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The Tories will include a commitment to scrap plans for a third runway at Heathrow in their general election manifesto, the Standard reveals today.
Shadow transport minister Julian Brazier said: “We are absolutely firm on our opposition to expansion at Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted. It will definitely be in the manifesto.”
The pledge, putting the Conservatives on a collision course with corporate Britain, caused campaign groups to claim that the extra runway was now “dead in the water”.
It comes three months after shadow international development minister Geoffrey Clifton-Brown hinted that the policy was open to debate.
He said he expected the issue to be “revisited” after the election and this was seized on by Labour as evidence the Tories were being “secretive” about their true plans for Heathrow.
But at the Conservative party conference in Manchester, Mr Brazier was adamant his party's stance on airport expansion would not change. He said: “Building more runways at London airports is not the answer.
“We want to focus instead on improving capacity at regional airports and building more high-speed trains. We are absolutely clear on that.”
He said he did not “buy” arguments from the air travel industry that extra capacity at Heathrow was vital for UK business. “Only a quarter of passengers travelling through there are doing business in Britain,” he said. Mr Brazier clashed with Tom Kelly, head of corporate affairs at airport operator BAA and a former Downing Street press officer under Tony Blair, over the issue at a fringe meeting held by Right-wing think tank Policy Exchange. Mr Kelly claimed UK companies lost £1 billion every year a third runway was not built.
He said: “For decades we have known that we don't have enough runway capacity in this country and we didn't think it through. We muddled on as Heathrow got fuller and fuller. The price of that is very real.” Last week, British Airways echoed Mr Kelly's warning, saying it would be forced to scrap “significant” numbers of domestic and European flights out of London if no third runway is built at Heathrow.
Anti-airport expansion campaign group HACAN Clearskies said the Tory position “effectively means the third runway is dead in the water”. Chairman John Stewart said: “That huge figure for how much business would lose if it isn't built doesn't factor in any of the associated costs such as noise, emissions and traffic congestion. Therefore its claims are exaggerated .” Greenpeace's Anna Jones, said: “This is big news that will delight people across London. If the polls are to be believed then this move will all but kill off the third runway.
“It's smart politics from the Tories, who know that come the election a Heathrow swing in west London constituencies could cost Labour seats. It's not too late for the Government to beat the Conservatives to it, cancel the runway and get serious about the fight against climate change.”
Reader views (43)
What all the BAA PR department contributions do not address , never address is the huge ill health impacts Heathrow has brought to London. It must carry its fare share of the highest asthma rates in Europe, serios mental health levels (mainly due to noise impacts), the fact that peopel actually die so some of you can fly (this is a government departments assessment) and the business case is frankly idiocy when we factor in the 14-16 billion tourist deficit, the 9 billion tax break on aviation fuel and costs to local communities (2 million people, in terms of destroyed sleep, ruined education environments - 100,000 kids canb't go outside due to the noise levels) and aof course the competition have beautiful purpose built airports located in places to minimise human misery - why can't the BA/BAA vested interest be broken in favour of what we built for the Chinese in Hong Kong or what they have at CDG (the 3rd relocation for Paris) Schipol (significant reduction in human impacts was a key goal for that one - what fun that BAA and BA care not one jot)ands Frankfurt also located away from human habitation and flight paths sensibly located. This is about a 3rd world response to 21st century living and Labour have it wrong. Human beings must be protected not destroyed - perhaps the most damning issue here is that no Government department has a legal duty of acre to people on the ground - SO NATS says NUTS to the misery it causes and of course we know that BAA employes Labour staf
- Christian Ball, London, UK
Biggest mistake ever, business will go to Madrid , CDG or Frankfurt...we will loose jobs and business...people need jobs , do they understand ? well of course they earn a lot of money so they don t feel concern by normal people like us .
- Laura, heathrow,uk
Roboscourge, Hammersmith translated is saying "I don't like those noisy things flying over my home first thing in the morning and waking me up...take the whole lot away"
I never forget the argument put forward by a resident of Barnes who was terribly put out by aeroplane noise and suggested the whole lot including workers be re-located to some coastal region so she didn't have to put up with the "Dreadful din"...It never occured to her to re-locate herself of course. Selfish people...Oh yeah, in case you're wondering, I do live under the flight path to Runway 27L.
- Mark H, London England
The big con! Cameron and co will no more block Heathrow expansion than they'll block the U.K. becoming an E.U. province under the E.U. Constitution (aka Lisbon Treaty).
