Heathrow Airport Expansion

Sarah Olney Excerpts

Tuesday 20th October 2026 Westminster Hall

[Sarah Olney (Richmond Park) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir John. I thank the hon. Member for Putney (Fleur Anderson) for her excellent opening speech. I hope she will not mind my saying that I experienced a certain sense of déjà vu during it, because, although she put things excellently, as she always does, this is not something I have not heard before. I very much hope that the Minister was listening.

The Liberal Democrats have consistently opposed a third runway at Heathrow because the case for expansion has never added up. With the proposed economic benefits declining by 90% in the past decade, an operational second runway at Gatwick in the pipeline, and the Climate Change Committee’s recent statement that a third runway would be incompatible with the UK’s net zero targets, there is simply no case to be made for expansion any more. Despite the former Chancellor’s framing a third runway as part of the UK’s growth agenda, the Treasury’s analysis puts the third runway’s net value to UK residents at between minus £23.4 billion and minus £62.5 billion over 60 years. Heathrow is already in over £17 billion-worth of debt. The headline cost of a third runway, which the Government assert will be completely privately funded, stands at £49 billion, but that does not take into account over £100 billion of carbon abatement costs, nor the billions of pounds required for investment in the surface access upgrades that are needed.

I was also reminded by my hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson) about the impact of the third runway plans on the M25 and the huge economic impact that will have across a vast swathe of the south-east. If the additional passengers cannot even travel to Heathrow, that rather defeats the purpose of adding capacity. My hon. Friend the Member for Woking (Mr Forster) made the point that we lack so many connections across the south-east that it is already incredibly difficult to travel to Heathrow. That is not just from Surrey; my constituency does not have a direct link, despite Richmond being a mainline station in south-west London. The lack of access will not just affect passengers; it will also reduce access to employment, severely limiting some of the economic benefits that we have heard about. It simply will not be possible for people to access the airport to take up the jobs.

That is not to mention that Heathrow will seek to recoup its investment by passing on the cost to passengers. That will, of course, increase the cost of flying, as we have heard from a number of contributors to the debate, which will dampen demand. The Government recently spent £3 million on a banker to advise on the strength of the economic case for Heathrow; those of us here in the Chamber could have saved them the bother. With the Government seeking to find savings in the upcoming Budget, we can also save them the effort: there is no viable financial case for expansion.

The introduction of nearly 300,000 more flights a year will have unavoidable environmental and social consequences. The Government’s commissioned aviation night noise effects study identifies that residents exposed to higher levels of aircraft noise are twice as likely to experience severe sleep disturbance. Many of the MPs in this room will have heard about those impacts directly from their constituents. We had a good community meeting across Richmond borough—my hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham and I attended—and some of the stories we heard were particularly harrowing, especially from young people suffering from learning disabilities and additional needs such as autism. The impact of night flights and aircraft noise on those people is unendurable.

Those indicators are widely accepted to correlate with an increased risk of hypertension and cardiovascular disease as well as poor mental wellbeing. People living in communities surrounding Heathrow have a 24% higher chance of stroke, a 21% higher chance of heart disease and a 14% higher chance of cardiovascular disease compared with people exposed to low levels of aircraft noise. The flightpaths for a third runway have not even been designed yet, so how can the Government produce a viable noise impact assessment and reassure residents who are not already exposed to aircraft noise that a third runway will not impact them? I did not plan to mention this, but I want to pay tribute to the right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) and his impactful description of what it means for not only the people whose homes are on the proposed site of the third runway, but for those whose homes surround it, and his powerful case about the effect it will have on their lives.

On the environmental argument, it should almost go without saying that adding these additional flights to our skies will have a profound impact on air pollution and climate change. The Government have previously used wishful thinking in their assertions that sustainable aviation fuel will mitigate the additional pollution from the expansion of Heathrow, although they seem to have scaled back that argument more recently. Heathrow is already the biggest single source of carbon emissions in the UK, and expansion will add an extra 8 to 9 megatonnes of CO₂ into our environment every year. The Climate Change Committee’s recent conclusion that expansion is not compatible with the UK’s climate commitments presents the Government with a clear choice: to pursue a third runway at Heathrow or to take the climate crisis facing us seriously. It seems an easy decision to me.

Does the Minister agree with the Climate Change Committee’s verdict that the current plans for a third runway are not compatible with the UK’s climate change commitments? The Prime Minister’s recent comments that distanced the Government’s support from a third runway were a step in the right direction, but he needs to go further, back his own convictions and categorically oppose expansion. I anticipate that the Tory spokesman, the right hon. Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Holden), will reflect his party’s recent conference commitment to expanding Heathrow. That shows not only its lack of interest in the wellbeing of London and Londoners but its susceptibility to big business lobbying in the face of hard economic facts. Will the Minister advise the Prime Minister that the third runway proposal is not fit for purpose and put an end to this white elephant once and for all?

--- Later in debate ---

[Sarah Olney]

Would the right hon. Gentleman like to say more about those economic benefits, given that the Treasury’s figures show that the likely economic impact of Heathrow expansion is between minus £25 billion and minus £63 billion over 60 years?

[Mr Holden]

I will come on to those figures because I think we can all agree that there is questioning of them. It surprises me that the former Chancellor of Exchequer, the right hon. Member for Leeds West and Pudsey (Rachel Reeves), and the current Chancellor of Exchequer are so vociferously supportive of the airport expansion if those figures are true.