Heathrow: National Airports Review

Baroness Pidgeon Excerpts

Monday 27th October 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, the Statement does two things: it announces a review of the Airports National Policy Statement, but gives us little idea in detail as to how it is to be revised, and it tells us that the only two credible proposals for Heathrow’s expansion are still being considered and that the more fanciful proposals have been dismissed. The two are linked because the core purpose of the current ANPS is to facilitate the expansion of Heathrow. In my view, the timing of the Statement is nakedly intended to persuade the OBR that the project is real and deliverable. I wish to test that.

First, there is the question of delivery of a revised ANPS, which I must say I think Ministers are rather reckless to embark on. The current Airports National Policy Statement was produced under the premiership of my noble friend Lady May of Maidenhead and expressly favoured the expansion of Heathrow. It survived scrutiny in the High Court and was appealed to the Court of Appeal by environmental groups on no fewer than 17 grounds of challenge and fell on a single one—the legal meaning of the word “policy”. On that arcane question the whole statement fell. By then, the Government were in the hands of Mr Johnson, who was perfectly content with that outcome. But Heathrow took up the cudgels, and the case went to the Supreme Court, which restored the ANPS.

The timeline tells its own story. In 2015, the Airports Commission recommended a third runway. In 2018, Parliament approved it by 415 votes to 119, yet only by December 2020 did the Supreme Court clear the legal path for Heathrow to proceed—five years ago. Now, in October 2025, Ministers tell us rather recklessly that the policy is going to be revised and accelerated and we are going to go through the whole process again, with all the potential challenges involved. It is a brave or reckless Government who set out on this course.

The Government have an answer to this. In the Statement, the Secretary of State says:

“On judicial reviews, we have announced that we will work with the judiciary to cut the amount of time it takes for a review to move through the court system for national policy statements and nationally significant infrastructure projects”.


At present, the average time for such reviews stands at roughly 1.4 years. What is the Government’s target? How long do the Government expect it to take for the new airports national policy statement to be approved? Remember, it is the Chancellor’s ambition that this runway should open in 2035, with spades in the ground many years before that, given how much muck has to be moved in order to embrace Heathrow’s plans. I am indeed making the simplifying assumption—it may not be true—that the Heathrow proposal is the one eventually chosen by the Government in November and not the alternative scheme. I may be wrong about that, but I think my assumption is reasonable and, for the moment, simplifying. That gives us five years.

Meanwhile, public debate on the whole thing has been minimal, because we have very little information about the proposals. The projected cost of Heathrow expansion stands at £49 billion. The market value of Heathrow Airport, which we know from the last time its shares traded last year, is around £9.5 billion, even though its regulated asset base is closer to £20 billion. People are willing to pay £9.5 billion for something which has a regulated asset base of £20 billion, and they are then proposing that, despite the fact that it is heavily leveraged, much more so than it was 10 years ago when it was discussing this project, we have to reckon with the fact that it wants to spend at least £49 billion—that is the publicly quoted figure; it may be more by now—on a third runway to increase capacity by 50%. My second question is whether this is credibly financeable and whether the Government believe that it is.

However, the airlines do not trust Heathrow, because they are expected to pay in advance off the regulated asset base. In fact, they are paying already, because the CAA has approved that some of the costs that Heathrow incurs can already be charged to the airlines and thus to the flying passengers. They think that because Heathrow is incentivised by the current regime to make its expenditure as high as possible, it is untrustworthy. They point to various things, such as a new baggage system completed in 2016, which was priced at £234 million but ended up costing £435 million, and a cargo tunnel with a budget of £44.9 million that ended up with an estimated cost of £197 million. They point, in contrast to Heathrow’s plan to spend £49 billion on a single runway, to terminals at Barcelona, Frankfurt, Madrid and Munich, that all cost half or less when taking the size of the terminals into account; the fact that Changi is expected to create a new terminal for £8 billion; and that New York’s JFK will open its new Terminal 1 in 2026, the centrepiece of a £15 billion transformation that will be completed by 2030.

