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The government supports a third runway at Heathrow, Chancellor Rachel Reeves has announced.

Ms Reeves said the expansion of Europe’s busiest airport was “badly needed” to connect the UK to the world and open up new opportunities for growth.

A third runway will “unlock further growth, boost investment increase exports and make the UK more open and more connected”, she said.

Politics latest: Reaction to third runway decision

It could increase potential GDP (Gross Domestic Product) by 0.43% by 2050, a Frontier Economics study found, she said.

Ms Reeves said an expansion could create more than 100,000 jobs.

The announcement has been welcomed by some business groups but anger by London’s Labour mayor Sadiq Khan, the Lib Dems, the Green Party and environmental groups.

More on Heathrow Airport

File photo dated 4/1/2016 of an Emirates Airbus A380 plane lands over houses near Heathrow Airport, west London. Exposure to aircraft noise could increase the likelihood of suffering heart attacks, according to a study. Researchers at University College London (UCL) found people who live near airports - and are subjected to noise from planes taking off and landing - may be at greater risk of poor heart health. Issue date: Wednesday January 8, 2025.
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Heathrow is right next to large residential areas. Pic: PA

As part of a speech on funding infrastructure across the UK to promote growth, Ms Reeves said: “Persistent delays have caused doubts about our seriousness towards improving our economic prospects.”

She added that business groups like the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) and the Chambers of Commerce (BCC), as well as trade unions “are clear – a third runway is badly needed”.

Ms Reeves said the UK is “already making great strides in transitioning to cleaner and greener aviation” and announced the government is investing £63m over the next year into the Advanced Fuel Fund grant programme to support the development of sustainable aviation fuel production plants.

The government will be accepting proposals until the summer and will then carry out a “full assessment” through the Airport National Policy Statement to “ensure a third runway is delivered in line with our legal, environmental and climate objectives”.

Ms Reeves said the government expects any associated surface transport costs to the third runway’s construction will be financed through private funding.

Read more:
A long history of Heathrow’s third runway plans

The debate around whether Europe’s busiest airport should expand has been circling over British politics for decades.

Ms Reeves‘s decision will likely put her at odds with Climate Secretary Ed Miliband, who has said airport expansions will not go ahead if they cannot meet climate targets.

However, he said last week he would not resign if the government approved a third runway despite threatening to resign from Gordon Brown’s cabinet as climate change secretary in 2009 over the plans and in 2018 he said an expansion was “very likely” to make air pollution worse.

He has now said the government can meet both its growth and net zero missions together.

Labour Mayor of London Sadiq Khan said he remains opposed to a third runway “because of the severe impact it will have on noise, air pollution and meeting our climate change targets”.

He said he will carefully scrutinise any new proposals, “including the impact it will have on people living in the area and the huge knock-on effects for our transport infrastructure”.

“Despite the progress that’s been made in the aviation sector to make it more sustainable, I’m simply not convinced that you can have hundreds of thousands of additional flights at Heathrow every year without a hugely damaging impact on our environment,” he added.

Green Party MP Sian Berry said expanding airports “in the face of a climate emergency is the most irresponsible announcement from any government I have seen since the Liz Truss budget”.

Conservative shadow chancellor Mel Stride accused Ms Reeves and Sir Keir Starmer, and “their job destroying budget” of being “the biggest barriers to growth”.

“What’s worse, the anti-growth chancellor could not rule out coming back with yet more tax rises in March,” he added.

“This is a Labour government run by politicians who do not understand business, or where wealth comes from. Under new leadership, the Conservatives will continue to back businesses and hold this government to account.”

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Retired vicar involved in ‘Eunuch Maker’ extreme body modification ring jailed for three years

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Retired vicar involved in 'Eunuch Maker' extreme body modification ring jailed for three years

A retired Church of England vicar who was part of an extreme body modification ring run by man who called himself the Eunuch Maker has been jailed for three years.

Warning: The following article contains graphic details of extreme physical mutilation

Reverend Geoffrey Baulcomb, 79, pleaded guilty to causing grievous bodily harm with intent after a nine-second video of him using nail scissors to perform a procedure on a man’s penis in January 2020 was found on his mobile phone.

He also admitted seven other charges, including possessing extreme pornography and making and distributing images of children on or before 14 December 2022.

Prosecutors said some of the material included moving images which had been on the eunuch maker website, run by 47-year-old Norwegian national Marius Gustavson.

Marius Gustavson
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Marius Gustavson

Gustavson was jailed for life with a minimum term of 22 years last year after a court heard he made almost £300,000 through his website, where thousands of users paid to watch procedures, including castrations.

Baulcomb was said to have been an “acquaintance” of Gustavson, and the pair exchanged more than 10,000 messages with each other over a four-year period.

He was formerly a vicar at St Mary the Virgin Church in Eastbourne but retired from full-time ministry in the Church of England in 2003.

The diocese of Chichester said he applied for “permission to officiate”, which allows clergy to officiate at church services in retirement, when he moved to Sussex the following year.

But Baulcomb was banned for life from exercising his Holy Orders following a tribunal last year, which heard he was issued with a caution after police found crystal meth and ketamine at his home in December 2022.

He had claimed experimenting with drugs or allowing his home in Eastbourne to be used for drug taking would “better enable him to relate and minister to people with difficulties as part of his pastoral care”.

