Heathrow

Part of Bill Presented – in the House of Commons at 4:41 pm on 11 November 2008.

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Photo of Theresa Villiers Theresa Villiers Shadow Secretary of State for Transport 4:41, 11 November 2008

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for making that point. Indeed, aircraft noise is already an issue in areas as far apart as Windsor and Camberwell, Brixton and her constituency. A key issue is that the 57 dB contour on which the Government have focused underestimates the extent of the problem. It would be useful for the House to consider the Government's ANASE—"Attitudes to Noise from Aviation Sources in England"—study, which concluded that annoyance sets in at much lower levels than the 57 dB threshold that the Department for Transport uses. Labour spent £15 million of taxpayers' money on that report, which was the first major study of aircraft noise for 30 years. When the Government commissioned it, the aviation Minister at the time said:

"This new study underlines the Government's commitment to underpin our policy on aircraft noise by substantial research that commands the widest possible confidence."

However, the Government dismissed the study's conclusions as soon as they were published.

Far from commanding the widest possible confidence, the research underpinning Labour's approach to Heathrow is deeply flawed. Yes, planes have become quieter over the past 20 years but, again, Labour has relied on a massive leap forward in aircraft technology to enable it to reconcile its promises on noise with the increase in flight movements that it wants at Heathrow. The freedom of information documents indicate that when the fleet mix data provided to support the air transport White Paper was fed into the Civil Aviation Authority's noise model, they failed the noise test that the Government had set. The documents then show the DFT and BAA working together closely on a subsequent "re-forecasting" of both aircraft types and numbers—a process that went on until a few weeks before the publication of the November 2007 consultation. To all intents and purposes, the projections for the future flight mix were reverse engineered to try to meet the noise and NOx tests, and get the answer that the Government wanted. The document even revealed that Department for Transport officials were worried that the final BAA projections were not credible, but it seems that they did little about it.

I draw the House's attention to a document entitled "ERCD Report 0705", the technical annexe on noise, which was published alongside the consultation. The document makes it clear that the compliant fleet mix that the Government expect to be delivered by 2030 includes a new 450-seat, twin-engine, wide-bodied jet, and that, according to table 2.3 on page 11, the Government assume that, by 2030, that new green jumbo will completely replace the four-engine Boeing 747. Not only that, they assume that it will replace almost all of Boeing's successor to the 747—and it is not even on the market yet. The freedom of information documents reveal that the percentage of four-engine, 747-type aircraft with their higher noise levels was steadily reduced every time the figures were recalculated and failed to produce the result that the Government wanted. That new green jumbo is crucial to the final calculation, but, as BBC's "Panorama" programme highlighted, the plane does not actually exist—it is a virtual plane. When the BBC approached Boeing and Airbus, it was told that the aircraft was not even in their design portfolios, and that neither company had any plans to produce it. It is a fantasy plane.

In the face of major blows to the credibility of their data, all the Government have said is that if the new cleaner and quieter aircraft do not materialise, the airport will simply scale back the flight numbers to meet the 57 dB noise contour area, but, frankly, no one believes a word that the Government or BAA say on flight counts—not after all the broken promises that have been made about Heathrow expansion over the years. It is clear that the Labour party is making every possible effort to try to wriggle out of its promise that expansion at Heathrow would not be allowed to lead to a deterioration in the noise climate around the airport.