What are the Government going to do about Heathrow and its regulatory structures? They say that they are going to change them. The Statement says:

“The Government will therefore work with the Civil Aviation Authority to review the framework for economic regulation for capacity expansion at Heathrow, ensuring the model provides strong incentives for cost-effective delivery”.


What has the Civil Aviation Authority, the regulator, been doing for the last 20 years in that case, if it has not been ensuring firm delivery? So my third question is: what are the Government going to do about that?

I plan to speak for eight minutes.

There is also the matter of noise, which I would like to pursue at some stage, but not at the moment. With that, I will sit down, but I believe that the Government have a lot to do to show that this project is credible, and that they are not contributing to its fast delivery by revising the airports national policy statement at this stage.

[Baroness Pidgeon (LD)]

My Lords, I welcome this debate on the review of the airports national policy statement and the Government’s announcement regarding Heathrow. But let me be very clear that the Liberal Democrat Benches believe that expansion of Heathrow would be a mistake from the Government and deliver a blow to our net-zero commitments.

A reliable and safe transport system is vital for economic prosperity in all parts of the country, and improving transport is essential to combat climate change and air pollution, but we must ensure that new infrastructure supports the UK’s climate targets. Analysis from the New Economics Foundation suggests that approving the expansion of Heathrow Airport would cancel out the climate benefit of the Government’s clean power plan within five years, and expansion of Gatwick and Luton Airports would cancel out the climate benefit of the CPP by 2050, so the Government’s sudden support for airport expansion just does not stack up.

Ed Miliband, speaking at the Environmental Audit Committee on 27 January this year, said:

“Any aviation expansion must be justified within carbon budgets … If it cannot be justified it will not go ahead”.


Will the Minister confirm that the four new tests—the evidence-led approach set out by the Secretary of State—will have to be met in their entirety before this Government will give the green light to Heathrow expansion? Will the Government publish the metrics for each of these four new tests so that there is transparency in the assessment? Will the Minister confirm that they will not proceed with Heathrow expansion if the Climate Change Committee advises that the plans do not meet legal obligations on climate change, including net-zero or air-quality obligations?

Let us look at noise pollution. It is a really big issue. Around 700,000 people are impacted currently by noise from Heathrow. It is not just those who are living in places such as Richmond, Kingston, Hounslow and Surrey—around the airport site. In places such as Lambeth and Southwark, residents have the clash of Heathrow flights and City Airport flights throughout the day, causing serious nuisance. The CAA workbook has highlighted that the number of those who are overflown could double to 1.5 million under some Heathrow expansion plans. Noise is an issue which many people feel has escaped any meaningful legal control for too long, leaving overflown communities exposed to excessive noise, impacting their health and quality of life. As part of this work, will the Government adopt the World Health Organization’s recommended noise levels to address noise pollution from the operations of Heathrow Airport?

I come to the point about surface access. While we do not want to see expansion and we do not believe it stacks up economically or environmentally, the last thing the area needs is an airport expansion plan that does not address and fund fully surface transport to the airport. It is a problem now and, therefore, higher modal share for public transport must be a foundation block for the Government’s assessment. Can the Minister confirm the Government’s commitment to fully funded surface transport access as part of this work? As part of the assessment of the two options, will the Government ensure that surface rail access, including the southern and western rail links, are an integral part? Will the Government consider the future of the premium Heathrow Express line as part of its surface access assessment, and when will this be published?

I pick up particularly these points around rail surface access because the letter from the Secretary of State in June stressed

“surface access mode share targets, including elements of a surface access strategy”

and went on to talk about it covering

“public transport, and active travel”.

Yet in the letter that was published last week, on 22 October, under the heading “Surface access”, it states:

“To minimise unnecessary disruption, please provide additional information regarding the construction of road schemes”.


Rail seems to have been downgraded. I really want some assurance from the Minister today.

In an attempt to demonstrate growth, the Government are misguided in thinking that an expanded Heathrow can deliver for the whole country. There are many other schemes that would deliver a lot more for communities across the country. We do not support Heathrow expansion and will closely monitor every stage of this process to ensure that local communities are heard loudly and clearly.