Heathrow Airport Expansion

Debate between Fleur Anderson and Rupa Huq

Tuesday 20th October 2026 Westminster Hall

[Fleur Anderson (Putney) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered Heathrow airport expansion.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir John, and I thank all my constituents in Putney who have written to me, attended public meetings and taken part in the recent consultation on Heathrow expansion. I am really grateful to have secured today’s debate, and for the opportunity to explain why the Mayor of London, so many London MPs and so many Londoners continue to oppose the enormous expansion of Heathrow, the third runway and all that comes with it. I am also grateful to the Prime Minister and the Minister for Aviation for engaging with the concerns that I and many others have raised.

The proposal on the table would significantly and adversely affect the health and wellbeing of 3 million people living near Heathrow, and there would be a 58% increase in flights. Under the expansion proposal, the number of flights would increase by 276,000 per year— 756 per day. This debate comes at an important moment in the decision-making process. It is only weeks since the Government’s consultation on the draft Heathrow expansion national policy statement closed on 1 September, and we are only days before Heathrow launches its own consultation on its expansion plans on 27 October. However, Heathrow is consulting on expansion before the Government have completed the policy framework that would govern it. That is the wrong way round.

Before taking a decision of such magnitude, we should ask a simple question: knowing what we know now, would Parliament make the same decision today as it was asked to make when the Airport Commission reported and made the proposal in 2015? I do not believe that it would. In 2015, the Airport Commission’s case rested on assumptions about jobs, growth, aviation demand, sustainable aviation fuel, carbon reduction and regional economic benefits, but many of those assumptions have now been blown apart and look considerably weaker, so I am going to whizz through eight major things that have changed since 2015. I will also talk about three important things that have not changed since then.

First, I am going to focus on the major central justification for expansion: the economic case, which I believe has collapsed. The Government’s own figures tell a very different story from the one we were told a decade ago. In 2015, the Airports Commission estimated that expansion could boost GDP by £20 billion to £23 billion. Earlier this year, supporters of expansion were still citing figures of around £13 billion. However, the Department for Transport’s appraisal in the HENPS document estimates a GDP increase of just 0.03% to 0.05% by the 2050s—the equivalent of roughly £900 million to £1.5 billion over decades. The headline economic benefit used to justify Heathrow expansion has therefore fallen from £20 billion to perhaps little more than £1 billion. A project once sold as transformational would now deliver an impact that is barely measurable in the context of a £3 trillion economy. Those figures would raise serious questions for any major infrastructure project.

Secondly, I will talk about jobs. In 2015, the Airports Commission argued that a third runway could support about 70,000 new jobs across the UK by 2050, yet the Government’s own analysis suggests that many jobs would be relocated, rather than created. The DFT estimates that Heathrow expansion could draw around 21,400 jobs into the Heathrow area while contributing to the loss of approximately 15,200 jobs elsewhere in the UK. Moving jobs from one region to another is obviously not the same as creating new jobs.

Thirdly, the premise of spreading growth across the UK has changed. The Government cannot demonstrate that the growth generated would be genuinely additional. If jobs, passengers and investment are simply drawn from other airports and regions, Britain is not creating growth; it is just relocating it. Analysis by the New Economics Foundation suggests that Birmingham airport alone could lose around 7.5 million passengers annually by 2050, alongside approximately 9,500 jobs across the airport and its supply chains.

On devolution, No.10 North is going in one direction, but Heathrow expansion—being so concentrated on London and the south-east—would take us in another direction. At a time when Ministers rightly want to spread opportunity more evenly across the country, Heathrow expansion risks doing precisely the opposite.

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making a really powerful point. When he was the Mayor of Manchester, the Prime Minister warned many times that Heathrow expansion would suck the life out of regional airports. Does she agree that that is now more true than ever? The Prime Minister is also really into devolution. The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, is also against Heathrow expansion, so the Prime Minister should listen to our Mayor, too.

[Fleur Anderson]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. The context of this debate has changed, which is my point; things have changed since 2015. We are looking again at devolution and growth across the country, and that changed context means that Heathrow expansion really needs to be looked at again, especially when the Mayor of London opposes it so strongly.

