Heathrow third runway plan labelled ‘desperate’ amid Labour divisions
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Rachel Reeves hopes expansion will increase economic growth but Ed Miliband and Sadiq Khan oppose it. A reported plan to approve a third runway at Heathrow and an expansion of Gatwick and Luton airports has been labelled “desperate”, as the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, faces opposition from within Labour to the decision.
Reeves is poised to make a swathe of announcements intended to increase economic growth in a speech later this month, including giving the green light to airport expansions. The long-mooted plan to build a third runway at Heathrow, which is Britain’s busiest airport, is expected to be approved by Reeves, along with bringing a second strip at Gatwick into full-time use and increasing the capacity of Luton, according to Bloomberg.
The chancellor has been searching for policies that will turbocharge growth, predicted to be 1.6% this year, as she also searches for deep spending cuts to make up for a rise in borrowing costs and a dip in the pound earlier this month. Reeves is expected to make the decision to allow Heathrow’s expansion despite opposition from the energy secretary, Ed Miliband, who is understood to be against the plans which have long been opposed by green campaigners.
Miliband is responsible for keeping the UK within its carbon budget – the amount of carbon the country can afford to emit while still having a chance of meeting net zero emissions by 2050. The seventh such budget is coming out this spring, written by the Climate Change Committee (CCC), which has previously decreed that “there should be no net airport expansion unless the carbon-intensity of aviation is outperforming the government’s emissions reduction pathway and can accommodate the additional demand”.
