Heathrow får sin 3. rullebane - BBC

Heathrow airport: MPs vote in favour of expansion

• 1 hour ago

 

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MPs have backed controversial plans to build a third runway at London's Heathrow airport.

The government won a key vote in the Commons by 415 votes to 119 - a majority of 296.

Tory MPs were under orders to support the government - but Boris Johnson, a leading opponent of expansion, missed the vote because he was in Afghanistan.

Labour's official position was to oppose expansion, but its MPs were given a free vote. The SNP abstained.

The vote was welcomed by business group the CBI as "a truly historic decision that will open the doors to a new era in the UK's global trading relationships".

    

But Greenpeace UK said it was ready to join a cross-party group of London councils and the city's mayor, Sadiq Khan, in a legal challenge against the third runway.

And Friends of the Earth said in a statement: "MPs who backed this climate-wrecking new runway will be harshly judged by history.

"The evidence on the accelerating climate crisis, which is already hitting the world's most vulnerable people, is overwhelming - and expanding Heathrow will only intensify the misery."