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Civil Aviation Bill

I will not rule out anything. I have made it clear that the rules were set out in the existing legislation that I described, that the Bill gives the Secretary of State certain powers in respect of designated airports and also extends those powers to airports that are not designated. That does not change the position on daytime movements, but if appropriate, there could be consultation that could lead to changes in the future. Civil aviation legislation enables licensed airports to fix their charges by reference to the noise that aircraft make. Additionally, the Secretary of State may direct an airport to do that, although he has not found it necessary to do so to date. However, the legislation concerning local air quality goes back to 1982, when there would have been little or no expectation that airports would want to vary their charges by reference to aircraft emissions. The Government’s air quality strategy has since set out health-based air quality objectives for air pollutants, derived from EU air quality directives. Although, on a national scale, the contribution of air transport to those impacts is small—certainly compared with road traffic, for example—its effect can be significant in individual cases. We therefore gave a commitment in the White Paper that the Government would introduce legislation enabling the Secretary of State to require an emissions-related element to be included in landing charges at airports where there are local air quality problems. In fact, BAA has already incorporated an oxides of nitrogen emissions element in its airport charges at both Heathrow and Gatwick, as part of its conditions of use, and I applaud it for having done so. However, by making explicit the power to do so in statute, the Government wish to send an even clearer message that they support airports that want to incorporate economic incentives to help to tackle local air quality problems. The Secretary of State will retain the discretion to issue a direction in individual cases, should he consider that necessary at some future date.