Fourthly, business travel has changed; the world that originally produced the case for the third runway no longer exists. Much of the demand modelling that was made then assumed ever-increasing business travel, but the pandemic accelerated a shift towards remote working and video conferencing, which has become permanent. Research highlighted by the New Economics Foundation shows that over the two decades before the pandemic, UK GDP grew by around 25% while business passenger numbers through UK airports showed virtually no growth at all. Today, business travel remains at a level that is about 20% below pre-pandemic levels, so the fundamental assumption about business travel no longer applies.

Fifthly, assumptions about sustainable aviation fuel have also changed. Sustainable aviation fuel was meant to be the great white charger that would come galloping over the hills, and that we would all be using it, and it would be the answer to all our climate problems. However, use of it is far less than predicted and is growing more slowly than predicted. It still accounts for far less than 1% of global aviation fuel use, and even under the Government’s own plans, around 90% of aviation fuel being used in 2030 would still be conventional fuel. In effect, Parliament is being asked to approve additional emissions now on the basis that future technology might solve the problem some time later, but that hope is really not being borne out.

Sixthly, the climate challenge has become far more acute. The Climate Change Committee’s conclusion in its report last month was clear—the UK does not currently have a credible pathway to reduce aviation emissions in line with net zero while accommodating Heathrow expansion. The Committee estimates that expansion would add an additional 2.4 million tonnes of carbon dioxide every year by 2050. That is roughly the equivalent of putting around half a million additional petrol-fuelled cars on Britain’s roads, all the emissions of Denmark, and greater than all the emissions of New Zealand.

Global Britain

Debate between Fleur Anderson and Rupa Huq

Thursday 30th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Fleur Anderson (Putney) (Lab)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in this important debate on the eve of our departure from the EU. I congratulate the many Members who have spoken. I say to the hon. Member for Wolverhampton South West (Stuart Anderson), who is just leaving, that we share many things. Although we do not share a party, we share a surname; we share the experience of spending time in Bosnia; we share a faith; and we share a commitment to social justice, which was wonderful to hear about. His speech was very brave and very moving, and I thank him for it.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Aberdeen South (Stephen Flynn) on his speech and on the birth of his new baby. I congratulate the hon. Member for West Bromwich West (Shaun Bailey) on a lively, engaging and passionate speech, and I congratulate my near neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Streatham (Bell Ribeiro-Addy), on her speech, which covered so many issues that are important for our constituents and local residents, but also for our place in Britain and the world.

Global Britain is important to the residents of Putney, Southfields and Roehampton. More than one in 10 residents are from other EU countries, and many more are from other countries around the world. As a constituency, we feel global and outward facing, so I am glad to hear many references to Britain being an outward-facing country even though we are leaving the EU.

I would like to distance myself from the scenes of the Brexit party waving their flags in the European Parliament yesterday. I thank the hon. Member for Wycombe (Mr Baker) for mentioning that this should be a time of kindness, and for the acknowledgement that some Members and residents feel sorrow at this time. I welcome his comments about healing our divisions, and I hope that we will share more such sentiments across the House. Many Members and residents in Putney feel that what is going to happen tomorrow is an act of self-harm. We hope that we will see better times, but we are feeling sad at the moment. I associate myself with the comments of the European Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen, who said:

“We will always love you”.

We will always love the EU, working closely together but in a different way, from tomorrow onwards.

Global Britain should not just be about enhancing the UK’s international prestige and influence on the world stage. A global Britain in 2020 needs to defend multilateralism and the rules-based international order from the threats posed by those who seek to refine them. We need to promote our core values and not use the act of distancing ourselves from protectionism as an excuse to move away from our values of human rights, democracy and environmental sustainability. We must not detach our discussions about global Britain from trade, trade democracy, trade justice and our leading role in international development and the achievement of the sustainable development goals. I want to focus on those areas.

On current evidence, the Government’s approach to trade does not take seriously our global responsibility to tackle the imminent threat of climate change, to defend human rights and to ensure trade democracy and transparency. Removing child refugee rights from the European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill was not a good start, and I think doing so sent the wrong signals to the world. We have yet to see what will come up in the immigration Bill. I know that the Government say that that subject will be dealt with in the Bill, and I want to be optimistic. It is in that vein, and following that thread, that I will make my following comments.

