Heathrow Airport Expansion

Fleur Anderson Excerpts

Wednesday 24th May 2023 Westminster Hall

[Fleur Anderson (Putney) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the future of Heathrow Airport expansion.

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.

There is strong opposition to the expansion of Heathrow from residents across the region; the Mayor of London; local councils, including Wandsworth Council; environmental groups; a cross-party group of MPs, many of whom are here today, along with many more; and even two former Prime Ministers. Virgin Airlines, which does not want the extra costs that expansion would bring, has not said it supports expansion. Heathrow is already the most expensive airport in the world for airlines and for customers.

Heathrow’s expansion plans were put on hold during the pandemic, but the Government are now talking about reviving them. That will result in an additional 260,000 flights a year; an increased site of 950 acres, which is twice the size of the City of London; the biggest car park in the world, with 43,000 spaces; and increased carbon emissions of 9 megatonnes. That is more than the carbon emissions for the whole of Luxembourg.

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.

On growth, the figures cited by the Government seem to be very misleading. The final national policy statement claims that the benefits of an expanded Heathrow would be £73 billion to £74 billion. However, that measurement does not include the actual economic and financial costs of the proposal. Buried in the Department for Transport’s own updated appraisal report is evidence that shows that the net present value ranges from an increase of £3.3 billion to a decrease of £2.2 billion.

Then there are the claims on jobs. Job-creation figures used by Heathrow are based on estimates made by the Airports Commission report in 2015. They have been revised twice since then by the Department for Transport, and are now at least 50% lower and could fall even further. Analysis of the Department’s own jobs data by the New Economics Foundation found that jobs would be drawn away from regional airports, which would see a reduction in passengers. A staggering 27,000 people could lose their jobs from cities including Bristol, Solihull and Manchester. That is hardly levelling up. Any claims on jobs or economic growth made by Heathrow should be at best only half believed.

[Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for securing today’s important debate on Heathrow airport expansion. No talk of expansion can be complete without first addressing the surface access requirements to decongest the roads around Heathrow and to improve the environment. More than a decade ago, the Government committed to building the western rail link to Heathrow. The successful business case was predicated on a two-runway scenario. A third runway, if it was built, would make the scheme critical; however, not a single spade has been dug into the ground. Does my hon. Friend agree that this No. 1 infrastructure priority for the Thames valley region, which has the support of the Welsh Government and others in the south and west—including in my Slough constituency—must finally be built without further procrastination by the Government?

[Fleur Anderson]

I thank my hon. Friend for his helpful intervention. An expanded Heathrow would see an additional 175,000 trips every day. That is more than the daily rail arrivals to the whole of Birmingham, yet the proposal does not have a plan for how to deal with it. I shall say more on that later. My hon. Friend is absolutely right.

What about green aviation? We are told that green aviation and green tech will catch up. Are we close to the breakthrough in alternative fuels, carbon capture or battery-powered planes that would make an expanded Heathrow sustainable and viable? No, we are not. In 2010, the aviation industry pledged to source 10% of its fuels from sustainable sources by 2020. We are in 2023; how is that going? Only 0.05% are sustainable fuels. There are no electric aircraft currently in development that could be commercially viable for long-haul flights. The green aviation revolution that could make the Heathrow expansion environmentally viable is a long way from taking off.

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.

[Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)]

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.

[Fleur Anderson]

I thank the hon. Member for that useful intervention. The need for investment in other areas instead of this expansion is the whole argument.

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?

Air quality is also a major issue for my constituents in Putney. The additional 9 million tonnes of carbon dioxide that an expanded Heathrow will produce must end up somewhere. Unfortunately for residents in Putney, it will be dumped on our high street, school playgrounds and green spaces such as Putney heath.

[Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate. My constituents in Battersea will be hugely negatively impacted if the expansion goes ahead. Heathrow is already one of the biggest polluters, and the assessments that it previously carried out—on air quality, noise and so on—are all now outdated. Does my hon. Friend agree that the Government need to revisit those assessments before Heathrow begins revisiting the issue of expansion? My constituents and I believe that Heathrow should not be expanded.

[Fleur Anderson]

I thank my hon. Friend and constituency neighbour for outlining what residents across south-west London are saying together. This is an outdated plan, it needs to be updated and it does not account for what we now know about the need to reduce air pollution and the damage it is doing to our children’s lungs and our health.

Putney has suffered—and continues to suffer—from some of the worst levels of air pollution in the UK, so my constituents will be devastated if Heathrow gets the green light to expand. The Government themselves accept that it would have a significant negative effect on air quality, but have provided no evidence to show how Heathrow can both expand and comply with legal limits on air quality simultaneously. It just does not seem to add up. I therefore ask the Minister: what safeguards on air quality can he offer to Putney residents today?

The constant noise, often from very early in the morning, is a serious health issue for Putney residents. The current level is already too much, and I know people who have moved away from the area because of it. We cannot take any more. According to the European Environment Agency, noise pollution is the second largest environmental threat to health, causing 12,000 premature deaths a year. It is not just an inconvenience. It is not just Putney residents who are suffering, either. The No 3rd Runway Coalition has calculated that an expanded Heathrow could see more than 650,000 people fall within the Department for Transport’s “significantly affected” noise pollution category. That is very serious.

The Government’s night-time noise abatement objective for noise-designated airports is simply not good enough. It could provide some answers, but the objective downplays the serious negative health impacts caused by aircraft noise at night. The negative health impacts should have been made the central tenet of the objective, to reduce the harm caused, but there is no definition of the objective

“to limit and where possible reduce…noise”.

The objective is far too vague; it should have much clearer commitment to noise-reduction targets, with measurable outcomes, so that successive interventions by airports and airlines can be determined, and enforcement action against noise can be taken. Otherwise, Heathrow can do what it likes. I urge the Minister to put himself in the shoes of my constituents and offer more than just vague promises that will not be kept.

Finally, on transport, an expanded Heathrow will see an increase in daily trips of 175,000 people, as I said before, and an additional 43,000 car park spaces. The biggest car park in the world is now about 20,000 spaces; this will be 43,000 spaces. Who is going to meet the extra demand of the cost of this extra transport, congestion and pollution? The cost is estimated to be £5 billion to £15 billion; to date, Heathrow has committed to contributing only £1 billion. I ask the Minister: who is going to pay for the additional transport needs? Will it be taxpayers, such as my constituents, who will be the ones losing sleep, losing out by breathing more polluted air as a result of the expansion, and losing out because of the transport costs?

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.

[Julie Elliott (in the Chair)]

I remind Members to bob so that we have an indication of who wants to speak. I suggest an informal four-minute limit. We should get everybody in if we stick to that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Fleur Anderson]

I thank all Members who have taken part in this important debate; they all added a different perspective and added to the case, giving strong reasons for why this is a deeply flawed plan. Heathrow expansion is not in the planet’s interest or the national interest. I implore the Government to stop supporting the plan and invest in trains instead.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the future of Heathrow Airport expansion.