I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Sir P. Fry) for raising what he rightly described as a very important subject, and bringing his insight and experience of civil aviation matters to our debate. If I do not manage to deal with all his questions, I will indeed write to him and be as helpful as I can.

Let me make two points clear at the outset. The first relates to the position being taken by the United Kingdom in its current negotiations with the United States, which will resume in Washington on 4 February. I hope that the House will understand that it would not be appropriate for me to go into details of the UK's negotiating position here: it would make life much harder for the Department of Transport negotiators if their US counterparts were able to formulate a position based on their reading of Hansard.

We have adopted a robust negotiating posture in the negotiations—so robust, indeed, that the Americans withdrew from them last August. We are beholden to no particular sectional interest in the United Kingdom. Let me respond to the point raised by my hon. Friend at the end of his speech by expressing the hope that the UK Government will be able to reach a liberalising deal with the US, to the benefit of consumers, UK business and airlines generally; but I have no quarrel with his broad description of our overall objectives.