Heathrow Airport Expansion

Gavin Newlands Excerpts

Wednesday 24th May 2023 Westminster Hall

[Gavin Newlands (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (SNP)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Putney (Fleur Anderson) on securing the debate and on putting across her constituents’ position against expansion so passionately, as many others have done. Looking at all the factors involved, it is a finely balanced decision. Many wrongly demonise those opposed to Heathrow expansion as anti-progress or the like. I understand the concerns and objections of those who feel that this is an expansion too far.

Fortunately, I can look at the expansion from a distance—literally. I am not involved in any difficult changes or the upheaval that will happen across a large swathe of the local community around Heathrow and across London. Equally, it is also madness to have umpteen aircraft circling the south-east of England waiting for a slot and burning fuel pointlessly due to a lack of capacity on the ground. Continuous ascent and descent is crucial to making CO₂ savings that will eventually be fully realised by the implementation of airspace modernisation. Incidentally, that is another strand of transport decarbonisation on which, despite the excellent work of the Airspace Change Organising Group and NATS, the Government have shown no urgency whatsoever.

Clearly, covid had a huge impact. We can still see the impact on passenger numbers across the sector, not just at Heathrow. If—or, more likely, when—numbers bounce back to 2019 figures, 80 million passengers will use Heathrow annually and there will be nearly half a million aircraft movements.

At the moment, there is no extra capacity in the London area. The concept of Boris island as a way to increase capacity has sunk to the bottom of the deep blue sea—rather like his bridge to Northern Ireland. Whatever connectivity benefits HS2 might bring to central London have been postponed until who knows when, after the Government’s decision to delay work on the Euston leg. If any Heathrow expansion goes ahead, regional connectivity must be at the heart of plans for how to use the extra capacity and resource. It would be ludicrous if a new asset of national importance was dominated by intercontinental A380s, Dreamliners and a new terminal packed with lucrative first-class passengers, rather than being used to transform and turbo-boost connectivity to other parts of these isles, particularly in the light of the utter shambles of HS2.

At the moment, Loganair is forced to lease Heathrow slots from British Airways to provide connectivity with Scotland, rather than being able to access Heathrow on its own terms and in its own right. The two Members representing Dundee, my right hon. Friend the Member for Dundee East (Stewart Hosie) and my hon. Friend the Member for Dundee West (Chris Law), will be well aware of the issues involved in ensuring a viable long-term future for the air link between that city and London. Loganair now serves the Dundee-London route from Heathrow, following the switch from London City airport earlier this month. It has managed to keep the London route on track, and passenger numbers from Dundee are at their highest for years. It also provides Orkney and Shetland with connectivity, showing the value of Heathrow slots to airports in Scotland and across these isles.

Heathrow used to be a public asset that was owned by the public and responsible to the public. It is unlikely that it will return to public hands any time soon, but it still has a duty and an obligation to the public to provide a public service—a service for everyone in these isles. Of course, it would be far better to have direct links from Scotland—particularly Glasgow, considering that Glasgow airport is in my constituency—to the rest of Europe and the world, so that we can cut out the middle man in the south-east and travel straight to our destination, and indeed transport our high-value exports directly to the customer, rather than shipping them through London.

But in the meantime, while Scotland continues the process of achieving full self-government and full membership of the EU, Heathrow must act in the best interests of us all, and that means supporting connectivity to and from the rest of these isles to London. It would be ignoring reality to deny the expansion of Heathrow without appropriate countermeasures to move aviation towards a net zero state. Developing sustainable aviation fuels can mitigate the impact of air travel. It is disappointing, to say the least, that we lag so far behind the rest of the world in investing in SAFs and putting them at the heart of the UK aviation sector. I understand that the consultation on the SAF mandate is ongoing and is scheduled to end next month. After that will be months of cogitation by the UK Government. If we are lucky, there might be an outcome ahead of the next general election, although I would not bet the house on it. This should have been done years ago, when the UK could have had taken a lead in developing SAFs and pioneering the technology required to produce them.

