Geoff Hoon became Secretary for Transport during the Autumn 2008 government reshuffle and is widely believed to favour expansion at Heathrow. However, the Government announcement expected for December has now been pushed to this month (January 2009). This is almost certainly due to the substantial backbench opposition to the expansion of Heathrow (over 100 MPs across all three parties, including 50 labour MPs) as well as to the position of the new Environment Secretary, Ed Miliband who is understood to be broadly opposed to expansion.