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Industry and the Environment

Exactly. What more can I offer the right hon. Lady, especially as I now want to talk about Nottingham East Midlands airport—briefly, Mr. Deputy Speaker, because I know that plenty of other Members wish to speak, some for the first time. Nottingham East Midlands airport serves the east midlands region which contains my constituency and the right hon. Lady’s. It seems to me that the Government need to get a grip on it. It is owned by the Manchester Airport Group, whose shareholders are 10 local authorities in and around the city of Manchester. Her constituents and mine have no purchase on the managing of the company or the consequences of its business activities for them. Her constituency may be a little nearer to the airport than mine, but both are affected by the noise and air pollution that it causes. As I said in the last Parliament, I am a Conservative and a capitalist. I wish to see businesses thrive, but I wish to see them thrive only as long as they are well behaved towards their neighbours. No trucking company that proposed to drive trucks through my constituency every 90 seconds throughout the night would be allowed to do so without comment from a Minister, and indeed without action by a Minister to control that activity for the benefit of the community. But because this traffic takes place at night and in the sky, it is not susceptible to the control of local planning authorities, and because the airport is not designated under the Civil Aviation Act 1982, it is not susceptible to the control of the Secretary of State for Transport. As the guardian of public policy on the environment, the right hon. Lady must ask the Secretary of State for Transport to wake up, because my constituents and hers cannot sleep at night and will not be able to sleep at night as a consequence of the increased night flights. From 12 May, the new routes took effect. There is an out-bound route and an in-bound route over my constituency in south and south-east Leicestershire. We were told by Nottingham East Midlands airport and by the Civil Aviation Authority, which gave permission for those new routes, that we should not worry because those flights, both in and out, would be far too high above the land of my constituency for people to notice or to be disturbed by them. On 17 May, a local resident happened to be in his garden and noticed, during an eight and a half hour period, seven flights, all below 4,000 ft. The CAA says that all those flights should have been above 8,000 or 9,000 ft. What will the Government do to ensure that, if we have been sold a false prospectus, someone should be held to account? What will the right hon. Lady do to ensure that public authorities, be they airports or the CAA, tell the truth? What will she do to encourage an atmosphere in which my constituents can trust those whose acts have consequences for their lives, properties and environment? I will not labour the point. I have made it before and I shall make it again but perhaps not today. I urge the right hon. Lady to take a careful look at what NEMA, as it is called, is doing, what it proposes to do and whether it respects the rights and interests of her constituents and mine. My view is that it could not care less about them and that its so-called independent consultative committee, whose chairman is paid a salary by the airport, is not the proper monitoring authority to control aircraft pollution and noise. The civil aviation Bill that is promised in the Queen’s Speech will, apparently, allow airports to fine miscreant airlines that abuse the rules and regulations on pollution and noise. Would you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, expect East Midlands airport to fine its customers and thus to discourage them from using the airport? It will take a lot of convincing to persuade me that the civil aviation Bill will have the desired effect of making airlines behave themselves when they do not fly down the requisite routes and ensuring that East Midlands airport behaves as a good neighbour. I hope that the Secretary of State will help me, as I wish to help her, in ensuring that NEMA behaves itself.