Labour Together says government can bypass DCO process and push through approval of major schemes
The government should use parliamentary powers to fast-track Heathrow expansion, according to a think tank with close links to Labour鈥檚 leadership.
A briefing paper published this morning by Labour Together, in collaboration with the Centre for British Progress, identified Heathrow as symptomatic of Britain鈥檚 inability to build infrastructure quickly, asking whether it was possible for flights to take off from a third runway by the next election.
In January, chancellor Rachel Reeves said she supported proposals for a third runway at the UK鈥檚 busiest airport 鈥� 10 years after the Davies Commission recommended its expansion to the then Cameron government.
The Labour Together report said the main constraints on building a third runway were the existing regulatory process, which typically requires infrastructure schemes to go through a multi-year development consent order (DCO) process, and the construction challenge of moving junction 15 on the M25 without seriously disrupting London鈥檚 traffic flows.
It argued that both of these could be addressed, in the first instance by bypassing the DCO process and instead putting forward a bespoke bill for Heathrow, which could 鈥渃ompress the process for all consents into a single Parliamentary instrument and effectively eliminate the legal risk of judicial review, replacing it with a politically accountable process鈥�.
It suggested designating the legislation as a public bill rather than a hybrid bill, as this would mean a reduced petitioning process. Phase one of HS2 was brought through parliament as a hybrid bill and took four years to pass.
According to the report authors, this 鈥楬eathrow Expansion Public Bill鈥� would give a flexible but specific statutory basis for the expansion, limiting ground for judicial review, as well as compressing the myriad consents necessary for infrastructure schemes into a single decision-making process.
They said that this legislative approach would have the effect of 鈥渙verriding the regulatory sediment鈥� in the current DCO process, which can take more than half a decade, with success hinging on a series of veto points. Sizewell C鈥檚 application took more than eight years, for instance.
The report also recommended a robust approach to pushing the bill through parliament, with ministers overriding Standing Orders as they did when the future of the Scunthorpe steelworks was in peril. With this approach, the authors argue, Royal Assent could be achieved by early 2026.
The authors claim that the challenge of relocating the M25 makes a long runway 鈥渋mpossible within one Parliament鈥� and therefore recommends pushing forward a short-haul runway for domestic and European destinations that would free long-haul capacity on the main runways.
Launched in 2015, Labour Together has close links with many cabinet-level figures in the government, having backed Keir Starmer鈥檚 leadership campaign back in 2020.
Its former director, Morgan McSweeney, is now Starmer鈥檚 chief of staff in Downing Street.
According to a report in The Times, the fast-track approach advocated by the think tank is being considered by ministers.
In a foreword to the briefing paper, Dan Tomlinson, MP for Chipping Barnet and Labour鈥檚 Growth Mission Champion, said: 鈥淲e鈥檝e created a system where getting approval for a mile of track or tarmac could take over half a decade.
鈥淲here ambition shrinks to fit the size of the bureaucracy [鈥 If we want a future that works for everyday people, we have to build it. Literally. That starts by fixing the system that stops us.鈥�
Under previous plans for expansion 鈥� subsequently abandoned after the courts ruled illegal proposals to build a third runway because of climate change concerns 鈥� Heathrow was planning to build large parts of it offsite.
A shortlist of 18 sites was drawn up in 2019 to pitch for the chance to become one of the four construction centres.
Sites owned by steelwork contractor Severfield as well as ones run by Balfour Beatty and Tarmac were all in the running for the work at the time the job was pulled.
Heathrow鈥檚 then expansion director Phil Wilbraham, now a non-executive director at Keltbray, told 星空传媒 in 2019 the hubs would be used to keep the number of site workers required at Heathrow down to around 10,000 people.
Under these proposals, construction of a new runway was expected to start in 2022 with the new runway due to open at the end of 2026 with the entire scheme completed in 2033.
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