- Phil Jones, London UK
Yeah Yeah Yeah Hear YE!! This will be the first Tory promise to be broken by Blameron and "Blue Labour"
- Steve, Brentford
Mr Price, you can have anything you want. No one is forcing you to work in a factory. Make use of whatever talent you have and run your own business. Why resign yourself to being a wage slave. "
I am a solicitor - Dannyp - so what on earth are you talking about ?
- Keith Price, Luton England
Good, I don't live in that zone but I support those that do. Good luck to you.
- Macdangler, Wimbledon SW19
Cameron and co will build the third runway.They are conning people pure and simple.Their business backers want it.Also the Tory voters in the home counties where the high speed rail link would be built will never allow it.
- Colin, barking essex
Mr Opinion, London: Who said anything about noise bothering me? I've lived here for over 12 years and the noise hasn't bothered me.....the liars at BAA do though!
I'm talking about the blight that stops anyone buying and selling properties in the area.
Estate agents won't touch properties with a barge pole unless it's for rental and lenders will not lend on the properties.
I want and need to move, but i'm being held back because BAA havn't started buying properties yet
- Rob, Harmondsworth
No 3rd runway and Britain will collapse? This has to be one of the stupidest statements in this country right now. Everyone goes on about Greenwash when anything is discussed about trains or any substantial industries or transport. How about the Scarewash that the Pro people use? The 3rd runway would take more than it would give to the people of London and the UK. FACT not FICTION!
Just get with the program all you Anti Community Pro Profit people.
- Concerned, SE London
Howbout the second and first too? All these large metal objects, full of explosive liquid and people, should be banned from overflying cities. NYC learnt this.
- Roboscourge, Hammersmith
So how will the deal with the increasing congestion that affects Londons airports? That is the question they need to answer and promising high speed rail links that wont be built for 20 years shows how incompetent they are!!
Will we have to wait for planes to fall from the sky (just like their last government lead to death on the railways) before they actually do something about the lack of capacity at Londons airports.
As to high speed rail well I cant see a trans atlantic line opening very soon!!
I suppose people will have to travel to Paris when they go on holiday to Spain!
- Melvyn Windebank, Canvey Island, Essex
Good. I will definitely be voting for the tories at the next election. As I'm in a marginal seat I hope my vote will help tip it in favour scrapping the 3rd runway. More trains please. Shame on the UK that it is so late in the high speed train race. China (yes the Peoples Republic of China) had a mag-lev train before we could even open a proper high-speed steel wheel train. We are decades behind a country that was until recently derided as 3rd world. Wake up England!
- Sam, London
But a new runway is not possible before 2019 because of an agreement made in 1979 between the then Conservative government and Conservative West Sussex County Council. They talk about encouraging enterprise and business but won't make the hard choices that are needed.
- Tonyb, Melbourne, Australia
Yeah, I forgot - didn't realise the agreement stretched that far into the distance, talk about short-sighted governments on both sides on both sides of the equation. Heathrow has the same problem as Sydney Kingsford Smith - boxed into a residential area, except worse as there is no convenient coastal area to fly over here and residents cop it on both take-off and landing. I would say we Melbournites got it right with Tullamarine, but we stuffed it with the woeful public transport link 
- David, N10
Rob, Harmondworth: Try not buying a 1 bed flat next door to heathrow if the noise bothers you so much.
And if anyone think the tories will keep to their election promises they must be insane. They will no doubt commission a review of airport expansion in their first term and be told by 'experts'/ 'their mates in big business' that expansion is essential and there is nothing they can do to stop it
- Mr Opinion, london
Mr Price, you can have anything you want. No one is forcing you to work in a factory. Make use of whatever talent you have and run your own business. Why resign yourself to being a wage slave. It's not that difficult, but some people prefer not to rely on their own efforts, don't they?
- Dannyp, Egham
Since the world is running out of oil, flying will slowly become more expensive and the runway might become white elephant.
- Alan In Bow, London
Dear all, you can retire at any age you wish. Simply work hard enough and you will have the money to fund yourself for as long as you wish."
Very cold comfort for a factory worker, nusre, teacher, postman or care worker, danny P. You may earn a fortune but the rest of us will have little scope for savings
- Keith Price, Luton England
To Reuben in some backwater up north.
Four airports is lovely for you, but some of us don't fly to an airport in the middle of nowhere, using a transit van on wheels.
Some of us like to travel in style, business class, on respected carriers, to international jet-set destinations.
