Gatwick Airport Limited (GAL) has refused to appear publically before MPs at the House of Commons to answer questions on their second runway proposal, it was confirmed today.

The Chairman of the Gatwick Coordination Group, Crispin Blunt MP, invited the Airport's CEO, Stewart Wingate, and its senior management team to appear before the other local MPs on the group in a Select Committee-style hearing in January 2015.

However, GAL today declined the invitation, claiming that given the Airports Commission's own public discussion session, and private meetings with MPs, had been held, the company's directors "do not think that a further public meeting is necessary".

Commenting on GAL's decision, Crispin Blunt said "The MPs on the Gatwick Coordination Group collectively represent over half a million people whose lives stands to be affected by the airport's expansion.

Yesterday I was given only 10 minutes to make a public case and put questions in a public forum on behalf of the Group. They failed to answer key points on the resilience of the surface access plan, their financial plan, that they are £100 billion behind the Heathrow proposals in terms of national economic benefit, and that there is no available labour force to staff this vast new business and scores of thousands of extra homes will be required in the area, when all local planning authorities are really struggling to work out how to meet existing housing demand.

There is a serious democratic issue here. They have declined to publish the financial assumptions on which they have made their case to the Commission. This is the last chance for us on behalf of the people we represent to publicly challenge why their numbers and assumptions remain secret.

Gatwick's refusal to participate in an extended public scrutiny of their proposals by their local elected national representatives in a select committee type hearing is an abdication of their responsibility as a corporate citizen in our region. However, given GAL's inability to answer key questions on "show stopping" issues yesterday it is perhaps unsurprising they do not welcome further scrutiny.

They do have some things to hide: They rely on one very busy rail line, while Heathrow will have a choice of five rail routes. When that stops, Gatwick largely stops. They rely on one wretchedly slow arterial route out of central London, the A23, or routes via the M25. No strategic improvement is planned or would be funded by GAL.

They cannot guarantee that their shareholders will put up the finance, and their largest will be looking to disinvest before the money is required. There is no existing labour force to make this proposal work. The Commission rate them £100 billion behind Heathrow expansion in terms of national economic benefit, and they can't challenge this when they won't publish their numbers.

This refusal will only further damage the opinion of our constituents have of a company which has already had a catastrophic year of local relations owing to the misery inflicted upon tens of thousands of them by PR-NAV. Yesterday, they were accused of serious bad faith over this, indeed of active dissembling, and this makes a bad situation worse.

From Christmas Eve 2013 until now Gatwick have had an awful year. Flooding, baggage handler shortage, air traffic control, rail disruption, and new flight paths creating massive pain for their neighbours. Burying their head in the sand won't make it go away. A vast advertising budget funded by a company domiciled abroad does not make the case for second runway. Openness to scrutiny might. Then again, I think they know it probably wouldn't help. So this decision comes as no surprise."