Anthony Rae 22nd August 2024: At the heart of our report Will Labour fail its transport decarbonisation test? is the relationship between its two principal themes. Failed transport decarbonisation, past present and potentially future; and what it calls the two key policy stances – for roads and aviation – embedded deep within the Department for Transport, which have been responsible for driving emissions upwards when the Climate Change Act requires that they should be continuously reducing. The report observes that, as a masterstroke of manipulation, these two policy frameworks have been reinserted into 2021’s Transport Decarbonisation Plan, powerfully undermining it from within. It follows therefore that if all three of these top-level DfT policy frameworks remain in place, transport decarbonisation under the new Labour government cannot succeed.
The present aviation policy framework has its roots in the 2003 Future of Air Transport White Paper, that began its development process in the very late 1990s. Which tells us that the push for expansionist aviation – which continues to this day – was organised and driven by a Labour DfT. I saw that process from the inside as a member of the Northern regional reference group. It was the White Paper that promoted the growth of air travel – & therefore aviation emissions – and proposed the expansion of airports in every part of the UK. It was Labour transport secretaries who continued to support its principal recommendation – a 3rd runway at Heathrow (HR3) – all through the 2000s until it was summarily thrown out in 2010 by the new Conservative-led coalition government apparently at the insistence of the Liberal Democrats. Towards the end of the decade the Northern Way, an initiative by the government regional development agencies, was assiduously promoting the unevidenced myth that ‘aviation/airport growth is economic growth’.
And it turns out that this is where Labour still is today. In 2018 the Airports national policy statement (which streamlines how airport expansion applications will be taken through the planning system) reinstated government support for HR3. When it came up for a parliamentary vote it was (almost) as strongly supported by Labour MPs as Conservatives. Fast forward to 2024. Question 33 out of the 55 in our report asks ‘What is Labour’s position on aviation and airports policy?’ (there’s a similar one for roads – Q18). Both of these noted that Labour shadow transport ministers were remaining carefully silent on these contentious issues during the pre-election year but also that shadow aviation Minister Mike Kane (whose constituency includes Manchester Airport) had indicated that it was likely that the current aviation policy framework – 2022’s Jet Zero Strategy – would be retained.
The 2024 Labour manifesto omitted the commitment in the 2019 one that any airport expansion proposal would have to pass a series of tests, including one for climate, although what those tests were was never defined. Our report also describes (page 37) the powerful group of northern regional Labour Mayors all of whom, in their own way, are enthusiastic supporters of growth of their local airport, principally on – as ever, spurious – ‘economic’ grounds.
With decisions imminent on quite a number of expansion applications it was only a matter of time before an incoming Labour government would have to reveal what is its aviation policy stance. Just a few days before the General Election (soon-to-be) Chancellor Rachel Reeves, responding to a question about Labour’s intentions for HR3, said this: ‘I have nothing against expanding airport capacity. … I back our airports. I back investing in infrastructure.’ This was deliberate signalling that Labour intended to include airport expansion within their super-priority of ‘achieving economic growth through physical infrastructure’, not just without evidence to support that proposition but also in direct contravention of this recommendation from the Climate Change Committee in 2023:
Stop airport expansion without a UK-wide capacity management framework. No airport expansions should proceed until a UK-wide capacity management framework is in place to annually assess and, if required, control the sector’s GHG emissions and non-CO2 effects.
The Conservative government had thumbed its nose at this so CCC repeated it again on 18th July 2024. We only had to wait one month for Labour to either pass or fail this particular version of the ‘transport decarbonisation test’: would the new government approve or reject the application from London City airport to expand from 6.5 to 9 million passengers per annum, which was waiting on ministers desks for a decision?
And it failed the test. Its significance is not just in relation to this particular airport: ‘The decision sets a worrying precedent for planning applications at Luton and Gatwick airports due later this year’ says Green Alliance. My reading of the decision letter is the same. Whilst every case ought to be judged on its merits, in fact the planning framework has increasingly been tilted against objections to airport applications for the reason that the national DfT policy framework mentioned in my opening paragraphs is overwhelmingly supportive of expansion and sets aside its climate impacts.
Individual decisions like this do not just come out of the blue. They rest on the solid foundations of policy frameworks built up over decades. No one should be surprised that Labour as a party and government does not question aviation/airport expansion, and is quite prepared to disregard all that they know and say about ‘climate emergencies’ when it comes to making crucial decisions that could make a difference.
They did it before, and just one month into their new government they’re doing it again.