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Civil Aviation Bill

I sincerely thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention, which goes to the heart of many of the debates in this Chamber and in our constituencies about how airports are used. People support airports when they use them, but they do not support them if they are disturbed at night, and we must square that circle. Crawley borough council and Gatwick Airport Ltd have a legal agreement on all sorts of environmental levels. I often find it difficult to reflect the debate in this Chamber, because I do not recognise that one is either an environmentalist or pro-aviation. It is possible to draw up reasonable plans to ensure that communities are relatively quiet, and I campaign for quieter aircraft and for quieter ways of running our airports both by day and by night. In addition, ground noise makes a major contribution to the total noise generated by an airport. Unless we work co-operatively like Crawley borough council and Gatwick airport, we will not make progress and will find ourselves continually debating the matter in this Chamber. Finally, many of my constituents will be bemused by some Conservative Members’ contributions on the difference between noise disturbance in an urban area and noise disturbance in a rural area. After the debates on Second Reading and in Committee, my constituents were surprised to learn that they are less likely to be disturbed by aircraft noise because they live in an urban area. That argument is difficult to sustain, but two Conservative Members have already advanced it as a reasonable explanation of why their constituents are more affected by aircraft noise than mine.—[Interruption.]