Despite Rachel Reeves’s enthusiasm there is still a long way to go to get this project off the runway

Good morning. The debate over Heathrow airport’s expansion has rumbled on for decades, repeatedly derailed by legal challenges, shifts in government policy, and, of course, a global pandemic.

Now, the issue has resurfaced, propelled by the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, who has thrown her weight behind the project on pro-business grounds, brushing aside widespread climate concerns. Speaking at the World Economic Forum, Reeves declared: “When we say that growth is the number one mission of this government, we mean it, and that means it trumps other things.”

Her remarks are at odds with the stance of many senior members of her own party, including a pre-opposition leader Keir Starmer, who in 2020, said: “There is no more important challenge than the climate emergency. That is why I voted against Heathrow expansion.”

Reeves’s support for the project forms part of her broader ambition to “kickstart” the economy after a sluggish end to 2024. While Heathrow representatives have not yet officially commented, the airport has long maintained it is at full capacity and expansion is essential for driving economic growth, while insisting it will adhere to “strict tests on carbon, noise and air quality”. Critics remain unconvinced. Both Sadiq Khan and Andy Burnham have publicly pushed back on the plans, while environmental groups have consistently opposed the project.

For today’s newsletter, I caught up with the Guardian’s transport correspondent, Gwyn Topham. That’s right after the headlines.

Five big stories

In depth: ‘Generational opportunity for UK-based steel procurement’

After years of lobbying, Gordon Brown’s Labour government unveiled plans to expand Heathrow airport with a third runway in 2009. However, the following year, the Tory-Lib Dem coalition government scrapped the proposal. The next decade saw a pattern of reversals and reinstatements: it was approved by a commission in 2015 under David Cameron’s government and gained parliamentary backing in 2018, only to be stalled by legal challenges and the Covid-19 pandemic.

Now, 16 years on, it seems we’re back to square one. What could Rachel Reeves’s intervention mean for the third runway?

The economic argument

The most comprehensive report on the potential economic benefits of Heathrow’s expansion is the 2015 Davies commission. It concluded that a third runway could create more than 70,000 new jobs by 2050, contributing £147bn to GDP.

Union leaders have also expressed support for the proposal. Some estimates suggest that constructing a third runway would require 400,000 tonnes of steel – a prospect described as a “generational opportunity for UK-based steel procurement” by Community, the union representing iron and steelworkers. And Heathrow has long argued that the runway is essential for strengthening international trade links.

However, that latter claim is somewhat misleading – leisure travel far outweighs any increase in business travel or new trade links. “Undoubtedly, there’s huge economic growth potential for Heathrow and the aviation industry; whether there’s huge economic growth for the country is less clear,” Gwyn says. And it’s been estimated that attempts to stick to green promises while expanding the airport could add £40 to every airline ticket.

The environmental pushback

The most vocal and formidable opponents of Heathrow’s expansion plans have been environmental groups.

The energy secretary, Ed Miliband, has long opposed the third runway, while the London mayor, Sadiq Khan, has fiercely pushed back against the proposals, citing the impact on air quality, noise, and net zero targets. In 2018, Miliband voted against the plans, stating: “We owe it to future generations not just to have good environmental principles but to act on them.” However, those focused on economic growth and GDP accuse opponents of being anti-growth.

“They would say that we’re in a world where Donald Trump has just pulled the US out of the Paris agreement, again, and China is building more and more,” Gwyn says. “I think on that global level there’s frustration at the idea that Britain is constrained and trying to pay attention to targets as the US and China are ripping them up”.

Yet if the climate crisis and environmental preservation are as important to the government as it has claimed, these global trends arguably make it even more vital for the UK to stay the course. If the plans are approved, they “would undo more or less all the work and improvements that Labour will have made in terms of emissions – the kind of things Ed Miliband has been approving since he came into power,” Gwyn adds.

Experts have also highlighted the significant costs of tackling emissions. According to the New Economics Foundation, from 2025 to 2050 the emissions cost of Heathrow’s proposed expansion would reach £100bn.

Despite promises to uphold environmental targets by using clean aviation fuel, experts are clear: cutting back on flying is the only effective way for the aviation industry to decarbonise. In 2019, Friends of the Earth estimated that the additional flights from a third runway would add 300m tonnes of CO2 to the atmosphere. “Talk of things like sustainable aviation fuel is just a drop in the ocean, even if they work out,” Gwyn says.

What’s next?

Unlike with London Luton airport and Gatwick, which have undergone lengthy planning processes and have detailed, shovel-ready proposals awaiting government approval, Heathrow’s expansion is still a distant prospect. “Even if everything motors on pace and everybody gets behind the plan, a plane is not going to take off from a third runway any sooner than 10 to 15 years from now. The likelihood is that it will just entrench massive new debate on the topic,” Gwyn says.

The situation is further complicated by the sale of Heathrow and ongoing speculation about its potential new owner. While Reeves’s intervention might nudge the process forward and kickstart discussions, the plans are far from takeoff.

What else we’ve been reading

If Jaws didn’t put you off swimming in the sea, then this tale of the orcas who drove great whites from their South African hunting grounds by eating their livers is sure to do the job, and offers a glimpse at the importance of sharks to the marine ecosystem. Toby Moses, head of newsletters

Jessica Murray visited the Gloucestershire village of Thrupp, where residents could not dispose of garden waste. Rather than accept defeat, the community rolled up their sleeves, came together, and built their very own composting site. Nimo

In a month Germany will head to the polls, and while Elon Musk’s enthusiastic support for the far-right AfD hogs the attention, this analysis breaks down what’s at stake and who the main contenders are. Toby

Same-sex couples in Thailand can now officially tie the knot, marking a historic moment as the country becomes the first in south-east Asia to legalise marriage equality. Rebecca Ratcliffe spoke with couples who, after years of waiting, were finally able to say “I do”. Nimo

Who is the worst signing in Premier League history? Ben McAleer doesn’t mince his words as he condemns Manchester United’s €100m purchase of Antony from Ajax as a unbeatable waste of money – with the winger, who has just been shipped out on loan to Real Betis, having more bookings than goals and assists combined. Toby

Sport

Football | Bruno Fernandes struck a stoppage-time winner in Manchester United’s 2-1 victory over Rangers in the Europa League. Spurs closed in on a top-eight finish thanks to two Son Heung-min goals in a 3-2 win at Hoffenheim.