- Anthony, Esher, Surrey
The Conservatives say that they will scrap the 3rd runway proposal. Will this be reviewed during their first term or even subsequent terms should they stay in Government?
More importantly, how do they plan to unblight the area? Would they propose an agreement that no expansion would be able to take place for 40 years? Similar to the agreement that was signed at Gatwick in 1979.
Or will they allow the dark cloud of expansion to remain over our properties and lives?
I am stuck in the blighted area in a 1 bed flat and have a 2 year old daughter. Myself and my girlfriend are having to sleep in the living room and this Government are still allowing BAA to flaunt the Human Rights laws.
However, If I feel that the Conservatives will not be making any efforts to unblight the area, I will be forced to vote Labour in order for the runway to proceed and so we can move on with our lives, after being held back for the last 8 years.
One of my neighbours has had to re-mortgage because she cannot afford the payments on her flat and obviously cannot sell in order to downsize. Another guy I worked with at BA retired 18 months ago. He wanted to move nearer his daughter near the coast, but cannot sell as the area is blighted. 18 months wasted out of your last years is not on.
Bottom line is that BAA have still not offered any help or assistance and in the meantime, myself and my girlfriend still have to sleep on a sofabed in my living room, as we have done in the last 2 and a half years.
- Rob, Harmondsworth
George Kwekle, Hellewoetsluis Netherlands, has it right: if we don't expand Heathrow then all that traffic will go to Schiphol and to Frankfurt and to CdG. This is a stupid policy that will damage our economy.
The high-speed rail link is just greenwash - it will never get built, or it will be so hedged about and compromised as to be largely irrelevant. Plus: even if it is built, we need the capacity now, not in 20 years' time.
- Frank, London
@ Ruben
You may have four airports but if the third runway is dropped so also will the domestic flights from Heathrow servicing your local population. When you lose that consider how many local jobs that will go with it, ad how long will you have to wait for the high speed rail to be built...10-20 years !!
I would happily settle for a Boris Island air strip in the Thames. Maybe the soil removed from the Crossrail excavation could be floated down the Thames and used to form the island?
- Sam, London,UK
Dear all, you can retire at any age you wish. Simply work hard enough and you will have the money to fund yourself for as long as you wish.
As for 3rd runway, why not build large intercity rail station at Heathrow to replace the short haul flights in the UK.
- Dannyp, Egham
"transfer passengers puts a lot of money into the London (and South East) economy"
The only thing transferring passengers bring to London and the South East is much more air pollution and maybe some additional profits to the BAA, by buying some of the grossly overpriced tat which is being sold at Heathrow.
Shipol has 5 runways, so they are most welcome to get extra traffic.
- John Smith, Londonistan, EUSSR
Your evident bitterness has clearly soured your own jughement, Alan.
I never said it didn't make sense to equalise the age that men and women retire, simply that the women won't like to be forced to work between 3 and 6 uears longer and will not vote for a party that proposes this madness. After all, people in their fifties feel theu are nearly there, and now find they will have to work almost twice as long for their state pension. Crazy Tory policy I am afraid.Turkeys don't vote for Xmas, do they ?
- Keith Price, Luton England
And suddenly Keith has woken up!!! Strange how retiring at 66 is a bad Conservative idea, but I do believe it is Nulab policy. Only difference is that it has been brought forward. Also why should women not retire at the same age as men, they get equal pay for equal work, but it would appear better perks.
As for the £8000, as I understand it, there is no compulsion for me to take up this offer, but if I did, it would mean that my kids would benefit from my house. Which, incidently, I bought to live in, not as a fail safe to see me through old age because some greedy tosser of a chancellor screwed up my pension. That is another reason why, from a certain view point, I can agree with the 66 age related retirement. Good old Gordelpus robbed my pension savings blind, in effect leaving no option than to work after 65 just so that, unlike a lot of current pensioners, I would be able to make ends meet. But then Gord doesn't have to worry about pensions does he, after all,paying his brother for cleaners, is a luxury I certainly can't afford!!
- Alan, carlisle uk
The 3d runway would be socially & economically disastrous for
Southern England.
If the Tories only keep this promise they're worth electing.
The proposed runway was a typical NuLabour/Big Business
stitch up, with lots of cash benefits for the big boys
& nothing for the public.
- British Not Racist, Bracknell England
This is fantastic news. The 3rd runway is an absolutely appalling plan, it would increase pollution over London as well as increase those living under any of the flightpaths and all for what, simply to make it easier for the airport owners to earn their transit taxes, that’s what! In other words, all of London is inconvenienced so that Ferrovial can increase it’s SPANISH profits.
