Clause 2 - Regulation by Secretary of State
Civil Aviation Bill
4:00 pm
Julian Brazier (Shadow Minister, Transport; Canterbury, Conservative)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Putney (Justine Greening) on her cogent defence of her constituents in this matter. Putney, as she has reminded us already, is under the flight path for Heathrow.
The provision that amendment No. 14 would strike out is one of the most controversial bits of the whole Bill. We spent time discussing it in a more general way on Second Reading, but my hon. Friend has given us the opportunity to focus closely on it. It is worth quoting one or two of the protestor groups. For example, Mr. Steve Charlish, the leader of a group of Leicestershire residents, who is concerned about noise from Nottingham East Midlands airport, comments:
''The Civil Aviation Bill is looking at discretionary powers to allow a greater number of relatively less noisy aircraft into London airports. This surely is going to lead to more night flights, not only around the airports but along flight corridors nationwide where these aircraft will be transiting through night time hours, destroying tranquillity over very wide areas.''
That view is echoed by the Stop Stansted Expansion campaign, which has made a number of points:
''As it stands, this amends the Civil Aviation Act in such a way as to empower the Secretary of State to discontinue applying limits to the number of night aircraft movements at Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted and replace these with noise quotas alone.''
I am sure that we shall get a technical explanation from the Minister and that we shall be reassured that the Bill will do no such thing. However, looking at the wording, I can understand why the protestor groups are concerned at the idea of replacing a straightforward cap on numbers with a concept of noise restriction. That could mean, effectively, that if aircraft were a bit quieter, there could be more of them at night.
The Secretary of State has said that there would be consultation before there were changes on this issue, although I am not clear about what form of consultation that was. The fact is that flights at night are perhaps the number one concern of people who live near airports. I support the concerns raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Putney in such an articulate fashion. I shall be looking carefully at the Minister's response on what the proposal that my hon. Friend seeks to strike out would do if it were left in the Bill, and at the Government's plans in that area.
Amendment No. 35, in my name, is grouped with amendment No. 14. There is a real concern about excessively noisy aircraft. On Second Reading, that was the issue that came up second most often, after the issue of the number of night flights. As somebody put it, ''You can hear any number of low background noises, but it is the one really shrieking sound that can ruin your afternoon and certainly your night.''
I shall quote a constituent of my hon. Friend the Member for Hertford and Stortford (Mr. Prisk):
''Maximum noise limits for aircraft taking off from designated airports have been set for many years, but have only been fully effective since the British Airports Authority was required to install monitoring equipment in the early 1990s. Maximum noise limits are extremely important because obviously it is the noisiest aircraft which cause the most annoyance and because they put a pressure on aircraft manufacturers to produce quieter aircraft. The present limits were set in 2001 and have not been reduced since the banning of chapter 2 aircraft in 2002. The fact is that the limits are very little lower than they were in the early 1990s because some old types of aircraft are still flying. When it is suggested to the Department for Transport that the limit should be reduced and that the penalties should be reduced and that the penalties should be regarded as a charge on noisier aircraft in line with Government policy that airlines should cover their external costs, the civil servants' reply is always that they cannot impose penalties on aircraft which are otherwise legally permitted to fly.''
Hence the wording of the clause that aircraft that are otherwise legally permitted to fly but are exceeding the maximum noise limits should now be fineable. We seek to give the Government that power. The Government have been clarifying powers in a variety of areas that we dealt with this morning. We suggest that they should have an additional power which seems thoroughly justified. To summarise amendment No. 35, where an aircraft is landing and taking off completely legally, but exceeds the Government's noise limits, there should be a power to fine it. I look forward to hearing the Minister's reply to both points.