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Civil Aviation Bill

The hon. Lady makes a good point, which I think is about 10 or 15 per cent. right. Like most people to whom I have talked who live around airports, I would prefer four quiet aircraft that can barely be heard and, in some instances, not heard at all, to one very noisy aircraft that wakes people up. I was once at a public meeting where people were complaining about aircraft. They especially complained about a particular jumbo jet, as it turned out, that was noisy. I and others were able to point out that, while we had been in the meeting, about 25 aircraft had gone over the building and that they had heard only one. They had not heard the other 24. Obviously, quantity as well as quality matters but there has been a huge improvement in 777 aircraft, to give one example, over the old DC-9s. In my opinion, that outweighs the increased number of flights. There is a quarter of the noise, but there are still complaints. The number of complaints must be considered in detail. At Nottingham East Midlands airport, over a period, there were 615 complaints about noise, 72 per cent. of which had been made by one individual. As far as I know, they were not made by an hon. Member. Sometimes, statistics obscure the fact that real people are finding that there is less of a problem with the airport and its noise than has been recorded. The Secretary of State will have the power to allow public airport companies, such as Manchester airport, to trade. Those powers are not currently in the hands of the local authorities that own them. I support that good idea. The regulatory impact assessment says that the Secretary of State considered handing over power completely to the public airport companies so that they would have the same freedom as a privately owned airport company, but that that would make it more difficult to take local authority views into account. I found that a strange decision for airport companies that are owned by local authorities. I urge the Secretary of State—I will also urge Ministers if I serve on the Standing Committee—to go the whole hog and make those public airport companies as free to trade as their private sector competitors. The issue is not whether the Secretary of State can intervene. BAA and other private operators would be annoyed and disturbed if there were a public subsidy, but the accounts are transparent, there is no public subsidy and the companies should be allowed to compete on a level playing field. My hon. Friend the Minister said that he was weighing up all the facts as they relate to ATOL. To understand the complexities of the system, it is worth reading one sentence from the Select Committee’s report. Once hon. Members hear it, I would be surprised if they defend the current system. It states:"““The intricacies of the ATOL arrangements are tortuous: passengers are definitely protected if they book a flight on a charter airline through a tour operator, or if they fly with a scheduled airline as part of a tour package; they are protected if they book a scheduled airline ticket through a travel agent with accommodation or a concert ticket, but not if they buy only the plane ticket and then book their accommodation on the internet; they may be protected even if they buy only a scheduled airline ticket from a travel agent, provided the travel agent uses the right flight consolidator.””" We are saying that that system should continue to be funded, but it is not sensible or rational and does not justify that approach. The hon. Member for Rutland and Melton (Mr. Duncan) said there should be a clear choice between a completely free system of buyer beware and extending the system. I agree. The difficulty is that the European package travel directive, which was introduced into British law by the package travel regulations, says that there must be protection for a number of travellers. The regulations make it clear that in this country—although I do not think that the original directive says this—that has to be provided by package tour operators. It is sensible to extend the scheme to all travellers for £1 a journey. The insurance system is even more complicated than the ATOL system. One argument is that extending the scheme would mean extra regulation. The CAA report makes it clear that the change to a levy on all passengers is deregulatory, takes £1 million-worth of burden off the industry and creates a level playing field. The arguments in favour of that are so strong that I find it difficult to understand why the Government resist it. I tried to intervene on the Minister because I wanted to ask about the extra consultation. He implied that the Government are not going to amend the Bill to allow the scheme to be extended, but who else is there to consult? The CAA has carried out a thorough consultation and the Government have gone to the industry. As far as I am aware, they found that BA and one of the low-cost carriers—possibly Aer Lingus—do not like it. I can understand why, because it is an extra cost to their passengers and there are problems of carriers going broke, but the nature of a collective insurance policy is that everyone pays. With all those facts in place, I do not understand why we cannot have the argument now and make a decision. We do not need another consultation. The facts and the arguments are clear. It is not justifiable to continue a scheme that was appropriate when 98 per cent. of leisure passengers travelled through inclusive tours now that that figure is down to just over 60 per cent. I hope that the Government listen to those arguments.