Sadiq Khan's battle plan to foil Heathrow's expansion

Yahoo

30-01-2025

If Rachel Reeves is to successfully nudge Heathrow's much trailed, much debated, still entirely hypothetical third runway a step further, she has a long list of hurdles to get over first. Were Boris Johnson still the MP for Uxbridge and South Ruislip, his 5ft 9 frame might be one of them – he once said he would lie down in front of the bulldozers should work on the runway ever begin. Google has Sir Sadiq Khan at just 5ft 5, but he is no less of an obstacle to the Chancellor's grand plans.
The Mayor of London said on Wednesday that he would 'use any tool in the toolkit to stop a third runway happening' and now seems poised to lead a Labour rebellion against Reeves' plan to expand the airport. Why? First, there's the 'conurbation next to Heathrow', which Sir Sadiq says is the biggest in Europe. 'The numbers of people affected by noise just with two runways is more than the numbers affected by Paris, Charles de Gaulle, Amsterdam, Munich, Frankfurt and Madrid, put together,' he told LBC's Tonight with Andrew Marr.
There's also the air quality. 'In London one of the poorest air quality areas is around Heathrow. I'm not sure how 300,000 more flights leads to better air quality.' Then there are his concerns about 'our ability to meet our climate change commitments.'
Not mentioned, but presumably of note, are his political ambitions. Khan, 54, first stood for election in 2016 on a manifesto opposing a third runway. He hasn't ruled out serving as London Mayor until 2040, though with the popularity ratings of many in his party floundering, you wonder if he might have his sights set on a slightly bigger political stage.
He isn't the only Labour objector. Notable by his absence in the audience at Reeves' speech to business leaders on Wednesday was Ed Miliband, Energy Secretary and vocal third runway critic. It was also pointed out last week that, in her previous role as deputy mayor, Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander backed City Hall's stance on the issue. 'We have been clear with our opposition to a third runway at Heathrow,' she said in a joint interview with the Mayor with Reuters, rediscovered by The Standard.
If Khan is preparing to go into battle over Heathrow, opinions are divided over how flush with weaponry his arsenal (or his toolkit, to use the Mayor's analogy) might be.
Guto Harri, former Downing Street Director of Communications, who was Boris Johnson's Director of External Affairs when he was mayor, says there are things Khan may be able to do aside from simply having 'a platform and a megaphone.' Transport for London (TfL) is in his remit and he has backed legal action aimed at preventing expansion of the airport in the past.
But a Tory insider who was involved in the process in 2018, when Theresa May's government backed a third runway only to have it opposed in a judicial review (a decision which was later overturned by the Supreme Court), says Khan is merely 'a thorn in the side', deeming anything the Mayor does to frustrate matters to be, quite simply, 'not that big a deal.'
For Harri, Khan's popularity when compared to others in his party is worth noting, however. 'Arguably, Sadiq is more popular these days than Keir – he's certainly more popular than Rachel is. He can speak for the residents and back in the day maybe West London was not that Labour, whereas these days, for better or worse, it largely is. So he's a hard voice to ignore.'
There are also things he can do beyond lobbying alone. 'One of the main issues with the third runway is that the infrastructure in West London can't handle the traffic to and from the airport, and therefore it would just cause carnage,' says Harri. 'The mayor has levers he can pull there. I think the M4 would be under the Department of Transport but most roads in and around Heathrow are going to come under the boroughs or the Mayor.'
Then there are the tubes. The Piccadilly line and the Elizabeth line are run by TfL, which 'answers to him', says Harri. 'There are things that he could do to make the expansion of Heathrow even less attractive than people think it is. If you don't get the extra capacity on the tube and the roads, all you're doing is landing more planes in a clogged airport that you can't even get to.'
Khan 'sets the fares'. 'So one of the things he could do would be to say that the fares on the Piccadilly line and the Elizabeth line to Heathrow become prohibitively expensive.' He can also 'dictate how many trains they run on those lines.'
The Tory insider disagrees, saying there isn't 'really much he could do unless you could say 'right, I'm going to spite the government and stop work on the Piccadilly line', which would make him very unpopular in West London because it's needed there.'
