HEATHROW

“Economically bad, environmentally bad and socially bad”

HubMP2012

FEBRUARY 1, 2025

Reactions are pouring in to Rachel Reeves’ ‘growth’ speech – and her commitment to a third Heathrow runway in particular.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves has backed a third runway at London’s Heathrow Airport as part of a new effort to get the UK’s economy growing. “In a wide-ranging speech to business leaders, she also backed expansions at Luton and Gatwick airports, as well as a ‘growth corridor’ between Oxford and Cambridge,” the BBC reports.

New powers in the Planning and Infrastructure Bill would cut the length of time it takes to get infrastructure projects off the ground, according to Reeves, who announced a range of new infrastructural projects.

Keir Starmer has vowed to get rid of a “thicket of red tape” that he claimed was deterring foreign investment, and the Government also plans to relax restrictions on big pension funds to encourage them to invest more in UK businesses.

Labour opposition

The third runway at Heathrow has yet to receive planning permission, but puts the Party leadership on collision course with many senior Labour figures who oppose it. London Mayor Sadiq Khan responded: “I’m simply not convinced that you can have hundreds of thousands of additional flights at Heathrow every year without a hugely damaging impact on our environment.”

Former Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell MP said: “This is such a huge political, economic & especially environmental mistake that sadly I fear it will inflict an irreparable scale of damage on the government.” He promised to convene a public meeting in the Heathrow Villages to discuss the situation.

Labour’s former Director of Policy under Jeremy Corbyn, Andrew Fisher, said a third Heathrow runway was “economically bad, environmentally bad and socially bad.” There were better things we could be building, he suggested, including a mass programme of council house building and home insulation.

Nadia Whittome MP suggested a forest twice the size of London would be required just to offset the Heathrow, Gatwick and Luton expansions. Zarah Sultana MP called  the decision a “complete U-turn at the expense of local communities and the planet –  reckless, short-sighted and indefensible.” Former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn MP also voiced his opposition.

Labour’s former Parliamentary candidate in Uxbridge and South Ruislip, Ali Milani, said: “It will act as a signal to all those watching around the world that we are not serious in meeting our climate obligations and critically, for those of us in the surrounding areas and in London, it means further deterioration of  our health and environment. Heathrow is already the single biggest source of carbon emissions in the entire United Kingdom.”

Northern MPs were critical of the Chancellor’s focus on the South east. Former Shadow Business Secretary Jon Trickett MP said: “Money has been sucked out of the Regions and into the South East for decades.  Long term cuts to transport spending in the North are effectively being used to increase investment in the South East and London…

“In order to reconnect with working class communities and rebuild trust in politics, the Labour government must avoid buying into the economic orthodoxy of the Treasury, whose restricted vision never seems to extend far beyond the M25. We need massive investment in the regions. The new Labour Government cannot simply be managers of an unjust and unfair economic system which has left so many people behind.”

A Momentum spokesperson criticised the Chancellor’s entire approach: “By relaxing planning constraints, pursuing Heathrow expansion at all cost, and enacting policies favouring private developers, asset managers and industry lobbyists, Reeves’s speech was deservedly praised by right-wing think tanks. Starmer became Prime Minister promising ‘change’ but in fact is continuing the same climate-trashing, pro-developer policies as the Tories.”

Unite General Secretary Sharon Graham was blunt: “The fact is that bending the knee to global billionaires, ‘unleashing’ corporate greed, has not delivered investment. We have historically low investment rates, the lowest in the G7. A different direction is needed.”

Pressure groups sceptical

Think tanks and pressure groups were also sceptical. Shaun Spiers, executive director at Green Alliance, said: “The economic case for bigger airports and new roads is highly questionable, and it’s crystal clear that pushing ahead with these will fly in the face of the UK’s climate targets.”

Beccy Speight, Royal Society for the Protection of Birds chief executive, agreed: “Some of today’s announcements put our climate targets at risk.”

Green New Deal Rising picketed the event and held up placards showing social media posts of Cabinet members explaining why they had opposed Heathrow expansion just a few years ago – including the Prime Minister himself. In 2020 he opposed a third runway at Heathrow because “there is no more important challenge than the climate emergency.”

