Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what recent assessment he has made of the economic benefits to the UK of the expansion of Heathrow Airport.

The Government’s latest estimate, published on 2 February, was that a new runway at Heathrow will deliver benefits to passengers and the wider UK economy of up to £61 billion.

Regions across the country should benefit from new destinations, extra seats and increased frequency of service created by increased capacity at Heathrow. Heathrow expansion is also expected to deliver tens of thousands of additional local jobs by 2030, and while it is not possible to precisely quantify the impacts on regional jobs and GDP, expanding airport capacity in the South East will support economic growth in the UK’s regions.

Nevertheless, as part of the consultation on the draft Airports National Policy Statement (NPS) the government was clear that further work was underway to update the evidence base, including revised aviation demand forecasts. The Secretary of State for Transport announced on 7 September that there is a need to conduct a short period of further consultation to allow this updated evidence to be taken into account.