§ 12. Mr. Jim Marshallasked the Minister for Trade if he has any plans to meet the chairman of the British Airports Authority to discuss the financial performance of the authority.
§ Mr. SproatI meet the chairman of the British Airports Authority regularly to discuss many matters concerning the authority, including its financial performance.
§ Mr. MarshallWhen the Minister next meets the chairman, will he discuss with him the story in The Sunday 594 Times of 10 April about the Government's intention to sell off the British Airports Authority and will he seek to justify that decision in view of the authority's consistent profitability?
§ Mr. SproatI am glad to pay tribute to the authority's consistent profitability since 1966. I certainly undertake to discuss with the chairman the whole question of privatisation of the authority and I shall gladly listen with the closest interest to what he has to say.
Mr. HaslehurstAre not the authority's finances sufficiently robust for one to say that it is reasonable that it should finance the costs of the daily transcripts of the current airports inquiry, much as the CEGB does for the Sizewell inquiry?
§ Mr. SproatI shall look into what my hon. Friend has said.