The group said: “Even in the short-term, expanding airports will do nothing to boost our sluggish economy. Business passenger numbers have been falling for 20 years as business has moved online. All this decision will do is ensure a small number of frequent leisure flyers leave and spend their money outside the UK economy more regularly. That’s why previous expansions in airport capacity haven’t led to increased productivity or GDP.”

It added: “We just can’t have economic prosperity if we don’t get control of the climate emergency.”

“Rash, short-sighted” – Friends of the Earth

Rosie Downes, head of campaigns at Friends of the Earth, savaged the Chancellor’s vision, describing it as “the kind of dangerously short-sighted thinking that has helped cause the climate crisis and left the UK one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world. Giving the go-ahead to airport expansion by depending on new, unreliable technologies, like ‘sustainable aviation fuels’ would be a reckless gamble with our future and risks the UK missing critical climate reduction targets even if we rapidly expand renewable energy.

“Similarly, allowing developers to bulldoze their way through crucial nature protections and safeguards will further diminish our seriously under-threat wildlife and natural environment.

“The net zero economy is the UK’s fastest growing sector. The government should seize the huge benefits that building a greener future will bring through cheap homegrown renewable energy and warm well-insulated homes, not back damaging projects like airports and the Lower Thames Crossing.

“Sacrificing nature and our climate isn’t leadership: it’s rash, short-sighted and a sure-fire way to lose the trust of those who believed Labour’s election promises on the environment. Instead the Chancellor must embrace green growth.”

“Tax the super-rich” – Women’s Budget Group

Dr Mary-Ann Stephenson, director at the Women’s Budget Group, said that prioritising physical infrastructure alone missed a critical barrier to a thriving economy.

“Our economy is being held back because people can’t access social care, get the right medical treatment when they need it, or because they cannot afford or secure a nursery place for their child. These services – our social infrastructure – are on their knees. Waiting for the economy to grow before investing in these services overlooks a critical point: public services are the backbone of a strong economy, not a consequence of it. 

“What’s more, the care sector is an inherently green sector: our analysis has shown that investment in the care sector could create 2.7 times as many jobs as the same investment in construction and produce 30% less greenhouse gas emissions. 

“We need to invest and grow our social infrastructure, and decarbonise our physical infrastructure. Expanding Heathrow airport is a worrying move from the Government, and flies in the face of our climate commitments. New research from the New Economics Foundation reveals such expansions would erase the climate benefits of the Government’s Clean Power Plan by 2050, with limited financial returns. We have long argued against the expansion of air travel.”

She concluded: “We urge the Government to honour their commitment to net zero, and their promise to call on those with the broadest shoulders. Easing the regulations around the non-dom tax regime – as recently announced by the Chancellor in Davos – is a step backwards. Last week, Oxfam’s latest inequality report showed that the total wealth of UK billionaires increased by £35m per day in 2024. Patriotic Millionaires’ recent G20 survey found 72% of millionaires support higher taxes on the super-rich to reduce inequality and strengthen public services. Taxing the super-rich would not only help fund the services and social security that women disproportionately rely on, it would also help close the gender wealth gap.” 

Growth won’t fix poverty

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation agreed that the Government’s dash for growth would not fix the UK’s underlying problems, tweeting that there would not be “progress on child poverty by 2029 even with high economic growth.”

Only in Scotland, it argued, were child poverty rates expected to fall by 2029, largely thanks to the Scottish Child Payment and efforts to mitigate the two-child benefit limit. It concluded: “Any respectable child poverty strategy must include action on social security including to abolish the two-child limit and introduce a protected minimum amount of support to Universal Credit.”

Its new report UK Poverty 2025 is published today. It finds that more than one in five people in the UK (21%) were in poverty in 2022/23 – 14.3 million people. Of these, 8.1 million were working-age adults, 4.3 million were children and 1.9 million were pensioners. Poverty is deepening, the report finds.

Sign the petition against Heathrow expansion here.

Image: Heathrow Airport. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Heathrow_Airport_(7006948360).jpg Source: Heathrow Airport Author: Ed Webster, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.