Imgoen Shaw looks at what to expect over the next fortnight.

Less than a month before summer recess begins, Parliament looks to have sealed the deal on a third runway for Heathrow airport. As many predicted, Heathrow expansion sailed through the Commons with a comfortable majority. However, progress may not be so smooth going forward. Shortly after the vote, Greenpeace UK announced its readiness to join with a cross-party group of London councils and the Mayor, Sadiq Khan, to mount a legal challenge to the project. With other high profile opponents including Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell, whose Hayes and Harlington constituency will be significantly disrupted by the development, it appears highly unlikely that the issue will peter out over the summer months.

On the same day as its victory over Heathrow, the Government laid to rest another long-running infrastructure issue, announcing its decision to reject plans for a £1.3 billion Tidal Lagoon project in Swansea. Despite widespread criticism from MPs, green groups and the renewable energy industry, this decision is highly unlikely to change and effectively shelves ambitions for Britain to lead development of this source of renewable energy going forward.

Turning away from purely domestic affairs, Prime Minister Theresa May is set to meet with European leaders in Brussels today – just days after Northern Ireland Secretary Karen Bradley announced that the Government will not put forward its plan to avoid a post-Brexit hard border with Ireland until “next month”. The Prime Minister has twice ostensibly committed in writing to preventing a hard border on the island of Ireland, but the Government has comprehensively rejected EU technical proposals for customs checks on Irish Sea ferries between Britain and Northern Ireland. In light of this, it’s unlikely that the meeting will result in much movement on the ongoing border issue.