The diocese said the Bishop of Chichester immediately removed his permission to officiate after being contacted by police, and bail conditions prevented him from attending church or entering Church of England premises.

‘Nullos’ subculture

The Old Bailey heard last year that extreme body modification is linked to a subculture where men become “nullos”, short for genital nullification, by having their penis and testicles removed.

Gustavson and nine other men have previously admitted their involvement in the eunuch maker ring, which one victim said had a “cult-like” atmosphere.

The life-changing surgeries, described as “little short of human butchery” by the sentencing judge, were carried out by people with no medical qualifications, who he had recruited.

Prosecutors said there was “clear evidence of cannibalism” as Gustavson – who had his own penis and nipple removed and leg frozen so it needed to be amputated – cooked testicles to eat in a salad.

Gustavson, who was said to have been involved in almost 30 procedures, pleaded guilty to charges including conspiracy to commit grievous bodily harm between 2016 and 2022.

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Labour plans to ‘overhaul broken asylum system’

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Labour plans to 'overhaul broken asylum system'

After a summer dominated by criticism over the small boats crisis and asylum hotels, Labour says it’s planning to overhaul the “broken” asylum system.

As MPs return to Westminster today, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper will speak about the government’s success in tackling people smugglers and plans for border security reform.

August saw the lowest number of Channel crossings since 2019 - but the last year has the most on record. Pic: Reuters
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August saw the lowest number of Channel crossings since 2019 – but the last year has the most on record. Pic: Reuters

Labour hopes that the raft of changes being proposed will contribute to ending the use of asylum hotels, an issue which has led to widespread protests over the summer.

Ms Cooper will set out planned changes to the refugee family reunion process to give “greater fairness and balance”, and speak to the government’s promise to “smash the gangs” behind English Channel crossings.

National Crime Agency (NCA) figures show record levels of disruption of immigration crime networks in 2024/25. Officials believe this contributed to the lowest number of boats crossing the Channel in August since 2019.

But, despite the 3,567 arrivals in August being the lowest since 2021, when looking across the whole of 2025, the figure of 29,003 is the highest on record for this point in a year.

Read more:
The deep divides in town which has become a flashpoint in UK’s asylum crisis
PM vows small boat migrants will be ‘detained and sent back’
Where are the UK’s asylum seekers from?

More on Keir Starmer

Labour says actions to strengthen border security, increase returns and overhaul the asylum system, will result in “putting much stronger foundations in place so we can fix the chaos we inherited and end costly asylum hotels”.

In a message to Reform UK, which has promised mass deportations, and the Tories, who want to revive the Rwanda scheme, Ms Cooper will say: “These are complex challenges, and they require sustainable and workable solutions, not fantasy promises which can’t be delivered.”

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The town at boiling point over migration

While the home secretary will look back at the UK’s “proud record of giving sanctuary to those fleeing persecution”, she will argue the system “needs to be properly controlled and managed, so the rules are respected and enforced, and so governments, not criminal gangs, decide who comes to the UK”.

She will also give further details around measures announced over the summer, including the UK’s landmark returns deal with France, and update MPs on reforms to the asylum appeals process.

Shadow home secretary Chris Philp dismissed Ms Cooper’s intervention as a “desperate distraction tactic”, reiterating record levels of illegal Channel crossings, the rise in the use of asylum hotels and the highest number of asylum claims in history in Labour’s first year.

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Richard Tice reveals how navy would deal with small boats

Sir Keir Starmer too, says he intends to “deliver change,” using a column in Monday’s Mirror to criticise the Tories and Reform UK for whipping up migrant hatred.

And the prime minister isn’t the only one to hit out at Reform UK’s flagship immigration plan, with the Archbishop of York accusing it of being an “isolationist, short-term kneejerk” approach, with no “long-term solutions”.

In response, Richard Tice, Reform’s deputy leader, told Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips the archbishop was “wrong” in his criticism.

Anti-asylum demonstrators in Epping, Essex. Pic: PA
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Anti-asylum demonstrators in Epping, Essex. Pic: PA

Mr Tice, who is the MP for Boston and Skegness, said he was a Christian who “enjoys” the church – but that the “role of the archbishop is not actually to interfere with international migration policies”.

Meanwhile, the Court of Appeal will hand down its full written judgment in the Bell Hotel case today, which saw Epping Forest District Council fail in an attempt to stop asylum seekers from being put up there.

Protests continued in Epping on Sunday night, with police arresting three people.

An anti-asylum demonstration also took place in Canary Wharf on Sunday, which saw a police officer punched in the face and in a separate incident, a child potentially affected by synthetic pepper spray.

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Murder investigation launched after man fatally stabbed in Luton

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Murder investigation launched after man fatally stabbed in Luton

A murder investigation has been launched after a man was fatally stabbed in Luton, Bedfordshire, on Sunday.

Police said officers were called to Humberstone Road just after 6pm after reports of an altercation involving two men and a woman.

A man in his 20s was taken to hospital with serious injuries but was pronounced dead shortly after.

Police are appealing for any further information, including doorbell, CCTV, or dashcam footage from the area around the time of the incident.

Superintendent Rachael Glendenning, from Bedfordshire Police, said: “This is an isolated incident, and we would ask the public not to speculate at this time.”

She said officers will be at the scene for a significant period while the investigation continues.

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