Politics Home Article | London Labour MPs Hopeful Burnham Will Cancel Heathrow Expansion

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The MPs, who argue that a third runway at the UK’s largest airport would have unacceptable environmental impacts, told The House that they are reassured by comments made by Burnham on the subject in January last year. 

Speaking to Times Radio after Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced government support for the scheme, the then-Greater Manchester mayor said that the project “diverts infrastructure investment away from the North and traps it in London and the South East”.

He added that it was “a model for an ever-overheating UK economy, rather than a more balanced, levelled-up economy, which is what we would argue for”.

One London Labour MP said the remarks “have not passed us by” and that Burnham’s ascendancy brings “an opportunity for a change of conversation” about Heathrow expansion.

“It doesn’t make economic sense – it’s just a financially unviable scheme. I cannot see how it can meet our climate targets, but also I think it would be much better for regional growth [not to build it],” they said.

“If there’s going to be growth in air transport, it’s better to share that out with the regional airports, and I hope to get a good hearing on that from Andy.”

Another London Labour MP said that if Heathrow expands: “Manchester Airport loses out, currently Birmingham Airport loses out even more and therefore the hinterlands, the economies of those regions around those airports… I wouldn’t put any money on runway three getting any further.”

But Steve Race, the Exeter MP who co-convenes the Labour Growth Group, believes the next PM should press ahead with the work started by Reeves.

“As long as we can do it within our carbon budget, as long as we’re forcing airlines and airports to get to [improved] sustainability as quickly as they possibly can, then I think connectivity, trade and infrastructure development is absolutely key to this economy,” he said.

London mayor Sir Sadiq Khan remains resolutely opposed to the project, as he warns it would wipe out the improvements seen in London’s air quality over recent years.

One well-connected source said that as much as Khan and Burnham “don’t particularly get on” with one another, the new PM will not want to “go to war” with London’s mayor “unnecessarily about something he doesn’t really care about”.

But Burnham, they added, may still “take a more economically minded view of this than people might first assume”.

Burnham could, for example, back a rival expansion proposal put forward by the hotel tycoon Surinder Arora. Unlike the airport’s own proposal, Arora’s plan would avoid the M25 motorway needing to be tunnelled under Heathrow, as it would mean building a shorter third runway on the airport’s existing footprint.

“That would be a compromise,” said the source. “Andy is pretty into compromises.”

Heathrow CEO Thomas Woldbye has claimed that the UK “cannot realise its full economic potential without an expanded Heathrow”. The third runway, he added, “is privately funded by some of the largest investors in the world, widely supported by businesses, trade unions and communities across the country and it’s ready to go after years of scrutiny”.

A feature piece on Andy Burnham’s approach to UK infrastructure projects is now available to read in the print edition of The House magazine and will be published online on Thursday 16 July