A group of MPs have signed a letter calling for the UK to fund the construction of an airport in Pakistan.
This is misleading. Twenty UK MPs and peers did sign a letter to Pakistan’s Prime Minister calling on him to deliver on a promise to build an airport in Mirpur, but the letter does not mention the UK paying for this, and there’s no evidence this has been suggested.
Posts recently shared on social media have suggested MPs are campaigning for UK taxpayers to fund the construction of a new international airport in Pakistan. But these claims are misleading—there’s no evidence the MPs concerned have suggested any such thing.
One post on X with more than 1,500 shares, which has since been deleted, said: “Look who signed a letter to build on British tax payers money an airport in Pakistan. Look whose local councils are bankrupt. Why should we pay to build an airport in Pakistan![sic]”.
And a Facebook post with 300 comments shared a photo of Labour’s Tahir Ali MP with overlaid text saying: “I oppose a 3rd runway at Heathrow but want you to pay for an airport in Pakistan.”
A group of UK MPs and peers have signed a letter addressed to Pakistan’s Prime Minister, Shebaz Sharif, in support of an international airport in Mirpur in Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK)—a region administered by Pakistan. But the letter does not call for this to be funded by the UK, and there’s no evidence this has been suggested.
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The letter, which has the letterhead of Labour MP Mohammad Yasin’s office and is dated 26 March, expresses concern that consecutive prime ministers of Pakistan have not delivered on the “long-standing promise of an international airport in Mirpur”.
It claims that currently the nearest airport is over three hours away and that “these journeys are genuine inhibitors” to the Kashmiri diaspora in the UK travelling back to the region.
However, the letter does not mention the UK funding this airport, and Mr Yasin has confirmed that there is no suggestion UK taxpayer money should be spent on this project.
He said in a statement to Full Fact: “Regarding the recent letter in question, it was clearly addressed to the Prime Minister of Pakistan and does not suggest, as some have falsely claimed, that UK taxpayer money should be spent on this project. This was a matter of importance to some of my constituents who have family and friends in Pakistan.”
Another signatory to the letter, Labour MP Tahir Ali, shared a video on X on 8 April also confirming that he had not called on the UK to fund the airport. He said: “We have requested that the Pakistani government provide assistance for that airport. Not a single penny of it has been requested or demanded by the British government.”
An X account which shared this claim subsequently deleted it and posted a correction after we got in touch, telling Full Fact: “I shared the post in good faith and I am happy to rectify any error or delete if applicable and as always I would apologise.”
We’ve also seen some inaccurate reporting in the media about this letter.
The Telegraph wrongly claimed in a 31 March article that “a total of 20 MPs and peers wrote to Sir Keir Starmer last week urging him to lend his support to the construction of an international airport in Mirpur”.
This article was corrected after Full Fact got in touch, and now says that the MPs concerned wrote to Pakistan’s PM, not Mr Starmer.
The Express also appeared to suggest that the letter had been sent to Mr Starmer, saying: “A total of 20 (mainly Labour) backbenchers called on Sir Keir Starmer to back proposals for a new Mirpur international airport.”
A spokesperson for Mr Yasin’s office confirmed to us that the MP had not approached Mr Starmer or the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office about the airport, and was not aware of any other signatories of the letter having done so.
We’re contacted the Express about this, and will update this article if we receive a response.
One of the posts sharing this claim on Facebook also suggested that Mr Ali opposed plans to build a third runway at Heathrow Airport, while supporting plans for the UK to fund the airport in Mirpur.
It is true, as reported in the Telegraph, that a number of MPs who signed the letter did previously vote against a third runway at Heathrow in 2018. But the Telegraph article does not say that Mr Ali, who was not an MP at the time of that vote, had previously publicly opposed a third runway at Heathrow, and we’ve not found any evidence of him having done so.
We’ve asked Mr Ali’s office about this claim and whether he opposes a third runway at Heathrow and will update this article if we receive a response.
This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as false because the letter from UK parliamentarians does not mention the UK funding the new airport, and there’s no evidence this has been suggested.
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