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Civil Aviation Bill

I rise to support my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton (Mr. Duncan) in his excellent amendments, particularly amendment No. 1 which seeks to delete clause 2(2). Many of my constituents live under the flight path into and out of Heathrow from the west. We have experienced growing numbers and growing volumes of noise from aircraft movements at antisocial times of the night, even under the current regime, and there is a great fear that the Government’s proposals today will make this considerably worse. I support those colleagues in the House who have already made it clear that we need some limit on the numbers of aircraft movements as well as an overall control on the amount of noise, because it matters very much how many times noisy aircraft go over during the night, and even more, when during the night they might go over. Under the current regime, with some control over aircraft numbers, there is a tendency for there to be more flights closer to the times when people are going to bed or waking up. If we remove all numerical controls on flights, there will undoubtedly be more flights over the course of the night, at the times when it will be even more difficult for people who are trying to sleep in a rather quieter environment, when other background noise is less pronounced or has disappeared.