Heathrow Airport Expansion

Rupa Huq Excerpts

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.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

It is a real pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir John. I thank the hon. Member for Putney (Fleur Anderson) for setting the scene. She and I are good friends. I spoke to her before the debate; we have a difference of opinion on this issue, and I will outline the reasons why. I respect everybody else’s point of view, and I hope that others will respect mine.

The proposed expansion of Heathrow airport is expected to support some 108,000 jobs across the United Kingdom, making it a significant source of economic growth. The third runway would increase capacity, provide for more affordable travel and increase the reliability of flights. Across the UK, airports are recognising the need to plan ahead. I want to give some figures, ever mindful of how much I respect the opinion of the hon. Lady and other Members. Heathrow is the UK’s gateway to growth: it connects people and businesses from all parts of the country, including Belfast, to global opportunities, and it serves as the UK’s only hub airport.

The challenge is that Heathrow is operating at 99% capacity and has been for decades, which is why the third runway is imperative for the growth of this country. Indeed, it is bursting to grow. Heathrow continues to perform strongly, but passenger growth is now trailing the European average. Passenger growth at Heathrow is 1.9%, whereas the European average is 4.6%. Heathrow’s expansion is expected to add some £17 billion annually to the UK economy, and 60% of the economic benefits will occur outside London and the south-east. That is the reason why I am speaking in this debate as an MP for Northern Ireland: I want to put forward the case for how the third runway will benefit us in Northern Ireland. Whenever it comes to the Government here doing something centrally, it has to be for everybody’s advantage across this United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

The £33 billion of private investment into Britain supports jobs, exports, manufacturing and economic growth at no cost to the taxpayer, so it is advantageous. The benefits begin well before the first flight, and the wider economic prize goes beyond conventional transport modelling. Heathrow’s expansion builds on an existing 1,100-business UK supply chain, creating opportunities for companies in every region of the country. By way of example, I mention Zaun in Wolverhampton, but there are many other companies across the United Kingdom that rely on Heathrow’s connectivity, including Durham-based Coltraco Ultrasonics.

For us in Northern Ireland, it is really important that we have the connectivity. Heathrow has stated:

“this is not a choice between the economy and the environment; it will deliver for both.”

If it can show that expansion can do that, that is something that must be considered. Heathrow has also said there was a 7.5% carbon reduction in air emissions last year compared with 2019. That is factual evidence. There has also been a 60% reduction to the noise footprint since the early 1990s. Again, I would say that that shows that there has been a commitment in relation to that.

[Dr Huq]

The hon. Member has come out with some statistics, and I just want to give him one. We have the largest clean air zone on Earth in London. Nitrous oxide emissions have been cut by 54%. Would that not be put at risk by Heathrow expansion?

[Jim Shannon]

As always, the hon. Lady makes a very helpful intervention. I would suggest that those who are looking at the expansion of the third runway at Heathrow have indicated that those are issues that they can address. We must give them the chance to do just that.

In Northern Ireland, plans have been proposed to increase the capacity of Belfast City airport, because we want to see growth in Belfast. It is the airport I normally use; others may use Belfast International airport. There is an opportunity. In discussions, an indication has been made to my right hon. Friend the Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson) and I know that growth in Belfast is helped by, connected with and part of the third runway at Heathrow.

The Minister is betwixt a rock and a hard place on this one, I suspect, but does he agree that we have to have a forward-thinking approach and support the infrastructure needed for future air travel? We are trying to increase connectivity, such as between Heathrow and Belfast. I see the hon. Member for Doncaster East and the Isle of Axholme (Lee Pitcher) is present, and he has ambitions for Doncaster airport as well.