16:29 Fleur Anderson (Labour)

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Elliott, and to speak in this important debate. I thank colleagues for taking the time to participate and am glad to see so many present. This issue affects the day-to-day lives of constituents in Putney, and across south-west London and the whole of the country, given the climate change issues. I am sure that constituents in Putney will be watching with interest.

The plans were drawn up before the Government agreed to their climate targets. The promise of economic growth and new jobs, which I am sure the Minister will talk about, does not seem to stack up under scrutiny. Investing more in Heathrow will come at the cost of undermining regional jobs and regional growth. The cost to the quality of life of Putney residents cannot be underestimated. The noise is constant. It affects sleep, and physical and mental health. We cannot have it any more. I am here to ask the Government to rethink the plans and say a definitive no to Heathrow expansion.

So what is the case against? I will talk about climate change, air quality, noise and transport. First, on climate change, the expansion is fundamentally incompatible with the Government’s own net zero target. Heathrow is the largest single polluter in the UK. Its emissions account for half of all UK aviation emissions. Its expansion proposals of 260,000 additional flights a year, on top of the existing 480,000, will increase carbon dioxide emissions from air travel by a staggering 9 million tonnes a year. As I said, that is more than the entire carbon emissions of Luxembourg.

The Government recently published their jet zero strategy; is that the answer? No. The strategy makes no attempt to set out what share of the transport carbon budget the aviation sector should be allocated or how that would be divided between airports, and it fails to articulate circumstances in which airport expansions could be compatible with climate change targets. Heathrow is just one of many airports across the UK with ambitions to expand, yet the Government has no overarching framework to guide airport expansion plans throughout the country.

The hon. Lady is making an important speech. I also have an airport in my constituency, and it is investigating sustainable fuels. The French Government have announced that they will ban short flights when a train is an alternative; does the hon. Lady agree that such ideas should be part of the strategy we hear about from the Government? Part of the net zero strategy should be to reduce the number of ridiculously short flights in this country. I do not mean island-hopping; I mean flights between cities that are unnecessary and no one would even think about taking if we had better train routes and train services.

If we are really going to meet the net zero target, we cannot rely on the increasing long-haul flights that we are talking about at Heathrow. Can the Minister be clear about the trade-offs? If a third runway is built, does that mean that growth must be curbed at all other UK airports in order for the UK not to breach its carbon targets?

I shall end with an unequivocal message for the incoming new chief executive of Heathrow. There is no version of an expanded Heathrow that is compatible with climate targets. There is no version of an expanded Heathrow that does not reduce the quality of the lives of the 650,000 people in my constituency and beyond who live under the flightpath. There is no version of an expanded Heathrow that does not make the air that our children breathe even more polluted. I implore them to put the quality of life and the planet first, and the pockets of shareholders second. The new chief executive can expect any future plans to be met with the fiercest opposition from me and colleagues present.

I look forward to the rest of the debate and the Minister’s response. When he responds, I would like answers to the following questions. Will he commit to reviewing and amending the airport’s national policy statement, to ensure that it is compatible with the UK’s climate targets? Will he commit to publishing an overall strategy setting out how greenhouse gas emissions from aviation are to be managed and reduced over the coming decades? I urge the Minister: listen to the Government’s own climate targets, listen to the experts, listen to residents and listen to MPs. It is high time that the prospect of an expanded Heathrow took flight.

[Source]

16:43 Munira Wilson (Liberal Democrat)

Since the last general election, we have gone from one Prime Minister who threatened to lay down in front of the bulldozers at Heathrow—but who was tellingly missing for a critical vote in the House of Commons on Heathrow expansion—to another who actively supported expansion, although luckily her tenure was short lived. Our current Prime Minister has taken a leaf out of their book, talking tough on climate change and net zero while instructing his Chancellor to slash air passenger duty on domestic flights. I hope the Minister will clarify the Prime Minister’s position on the third runway project. In particular, as the hon. Member for Putney said, we need a review of the airports national policy statement; it is five years old, and the analysis is completely out of date, especially given the pandemic. We need a commitment to a national aviation strategy that addresses the sector as a whole, not just Heathrow.

