Rachel Reeves says Heathrow expansion ‘essential' for growth plan
The chancellor said on Friday that the expansion of Britain's largest airport was 'essential' to her plans for growth and would boost exports for businesses in Scotland and across the country.
She signalled her strong support for the planning proposal and stressed the decision was up to ministers rather than City Hall.
The question of a third runway at Heathrow has blighted successive governments since the idea was first mooted in 2003, with years of wrangling over costs and the complexity of designs.
However, Sir Keir Starmer is keen to push ahead and Heathrow bosses this week submitted plans to allow 276,000 more flights each year.
Proposals for a 3,500m 'northwestern' runway were submitted to ministers as part of a wider £49 billion expansion programme, intended to facilitate 66 million more passengers annually.
The plans also include the construction of a new terminal, T5X, the expansion of Terminal 2, and the rerouting of the M25.
Heathrow said its runway and airfield plan would be privately funded at a cost of £21 billion, attributing the increase from its estimate of £14 billion in 2018 to 'construction inflation'.
Despite an escalating row within Labour between the Treasury and City Hall, Reeves brushed off the threat of legal action by Khan.
'It is essential that we increase airport capacity in the UK,' she said, during a trip to Scotland.
Pressed on Khan's opposition, Reeves said: 'These are decisions the national government makes and this Labour government backs Heathrow expansion.
'It will create new jobs, not just around Heathrow, but all around the UK, as it gives new export opportunities to businesses right across Britain.'
Residents in villages around Heathrow have raised objections to the expansion
ADRIAN DENNIS/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
Government sources also said Khan would not get 'any deferential treatment' just because he is a Labour mayor. They played down the prospect of a major legal hold-up again by pointing to ministers' plans to introduce legislation that will curb the ability of campaigners to use judicial reviews to block infrastructure projects. However, they stressed any decisions would be for the courts.
Khan stood by the threat of a legal challenge, warning about a possible breach of the UK's climate targets.
Khan said: 'I remain unconvinced that you can have a new runway, delivering hundreds of thousands of additional flights every year, without a hugely detrimental impact on our environment.
'City Hall will carefully scrutinise the new Heathrow expansion proposals — including the impact these would have on people living in the area and the huge knock-on effects for our transport infrastructure, which would require a comprehensive and costed plan to manage. I'll be keeping all options on the table in how we respond.'
A survey by YouGov for the Times revealed that 30 per cent of people backed a third runway, while 18 per cent opposed it. The remainder said they did not fit into either category, or that they did not know.
The survey suggested an increase in public support for upgrading the country's air infrastructure. YouGov polling in February found that participants generally favoured investing in other forms of transport infrastructure.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Independent
7 minutes ago
- The Independent
Will Labour's new migrant controls stop the boats… or encourage Nigel Farage?
