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Civil Aviation Bill

I did not quite hear the hon. Gentleman. If he intended to refer to the hon. Member who represents Melbourne—that is to say, the hon. Member for South Derbyshire (Mr. Todd)—I can say that he and I have had our agreements and disagreements about activities at Nottingham East Midlands airport. If he intended my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton, I can say that my hon. Friend was, in essence, saying that we required a balance of good behaviour from the airport and understanding among those affected by its activities. What we are not getting at the moment—I think that the hon. Member for North-West Leicestershire would agree—is that sort of balance. I want briefly to put forward a plea on behalf of a constituent, Mr. John Neilson, the chairman of the LEI group, which is a mixed travel agency and tour operator business operating in Market Harborough and employing about 30 people. He is primarily concerned about the air travel trust arrangements in clauses 9 and 10 of the Bill. He would like the introduction of the £1 levy system advocated by the Federation of Tour Operators and the Civil Aviation Authority. When the Minister responds, I hope that she can do a little better than her hon. Friend the Minister of State did in opening the debate and give a little more encouragement there. The more difficult part of the Bill is the first four clauses, dealing with the introduction of amendments to the Civil Aviation Act 1982 in relation to charging and the imposition of penalties. There is, no doubt, some good sense in the amendments to section 38 of the 1982 Act, which would allow airports to fix charges in respect of aircraft or classes of aircraft by reference to a number of things, including the amount of noise caused or the nature and extent of any inconvenience resulting from that noise. It may well be that those who are fortunate enough to serve on the Standing Committee will have to come to grips with what expressions such as ““inconvenience”” actually mean in practice. More to the point, they will have to deal with what ““vicinity”” means. The charging arrangements will allow an airport to take into account pollution"““at any place in or in the vicinity of the aerodrome””." My constituents, who live between 30 and 50 miles from Nottingham East Midlands airport, have a different view of ““vicinity”” from that of the constituents of the hon. Member for North-West Leicestershire, who live right by it. I hope that the charging system will allow for my constituents, who live further away but who are inconvenienced by the airport, to be taken into account.