Heathrow expansion will test whether Labour are serious about growth
Keir Starmer’s Damascene conversion to a third runway at Heathrow, which he previously voted against, is welcome. But if he’s serious he will need to take decisive steps to curb the blockers’ tactics – in particular, by reforming judicial review, says Sir Simon Clarke
“Congratulations to the climate campaigners. There is no more important challenge than the climate emergency. That is why I voted against Heathrow expansion.” So said Keir Starmer less than four years ago, when the Court of Appeal ruled the Conservative decision to green light a third runway at the airport unlawful. But now, it seems, change is in the air.
Fresh home from Davos, the Chancellor will use her big speech today to say the third runway is back. The Prime Minister is trumpeting his new credentials as a “builder, not a blocker”. Sir Keir’s Damascene conversion should be welcomed. Airport expansion encapsulates a bigger question – are we serious about national prosperity, or aren’t we?
Heathrow provides more than 70 per cent of the UK’s long haul flights and carries more freight by value than all the UK’s other airports combined. But its two runways are Lilliputian compared to its needs and what rivals have to offer – Schiphol in Amsterdam now has six. The 2015 commission chaired by Sir Howard Davies reported that new capacity at Heathrow would increase UK GDP by 0.65-0.75 per cent, worth £147bn over the sixty years following expansion and generate over 75,000 jobs.
The battle is yet to be won
The battle, of course, is yet to be won. A fightback can be anticipated from Mayor Sadiq Khan, seemingly on a mission to hold back the city he leads. He stands at the pinnacle of a coalition of campaigners that will doubtless spring into action. If ministers are serious about expanding our airport capacity, they will need to take decisive steps to curb the blockers’ tactics.
Foremost amongst these is resort to the courts. The National Infrastructure Commission (NIC) has reported that the rate of major projects being judicially reviewed has spiked to 58 per cent from a long term average of 10 per cent. As the NIC observes, “More legal challenges lead directly to delays, but also indirectly to greater risk aversion and gold plating throughout the whole process.” Famously, the planning application for the Lower Thames Crossing would now stretch for 66 miles laid end to end, and to date has cost over £300m.
The rate of major projects being judicially reviewed has spiked to 58 per cent from a long term average of 10 per cent
The government’s plans to reform the judicial review process are therefore essential. The test now lies in ministers’ resolve – and willingness to go further. As Levelling Up Secretary in 2022, I was tasked with designing Enterprise Zones with streamlined planning rules and lower taxes, focused overwhelmingly in urban areas to boost regeneration and accelerate growth. The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds described this as “an attack on nature… nowhere is safe”. The National Trust told its 2.6m members this was a “free for all for nature and heritage”. Will Labour ministers and MPs, used to feeding rather than withstanding hostile campaigns on social media, hold their nerve in the face of the coming backlash?
There is a big test here for the Conservatives too. Successful nations build homes, roads, reservoirs, grid capacity and more in a way that the UK hasn’t done for decades. If Labour hold their nerve, the Conservatives owe it to the public to be honest in turn that not all the Green Belt is a verdant paradise, and end what in recent years often felt like a competition with the Liberal Democrats to see who could win the title of peak Nimby. This means acknowledging that the Green Belt has doubled in size since 1979, and that focusing on areas of genuine beauty and special environmental significance matters more than preserving golf courses and intensively-farmed agricultural land. The party of Harold Macmillan and Margaret Thatcher needs to remember that a prosperous, property-owning democracy is the best route to promoting wider Conservatism.
Simon Clarke is the director of Onward, the centre-right think-tank.