John Healey has said there is a pro-growth case for going ahead with a third runway at Heathrow despite the prime minister declining to back it.

Healey’s predecessor as chancellor, Rachel Reeves, put approval of the long-planned runway at the heart of her “growth speech” last year, saying it would “make Britain the world’s best-connected place to do business”.

However, since arriving in No 10 in July, Andy Burnham has ducked the issue of whether the runway should go ahead, suggesting it should be “a matter for London and Londoners”.

A recent Sunday Times report suggested the prime minister had told the transport secretary, Heidi Alexander, that he was “unconvinced” by arguments for the megaproject.

Asked for his views in Bangkok this week, Healey said the government would study responses to a public consultation, which recently closed. He appeared to strike a markedly more positive note than Burnham, however.

“I think in recent decades, and this is true in Heathrow and airports right across the UK, that they have been a big part of jobs and growth. And the case for a third runway at Heathrow has always been a case for growth,” he said.

Healey has insisted economic growth is his and Burnham’s “number one mission” in government.

Heathrow’s chief executive, Thomas Woldbye, has warned that investors could reassess their backing for the £33bn infrastructure project if it does not receive the prime minister’s support.

“Our shareholders would like to do this,” he said earlier this week. “They do think that things are taking a long time, and so far they have decided to be OK with that … But of course we cannot wait for ever.”

The airport’s owners include Qatar’s investment authority; the French private equity firm Ardian; Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund and Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund, GIC. They are expected to decide in the coming months whether to apply for formal planning permission.

Healey voted in favour of the third runway when the question was put to the House of Commons in 2018.

The chancellor was in Bangkok to attend the International Monetary Fund annual meetings but has returned to London to put the finishing touches to his 28 October budget.

The UK was praised by the IMF this week for taking action to cut its deficit, while other large economies have opted not to do so. The IMF’s managing director, Kristalina Georgieva, urged Healey to “stay the course” in his budget.

On Thursday, official figures showed the UK economy unexpectedly continued to grow in August.

For passengers in Britain who want to try the latest ride, robotaxis are eagerly awaited: more than 100,000 are on Uber’s waitlist in London after the first UK services started in September.

Others view them with trepidation. “I think we should all be worried,” said Florentina Ghiuzan, an Uber driver from Essex. “I was shocked TfL approved it so soon. I knew change would come. But I thought it would come with a solution for us.”

London’s rollout is facing mounting opposition, from drivers fearing for their future and the capital’s politicians, with a critical report demanding Transport for London (TfL) is given full powers to permit or suspend operations.

Drivers will this weekend protest outside the headquarters and depot of Wayve, which has partnered with Uber to supply London’s first autonomous cabs for hire.

The direct action marks the latest salvo between unions and the global tech companies, whose driverless cars trials expanded this week to Manchester, with fears that hundreds of thousands of driver jobs could be lost.

Although only a handful of driverless cars now ply the streets, Uber has announced plans to deploy 100,000 Nvidia robotaxis worldwide starting next year, and its senior executives have talked about all new cars being autonomous by 2040. In San Francisco, Waymo’s fully autonomous cars already operate more than a quarter of all rides.

The mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, and bosses at TfL have expressed unease, and the London assembly’s transport committee has called for the government to devolve authority over autonomous taxi services.

In a report published this week, the committee said there was “considerable uncertainty around many of the claimed benefits of autonomous passenger vehicles”, and fears over the impact on public transport and congestion, as well as safeguarding and accessibility for disabled passengers.

The chair, Caroline Russell, said they were not convinced that London should welcome robotaxis. “Rather than just accepting the autonomous passenger service model proposed by operators, London should be looking at the transport problems it is trying to solve and then considering what solutions this technology could provide,” she said.

TfL is understood to see little benefit in the addition of robotaxi services to its crowded city streets, even if the numbers turn out to be relatively few in comparison to the wider traffic.

For the robotaxi companies, London is a tempting challenge to crack. Commercially, it is one of the biggest private hire markets in the world and a foothold in Europe; logistically, it is a tricky test bed to prove their vehicles are viable anywhere. Compared with the grid system of US cities in particular, it presents narrower, twisting and unruly streets, without the kind of rules on jaywalking that give cars priority on the road.

Under current rules, TfL licenses passenger services, but the government decides whether autonomous vehicles can operate. TfL has approved the start of Uber and Wayve’s limited robotaxi services, which retain a human safety driver in the front seat.

As it stands, when it comes to fully autonomous passenger services, the Department for Transport would issue permits for robotaxis with TfL only able to grant or refuse consent, rather than regulate their usage on London’s streets.

That has alarmed TfL, which sees parallels with when Uber first started business in London, creating problems few had considered, and was twice rebuffed in licence renewals as not a “fit and proper” operator. Quite how driverless cars will affect the capital’s transport ecosystem is unknown – and TfL wants to retain the power to intervene.

City hall is also concerned about the social implications of more than 100,000 licensed drivers losing income or a living. Those at the frontline in the App Drivers and Couriers Union (ADCU) are planning protests outside Wayve’s London base from this Saturday.

Their members include Ghiuzan, 42, who started working as a driver four years ago after going back to college. She said: “Our earnings are the same or even lower since I started – and with the robotaxis on the market it could get even worse.”

Ghiuzan said she was notified of the start of autonomous services as an Uber customer – but received no notification as a driver. She thinks people will switch to robotaxis: “Young people like them, it’s new, and you don’t have to pay the driver … I might have other skills, but for lots of drivers who are older and have done it their whole life, it’s going to be quite a challenge.”