Inverness airport, which is owned by the Scottish Government, has recently introduced SAFs for all customers at the facility. That will surely help to reduce its carbon footprint as it aims to become the first zero-emission aviation region by 2040, but we need a sea change across the sector if we are serious about cutting emissions and mitigating the undoubted impact that the Heathrow expansion will have. I hope that sea change happens sooner rather than later.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jesse Norman]

I do not have much time, but I think the Chamber knows that the funding per head and the sources of revenue that exist in London are vastly greater than in other parts of the country, and it is appropriate that that money should be properly invested alongside any other support that can be given.

We are not going to be distracted from this important topic. On a more constructive point, it is noticeable that the Opposition’s position on the issue of Heathrow expansion is not so very different from that of the Government. It is important to explore what the Government’s position is.

Hon. Members will recall that, in 2015, the independent Airports Commission’s final report concluded that a new north-west runway at Heathrow airport was the best solution to deliver the future additional airport capacity the country required. The Government considered the commission’s recommendation and announced in October 2016 that they agreed with the conclusions.

The Government then developed a draft airports national policy statement that provided the framework and criteria against which a development consent application would be judged. The draft statement was published for consultation in 2017 and scrutinised by the Transport Committee, before being laid before Parliament. In June 2018, the airports national policy statement was designated, following Parliament voting overwhelmingly in favour of the north-west runway proposal, by 415 votes to 119. That is an overwhelming majority in favour of the north-west runway proposal. Following its designation, the airports national policy statement was subject to a number of legal challenges, which have been heard in the High Court, the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court. The legal challenges concluded in December 2020, when the Supreme Court unanimously concluded that the airports national policy statement is lawful.

Challenges against the statement, however, did not end there. The Planning Act 2008 requires the Secretary of State to review a national policy statement whenever they consider it appropriate to do so. Between 2019 and 2021, the Department received numerous requests from third parties to review it. When the Supreme Court determined that the airports national policy statement once again had legal effect, those review requests were considered. In September 2021, the then Secretary of State for Transport decided that it was not appropriate at that time to review the airports national policy statement. The Government said that the matter would be considered again after the jet zero strategy was published, and that the timing of re-consideration would need to have regard to the availability of long-term aviation demand forecasts.

The jet zero strategy was published in July last year and sets out the Government’s approach to achieving net zero aviation by 2050. The idea that the Government have not thought at length and in depth about this, and set out a strategy for achieving it, as was raised earlier in the debate, is nonsense. The jet zero strategy and its accompanying documents set that out. The strategy focuses on the rapid development of technologies in a way that maintains the benefits of air travel while maximising the opportunities that decarbonisation can bring to the UK. It creates a strategic framework for aviation decarbonisation.

It is clear that the Government continue to support airport growth where it is justified, and that expansion of any airport in England must meet our strict climate change obligations to be able to proceed. The Government’s approach to sustainable aviation growth is supported by analysis that shows that the country can achieve net zero emissions by 2050 without the need to intervene directly to limit aviation growth. The jet zero strategy set out a range of measures to meet net zero. I will touch on three of those.

First, we are supporting the development of new, zero-carbon emission aircraft technology through the Aerospace Technology Institute programme. An example of that is the announcement last week by Rolls-Royce that it has commenced the testing of its UltraFan technology, which will enable efficiency improvements in current and future aircraft and is 100% SAF compatible.

Secondly, this year the Government have conducted a call for evidence on implementation of a 2040 zero-emission airport operations target in England. My Department is currently considering responses and will publish a Government response shortly. Thirdly, the suggestion that this country is behind its international competitors on sustainable aviation fuels is entirely wrong. We have published a consultation on the SAF mandate, and that is currently available for discussion.

[Gavin Newlands]

Will the Minister give way?

[Jesse Norman]

I have no time, I am afraid. I have to stop in half a minute in order to allow the hon. Member for Putney to wind up the debate. I wish I had more time, but I am afraid that interventions and other speeches have not allowed for it.

Turning quickly back to covid-19, Members will be aware that covid-19 drastically revised the use of air transport. Almost overnight, most of the country’s aircraft fleet was grounded. Thankfully, the UK is now on the way to recovery, but we have not yet returned to the demand before the pandemic, and uncertainty remains around the long-term impact that the pandemic has had on aviation demand. Further work therefore needs to be undertaken before any future forecasts can be developed.

I think I had better wind up there. I apologise, Ms Elliott, for having to truncate my speech owing to the pressure of time.