Theresa Villiers: We're hosting the G8, and have a new deal. Why Northern Ireland is great - and can be even better.

Theresa Villiers is Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and MP for Chipping Barnet

Later today, a number of the world’s most powerful leaders will start arriving in Northern Ireland for the G8 Summit.  For a few days, the eyes of the world will turn to Lough Erne, just outside Enniskillen in County Fermanagh, at the far western edge of the United Kingdom. This venue will provide a stunning lakeland backdrop for a discussion of some of the most important issues facing the modern world.

Just a few years ago, it would have been unthinkable to bring an event like the G8 to Northern Ireland, to a town like Enniskillen which was the victim of one of the vilest atrocities of the Troubles.

Theresa Villiers MP: High Speed Rail is essential to meet the future needs of our economy

Theresa Villiers is Minister of State at the Department for Transport.

As one of the first to champion the benefits of high speed rail, I would like to reassure the doubters that the Government's HS2 plans are about much more than shaving half an hour off the journey time to Birmingham.

In the years since privatisation, travel by rail has grown beyond all expectations. A system that some thought was designed to manage decline has delivered massive passenger growth.

But that success has brought a new set of challenges, with significant overcrowding issues on some of our major routes.

We are rolling out an extensive programme to address current problems, including a 30% increase in capacity on the West Coast route between London and Manchester. But Network Rail still expect the line to be full within around fifteen years. Virgin, the current operator on the line, believe that saturation point will come much sooner.

There is a pressing need to deliver new intercity transport capacity if we are to meet the future needs of our economy. We cannot afford to sit back and ignore the problem. This Government believes that the best solution is high speed rail.

Theresa Villiers MP: Conservatives started - and continue to lead - the debate on high speed rail on which Labour's vision is misguided and unambitious

Theresa Villiers is shadow secretary of state for transport.

Two years ago the Conservative Party took the bold step of announcing a timetabled and costed commitment to deliver a north-south high speed line. At the time, Labour had made it clear that high speed rail had no part to play in their in their 30 year strategy for the railways. But we remained steadfast in our support for this crucial upgrade to the nation’s transport system - and we have led the debate on high speed rail ever since.

Since then, high speed rail has started to gather support from across the political spectrum. We welcomed Lord Adonis’s interest in this issue and his decision to establish the company, HS2 Ltd, to look at how plans for high speed rail could be taken forward.

However, when it comes to such a large and important investment in the future of Britain’s infrastructure, it is essential that we get high speed rail right. And the proposals that Lord Adonis is expected to announce today show that in important respects, Labour has got it wrong — for the economy and for the environment.

For example, Labour’s proposed route will only go as far as Birmingham. This is their first step. Anything north of Birmingham remains, at best, just an aspiration for Labour. This leaves the North, Scotland, and Wales out of the massive social, economic, and regenerative benefits of high speed rail.

And crucially, Labour proposals are not expected to integrate Heathrow into the proposed new network. Failing to take high speed rail to the UK’s most important airport would be a big mistake and a major lost opportunity for the environment. Labour’s deeply misguided support for a third runway has distorted their approach to high speed rail. Their blind determination to press ahead with a new runway would do untold damage to our environment and the quality of life of millions of people.

Theresa Villiers MP: Heathrow expansion would not benefit Britain's wider business community

Theresa Villiers is shadow transport secretary and argues here that there is no convincing evidence that a third runway at Heathrow would benefit the wider business community in Britain, and that the expansion plans do not have the overwhelming support of the business community.

The Government’s flawed case for a third runway has been attacked from many angles but yesterday’s open letter from an independent group of highly influential business figures deals a fresh blow to a key element of Labour’s argument – their misleading claim that their plans have the overwhelming support of the business community.

The group includes senior businessmen from the City, the media, and high street retail, along with a former adviser to the Labour leadership. Furthermore, this heavyweight list represents just a fraction of those in the commercial world who oppose Runway Three, with many more reluctant to make their views known publicly because they work with or for companies who supply services to the airport or aviation sectors.

What Russell Chambers and his co-signatories on the letter realise is that there is no convincing evidence that a third runway would benefit the wider business community in the UK. A particularly telling point they highlight is that there is no guarantee that construction of a third runway would ensure Heathrow serves a wider range of international and domestic destinations. The expansion of flight numbers permitted with the opening of Terminal Five yielded no such result, with the extra capacity swallowed up by more intensive use of popular and already well-served routes.

Furthermore, simplistic comparisons between the number of runways at Heathrow and its European competitors ignore the reality of London’s system of five busy airports which together offer a wider choice of flights and destinations than either Charles De Gaulle, or Schipol.

Theresa Villiers MP: The Government has failed to make the case for a a third runway at Heathrow

Theresa Villiers MP is Shadow Secretary of State for Transport and will lead today's Opposition day debate on the very issue of the third runway at Heathrow.

For years, many who hated the idea of a third runway at Heathrow felt that it was inevitable, and that they could do nothing about it. By coming out against a third runway, David Cameron has exploded that myth of inevitability and given people a clear choice. If they do not want a new runway at Heathrow, they should vote Conservative at the general election.

The Government has completely failed to make the economic case for a third runway. The Oxford Economic Forecasting study on which most of the economic arguments are based has been widely refuted. It is astounding that the study failed to make any attempt to include cost the impact of noise, air pollution and a massive increase in road congestion in their analysis. And no one has come up with any convincing evidence to back the “expand or die” theory which says that Heathrow will face a spiral of decline without massive expansion. By contrast, all the evidence points to the fact that millions of people will still want to fly to and from Heathrow, regardless of whether expansion occurs or not. Indeed the aviation industry lobby group Flying Matters stated in a recent briefing to MPs that “Heathrow remains the UK’s number one airport of choice”.

And it is wrong to say that business is universally in favour of a third runway. For example, London First’s Steering Group into Heathrow expansion is deeply divided on this; and a recent poll of small businesses by Continental Research found that 95 per cent believed that expanding Heathrow would make little or no difference to them.

Theresa Villiers MP: We need to make Heathrow better not bigger

Last week David Wilshire MP made the case for expansion of Heathrow.  This week Theresa Villiers MP, Shadow Transport Secretary, outlines the official Conservative policy and its vision of high speed railways.

It is clear that we need a top class international airport for London and for the UK as a whole, both for business competitiveness and passenger convenience. Building a deeply controversial third runway at Heathrow with 222,000 extra flights is not the way to deliver that goal.

Instead, connecting Heathrow to a high speed rail link to the Channel Tunnel and a new line north to Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds is the best way to make Heathrow a much better airport.

Dramatically improving public transport access, the proposal I announced at the Conservative Party conference will allow people to get a train to UK and European destinations directly from the airport.

Even more importantly, it would provide a viable alternative to thousands of flights now clogging up Heathrow. Evidence from Europe clearly shows that high speed rail provides an attractive alternative to competing short haul flights. For example, Air France has stopped flying between Paris and Brussels. Instead they charter carriages on Thalys-run high speed trains. According to BAA figures, there were 63,200 flights in 2007 to destinations such as Manchester, Leeds, Paris, Brussels and Amsterdam – destinations where it is realistic to expect high speed rail to replace air travel.

By freeing up thousands of landing slots, our plan would relieve overcrowding problems at Heathrow but without the environmental penalties that would come with building a third runway and the 222,000 extra flights that would involve.