Tennis | Ten-time Australian Open champion Novak Djokovic was booed as he left the court by some sections of Rod Laver Arena after sensationally retiring hurt from his semi-final against Alexander Zverev on Friday having lost the first set. The Serb suffered an injury to his groin area in his quarter-final against Spain’s Carlos Alcaraz. It was a jarring end to another remarkable tournament for Djokovic, who knocked out the highly fancied third seed Alcaraz in the previous round.

Football | Manchester City have completed the £59m signing of Egyptian forward Omar Marmoush from Eintracht Frankfurt, while allowing club captain and England international fullback Kyle Walker to join Italian giants AC Milan on loan until the end of the season.

The front pages

“Southport attacker jailed for ‘savage’ murder of three girls” says the Guardian this morning while the Mirror echoes parents’ message to Axel Rudakubana: “You know what you have done … we hope it haunts you every day”. The Daily Telegraph has “We face a lifetime of grief. He should face the same”. “What you did was not only cruel and pure evil, it was the act of a coward” – that’s the Daily Mail and the Express treats the story similarly – “Cruel and pure evil … the act of a coward” – while the Times says simply “‘Evil’ killer jailed for 52 years”. The i’s angle is “Bravery in the face of evil: heroes saved 23 children from attacker”. The Metro says of the victims: “Honour them”. Top story in the Financial Times is “Trump demands Opec cuts oil price and central banks trim interest rates”.

Something for the weekend

Our critics’ roundup of the best things to watch, read, play and listen to right now

Music
Central Cee: Can’t Rush Greatness | ★★★★☆
If some of the claims regarding Central Cee’s success and its spoils on Can’t Rush Greatness sound suspiciously like the lily being gilded – does he really employ a private chef? Is it correct, as guest Skepta proudly claims on Ten, that he’s among the 10 biggest rappers in the world? – he’s still, unquestionably, the dominant name in UK rap. The album’s central topic is very familiar – the disparity between the rapper’s pre-fame and post-fame life – but his take on it is intriguingly original. It ultimately feels like a very honest, realistic depiction of sudden-onset fame on an unimaginable scale, where, as Limitless puts it: “I’m living in a movie but I can’t press pause.” Alexis Petridis

Film
Presence | ★★★☆☆
Steven Soderbergh has made a ghost story with a screenplay from Hollywood veteran David Koepp. It sticks to a single location – the haunted family home – and the main character is the handheld camera’s ghostly point of view. It is the mute witness to everything that happens, roaming wordlessly around the house: up and down the stairs, in and out of the bedrooms, and evidently forbidden to go out back into the garden or out front on to the porch. We see what it sees. Presence is conceived on elegant and economically spare lines, dialogue scenes are presented blankly, shot mostly from a distance and interspersed with blackouts; it is well acted, disciplined and intimate as a play. Peter Bradshaw

TV
Severance season two | ★★★★★
It has been a three-year wait for fans, but the creators of Severance clearly haven’t wasted a minute of it. The first series was fantastically stylish, clever, trippy and compelling. The second is even more so. It demands all your concentration and takes you down rabbit holes so deep and twisted that you may meet yourself coming back. One half of your brain tries to keep up with developments while the other half is trying to digest what it all means. Severance is a rarity in so many ways – stylish without sacrificing substance, a thoroughly singular vision, fresh, challenging, a wholly credible world made of a tissue of incredulities. Lucy Mangan

Book
The Gorgeous Inertia of the Earth by Adrian Duncan
In 2020, when the statue of slaver Edward Colston was toppled into Bristol harbour, the public were treated to weeks of confected outrage and faux-philosophising about the aesthetic, civic and social meaning of sculpture. It is precisely this sense of strangeness – of statues hovering somewhere between architecture and painting, and between repose and movement – that animates the latest novel by the Irish artist and writer Adrian Duncan. From its opening pages, The Gorgeous Inertia of the Earth dives into heady, knotty questions about temporality, the occupation of space, the relative finitude of life, the fine line between observation and devotion, and the futility of attempting to render the numinous using only chisel and stone. The enjoyably preposterous title is not a joke but an earnest indication of what is at stake; the old-school, unfashionable desire to explore what, if anything at all, life really means. Kieran Goddard

Today in Focus

Cartoon of the day | Ben Jennings

The Upside

A bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all bad

Will Whatley is captain of the royal research ship Sir David Attenborough and has been working with the British Antarctic Survey since he was 19. He found himself hooked on icebreaking from the start. Now leading the charge, he describes it as an exhilarating experience, unique in the maritime world. “To get to drive a ship that’s designed to hit the ice is great fun,” he says.
The ship breaks ice to reach British research stations in the Antarctic, delivering essential supplies and bringing back scientific samples. It’s also a floating laboratory, hosting up to 55 scientists conducting groundbreaking marine science.
“It’s an immensely satisfying and enjoyable job, in a very special place, where the scenery and wildlife are incredible. Every day, I wake up and feel excited to go to work – and very, very fortunate.”

Sign up here for a weekly roundup of The Upside, sent to you every Sunday

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