MPs vote in favour of Heathrow's plans for a third runway
After a late debate in Parliament, 415 MPs voted in favour of the Aviation National Policy Statement (NPS), which takes Heathrow's plans for a third runway to the next stage in the planning process.
SHE campaigners had been told to expect a substantial vote in favour of the runway because Conservative MPs had been whipped to follow the party line and vote in favour of the runway regardless of their personal views, Labour had announced that the runway had failed its Four Tests so it would be opposing the runway plans but had given its MPs a free vote, so they could ignore the party line and vote with the Tories.
It was then down to what the other parties would do, including the SNP who are known to vote in a block. which could significantly influence the result.
What was surprising was that only 119 MPs voted against this environmentally-damaging project. A difference of 296 votes was far greater than expected.
Neil Keveren joins Greenpeace protestors outside Parliament
“What this has shown is that there is a large number of MPs who don’t care about the environment, pollution, health, noise, loss of housing or cost to the taxpayer. ”