Maybe everyone can agree on one thing: if stopping the boats was easy, it would have been done by now. Whether the home secretary, Yvette Cooper, ever deluded herself otherwise, a year of only limited progress in the government's mission to 'smash the gangs' must have brought home to her just how intractable irregular migration is. The numbers of those crossing the Channel are as high as ever – partly because of the warm weather and calm waters, but also because the criminals who run these people-smuggling businesses are also smart and innovative. When Keir Starmer said he would bring the same legal powers and resources to the criminal gangs as had been applied to terrorism and drugs, he seemed to have forgotten that those wars are also far from over – let alone won. Will more of the same work? Cooper must hope so. She's promising another £100m for the National Crime Agency to recruit more officers, and there'll be enhanced 'detection technology' to defeat the people traffickers. Making those distasteful online 'ads' for smuggling services is to be a specific criminal offence. Less convincingly, the government proposes to financially penalise universities where too many foreign students fail to complete their courses because they use their study visas as the first stage in an asylum application. How the university applications officers are supposed to vet all their student applicants in this way is far from clear – quite aside from the fact that the right to claim asylum is absolute and universal under the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). This, by the way, is why no migrant seeking refugee status can be labelled 'illegal', even though that is what was laid down in domestic law by the previous administration. So Cooper is in this for the long haul, making slow, incremental progress both at home and in cooperation with other concerned nations near and far, patiently waiting for the forces of law and order to push their investigations and prosecutions forward. Any single measure, inevitably, tends to get dismissed as hopelessly inadequate. How, it is asked, can the German authorities stop the trade in dinghies and marine engines? How will a crackdown on TikTok videos stop anyone trying to make the journey? Will the treaty with the French, agreed last month, ever be scaled up to make a real difference? Even if one gang is broken up, surely there will be more ready to take their trade? Such scepticism is entirely justified, but it is no reason to give up. Cooper's political pitch has to be that only painstakingly slow, hard work – constantly bearing down on the gangs, working through the vast asylum claim backlog, and getting other countries to take or take back the failed asylum seekers – can succeed. This dedicated effort has to be contrasted with the deceptively easy solutions promised by Reform UK. Nigel Farage, in other words, does not have the answers and would not solve the problem. Just the same as Brexit, in fact, when he also made extravagant claims about how it would solve our economic problems, and then blamed everyone else when it left the nation impoverished. Now he's blaming the migrants rather than Brussels, and his policies – little more than slogans – should be treated with extreme caution. Leaving the ECHR, for example – which he used to call 'Brexit 2.0' before Brexit 1.0 turned out to be a flop – wouldn't change a thing over in Calais. Yes, it would make claiming asylum impossible, and it would, perhaps in some cases, speed deportation and reduce spurious human rights claims by criminals. But it wouldn't stop anyone – refugee or economic migrant – from seeking a better life in the UK, and doing whatever it takes and paying any price (including loss of their own life) in the process. A policy of 'detain, deport', as so lazily tossed out by the radical right, only works if migrants continue to give themselves up. If they cannot do that, because the ECHR right to claim asylum is abolished, then they will not be willing to approach Border Force so that they can indeed be detained and then removed (somehow – again, never entirely clear to where). Instead, we will have irregular crossings turning into irregular, uncurated landings along the south coast of England. And even if the English Channel was somehow made small-boat proof, other methods would be found, such as further abuse of the visa system. Getting sent to Rwanda, say, only acts as a deterrent if you get caught in the first place. But pushing refugees and economic migrants into the grey economy and slum accommodation run by gangs really would turn them into the criminals they do not wish to be. It's not that the remedies offered by Farage, Rupert Lowe, various fascists and some Conservatives are cruel and morally shameful, which they are, but that they are impractical and costly. They're inured to personal abuse. In the words of Lowe: 'You can call me 'far-right', you can call me 'racist' – I just do not care. Detain these men, and deport these men – every single one of them.' Except it wouldn't work, for the reasons explained. Even getting the Royal Navy to attack the boats wouldn't succeed, because there are too many dinghies and too few Navy vessels (and the Navy has other things to do). The Farage/Lowe way of controlling migration is to sloganise and strike a pose, never to make a practical proposal. Labour's way is to get it done slowly but surely – grinding hard graft, with some respect for humanity, compassion for the most vulnerable, and dealing swiftly with any criminality. It just needs to be seen to be working, and it ain't easy.
