Clause 2 - Regulation by Secretary of State
Civil Aviation Bill
4:00 pm
Justine Greening (Putney, Conservative)
I think that I will start with a reprise of the comments that I made before lunch, to set in the context of the amendment. The amendment would remove the part of clause 2 that gives the Secretary of State the powers to remove the movements limit. As I was explaining, at present, noise at designated airports is controlled via a mix of controls. On the one hand there is a quota count system, which examines the absolute estimated noise that people have to bear on the ground, and on the other there is the control exerted by the movements limit, which limits the absolute number of aircraft able to land during periods such as the night-time period, during which, currently 16 flights come into Heathrow.
My argument is that, while we have the next regime of the night flights consultation, which will run up until 2012, we should use that time to get the real facts and data that is needed to make an informed assessment of whether the Secretary of State should have the powers to remove the movements limit. By that I mean several things. First, we need to start to measure the actual noise, as we have already discussed in the Committee. Close to the immediate Heathrow area, for example, there are noise sensors, but further out—in the hinterland, where local people are very much affected by aircraft noise—there are far fewer controls in place to manage what they have to put up with. There is a similar situation with regard to many of our airports. We must therefore start to look seriously at measuring actual noise on the ground.
Secondly, returning to the speech that I made on Second Reading, we must look at how that noise affects people. I believe that it is something like 20 years since the last large-scale study that examined the impact of prolonged and sustained aircraft noise on people who have to bear it day to day and, in my constituents' case, every night.
Thirdly, we need to examine whether there is an economic case for continued night flights at Heathrow. There are currently 16 night flights, transporting 2,000 to 3,000 passengers every morning, each of which will manage to wake up several hundred thousand Londoners, who also contribute to the London economy. I am not aware of any robust public work that has been done that adequately stacks up whether there is an economic case for those night flights that outweighs the economic benefit that my constituents, and many others who are woken by night flights, contribute to London's economy.
Finally, I believe that before we confer any further powers on the Secretary of State to remove the movements limit, we need to be clear as to what the Opposition's and the Government's policies are on excessive noise. We touched on that matter earlier today, and it has been made all the more relevant by our earlier discussion on targets. I urge the Minister, if she is not able to give us further information on that policy today, to give us the information on Report, or to issue some guidelines about what might constitute excessive noise. I would be happy to discuss that matter further with the Minister at a meeting, when we could address face-to-face some of the issues that my constituents have to put up with on a day-to-day basis.