To conclude, I speak on behalf of thousands of residents across Twickenham and south-west London, as well as London Liberal Democrat MPs, Richmond Council and members of the Greater London Assembly, when I say that we wholeheartedly and vehemently oppose a third runway at Heathrow airport. We will mobilise against any further plans. It is bad for the environment, bad for local communities, bad for our net zero targets and even potentially bad for our economy. It is time that the Government woke up, smelt the kerosene and opposed Heathrow expansion.

[Source]

16:58 Andy Slaughter (Labour)

What has changed since covid and the pause is that climate targets have got harder to meet, and the cost of doing so has become greater. Construction costs have gone through the roof. Heathrow has lost about £4.5 billion. It has also lost its chief executive and not yet recruited a new one. It is not in a good state.

[Source]

17:02 John McDonnell (Labour)

For the next 10 years, we put the case about the respiratory and health conditions, and we discovered more about cancers, coronary conditions and the mental health effects of being disturbed during a night’s sleep, and so on. Then the world changed and we all discovered something that others had told us about, but that we had not really believed in: climate change. We came together and, all of a sudden, what had been described as a nimbyist campaign became a global campaign. I joined a climate camp in my constituency. We had seminars at which local community members met climate campers, and we talked about the implications of climate change. We were so convincing that David Cameron went into the 2010 campaign—remember this one—with, “no ifs, no buts”, no third runway. We did not realise that once he got elected, he meant it for only one Parliament.

We then had the Davies commission, which came out in favour of an expansion and a third runway. Interestingly, in that commission, it was argued for the first time that the whole concept of the hub might be outdated, and that point-to-point and the development of regional airports was probably the future. That is where we are, and that is where we are going to go. There is no way that any Government that want to be re-elected will promote a third runway while trying to convince people that they will tackle climate change. It is not going to happen. Let us put Heathrow out of its misery and say that no Government will ever approve this, and no investor will ever speculate by investing in a project that will barely take off—pardon the pun. Why not just kill it off here, so that my constituents can enjoy the comfort of their homes?

I remind the Minister that the threat of a third runway means 4,000 properties in my constituency being demolished or rendered unliveable by noise or air pollution; that is 10,000 people being forced out of their homes. A third runway means the demolition of three schools, churches and the gurdwara, a number of community centres and our open spaces—the demolition of a whole community. If the Minister thinks that there is any chance that the community will not rise up against it, I tell him that that will happen right the way across London. If this Government or any Government try to move ahead with a third runway, it will be the most iconic climate change battleground in Europe.

[Source]

17:06 Ruth Cadbury (Labour)

“Heathrow expansion is incompatible with our environmental and climate change obligations and cannot be achieved without unacceptable impacts on local residents. The improved connectivity to the regions of the UK cannot be guaranteed and there are unanswered questions on the costs to the public purse and the deliverability of the project.”

[Source]

17:10 Gavin Newlands (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (SNP)

Fortunately, I can look at the expansion from a distance—literally. I am not involved in any difficult changes or the upheaval that will happen across a large swathe of the local community around Heathrow and across London. Equally, it is also madness to have umpteen aircraft circling the south-east of England waiting for a slot and burning fuel pointlessly due to a lack of capacity on the ground. Continuous ascent and descent is crucial to making CO 2 savings that will eventually be fully realised by the implementation of airspace modernisation. Incidentally, that is another strand of transport decarbonisation on which, despite the excellent work of the Airspace Change Organising Group and NATS, the Government have shown no urgency whatsoever.

But in the meantime, while Scotland continues the process of achieving full self-government and full membership of the EU, Heathrow must act in the best interests of us all, and that means supporting connectivity to and from the rest of these isles to London. It would be ignoring reality to deny the expansion of Heathrow without appropriate countermeasures to move aviation towards a net zero state. Developing sustainable aviation fuels can mitigate the impact of air travel. It is disappointing, to say the least, that we lag so far behind the rest of the world in investing in SAFs and putting them at the heart of the UK aviation sector. I understand that the consultation on the SAF mandate is ongoing and is scheduled to end next month. After that will be months of cogitation by the UK Government. If we are lucky, there might be an outcome ahead of the next general election, although I would not bet the house on it. This should have been done years ago, when the UK could have had taken a lead in developing SAFs and pioneering the technology required to produce them.

