Opinion: Party conferences are one thing, commitments are another

An unusually busy few weeks in the political life of the nation has come to a close where it all began three weeks ago – in Scotland.

The Deputy PM's speech to his party faithful at the Liberal Democrat autumn conference in Glasgow brought to an end party conference season, and a window where policy, politics, and everything in between has encouraged heated and passionate debate across the country.

Arguably, these three weeks have set the tone for the 2015 General Election, with battle lines now drawn on taxation, the economy, transport policy, and more besides.

For our industry, this period has been very important.

Abta has been actively engaging with the political parties over the party conference season, taking them our five manifesto asks to help showcase our industry's contribution to growth and employment while ensuring that Government policy in the next Parliament reflects this importance.

Firstly, it is worth noting that the industry's efforts to tell our economic story has had the desired impact; there is broad cross-party consensus on the economic value of our industry, and I expect this recognition will find its way into the party manifestos of the Liberal Democrats, Labour, and the Conservatives in some form or another.

However, this support must translate into tangible policies after the General Election: on airports, on taxation, on visas, and on a more level and consistent regulatory framework for travel businesses and our customers.

For aviation, the story that could be read from the party conferences is a broadly positive one.

In Manchester and Birmingham, big beasts of the Labour and Conservative front benches professed that there was ‘not a cigarette paper' between the two parties in relation to the need for urgent action on airport capacity once the Airports Commission reports in June

Along with colleagues from across the sector, we welcomed this much needed acknowledgement that the country's competitiveness is contingent on decisive and urgent action.

Recent Abta research has also shown that the electorate is broadly supportive, with a majority of consumers who have an opinion on airport capacity supportive of expansion.

The story from Glasgow is more nuanced.

The Lib Dems have reaffirmed their commitment to no new runways; however, brave party leaders did make the case for new runway capacity to a sceptical party base. One MP who was among those who initiated the debate compared their efforts to change Lib Dem policy on airports to ‘turning around an oil tanker'.

There is significant work to be done as an industry to convince the Lib Dem base of our ability to grow within carbon targets – but it is clear to me that we must not give up on making the case because views are slowly shifting.

As an example, the thought of a senior Lib Dem MP standing up in front of their conference to profess the benefits of aviation – and holidays abroad to boot – would have been unthinkable at the start of this Parliament in 2010; but that is just what happened on Tuesday.

Little detail has been given with respect to how commitments on devolution will be developed, however it is likely that this story will unfold in the coming months.

For now though, the major political parties have outlined their intentions at a very high level on a range of policy matters, and it will be interesting to see how these ideas translate into detailed policies on the road to 2015. We'll be there at each step of the way, continuing to make the industry's case.