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Civil Aviation Bill

We have had an interesting debate, which has highlighted the sometimes contradictory passions and pitfalls that aviation in the 21st century generates. My hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton (Mr. Duncan) said that the Bill represented a golden opportunity for the Government to set out a coherent vision for the future—a vision that is desired by the airlines as much as by the public. We have heard interesting contributions from all parts of the Chamber, but to pull the debate together, we needed a clear view from the Government. My hon. Friend the Member for Windsor (Adam Afriyie) said that the opportunity to set out an environmental vision had been missed, and to my mind, any vision across aviation as a whole is lacking. We in the Conservative party are proud of our record on environmental issues. The Conservative Government achieved a reduction of more than 7 per cent. in CO2 emissions; they started to rise again shortly after we left office. That should come as no surprise. After all, it was the Conservative Government under Macmillan who introduced the first Clean Air Act in 1956, which cleaned up the famous smogs of London. Indeed, to go back much further, the beginnings of public health legislation in the 19th century started under Benjamin Disraeli. Many figures have been quoted from all parts of the House to illustrate the colossal benefits of aviation. The most impressive single barrage probably came from the hon. Member for Manchester, Blackley (Graham Stringer), with the benefit of his special experience. We have heard about the £10 billion in earnings, the hundreds of thousands of people who work directly and indirectly for the industry, and the fact that aviation is worth as much to this country as the entire car industry. It is, of course, the task of Government to marry the difficult aims of sorting out the environmental challenges, while still allowing people to experience the ever expanding delights and wonders of the opportunities afforded by air travel, and keeping our airlines as competitive and profitable employers. It is a very difficult equation to balance, and there was precious little from the Government this evening on how we are to achieve it. Having read the White Paper, it remains difficult to see what way forward the Government envisage. Airports can already make charges with respect to pollution and noise. The Bill puts the former into law and increases the Secretary of State’s powers with respect to the latter. Both sets of measures are presented as reflecting concern for the environment and for quality of life. The proposed new section 38 expressly justifies charges to encourage the use of ““quieter aircraft”” and aircraft ““which produce lower emissions””. It also refers to"““controlling the level of noise or atmospheric pollution in or in the vicinity of the aerodrome””." But we already have such measures in place, so how have they worked so far? No one listening to the speeches of Members who represent constituencies near airports could be in any doubt that they are not working at present. Airports, by definition, have a huge vested interest in having planes land, which is all they exist for. The Bill makes them both the beneficiaries of pollution through higher receipts—they are the only people who could possibly benefit in that respect—as well as the guardians of our only environmentally conscious policy on aviation. The Bill sets no targets and produces no sliding scales or incentives. We do not know how those aspects will be measured or know for certain who will monitor them. Are airports to do all that entirely by themselves? They certainly do not do much of a job on flight paths, as the shadow Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton (Mr. Duncan), my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Harborough (Mr. Garnier) and my hon. Friend the Member for Hertford and Stortford (Mr. Prisk), among others, have pointed out. Indeed, with Manston close to my own constituency, I receive plenty of complaints about flights over places where there are not supposed to be flight paths. I imagine that they are the same people who complain to the Minister of State, in whose constituency Manston lies.