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| London draining life out of rest of country - Cable | London draining life out of rest of country - Cable |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| London "is becoming a giant suction machine draining the life out of the rest of the country", Business Secretary Vince Cable has warned. | |
| Mr Cable made the comment while saying that he believed regional airports should be expanded rather than London's Heathrow Airport. | Mr Cable made the comment while saying that he believed regional airports should be expanded rather than London's Heathrow Airport. |
| The Lib Dem minister told BBC Radio 4's Today some "more balance" was needed. | The Lib Dem minister told BBC Radio 4's Today some "more balance" was needed. |
| Mr Cable, whose constituency includes Heathrow flight paths, has long opposed plans for a new runway there. | |
| He was speaking after Sir Howard Davies' Airport Commission shortlisted three options for expanding UK airport capacity, two of which involved Heathrow. | |
| Much of the business world is seen as being in favour of more airport capacity in the south east, so Mr Cable was asked whether he stuck by his opposition to expansion at his local airport. | |
| He said: "What this report is doing is trying to reconcile two different things. | |
| "One is to try to ensure that, for the economic interests of the country, we have more connection to the big emerging markets. | |
| "On the other hand we have hundreds of thousands of people in London living under the flight path with very serious issues of noise. | |
| "All the parties have made it very clear that we can't make that problem worse." | |
| The "way forward", he argued, was to make "more use of provincial airports". | |
| Mr Cable described Sir Howard Davies' report as "very well argued". | |
| But he added: "One of the big problems that we have at the moment, which I don't think the report sufficiently addresses, is that London is becoming a kind of giant suction machine, draining the life out of the rest of the country. | |
| "More balance in that respect would be helpful." |