Faisal Osman, 51, from east London, has been an Uber driver for 12 years, after switching from a long commute to an IT engineering job to allow him to work nights when he had children. He knows four other engineers who joined Uber: “We all used to talk about AI taking our jobs in IT. We thought, we’re not earning as much driving but we’ll be safe for a while, support the family, pay the bills. But robocabs are a massive concern.

“People might be interested but it will decimate the livelihoods of many people including me – I really wanted some authorities to say no.”

Abdurzak Hadi, an Uber driver and theLondon chair of the ADCU, said Saturday’s protests would follow a similar action held at Waymo’s base in Park Royal in August. He said: “For me as a driver, I’m thinking about competing with a machine that’s not going to get tired, and could work 24 hours a day.

“But as a Londoner with family, I’m thinking about safety. As licensed drivers we’re taught by TfL about safeguarding, looking out for a vulnerable child, or for abuse. Or looking after passengers who can only read your lips. We’re a safety net. But losing my job – that’s also losing a safety net for my family.”

A recent report from the Centre for British Progress thinktank said more than 400,000 UK drivers (121,000 in London) would soon find “much of this work obsolete”, and urged the government to tax autonomous vehicles to help pay for the social consequences and economic losses.

The GMB union has demanded a “just transition” to help drivers reskill and find new work. Speaking at the Labour conference last month, the GMB’s Mark Betteridge said the union was not against change but added: “The people who do these jobs will know the reality far better of what change will look like … Drivers tell us they want some sort of transition plan to get through this.”

The roads minister, Justin Madders, told the meeting that autonomous vehicles could bring “opportunities for well-paid and unionised jobs” and the government wanted Britain to be a “world leader” in the technology. But, he added: “Sometimes government hasn’t worked on the impact on workers … We’re absolutely committed to making sure that doesn’t happen that time.”

An Uber spokesperson said: “Drivers and AVs [automated vehicles], which we believe will also offer considerable benefits to cities, are both expected to grow side by side for quite some time. That said, we shouldn’t hide that autonomous mobility will impact workers, riders, and the communities they live in.

“We are in conversations with the government and local stakeholders to ensure we can realise the promise of AVs while not leaving drivers and communities behind.”

Uber said it had not significantly increased its share of fares in London but VAT changes meant drivers were keeping less of the fares customers paid, and it said it was the only private hire operator in the UK recognising its drivers as workers with employment protections.

Wayve said that with Uber it was taking a “deliberately phased approach”, and had engaged extensively with political leaders, community organisations and accessibility advocates. A spokesperson said its robotaxis could “make a positive contribution to London’s transport system, helping to improve road safety, expand connectivity and give people more ways to travel.

“There is clear excitement in the potential for this technology to support safer, more accessible journeys, provided it is introduced responsibly and in partnership with the city. We have a positive, constructive relationship with TfL and we’re working pragmatically together to ensure any future services meet its expectations.”

A spokesperson for Khan said the mayor was committed to ensuring that Londoners benefitted from the opportunities new technologies could bring but shared “concerns about potential impacts on safety, congestion and jobs”, as any changes needed to “work for our world-leading transport system – including taxi and private hire services, and those who drive them”.

The number of reported “cloned” vehicles involved in offences on UK roads has reached a record high, official data shows.

More than 11,400 drivers contacted the DVLA last year after being issued with fines for offences they said they did not recognise or accept responsibility for – most of which are believed to be down to cloning, where a number plate is copied fraudulently on similar vehicles to avoid enforcement cameras.

The number of complaints about misattribution was 9% higher than in 2024 and almost double the figure recorded in 2018, according to the RAC motoring organisation, which analysed data obtained under freedom of information requests.

The rising figures underscore concerns about the number of illegal number plates in use, allowing criminals to evade detection and dangerous drivers to avoid being caught.

Although drivers should provide number plate suppliers with the V5C vehicle logbook and proof of identity, an investigation last year uncovered more than 130 official suppliers in the UK willing to sell cloned versions, which allow drivers to dodge police and congestion charges.

Cloning vehicles has left many innocent car owners having to struggle to prove they were not responsible when enforcement camera images apparently caught their vehicle committing offences.

A parallel concern is the use of “ghost” plates which are designed to be unreadable by the UK’s 18,000 automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) cameras, which enforce safety measures such as speed limits or lane closures on smart motorways.

The RAC said the UK needed to overhaul an outdated and poorly regulated number plate system. Its head of policy, Simon Williams, said: “If number plate suppliers were carrying out all the checks they’re supposed to, it would be much harder for dodgy drivers to buy cloned plates in the first place. It’s only when a fine arrives at a vehicle keeper’s home address that they realise someone else is driving around using their vehicle’s number plate illegally.”

He said that more also needed to be done to catch drivers with ghost plates, “whether that’s more police officers being equipped with handheld devices that can detect if plates are unreadable, updating ANPR cameras and introducing higher security standards for number plates and for those who produce them”.

The government last month said there would be a new nationwide crackdown on illegal number plates, with funding from the Department for Transport for a new roads policing team. A new National Roads Policing Coordination Centre would share intelligence as well as trialling new technology such as specialised goggles to detect number plates that have been designed to be unreadable by cameras.

Drivers using an incorrectly displayed number plate can be fined up to £1,000.

A Department for Transport spokesperson said: “We’re cracking down on illegal number plates with significant investment in a new roads policing team and innovative tech to stamp out the scourge of cloned numberplates.

“Illegal number plates help facilitate crime, and we are supporting the police to work with the DVLA to make it easier to report these crimes and support victims through a new digital tool.”