new roads and runways are not the answer – Inside track

Well, this is depressing. Rachel Reeves, who once wanted to be Britain’s first green chancellor, now prefers to confect rows with her natural allies over new roads and runways. She briefs out her support for a third runway at Heathrow and tells the FT: “When we say that growth is the number one mission of this government, we mean it. That means it trumps other things.”

It is not news that growth (undefined) is the government’s top priority. What is new, I think, is the “growth vs the environment” frame. It seems that the government no longer sees growth and green as complementary. Rather than striving to grow the economy sustainably, attracting international investment in the low carbon growth industries of the future, the chancellor and prime minister now prefer to don hard hats and reheat the failed narratives of the 2010 government: weaken planning (with a wistful glance to China, where there is so much less resistance) and stigmatise anyone standing in the way of building lots of stuff. All other paths to growth are forgotten. It is the UK equivalent of “drill, baby, drill”.

Airport expansion is incompatible with climate action The environmental argument against new roads and runways is clear. The Climate Change Committee says that airport expansion is incompatible with net zero. It risks wiping out the carbon savings of clean power by 2030. Expanding Heathrow would also worsen already dangerous levels of air pollution.

The legal argument is equally clear: the government’s commitments on climate and air quality are legally binding.

What of economic growth? The claims here are dubious. Business travel is down and as a recent New Economics Foundation report sets out, leisure travel consists mostly of Brits leaving the country to spend money abroad. Claims for the economic benefit of the Lower Thames Crossing are equally dubious.

The chancellor wants to signal that she is not for turning, a new Iron Lady, but the virtue (or vice) signalling on Heathrow just looks a bit desperate. Local Transport Today reports that the Treasury’s ten year investment strategy will overrule the Department for Transport’s painstaking work to develop an integrated transport strategy. It will also pre-empt the government’s much awaited industrial strategy. This is not serious. Why not develop a credible growth strategy that meshes with all the other strategies the government is working on? The Treasury does not hold all knowledge and wisdom in the government.

Expanding Heathrow won’t have economic impact anytime soon If a third Heathrow runway gets the go ahead from the prime minister, it will be many years before it is built, if it ever is. Any economic impact for good or ill will be felt long into the future. First, the government must update the Airports National Policy Statement (NPS) to make it compatible with net zero and the Environment Act. Then parliament needs to approve the NPS. It took three years to revise the National Networks NPS and it is now subject to a court case on the grounds that it is incompatible with net zero.

If a new airports NPS somehow concludes, in the face of all evidence, that expanding Heathrow is compatible with the government’s climate and air quality commitments, the airport will have to draw up a detailed planning application. This will be subject to an examination-in-public, an inspector’s report and, finally, a very controversial decision by the secretary of state. Once approval is given, work can start on compulsorily purchasing and destroying the homes that lie in the way of the runway, rerouting a stretch of the M4 and much else. Then, many years down the line, a runway might be built.

The government won its majority on an ambitious green agenda Six months into a government that won a big majority with an ambitious environmental agenda, most environmentalists, regardless of party political allegiances, will want it to succeed. They recognise the pressing need to tackle the housing crisis and modernise our energy infrastructure. They see many good things being done across different areas of government. Far from being habitual naysayers, green NGOs have worked constructively with ministers to develop a Nature Restoration Fund with the aim of unblocking development while improving nature protection.

This, rather than macho posturing, should be how ministers relate to civil society. We would much sooner work constructively with any government. But if the chancellor wants to pit development against climate and nature, she should expect a strong reaction.