Labour plans to ground Heathrow expansion
LABOUR would cancel the expansion of Heathrow if it won power, John Mcdonnell suggested, stoking fears the party could block other airport plans.
The shadow chancellor said climate change would dominate the party’s agenda in government and that the third runway at Heathrow “very clearly” did not meet Labour’s red lines on protecting the environment.
He also raised doubts over plans to increase capacity at Manchester, Leeds Bradford and East Midlands airports, stating the “same criteria will be applied to all the expansions.” He said ensuring the “survival of our planet” would be Labour’s “number one priority”, with climate change a “key” factor in all policy and investment decisions.
It came 16 months after Labour formally opposed Heathrow expansion in Parliament, arguing it failed four tests, including on carbon dioxide emissions and noise pollution. It was met with fierce resistance at the time from Unite’s Len Mccluskey, who wrote to every Labour MP to warn that blocking the third runway would torpedo “hundreds of thousands of new jobs”.
Asked about Heathrow yesterday, Mr Mcdonnell said: “We set ourselves criteria, one of which is environmental impact, the other economic and social impact. On current criteria we’ve said very clearly Heathrow expansion doesn’t qualify.” But he acknowledged that in some cases increased capacity at regional airports could help combat climate change by reducing the number of people “travelling for example to one central hub”.
Last night, Caroline Lucas, the Green MP, told The Daily Telegraph: “If we are serious about reaching net zero then there can be no aviation expansion in the UK anywhere. If Labour wants climate policies that have credibility it has got to bite the bullet on some of these more difficult issues.” Her concerns were shared by increasing
numbers of Labour activists, who have been pushing for a ban on airport expansion as part of the party’s commitment to reaching net zero carbon emissions by 2030.
Asked to clarify Mr Mcdonnell’s comments yesterday, Jeremy Corbyn refused to rule out scrapping the third runway, repeating the “red lines” on noise, pollution and carbon dioxide.
“Those are the tests that we apply to all airport developments,” the Labour leader said. “That is the reason why I opposed it when it last came to Parliament because, in my view, it did not meet those tests.”
Separately, Rebecca Long-bailey, the shadow business secretary, admitted Labour’s plans to make every home in the UK energy-efficient would require £60billion of additional borrowing.
The policy, announced yesterday, would see the biggest overhaul of housing since the war, with loft insula- tion, double glazing and renewable technologies installed in most of the UK’S 27 million homes.
She told Sky News: “We’ve done financial modelling that shows that £60billion will be the outlay.” The remaining £190 billion needed to upgrade housing stock would come from energy savings, she claimed, which would be recouped through the tax revenues of 400,000 new jobs.