evidences of why that is the case, surely the duty of the Government is to stand up for the communities around the forth and to call the consultation out and to say that it needs to be halted. The point that I was coming to was that other members across the chamber have rightly recognised that Edinburgh airport is expanding, and that is good for local communities. There are 600 jobs directly at the airport, and there are over 5,000 jobs supported in and around the campus. There are 1 million passengers when the airspace was designed in 1970, about 13 million passengers projected at the end of 2017, so there is a need to look and to explore and to examine. If you do not mind, I will make some progress if I may, because I have taken a couple of interventions and time is short. Another one of the concerns that was raised, which I think was a very reasonable point, was about future proposed developments, as well. In fact, Fiona Hyslop, my colleague who represents Elin Llythgow, invited me to Edinburgh to have a look at that development myself. For me, of course, it seems, and for members across the chamber, it beggars belief that that development, which is one of the largest housing developments in the central belt, could be ignored. There are some very reasonable concerns. I hope that I am giving the strong impression here, because it is the Government's mind that there are deep concerns around this consultation that must be listened to by Edinburgh airport. I would say that, if Edinburgh airport does make that application to the CAE on the back of the consultation, that would give local communities and politicians another opportunity to reiterate their concerns that they have around the proposed plans by the airport. It is not the end necessarily at all of the road. On the governance issue, I thought that Andy Wightman made an interesting point. No, I just want to tackle Andy Wightman's point, if I may. I want to make the point that Hannah Bardell MP has also raised this issue around getting a regulatory body, a body that monitors noise, in particular, with that has some substance and is, importantly, independent, and she managed to secure that commitment from the UK Government to an independent aviation noise authority. By highlighting this issue to Westminster, she secured that commitment, which will hope to hopefully allay some of the fears that Andy Wightman raises. I want to conclude by saying that, of course, the concerns that have been raised across the chamber, I know that Edinburgh airport will be listening. I know that they are watching this debate very, very closely. Some of those points that have been raised have been very reasonable on behalf of the constituents, many of them who are in this public gallery. I urge Edinburgh airport to continue to consult with local MSPs, regional MSPs and communities, but, ultimately, I would say that, if they make that application to the CAA, I would continue to encourage members who have spoken here, others as community councils, councillors after local elections, and indeed MPs, to make representations to the CAA if they continue to be unhappy. We all want to see continued and sustainable economic growth. Many members across the chamber want to see the expansion of the airport. I know that some do, but some will want to see the expansion of Edinburgh airport. It is incumbent, as many members have said, that they take the communities with them along that journey.