Reeves claims sustainable aviation fuel ‘game changer’ in debate about 3rd runway and carbon emissions
Rachel Reeves is now being interviewed by Justin Webb on the Today programme.
Q: When did Keir Starmer, who used to oppose Heathrow expansion, change his mind?
Reeves says MPs last voted on this about six years ago. Since then a lot has changed, she says.
She claims sustainable aviation fuel can reduce emissions by 70%.
Q: So you think sustainable aviation fuel has changed the arguments.
Reeves says she thinks it is a “game changer”. But she says reforms to the way airspace is used also makes a different. If planes spend less time circulating, they use less fuel, she says
Key events
No more bat sheds will be required for big infrastracture projects, Reeves suggests
Q: You talked about bats yesterday, and the HS2 bat tunnel. But there will have to be a bat tunnel for the Oxford-Cambridge rail plan. What are you proposing?
Reeves says decisions need to be made differently. There will be a Nature Restoration Fund. Developers will have to pay into that. But it might fund environmental measures somewhere else.
Q: So the bats might not be protected in one particular area?
Reeves says there are trade-offs. She claims that the current rules go too far.
The balance has gone too far in the direction of always protecting every bat and every newt.
Q: So, if the Oxford-Cambridge rail line goes ahead, it won’t have a tunnel to protect bats.
“Other ways will be found,” Reeves says.
And that is the end of that interview.
According to Politico’s London Playbook, Reeves has three more interviews to go: on Good Morning Britain at 8.30am, Bloomberg at 8.50am and GB News at 8.55am.
Q: When will industrial energy prices come down to the level they are in other countries?
Reeves says she won’t put a date on that.
Q: But without lower prices, companies won’t invest.
Reeves says the government is working to cut prices. She recognises the challenge. Private sector money is coming in, she says.
Reeves says the last government never invested in carbon capture and storage. Labour is getting those projects off the ground, she says.
Q: When will electricity prices for industry come down?
Reeves says Labour inherited these prices.
But the goverment is acting to bring those prices down. It is investing in wind farms.
Q: But why not keep gas going too at the same time.
Reeves says onshore wind is the cheapest form of energy. The last government blocked that.
And she says the UK is “blessed” with offshore wind opportunities, with a shallow coast at the North Sea.
She says the government is approving energy projects. A solar farm in Cambridgeshire had been waiting for approval under the Tories for three years. Ed Miliband approved it quickly, she says.
Q: Why do you think Sadiq Khan is not convinced by the sustainable fuel argument?
Reeves says she has huge respect for Khan. But she disagrees with him on this.
Q: Can he stop this?
No, says Reeves. But there can be judicial reviews.
Q: Are you comfortable about having the London mayor opposed to this?
Reeves says there are always reasons for saying no to projects like this.
But Heathrow is the UK’s only hub airport. But it is using market share to competitors in Europa, at Schiphol in the Netherlands and Frankfurt in Germany.
Reeves restates her claim that spades could be in the ground at Heathrow by the end of this parliament. (See 7.59am.)
Reeves claims sustainable aviation fuel ‘game changer’ in debate about 3rd runway and carbon emissions
Rachel Reeves is now being interviewed by Justin Webb on the Today programme.
Q: When did Keir Starmer, who used to oppose Heathrow expansion, change his mind?
Reeves says MPs last voted on this about six years ago. Since then a lot has changed, she says.
She claims sustainable aviation fuel can reduce emissions by 70%.
Q: So you think sustainable aviation fuel has changed the arguments.
Reeves says she thinks it is a “game changer”. But she says reforms to the way airspace is used also makes a different. If planes spend less time circulating, they use less fuel, she says
In our leader this morning, the Guardian says Rachel Reeves’ speech yesterday sounded “desperate and shallow”. Here is an excerpt.
There is a balanced debate to be had around the merits of Ms Reeves’s economic argument and what it omits. Supply-side reform may be necessary. But it is not a sufficient condition for growth. Boosting foreign trade is important, but to discuss it without reference to the European single market is disingenuous. If fiscal responsibility is a goal then it should be achieved by ways other than cutting social spending.
But, economics aside, the cumulative effect of those omissions makes the chancellor’s speech sound desperate and shallow. That doesn’t mean the Treasury’s plan is doomed to fail. It might indeed spur growth. But it is presented without a meaningful political argument, without imagination, compassion or moral purpose. Those qualities might not be necessary to boost gross domestic product, but a Labour government is badly diminished without them.
And here is the full article.
Reeves claims sustainable aviation fuel a ‘game changer’ in debate about emissions and third Heathrow runway
Good morning. The Treasury is continuing to give Rachel Reeves’ speech the sort of media treatment usually reserved for a budget; after a week-long advance briefing blitz, the chancellor is now engaged in a day-after full media round. She will be on the Today programme at 8.10am.
Here is our lead story overnight about the speech.
On BBC Breakfast this morning, in response to questions about whether it is realistic to expect a third runway at Heathrow to be built anytime soon, Reeves said she would liktop see “spades in the ground” this parliament.
Asked for a timeline on the plan, Reeves replied:
We want to see spades in the ground in this parliament.
We have asked Heathrow to come forward with plans by this summer, and then we want to grant that development consent order by the end of this parliament, so we can get the diggers in the ground to get this project up and running.
Asked when flights might take off from the third runway, Reeves said:
I think we can get that done in a decade.
Asked if this meant planes would be using the new runway by 2035, Reeves said:
That is what we want to achieve and that is what Heathrow wants to achieve.
(“Spades in the ground” is a metaphor. Or, at least, one hopes so. If they are going to build the third runway with spades, the economy is in even more trouble than we realised.)
Here is the agenda for the day.
9.30am: The ONS publishes crime figures for England and Wales.
9.30am: Johnathan Reynolds, the business secretary, takes questions in the Commons
11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.
After 11.30am: MPs hold a backbench debate on proportional representation.
Noon: Mourners attend John Prescott’s funeral in Hull.
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