LabourList is committed to being a non-factional platform for debate for voices from across and beyond Labour, and will also be publishing alternative views on airport expansion on Wednesday.
For the past decade, my organization has been pushing for Heathrow’s expansion, to deliver the private sector-led investment Britain needs for economic growth.
In 2015, the Independent Airport’s Commission (led by Sir Howard Davies) concluded that, by 2060, a new runway at Heathrow would create £147 billion for the UK economy.
Not a single full-length runway has been built in the South-East of England since the War. Heathrow’s competitor hubs have four, five or six runways.
Now, our Chancellor Rachel Reeves looks set to take on the NIMBY’s and the critics, both inside and outside the party, and go for growth. Growth at Heathrow will help to provide the spending power we need to decarbonize our economy and invest in our public services.
Carbon emissions are global. Whilst we can’t stop China from building 150 new airports over the next 15 years, we can build a new runway here which is greener, cleaner and smarter – and spread that innovation to reduce global emissions.
Politically and economically, Labour must heed the warnings of Paul Johnson of the Institute For Public Spending who warned that if growth and productivity remain elusive, the government will have no choice but to further raise taxes in the third year of this Parliament. Something no government would wish to do in mid-term.
‘We urgently need economic growth’
If Labour shows it is ready to grow Heathrow, it will boost private sector confidence.
It’s clear why growth in this country is stagnant – we have had decades of infrastructure investment left on the back burner. Look at London’s Crossrail 2 – over 30 years in planning and it is still nowhere near getting spades in the ground.
We urgently need economic growth, and expansion at Heathrow can be the win that Labour needs to get our economy moving again to avoid the doom loop of ever higher tax rises and ever constrained spending.
Labour does not have the luxury of another 20 years before it decides on Heathrow. Expansion will create up to 180,000 new unionized jobs, 10,000 apprenticeships and many of those jobs will be in the regions.
Much of the new infrastructure will be built with the aid of regional logistic hubs and regional economies will benefit with new routes for their trade.
Heathrow is our largest port by value of goods, but its rival hub airports in Europe and the Middle East are ready to muscle into our crucial trading corridors if it doesn’t expand.
Critics will always decry Heathrow expansion as too controversial. Well, I suspect Rachel Reeves knows better. She will have considered carefully that; an independent Commission proposed it, a Parliamentary vote with a 296 majority backed it, and the Supreme Court has ruled emphatically in favour of it.
Labour MPs may be aware of vocal protest groups, but they should also consider people who live locally and depend on the airport’s future success for their livelihoods. Or those within the proposed construction zone, who have lived with their homes blighted for over 20 years whilst waiting for the project to progress.
‘The silent majority favour expansion’
Back Heathrow, the campaign group I lead is bigger than many trade unions – with over 100,000 supporters – over half of whom live within five miles of the Airport in places like Hayes & Harlington, Ealing, Hounslow and Slough.
Polling by Populus has consistently found more local people supportive of a new runway than opposed to it. Just look at the Department of Transport’s own documentation. In 2017, the Department received 62,000 responses to the Lord Davies Commission’s recommendations, with over 53,000 from local people who backed a third runway at Heathrow.
They are the silent majority who favour expansion – local people from diverse backgrounds who are often forgotten in this debate.
Rightly, a third runway will need to meet the challenge of Labour’s tests on air quality, noise reduction, job creation and decarbonisation.
The airport has worked with a former Executive Director of Friends of the Earth on a world-leading sustainability strategy; championing sustainable aviation fuel, agitation of peatlands to remove billions of tonnes of carbon from the atmosphere and a plan for new direct rail links to the airport. So, Heathrow will be held accountable to the highest environmental standards any government in the world has set.
Rachel Reeves and Keir Starmer hold a trump card on trade and growth. Now is the time to unleash it. My own experience of government taught me that delivering the ‘big stuff’ is hard but rewarding. For a mission-led government, it should be a challenge to relish.
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