Healey backs Heathrow third runway for ‘jobs and growth’ in split from Burnham

Chancellor John Healey has said a third runway at Heathrow would help drive economic growth, appearing to support the airport’s expansion in a split from prime minister Andy Burnham.

Speaking at the International Monetary Fund summit in Bangkok, Healey said airport expansion, including at Heathrow, had been "a big part of jobs and growth" in recent decades.

"The formal position now is that the consultation is closed, led by the Transport Department,” Healey told reporters in Bangkok. “We're reviewing those, and then further decisions and announcements will follow."

His predecessor, Rachel Reeves, made Heathrow expansion the centrepiece of her argument that Britain is open for business. Ms Reeves announced the government-backed expansion last year, saying "a third runway is badly needed" and that the government could not "duck the decision any longer".

Mr Burnham has ducked the issue in recent months, however, calling the issue of a third runway "a matter for London and Londoners" last month.

The Department for Transport said it was "considering the appropriate next steps" after the public consultation on its National Policy Statement, the document that provides the basis for deciding whether to grant a new runway.

The airport's consortium of owners has said it needs explicit backing from Mr Burnham before the end of the year to proceed.

Thomas Woldbye, Heathrow's chief executive, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme this week that it would be "good to know" the government's position. He said a third runway was "not just for Londoners" and that "benefits will be felt all over the country because our supply chain reaches all the way from the north all the way to the south of the UK".

A third runway has been debated for decades and faces opposition from local residents, politicians and climate campaigners. The project has an estimated price of £33bn and would see hundreds of homes demolished, rivers diverted and the M25 motorway rerouted through a tunnel between junctions 14 and 15.

The runway was scheduled to open by 2035, subject to plans being submitted and approved, but Heathrow has since suggested it would be delayed by at least four years to 2039 because of planning and regulatory issues.