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Civil Aviation Bill

My Lords, as I shall indicate later in my speech, we are taking powers with regard to certain controls, but not in terms of designation beyond the three airports. I hope to be covering that point as I develop my remarks. Although the Government have a direct role in noise control at the three designated airports, elsewhere airports are, apart from any planning restrictions that may apply, responsible for their own noise control arrangements, usually as part of their conditions of use. This accords with our longstanding policy, re-emphasised in the White Paper, that wherever possible aircraft noise problems are best resolved locally by the airport working with the local community. In the majority of cases this works well. However, in the White Paper and the department’s Control of Noise from Civil Aircraft: The Government’s Conclusions, we gave a commitment to clarify and enhance airport powers in statute. Although the majority of airports have introduced noise control measures as part of their conditions of use, and civil aviation legislation contains a number of provisions relating to environmental issues, this does not include any explicit statutory provision for airport managers to control aircraft noise. The Bill therefore provides explicit statutory powers for airports to develop noise control schemes. The Bill defines the maximum area within which the airport’s powers to control aircraft noise apply, although there is provision for the Secretary of State to alter this in individual cases by consultation. The standard definition is designed to encompass noise-related operating procedures, such as noise preferred routing for aircraft taking off, which go significantly beyond the boundaries of the airport itself. The Bill also puts on a statutory footing the ability of airports to impose penalties on aircraft operators that have not complied with the terms of a noise control scheme. We are aware of one major airport, for example, which is awaiting statutory powers before imposing discretionary financial penalties for aircraft deviating from preferred noise routes. The power for airports to impose penalties is balanced however with a requirement that aircraft operators should have an opportunity to make representations to the airport operator regarding the imposition of penalties. The ideal situation of course is that by airports and airlines working collaboratively—which they do in the majority of cases—the need for financial penalties is kept to the absolute minimum. But where financial penalties are appropriate, as a measure of last resort, the Bill provides for the local community to benefit from this money; which in practice tends to happen anyway. I emphasise that where existing arrangements are working satisfactorily the expectation will be that such arrangements will carry on. But the provisions of the Bill are designed to help those airports which may be looking to refresh or enhance their existing arrangements in the future. In the case of larger airports—those with over 50,000 movements per year—the Aerodromes (Noise Restrictions) (Rules and Procedures) Regulations 2003 sets out the procedures that major airports should follow when considering measures to deal with noise problems. That reflects the adoption by the EU of the International Civil Aviation Organisation’s balanced approach—in short, that airports should not impose measures more restrictive than necessary to achieve noise objectives and should not discriminate on grounds of nationality, air carrier or manufacturer. Although the regulations currently apply to 10 airports the White Paper explained that the Government expect the underlying principles to be applied at all significant UK airports. Civil aviation legislation currently enables licensed airports to fix their charges for using the airport by reference to the noise aircraft make. Additionally, the Secretary of State may direct an airport to do this, although he has not found it necessary to do so to date. However, this legislation goes back to 1982, when there would have been little or no expectation that airports would wish to vary their charges by reference to aircraft emissions. The Government’s air quality strategy has since set out air quality objectives for air pollutants intended to protect human health as well as vegetation and ecosystems. These are derived from EU air quality directives. Although on a national scale the contribution of air transport to these impacts is small—certainly compared with road traffic for example—its effect can be significant in individual cases. We therefore gave a commitment in the White Paper that the Government would bring forward legislation enabling the Secretary of State to require an emissions-related element to be included in landing charges at airports where there are local air quality problems. In fact, BAA has already incorporated an oxides of nitrogen emissions element, based on European classification of aircraft for emissions charging, into its airport charges at both Heathrow and Gatwick as part of the conditions of use. By making explicit the power to do so in statute, the Government wish to send a clear message that they support airports that want to incorporate the use of economic incentives to help tackle any local air quality problems. The Secretary of State will retain the discretion to issue a direction in individual cases, should he consider this necessary at some future date. It has been suggested in another place that provisions to deal with aviation’s contribution to climate change are missing from the Bill. In addition to setting out the Government’s plans for tackling local air quality problems, the Future of Air Transport White Paper also set out the way in which we intend to tackle that contribution to climate change; namely, that the best way of ensuring that aviation contributes towards the goal of climate stabilisation would be through a well designed, open emissions trading regime. As aviation is an international industry, an international trading regime would obviously be the best solution. Therefore, we are pressing for the development and implementation, through the International Civil Aviation Organisation, of such a regime. A greenhouse gas trading scheme is already in operation in Europe and we have also been working to include intra-EU air services in the EU’s emissions trading scheme. That is a priority of the UK presidency of the European Union, with a view to aviation joining the scheme by 2008 or as soon as possible after that date.