A publicly-owned Boris Island airport in the Thames estuary is the only solution and work should commence forthwith.
- St, London
David N10, yes an additional runway at Gatwick is the sensible way forward - Gatwick already has excellent road and rail links and (compared with LHR) relatively few people living around it. But a new runway is not possible before 2019 because of an agreement made in 1979 between the then Conservative government and Conservative West Sussex County Council. They talk about encouraging enterprise and business but won't make the hard choices that are needed.
- Tonyb, Melbourne, Australia
The wonderful thing about being in opposition is you can pledge to do all sorts of things safe in the knowledge that you don’t have to put your money where your mouth is. If your knee-jerk, ill thought through, populist policies subsequently get you elected by a gullible public then you can quietly drop them. Let’s face it; the Tories have always been the party for big businesses and not the individual. There is no way they would drop a third runway at Heathrow in the face of opinion from the aviation industry and business leaders who argue the case that a third runway is necessary for the economic vitality of the UK (which is actually probably true).
- Nj, London
The economy is fragile at the moment and cancelling the third runway could potentially make the situation much, much worse. Indeed, what we need to recognise is that Heathrow is the world's busiest international airport and the sheer volume of transfer passengers puts a lot of money into the London (and South East) economy. Don't think of Heathrow in personal terms as a travel convenience, nor as a way of going between North and South, think of it as a global centre, in the UK that contributes so much to the UK economy. 2/3rds of the passengers at Heathrow start and end their journey somewhere else but spend a fair bit when they are there! As do the airlines for parking, fuel, baggage handling, food et cetera, et cetera, et cetera
On the enviromental side, air travel contributes 3% of global emissions and modern aircraft burn around half to one third the fuel compared to the previous models. Like all of us, the industry has an obligation to reduce carbon emissions, but it has been unfairly targetted by the environmental lobby, maybe because of false perceptions of air travel being elitist.
One final point, wouldn't it be better for Heathrow to expand where it is and stay open rather than having to concrete over a few thousand hectares of virgin countryside for a replacement? Heathrow is already developed, has existing transport links and is a major employer.
In other words, the Tories are yet again, being quite daft and ignoring the bigger picture!
- Dpc, London, UK
Just take this for what it is: yet another electoral promise that is easy to make but difficult to keep. The Tories are promising everything but free gender reassignment surgery these days. Anyone wondering why...?
- John Bliss, London, UK
Yet another good reason to support the Tories at the next election. "
I don't think so Sarahn. Add this crazy decision to the proposal to fForce men to retire a year later than we planned to, and forcing women to retire between three and six years later than expected, will go down like a giant lead balloon across the country, and quite right too. I imagine the first opinion polls after the Tory Conference will reflect the horror that these crazy proposlas will engender especially among the middle-aged voters and those close to retirement. Ally this to the £8,000 we must pay for basic care in an OAP home, and Tory chances of winning the General Election have been completely blown out of the water.
- Keith Price, Luton England
There is no need to build third runway in London,here is Schipol which can handle more,and we welcome all business to bring.
- George Kwekle, Hellewoetsluis Netherlands
Hopefully they will push for an extra runway at Gatwick. It's logical - the Thameslink Project is well underway, so there will be quicker transport links from London Bridge, St Pancras, Croydon, Finsbury Park etc. Heathrow is in too built-up an area, congestion is already a nightmare.
- David, N10
Foolish....we need to make it as easy as possible for Tourists and Trade...this decision by the Tories supprises me they appear to have got most other things right
- El Del, Valencia Spain
The Tories can promise untold wealth to all of us, an end to immigration, scrapping of student fees, writing off all student debt, withdrawal from the EU, reintroducing the death penalty, scrapping speed cameras and fortnightly recycling, scrapping clamping/towtrucks, reduce income tax to 10% etc etc. None of their promises will materialise. Just like Blair and New Labour. The Tories will milk the system for all its worth, line their pockets and rip us off.
- Peter, Harrow, UK
If you really interested in the North South devide Sam the you should be pushing for expansion of a airport in the north not making those in the north travel 200 + miles to get to Heathrow.
- David Smith, Croydon
Everyone can see how fragile the UK economy is alreasdy, not having the third runway will give an advantage to several European Cities to take over from London being a leader.
And how does the environment fair when you have Jumbo's in the sky in holding paterns burning fuel, wh