Auto Express
7 minutes ago
- Auto Express
How green is an EV? BMW reveals the surprise truth about EV vs ICE carbon footprints
Think the fuss over carbon footprints is a load of hot air? Tell that to BMW, which claims to have slashed the environmental impact of producing its all-new iX3 electric SUV by more than one-third. Despite manufacturing electric cars being more energy intensive than making ICE cars, BMW calculates the iX3 will break even with its X3 petrol equivalent after just 12,428 miles (20,000km) of driving. That means the average UK driver covering 7,000 miles a year will have paid off an iX3's embedded carbon debt in less than two years. And they'll have enjoyed every mile, if their experience lives up to our prototype drive. Advertisement - Article continues below The roll-out of BMW's 'Neue Klasse' vehicles, starting with the iX3 that arrives in the UK in March 2026, will trigger the reduced environmental impact. It's the result of a forensic approach of using renewable energy in its Hungarian car plant and supplier base, and by incorporating more recycled materials in the car, particularly aluminium, steel and thermoplastic. Producing batteries has a significant carbon cost. But it's a myth that EV batteries aren't recyclable: half of the lithium, cobalt and nickel in the iX3's battery is being used for a second time. Reducing the amount of raw materials needing to be mined, and powering anode and cathode production with green energy, drives down the battery's CO2 footprint by 42 per cent. All these figures, published for the first time today, have been independently verified – and Polestar is coming clean about how green its cars are too. Skip advert Advertisement - Article continues below Fancy a used BMW iX3 ? Check out the Auto Express marketplace for great deals on new and used cars With the Neue Klasse cars, BMW has designed-in carbon-reducing processes on an unprecedented scale. 'In every component, we have to ask: can we get secondary raw materials in there? Can we use renewable energies? It's a total vehicle redesign,' explains Nils Hesse, BMW's vice president for product sustainability. Without this focus, the iX3 50 xDrive's manufacturing footprint would be 21 tonnes-of-CO2-equivalent (tCO2e) per vehicle. Instead it's been slashed to 13.5 tCO2e per vehicle – compared with 9.9 tonnes for a petrol X3 20i xDrive coming out of the factory gate. Advertisement - Article continues below But the iX3's 3.6-tonne greater CO2e debt compared with the petrol-powered X3 is paid off after 20,000km, assuming it's recharged using the typical European Union mix of renewable and carbon energy. Without the Neue Klasse carbon reduction measures, the breakeven point would be at 60,000km (37,284 miles). Run the iX3 and X3 for 200,000km (124,280 miles), and the petrol SUV will rack up a 52.8-tonne carbon footprint, compared with 14.6 tonnes for the EV recharged strictly on green energy, or 23 tonnes on the EU energy mix. That's potentially a 38-tonne advantage – for an iX3 powered by the long range, 108kWh battery. The tipping point for smaller battery cars will be lower. By weight, around one-third of the new iX3 comes from secondary materials, equivalent to around 740 kilograms. Skip advert Advertisement - Article continues below The wheel carriers and rims are up to four-fifths secondary aluminium, while recycling old fishing nets and ropes contribute 30 per cent of the plastics for the 'frunk', the 58-litre storage area in the iX3's nose. It's not just about making sure the right materials go in, but also making them easier to take out at the end of the iX3's life, to maximise 'circularity'. So the Econeer seat's fleece, glue and the seat textile are all made from the same material, meaning it can all be shredded together when the car is dismantled and sent away for re-use. BMW has also developed a new seat-mounting method and uses fewer components throughout to reduce disassembly time – an important factor to make the secondary-use supply chain economically viable. Advertisement - Article continues below 'The future goal is to establish a material cycle with the car as a resource, so that we can close the loop at the end,' says Nils Hesse. Many companies are now understating their sustainability initiatives, with right-wing political sentiment swinging against environmental action in Europe and the USA. BMW, however, will not be cowed. 'Sustainability is not only important, it's fundamental,' vows Glenn Schmidt, BMW's vice president of global sustainability. 'Sustainability isn't just something we say, we are making BMW sustainable. 