I am concerned about our post-Brexit trade objectives. We still have next to no information on the Government’s trade objectives after Brexit. Despite repeated calls from organisations such as the CBI, the British Chambers of Commerce, the Federation of Small Businesses and the Trade Justice Movement, there has yet to be a sustainability impact assessment of post-Brexit trade deals, or any indication of how the Government see trade policy tying in to the broader industrial strategy and to environmental and social objectives. We have been given no clear indication of what the process will be for parliamentary scrutiny of post-Brexit trade deals.

There is already a huge democratic deficit in what is one of the most important processes in our country’s history. Future trade deals with the US leave us exposed to the risk of products being sold here that have been produced in the US under less environmentally friendly practices. We must take this opportunity to level up our game and not give in to a race to the bottom.

In a few weeks’ time the Government will attempt to roll the EU-Morocco association agreement over into UK legislation, despite widespread concerns about the ongoing Moroccan occupation of Western Sahara and the human rights of the Sahrawi people. Again, the Government are seeking to roll it over with as little scrutiny as possible. This is another example of trade agreements putting economic opportunism above human rights and international law. Is this what we want global Britain to look like? This cannot be the outcome of free trade.

What needs to be done? First, on fair trade, the Government need to work with organisations such as the Fairtrade Foundation and civil society organisations, co-operatives and trade unions to ensure a fair trade Brexit. For instance, future trade policy should ensure that economically vulnerable people do not find themselves paying new import duties on their sales to the UK; assess the impact on poorer countries of trade deals struck with wealthier countries; and make it easier for developing countries to sell their high-value products, not just base products, to the UK. We should also ensure that our trade policies are in line with our commitments to the sustainable development goals.

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful case. She has mentioned co-operatives and linking economic and social justice. On microfinance in Bangladesh, Muhammad Yunus’s Grameen bank helps women in particular to get start-up loans for businesses. Does my hon. Friend agree that such initiatives are a way forward and that our Government should engage more positively with them?

[Fleur Anderson]

I wholeheartedly agree with my hon. Friend. I have spoken to women in Bangladesh about ways in which trading policies can be fair. Even those with very small incomes can engage in the global trading system. If we make that our aim and goal, it can be done right from the start.

My second point is that the Department for International Development should be kept as an independent Department. This is a very live issue at the moment. It should not be merged with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Working together, the FCO and DFID give us significant clout globally, which we are in danger of diluting if we merge the two Departments. DFID is considered one of the most effective aid agencies in the world, saving lives through health, immunisation, water, sanitation, education and climate programmes, and by empowering communities to do that. This must be led by a Secretary of State with permanent Cabinet representation and a place on the National Security Council.

We should also increase our environmental commitments to achieve a net zero future. Our now independent membership of the World Trade Organisation and our hosting of COP26 later this year provide a massive opportunity—I want to be as optimistic as I can about leaving the EU—to take global leadership of environmental trade policy and to outdo the EU in the implementation of environmental standards. However, that has to begin with getting our own ship in order. We need to take a more joined-up departmental approach to trade and climate change, and end the culture of siloism. We need to undertake environmental, gender and climate impact assessments before entering trade negotiations, which is why we as a House need to know what is going on in those negotiations. All too often, free trade can have a significant, detrimental impact on women in particular, which is why I mentioned gender impact assessments. We should ensure that all stipulations in future trade agreements are designed to meet our own climate and environmental targets, and we should seek legally binding climate commitments in trade deals, rather than too often ineffective environmental chapters.

Trade deals should also be subject to increased scrutiny, as the shadow Secretary of State for International Trade, my hon. Friend the Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner), has said. The Government seem to be making every effort to avoid proper debate on and scrutiny of our trade deals, and they are completely opaque in their objectives. They are hiding. The entire process needs to be reformed and subject to proper oversight, if our trade policy is going to reflect the sort of global Britain that we all want.

