Heathrow Airport Expansion

Ruth Cadbury Excerpts

Wednesday 24th May 2023 Westminster Hall

[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Elliott. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Putney (Fleur Anderson) for securing the debate.

As many people here know, my constituency is a long, thin constituency that lies between central London and Heathrow airport. It does not touch the airport, but we have a large amount of the impact. For most of my political life, since before the terminal 5 inquiry, I have opposed not Heathrow’s existence but its expansion, and particularly a third runway. Many of the people working in and around Heathrow in the 70,000 direct jobs, and the many more in associated businesses and services, are my constituents, so Heathrow is a massive driver of the local economy. But my constituency also has all the negative impact: the noise day in, day out; the air pollution; the congestion on our roads; and the airport’s distorting impact on our local economy.

In 2018, Labour’s then Front-Bench spokesperson, my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough (Andy McDonald), said:

“Heathrow expansion is incompatible with our environmental and climate change obligations and cannot be achieved without unacceptable impacts on local residents. The improved connectivity to the regions of the UK cannot be guaranteed and there are unanswered questions on the costs to the public purse and the deliverability of the project.”

That case is even stronger five years later. My fear around expansion is not about runway 3, however. As others have said today, that is getting increasingly unlikely. My concern is that there could be pressure for more flights on the existing two runways. We are told that that is technically possible and could generate 60,000 more flights per annum—the current cap is 240,000. The main barrier to that expansion is the planning condition on terminal 5. It would require the ending of runway alternation, which gives our constituents at least an element of certainty about peaceful periods. That would give way to mixed-mode landing or taking off from both runways simultaneously.

Rather than seeking to be bigger, Heathrow should seek to be better—specifically, a better neighbour to the 2 million-plus residents in London and beyond who are impacted by the UK’s premier airport. I welcome the simplified residential noise insulation schemes, which make life at least marginally more bearable for those nearby and which are funded by the airport, but I still have some questions about them for the airport. Historically, it has been slow and awkward about giving away or spending any money to make life bearable.

Apart from insulation, much more needs to be done to make Heathrow better. We need better public transport. For those who do not know, Heathrow tried to delay or even stop what we now call the Elizabeth line, because it would have had an impact on its company Heathrow Express. We have long had concerns about Heathrow’s lack of support for decent public transport to and from the airport for workers, passengers and so on, and our constituents want a better passenger experience. Heathrow is the entrance to the UK for many people from around the world. We must remove polluting vehicles from airside because our constituents—Heathrow workers—are inhaling those emissions every day.

Heathrow must become a better employer. On things such as the living wage and fire and rehire, it has consistently been a bad exemplar of what should be one of our best products.