'We are committed to being net zero by 2050 and we made the commitment in 2020 that we would conform to the Paris accords.' Schmidt says sustainability is 'something that needs to be embedded into all our activities, into our supply chain and also into our product development'. And crucial to that is measurement. In 2019, BMW calculated its activities generated 150m tonnes of CO2 equivalent. Last year it shrank this to 131 million tCO2e. BMW reckons it's on track to emit 109 million tCO2e in 2030, and the holy grail – its 'net zero' target – is 15 million tonnes per year in 2050. Click here for our list of the electric cars with the longest range ... Find a car with the experts Electric cars driven until they die: the truth about EV range Electric cars driven until they die: the truth about EV range Five EVs under £24k have joined Dacia's Spring on the UK market. How far can you go on a budget? We find out Volkswagen, Skoda and Cupra slash electric car prices Volkswagen, Skoda and Cupra slash electric car prices Volkswagen, Skoda and Cupra aren't waiting around for the government grant by cutting £1,500 from their EV prices New MINI Cooper and MINI Aceman get the monochrome treatment New MINI Cooper and MINI Aceman get the monochrome treatment It's as simple as black and white for new MINI Cooper and MINI Aceman Monochrome
Telegraph
8 minutes ago
- Telegraph
Trump's plan to use a British bank to target the Democrats
The elements of the story could be taken directly from a thriller: a British whistleblower with military credentials, secret meetings with top justice officials, a trail of encrypted spreadsheets allegedly linking a British bank to Iran's military and terror networks, and now, an explosive political backdrop involving President Donald Trump and his vendetta against the Democrat prosecutors who once tried to dismantle his empire. At the centre of it all is Standard Chartered, the UK's fifth-largest bank and a household name thanks to its sponsorship of Liverpool Football Club. The bank has already been fined nearly $2bn by American authorities for breaches of sanctions against Iran involving its US branch – having admitted wrongdoing for the first time in 2012 and then again in 2019. It is now facing fresh allegations, which it denies but which could yet see it forced to pay much more. According to whistleblower Julian Knight, a former RAF officer turned compliance executive at the bank, Standard Chartered's transgressions go further than previously admitted. He alleges the bank also concealed an additional $10bn in transactions involving Iranian firms carried out through its New York outpost, which it is yet to answer for. Some of the alleged transactions are said to have been linked to Iran's military, nuclear programme, and US-designated terrorist organisations such as Hezbollah and Hamas. The bank has always denied suggestions it conducted transactions for terror groups. The alleged dealings, which are claimed to have taken place between 2008 and 2013, came after Standard Chartered had announced in 2007 that it would cease all new business with Iranian customers as Washington ramped up pressure on the Islamic Republic. Knight (who left the bank in 2011) says he and fellow whistleblower Robert Marcellus, a currency trader, discovered the supposedly hidden transactions after re-examining spreadsheets and documents provided to US authorities in the past. But when they brought the new 'evidence' to New York attorney general Letitia James's office last year, Knight claims, officials failed to act. His allegations have now been seized on by Trump, who has repeatedly clashed with James, a Democrat, in recent years. On July 27, the president used his Truth Social account to post an article by The Gateway Pundit, a Right-wing American news website, alleging the attorney general – whose slew of legal cases against Trump, including a $454m civil fraud case last year, have seen the pair repeatedly clash publicly – failed to investigate Standard Chartered despite the new trove of information presented by Knight. That followed on from a seemingly important intervention by the Department of Justice, which last month moved to review previous court decisions related to the saga. The article Trump's account promoted described the case as James's 'biggest scandal yet'. In the past, the president has also labelled the New York attorney general a 'totally corrupt politician'. Whilst James appears to be the focal point of the Trump administration's concern, it has also taken aim at his Democratic predecessors over the case – clearly viewing it as a potential Achilles heel. Kari Lake, one of the president's most trusted allies, who serves in the Trump administration as senior advisor at the US Agency for Global Media, says: 'This is a serious issue. President Trump – trying to undo the damage caused by Biden and Obama with their destructive policies toward Israel and America as well as toward the people of Iran – has put forth a maximum-pressure zero-tolerance policy blocking any funding to Iran and its terror network. 'And now a British bank who operates in the United States is accused of processing billions of illicit payments to Iran. And the New York attorney general's office led by Tish James knew about it and did nothing. 