Tomorrow we leave the European Union and its regulatory framework. With the Chancellor already having confirmed that there will be no alignment with EU regulations, global Britain is now being defined in our trade and development policies. Are we prepared to enter into trade deals with regimes such as that of President Bolsonaro, who has pursued an aggressive policy on environmental deregulation, for which the Amazon has paid the price? Are we going to continue selling arms to human rights abusers and states violating international humanitarian law? Are we going to continue to let UK-based companies divert rivers and destroy indigenous communities in their own overseas operations? This cannot be the kind of global Britain we want to see.

To conclude, Brexit, tackling global poverty, achieving the sustainable development goals and taking urgent action on the climate crisis all bring huge challenges, but we must meet them with a very British commitment to fairness, by protecting rights and promoting peace, justice, equality, sustainability and prosperity in all that we do on the global stage.

Local Services: London Suburbs

Debate between Fleur Anderson and Rupa Huq

Tuesday 28th January 2020 Westminster Hall

[Dr Huq]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. There are many outer Londons, with different types of housing, and different 21st-century pressures that affect all London suburbs, east and west. Dagenham and Ealing are probably mirror images of each other, although we in Ealing like to think that we are further in.

Ealing was once known for being leafy—and for its comedy—but it now ranks as the 10th-worst borough in the country on the barriers to housing index of multiple deprivation. It ranks particularly badly on housing affordability as a quality of life indicator. That has an impact on educational attainment, employment and public health. Some 18 of the top 20 worst boroughs are in London, with 12 of those in outer London.

We must recognise that the binary divide between inner and outer London is inadequate for boroughs such as Ealing and those of my hon. Friends the Members for Harrow West and for Dagenham and Rainham (Jon Cruddas), who have mentioned that their boroughs have characteristics of both. If the current boundary had not been not arbitrarily drawn by political bureaucrats, somewhere such as Acton could, socially and geographically, easily fall into most definitions of inner London—it has two tube stations in zone 2. Meanwhile, Southall, which is some miles west, is indisputably and cartographically in outer London. They have similar deprivation problems, however, which lead to higher costs for the local authority.

Some 65% of adults speak English at home in Ealing borough compared with the London average of 77%. Diversity is a strength, but it comes at a cost that is not recognised in the formula. There are disparities not only between boroughs but within them. Child deprivation in the Chiswick part of my seat is at 13%, but in the East Acton ward, which borders it, it is above average, at 23%.

The Outer London Commission, which was established by the previous mayoralty, made a start on some of those issues. It has since folded—a symptom of political cycles and the need to do away with the old when the new lot come in—but it could surely be revived in some form. Voter volatility is alive and well in the suburbs. My constituency, and those of Putney, Enfield, Southgate, Manchester, Withington and Sheffield, Hallam, have all gone Labour-wards since 2015, so the old pattern of white flight and suburban nuclear families between twitching net curtains is being turned on its head by the new patterns that I have referred to.

There are people of all faiths and none. Census data shows that adherence to the Christian faith is declining, but it often feels as though Christian charities are filling the gaps where the state has failed, with food banks, Ealing Churches Winter Night Shelter and the Ealing Soup Kitchen to name but three. None of those were ever in “The Good Life” or “Terry and June”—the stereotypical suburban popular cultural images from which we get our idea of what a suburb is—but perhaps we should update our examples. The Who came from Ealing and Acton, as did Naughty Boy and Jamal Edwards.

Suburbs were established in optimism as the ideal between city and country, a slice of rural idyll in easy reach of the city centre, but they appear a bit worse for wear. The Campaign to Protect Rural England has a set of recommendations, and I believe that the late Roger Scruton’s report on beauty and planning is also about to be published. New challenges include encouraging car-free sustainable lifestyles despite a double garage often being a status symbol of suburbia.

Suburbia is not what is used to be. Nostalgia Avenue is all well and good, but to right those wrongs, I call on the Government to create a cross-departmental suburban taskforce, as Heseltine did in an earlier age with those inner cities, but in a non-pejorative way—the word “suburban” often has narrow-minded undertones. The taskforce, housed in the Minister’s Department, should symbolise joined-up thinking between transport, planning, welfare, public services, the public purse and developers, because it is only when they work together that we can begin to answer the question: what do we do with a problem like suburbia?

[Fleur Anderson (Putney) (Lab)]

rose—