Rachel Reeves has backed the expansion of a third runway at Heathrow Airport, with five other airports likely in line for major works.
The Chancellor made the announcement this morning, following days of speculation during a speech in Oxfordshire. The Government claims expanding the airport will give a massive boost to the economy, but it has also sparked questions over its climate change commitments.
She said: “The question of whether to give Heathrow, our only hub airport, a third runway has run on for decades. The last full-length runway in Britain was built in the 1940s. No progress in 80 years.
“Around three-quarters of all long-haul flights in the UK come through Heathrow. About 15 million business travellers used Heathrow in 2023. But for decades, its growth has been restrained.”
She added: “I can confirm today that this government supports a third runway at Heathrow.”
Reeves also reiterated the Government’s support for works at London City Airport and Stansted, while indicating that Luton and Gatwick airports may be granted permission to expand soon. A large scale industrial hub will also be built at East Midlands Airport.
“This government has already given its support to expansion at [London] City airport and at Stansted, and there are two live decisions on Luton and Gatwick, which will be made by the Transport Secretary shortly,” Reeves said.
She argued that the runway at Heathrow would create over 100,000 jobs and would see growth well beyond the southeast, boosting exports of goods including Scottish whisky. She says a third runway could increase potential GDP by 0.43% by 2050.
The Chancelloer also threw her weight behind sustainable aviation fuel (SAF). “Sustainable aviation fuel reduces CO2 emissions compared to fossil fuel by around 70%. At the start of this month, the sustainable aviation fuel mandate became law, and today I can announce that we are investing 63 million pounds into the advanced fuels funds over the next year, and we have today set out the details of how we will deliver a revenue certainty mechanism to encourage investment into this growing industry,” she said.
Heathrow is one of the world’s busiest two-runway airports, with planes taking off or landing up to every 45 seconds. The London airport’s current maximum annual number of flights is around 475,000. A third runway could enable it to reach around 740,000 flights a year.
Heathrow forecasts it will serve 84.2 million passengers this year, an increase of just 0.4% from the 83.9 million last year. Earlier Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds said the UK “can’t afford” to be a country that “doesn’t build runways”.
He said: “We simply cannot afford to say we don’t build reservoirs anymore, we don’t build railways, we don’t build runways. That’s not good enough, we will be left behind.”
Reeves also announced that a new logistic manufacturing hub would be built at East Midlands Airport. If former proposals are green-lit, then Luton’s terminal and airfield will be enlarged in a bid to boost capacity from 18 million passengers a year to a 32million by 2040, while Gatwick’s northern runway – normally a taxiway – will be converted into regular use for routine flights.
Such moves will come at a cost to the environment. Independent advisers on the Government’s Climate Change Committee has previously recommended there should be “no net airport expansion across the UK”.
Labour donor Dale Vince has said the Chancellor’s approval of a third runway at Heathrow would be “an illusion of growth”.
He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “I think it’s a mistake. Actually, I think it’s an illusion of growth. It’ll take 10 years to build a runway, cost maybe £50 billion. It’ll create the wrong kind of growth – we’ll be exporting tourism money abroad, creating a bigger imbalance than we already have, and it will come at the expense of our carbon-cutting effort.”
In 2018 Heathrow said that it could complete the third runway project for £14 billion. Although airport owners will pay for work within its boundaries, taxpayers are expected to foot the bill for road and rail improvements. A decade ago it was estimated this could be in the region of £5billion.
Despite today’s green-light, Heathrow’s third runway will not be operational for years. It received cross-parliamentary support back in 2018, but the travel hub will seek approval once again. This process and the requirement to have planning permission approved, means the runway won’t be up and running for a long time.
The project is likely to mean demolishing hundreds of homes, diverting rivers, and rerouting the M25 motorway between junctions 14 and 15 through a tunnel under the new runway.
A Heathrow insider told the Mirror: “We’re talking decades rather than years.”
The news has been met with dismay by environmental campaigners, who have long been fighting it on the grounds that flying is one of the most polluting forms of transport.
Aviation contributes about 2.5% of global emissions, but its climate change impact is significantly higher due to other factors, including the altitude of contrails. Back in 2020, the Court of Appeals found that the government’s approval of the runway was illegal because ministers had failed to take into account the UK’s commitments under the 2015 Paris Climate Accord, which requires keeping the global temperature rise as close to 1.5C as possible.
That block was overturned by the Supreme Court later that year, which found that the expansion was not technically at odds with efforts to hit net zero. Heathrow’s bosses are likely to argue that this can be achieved through increased use of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), although how effective, cheap and plentiful this is likely to become in the coming years is a big question.
This morning Jenny Bates, transport campaigner at Friends of the Earth, branded the move “hugely irresponsible in the midst of a climate emergency”. She told the BBC: “It would also fly in the face of the prime minister’s promise to show international leadership on climate change.”
Safe Landing, a group of aviation workers aiming to reduce the climate impact of air travel, expressed similar levels of dismay. Tom Reynolds, an airline pilot said: “Expanding the UK’s largest airports is a flight in the wrong direction. We’re at a pivotal moment where we must chart a new course for our industry, so spending the next vital decade building outdated airport infrastructure would be a colossal waste of time and talent.”
“Rachel Reeve’s sums don’t add up. If the UK doubles down on existing airport expansion, we’ll build too much capacity compared to the level of flying eventually possible. This will lead to stranded assets, with investors losing out and job losses for aviation workers in a devastating “boom-and-bust” scenario.”
Finlay Asher, an aerospace engineer, added: “British aviation’s future lies in innovation, not expansion. We should instead transform our airports for the future of zero-carbon aircraft. The UK has a huge economic opportunity to pioneer this transition, back British manufacturing and create jobs developing the technology of tomorrow for export worldwide.”
“Electric or hydrogen aircraft are our ticket to greener, cleaner and quieter flights. They can reduce carbon emissions and air and noise pollution for communities living under flight paths – unlocking a key political impasse that has previously prevented plans. But rather than expand concentrated long-haul hubs like Heathrow, we instead need a more distributed network of smaller, regional airports to test the technology of tomorrow.”
On the flip side of things, those in the travel industry have welcomed the move. Zoe Harris, chief customer officer at package holiday experts, On the Beach said: “A third runway at Heathrow is a huge win for British holidaymakers. It will bring an estimated 130,000 additional outbound flights every year, meaning more destinations, more choice, and more opportunities to grab a great deal on your next adventure. The expansion should bring lower fares, better connections, and exciting new routes. Plus, with better links from regional UK airports, getting to Heathrow will be easier than ever, so it will bring the entire world a little closer for the whole of the UK.”