'The Fed should have spotted these payments and stopped them, but they did not. The question is was it simply ineptitude on the part of Letitia James and the Federal Reserve or were they complicit in helping the Iranian regime?' The president's political war against the Democrats threatens to drag the bank back into uncomfortable territory, six years after it was fined $1.1bn when a US criminal investigation revealed breaches of sanctions on Iran and other countries. That followed on from a damning August 2012 ruling which saw Standard Chartered forced to shell out $340m to settle claims that it had left the US financial system 'vulnerable to terrorists' by hiding transactions linked to Iran. The following month, then chancellor George Osborne is reported to have intervened on the bank's behalf amid concerns in London that American regulators might withdraw Standard Chartered's US licence over the scandal. By the end of the year, the bank had escaped prosecution and kept its US licence. Knight claims the bank's internal data shows a far deeper pattern of deception. He argues that he, Marcellus and a forensic investigator 'decloaked' Excel spreadsheets to reveal 'a vast number' of previously undetected 'concealed transactions with sanctioned Iranian entities'. He alleges these findings were presented to officials in a series of meetings last year, including with Chris D'Angelo, James's right-hand man within the New York Attorney General Office. 'They [the meetings] were held at the invitation of the NYAG. I flew to New York to be present for the first meeting. We cannot understand why these transactions were not previously disclosed by the bank to the NYAG,' Knight says. In pursuit of a payout Cynics might suggest the whistleblowers are simply looking to cash in, and that Trump's return to the White House was what they needed to turn their fortunes around. Knight and Marcellus have unsuccessfully to date pursued a payout for their whistleblowing under a federal statute which means those who expose wrongdoing can lay claim to proceeds generated by fines, if their intervention proves integral to legal action being taken. The pair's case, known as the 'Brutus litigation', argues they provided material to US law enforcement agencies that proved Standard Chartered had acted in breach of sanctions. The administrations headed by Barack Obama and Joe Biden appeared to refuse to back the whistleblowers' claims, with government agencies arguing the fines imposed on the bank were based on evidence unrelated to the material provided by Knight and Marcellus. Standard Chartered itself argues the pair have concocted 'fabricated claims' in order to seek 'personal financial gain'. But the tide may be turning under Trump, with the Department of Justice last month giving notice that it wanted to review previous decisions which effectively buried the whistleblowers' arguments. In the filings, seen by The Telegraph, the DoJ stated that it wanted a 30-day extension to 'confer internally' about the issue. Danny Alter, former general counsel at the New York Department of Financial Services, who led previous enforcement actions against Standard Chartered, says the DoJ's move was 'highly unusual' and 'suggests that there's been a significant change in the government's thinking'. 'If accurate… recently revealed evidence of the many billions of US dollars in criminal transactions that Standard Chartered allegedly conducted for Iran's military complex and terrorist proxies, like Hamas and Hezbollah, is mind boggling,' Alter says. 'It is a financial blueprint for how Iran built its nuclear and ballistic missile programmes and funded global terrorism, despite years of US economic sanctions. 'You have to wonder if the enormous risks and costs of the recent US military operations to eliminate Iran's nuclear programme played a role in the government's seeming re-evaluation of Standard Chartered's case and the bank's potential liability.' Standard Chartered, for its part, remains defiant. Referring to the case brought by Knight and Marcellus, a spokesman said: 'The long-running qui tam lawsuit against Standard Chartered has been dismissed multiple times. The trial court already twice rejected the claims brought by a former employee and his associates who have for more than a dozen years sought personal financial gain through fabricated claims against the bank. 'The frivolous appeal of that rejection remains pending. The US government long ago concluded that there is no merit to the baseless accusations of sanctions and plaintiff's various arguments have been described by the courts as 'on the verge of vexatious and frivolous', 'without merit' and 'threadbare'. 'We will continue to vigorously defend against attempts to profit from fabrications and to damage our reputation.' But the DoJ's recent move may signal the case is not dead after all. Ultimately, Standard Chartered could soon yet find itself back in the spotlight - this time, not just as a defendant in a sanctions case, but as an unwitting pawn in a bitter political feud.
