PMQs live: Starmer faces questions after Reeves backs ‘badly needed’ Heathrow third runway in major speech – UK Times

The real headline-grabber from the chancellor’s growth speech will be the controversial decision to back a third runway at Heathrow – which has already sparked a row in the Labour ranks.

But the 40-minute speech, which saw the chancellor mention “growth” 31 times, was littered with economy-boosting announcements.

After six months of stagnant growth since Labour took office, the speech sought to show Ms Reeves is serious about turning the economy around.

She deflected questions about her growth-crushing Budget measures, such as the national insurance hike which businesses have railed against as a jobs tax, trotting out the well-worn line that the Conservatives left a £22bn black hole in the public finances.

But striking was the lack of any movement on Labour’s EU red lines, which economists and business chiefs say are holding back the economy.

If the chancellor really wants to give Britain the economic boost it needs, she and Sir Keir Starmer must revisit their refusal to consider a return to the customs union as one of the biggest pro-growth moves available to the government.

The chancellor gave her backing to the planned expansion of Heathrow, with the opening of a third runway for more than 700,000 flights a year.

In response, Heathrow chief executive Thomas Woldbye said: “This is the bold, responsible vision the UK needs to thrive in the 21st century and I thank the Government and Chancellor for their leadership.

“It has given us the confidence to confirm our continued support for expanding Heathrow.

“Successfully delivering the project at pace requires policy change – particularly around necessary airspace modernisation and making the regulatory model fit for purpose.”

Ms Reeves’ asked the airport to deliver its proposals in the summer.

Following Rachel Reeves’ speech, in which she gave her backing to a series of major projects including the expansion of Heathrow, the Tories reiterated their attack on the Autumn Budget.

Shadow chancellor Mel Stride said: “The biggest barriers to growth in this country are Rachel Reeves, Keir Starmer and their job-destroying budget – and nothing in the chancellor’s speech proved otherwise.

“What’s worse, the anti-growth Chancellor could not rule out coming back with yet more tax rises in March.

“This is a Labour Government run by politicians who do not understand business, or where wealth comes from. Under new leadership, the Conservatives will continue to back businesses and hold this Government to account.”

Meanwhile, a rival camp of climate protesters from Green New Deal Rising have parked up across the road from the convoy of farmers.

They are warning the chancellor against Heathrow’s expansion, with a banner reading: “There is no growth on a dead planet.”

The anti-family farm tax outside the chancellor’s speech has multiplied, with more than 20 furious farmers and a long line of tractors now stood outside protesting Labour’s inheritance tax changes.

It is impossible to hear anything above the sound of tractor horns blaring, and the chancellor will have to drive through the demonstration to leave the venue.

Responding to Rachel Reeves’ speech on economic growth today, Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesperson Daisy Cooper MP said the chancellor should have focused on a new UK-EU trade deal.

She said: “The Chancellor’s blinkered approach on Europe is holding back British businesses and stifling growth.

“If this government was serious about boosting growth, it would start negotiating a new UK-EU trade deal with a bespoke customs union at its heart.

“This is the single biggest lever ministers could pull to turbocharge our economy. The refusal of the Chancellor to even consider it shows a worrying lack of ambition.

“After years of economic vandalism under the Conservatives, families and businesses deserve better.”

Just responding to Rachel Reeves’ backing of a third runway at Heathrow, the Mayor of London quickly gave his response on social media.

He said: “I remain opposed to a new runway at Heathrow airport because of the severe impact it will have on noise, air pollution and meeting our climate change targets.

“I will scrutinise carefully any new proposals that now come forward from Heathrow, including the impact it will have on people living in the area and the huge knock-on effects for our transport infrastructure.

“Despite the progress that’s been made in the aviation sector to make it more sustainable, I’m simply not convinced that you can have hundreds of thousands of additional flights at Heathrow every year without a hugely damaging impact on our environment.”

The “No 3rd Runway Coalition” has responded furiously to Rachel Reeves pledging support for expansion at Heathrow airport.

Paul McGuinness, chair of the environmental campaign group, said: “We assume Heathrow expansion was chosen because it has become the totemic mission impossible.

“Yet, the plan is not only eye-wateringly expensive. It entails flattening villages and tunnelling over the M25’s busiest junction to increase Heathrow’s size by an area that is larger than Birmingham airport, to fly as many extra planes as Gatwick currently flies – effectively to build the UK’s second-largest airport next to the first. And all in the most overflown and densely packed residential region in the UK.

“And with the slew of other expected expansions in the South East now increasing aviation capacity by 60 million passengers each year – which is more than Heathrow expansion ever offered – Heathrow expansion is now less investable and less possible than ever”.

There were protesters outside Siemens Healthiness in Eynsham, Oxfordshire, where Rachel Reeves was giving her speech.

Even as late as Monday afternoon energy secretary Ed Miliband was hinting that a third runway at Heathrow could be blocked if it did not meet carbon emission targets.

But chancellor Rachel Reeves has pulled rank and made a decisive move to end the long running debate over Heathrow expansion.

She wants the UK to be “the world’s best connected place to do business”.

Other countries are expanding their airports. Ms Reeves does not want the UK to be left behind.

In setting the government’s support for the third runway at Heathrow Airport, she said it showed ministers’ ambition for the future.

She says: “I can confirm today that this Government supports a third runway at Heathrow and is inviting proposals to be be brought forward by the summer.

“We will then take forward a full assessment through the airport national policy statement. This will ensure that the project is value for money and our clear expectation is that any associated service transport costs will be financed through private funding.

“It will ensure that a third runway is delivered in line with our legal, environmental and climate objectives.”

Ms Reeves earlier said a third runway at the hub airport was “badly needed”, that the previous government had taken no action on it and claimed no full-length runway has been built in Britain since the 1940s.