Another insider, who worked on airports policy at the Greater London Authority (GLA) under a previous administration, wonders whether the proposed rail routes out of Heathrow might be a way in for Khan. One of the routes (which hasn't been set in stone, but has been floated as a possible way to increase the number of journeys to the airport) would create access from Waterloo. 'There are possibilities that he could try to challenge the south-west access, which runs through south-west London. There might be some sharing of lines with TfL, because TfL shares Network Rail lines down to Wimbledon and places like that.'
Then there's the Ultra Low Emission Zone (Ulez). The former GLA insider suggests 'you could tighten that up, make it more expensive. But Heathrow will go along with that because part of their DCO (Development Consent Order) is going to be a chapter explaining how they're going to cut the number of cars going to Heathrow.'
The Tory insider, for their part, says that on Ulez and other matters, Khan doesn't have 'any more ability to stop this than the Heathrow protestors who live up the road. The only area where he can be awkward is over investment in transport links to the airport.'
Where he could have some effect, says the source, is in his support for the legal challenges that will inevitably arise and delay matters. 'Rachel Reeves saying she can get spades on the ground in this parliament, I think that's just for the birds,' they said, adding: 'Legally, whoever challenges this will try to pick holes in the work that's been done.'
On Wednesday, Ryanair CEO Michael O'Leary predicted the runway wouldn't be ready until 2050. 'I'm not sure I quite buy what O'Leary said … but I don't see any way in which this runway could be opened before 2040,' says the Tory insider. Khan, meanwhile, will be 'trying to whip up opposition'. 'If you're Sadiq, you're trying to work with the protest groups, they'll be building legal cases from day one.'
The source suspects the Mayor 'hasn't got a smoking gun'. '[His] involvement probably comes with him supporting the first court cases, and they probably come after the Secretary of State has taken an actual decision to go ahead.'
Alexander has said her department will review the 2018 Airports National Policy Statement, published by May's government, which 'provides the basis for decision making' on any Development Consent Order application (a permit to build what's known as a Nationally Significant Infrastructure Project) submitted by the airport. A former GLA insider suggested that if the statement is refreshed at all, doing so could 'reopen it to judicial review'. 'That gives [Khan] an in. There is nothing he can do about the existing statement. He has done everything he can and it's been approved by the Supreme Court. But this gives him an in to the judicial review.'
Taking legal action would be 'an awkward one' for Khan, says Harri, given it would involve using 'public money to take the government to court over something.'
'But he can do it. There are precedents for the Mayor actually going to court over things Londoners feel quite strongly about.'
For better or for worse, Khan's personal mandate is 'significant', says Harri, who feels there is a certain 'frisson' in the fact that he is in his third term as Mayor and still 'pretty clean', while the same can't be said for the Prime Minister and the Chancellor. 'People have criticised him over Ulez, he's been pretty woeful on crime. But he hasn't had the personal attacks,' he says. 'Sadiq is sitting fairly pretty at the moment and presumably won't want a fourth term. Maybe he uses his platform to get back into parliament?'
When Harri worked for Johnson in City Hall, David Cameron was in Downing Street. It is 'awkward' when the mayor and the government are at loggerheads and come from the same side of the aisle, he says. 'But Ken [Livingstone] went against Tony Blair, [and] Boris was quite often a pain for Cameron and Osborne.'
It's undoubtedly 'a really bad look' for the party, though. 'The family looks split, and actually the next big election before the general election will be the London mayoralty [in 2028]. And losing the mayoralty would be a really bad start to a general election campaign for Labour.
'So Sadiq has quite a few cards that he's holding.'
A spokesperson for the Mayor said any plans proposed by the airport 'would need to show how they are consistent with our binding climate change targets, as well as noise and air pollution commitments.'
'The Mayor is not convinced that you can have hundreds of thousands of additional flights at Heathrow every year without undermining our legal obligations.'
That doesn't quite sound like a man wielding his toolkit yet, but if O'Leary is right in his prediction, there are still 25 years to go before the runway might come to fruition. Plenty of time to throw a few spanners in the works.
Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.