Inverness airport, which is owned by the Scottish Government, has recently introduced SAFs for all customers at the facility. That will surely help to reduce its carbon footprint as it aims to become the first zero-emission aviation region by 2040, but we need a sea change across the sector if we are serious about cutting emissions and mitigating the undoubted impact that the Heathrow expansion will have. I hope that sea change happens sooner rather than later.

[Source]

17:15 Mike Kane (Labour)

I come from the perspective of growing up in a council flat under the flightpath to Manchester airport, so as well as speaking as the shadow Minister for aviation, I shall also have a few personal things to say. Heathrow is an enormous employer in the south-east of England and contributes billions of pounds to our economy, as has been pointed out. We welcome that contribution and have been consistent in our support for the wider aviation sector, calling repeatedly during the pandemic for a meaningful, sector-specific deal, which would have protected workers’ rights and environmental standards, and allowed us to build back better from a position of power, not weakness. On expansion, Labour has consistently said for a number of years that a third runway at Heathrow must meet our long-established tests. It must meet the criteria on air quality, noise and climate change, and it must be affordable and delivered in the best interests of consumers.

Any future bids for Heathrow must meet the criteria that we have set out, but let us be clear that there are also significant wider challenges that must be met. The Government have set themselves a target of 2050 for net zero aviation emissions, and we know that there is no silver bullet when it comes to decarbonising aviation. We know there has been significant progress in developing potential solutions to the environmental impacts of aviation, but we are just not there yet. Aircraft have become quieter. I grew up under the BA111s, Tridents and Concordes. We know that aircraft are quieter; what people find disruptive is the increasing number of flights.

We have much further to go to decarbonise the sector. Potential solutions to aviation’s air pollution impacts are beginning to be developed. They include sustainable aviation fuel, as the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Gavin Newlands) pointed out, and the prospect of some flights being powered by batteries or green hydrogen. However, while the US and EU steam ahead, the Government’s inaction is putting the development of emerging green technologies at risk. We know that green technologies produce well-paid, good jobs, which are often trade unionised as well. We need Government action to secure the necessary investment for those emerging technologies.

It is vital that the sector takes measures to continually support the development of innovations to decarbonise, such as electric planes and sustainable aviation fuel, which was mentioned previously. I meet business after business, week after week, which beat a path to my door, and are trying to innovate in this sector. That technological development is a critical part of net zero and must be done in partnership between industry and Government, so that the industry can help to meets its climate obligations and seize the opportunities for the British economy, investing in technologies that will tackle the climate crisis, encouraging world-leading innovation here in Britain, and supporting good, well-paid jobs. That is the future we want to see. Through our green prosperity fund, Labour will deliver that. It will be the centrepiece of a future Labour Government—one that links prosperity, social justice and climate justice.

Given the imperative of decarbonising aviation, I ask again about airspace modernisation. It has been referred to today; I hope the Minister can explain the lack of progress. It is a critical piece of national infrastructure that needs bringing up to date, but the process seems to be enormously complex. We know that airspace modernisation would reduce emissions, allowing cleaner and greener point-to-point flights, but it has been held up by a lack of ambition and urgency from this Government.

[Source]

17:22 Jesse Norman (Conservative)

The jet zero strategy was published in July last year and sets out the Government’s approach to achieving net zero aviation by 2050. The idea that the Government have not thought at length and in depth about this, and set out a strategy for achieving it, as was raised earlier in the debate, is nonsense. The jet zero strategy and its accompanying documents set that out. The strategy focuses on the rapid development of technologies in a way that maintains the benefits of air travel while maximising the opportunities that decarbonisation can bring to the UK. It creates a strategic framework for aviation decarbonisation.

It is clear that the Government continue to support airport growth where it is justified, and that expansion of any airport in England must meet our strict climate change obligations to be able to proceed. The Government’s approach to sustainable aviation growth is supported by analysis that shows that the country can achieve net zero emissions by 2050 without the need to intervene directly to limit aviation growth. The jet zero strategy set out a range of measures to meet net zero. I will touch on three of those.

Secondly, this year the Government have conducted a call for evidence on implementation of a 2040 zero-emission airport operations target in England. My Department is currently considering responses and will publish a Government response shortly. Thirdly, the suggestion that this country is behind its international competitors on sustainable aviation fuels is entirely wrong. We have published a consultation on the SAF mandate, and that is currently available for discussion.

[Source]