I thank the hon. Lady for her important Intervention on another aspect that is reflected in communications from my constituents. As the effects of the pandemic on air travel have lessened, so the number of night flights has increased, as have the number of complaints. Not to criticise the airports, but they seem unable to do anything about flights simply arriving late and companies being willing to pay to the levy. This is caused by delays because we have not yet modernised the airspace and flights are taking longer. I completely agree that that is an important effect of the delays that we have to take into account.

The pandemic damaged the profitability of our aviation and travel industries. It has made the cost of this modernisation exercise much more difficult to absorb. Just last year, on the announcement of £5.5 million of Government funding, the chief executive of the Airport Operators Association described airspace modernisation as,

“essential for aviation to build back better, so that a recovery of 2019 passenger levels does not come with 2019 noise impacts and carbon emissions.”

That is very much what the hon. Lady was talking about—the 2019 impacts on night flights and pollution. That is part of the reason why it is so important to the communities throughout the country who live beside or beneath airport flightpaths that we address this issue.

In Edinburgh, the situation is further complicated. The mailbox I mentioned is full of concerns and complaints, because new flightpath plans for Edinburgh airport have been the subject of planning consultation and rejection by the Civil Aviation Authority for more than five years. By the time the modernisation is completed—if it is completed on schedule—it will have been more than a decade since the exercise to modernise the approach and take-off routes was launched. That has had an impact on not just my constituents but those in adjoining constituencies who live under the approach. Their patience has been stretched.

It has been difficult for the airport, too. Please remember that Edinburgh airport is vital to the economy of not just the city but Scotland, in providing employment and connectivity around the globe. The delays have been expensive at a time when it has had to bear the impact of the pandemic, which I mentioned. It now finds itself, like every other airport in the country, competing for the best results it can get from the modernisation. We all want the Civil Aviation Authority to get this right—of course we do—but we want that within a timeframe that is acceptable for those who have lived with the effects of an outdated scheme for 20 years. We do not want them to wait 20 more.