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Civil Aviation Bill

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Soley, has been most eloquent about carbon neutrality at airports and, on these Benches, we do not disagree with him. This transport Bill makes some modest changes to the air transport industry and for its passengers, and may reduce the burden on those who must live within the vicinity of airports. My noble friend Lord Bradshaw brought, I think, five points to our debate. The first was the methodology crisis between noise limits by number and noise by quota. He then referred to tranquil areas and the problem of track keeping. He mentioned the need for logarithmic acceleration in fines for decibel use. He asked whether there were perverse incentives buried within the EU emissions trading scheme. He also hoped that airport energy on the surface could be reduced, bearing in mind that half of all the emissions produced are produced on the ground. The first four clauses deal with pollution issues, particularly at airports—or, more quaintly, aerodromes. I wonder whether that word includes air strips, or is an air strip smaller than an aerodrome? The trend is towards encouraging more efficient aircraft, which make less noise and less vibration and emit less pollution from the engines. Airlines will have to weigh up the merits of spending more on newer aircraft—presumably more efficient aircraft—or paying higher airport charges. The long-term effect will be to shunt older but still serviceable aircraft on to new routes to new emerging airports—for example, Ryanair’s possible exploration of an airport at Errol—or, even more hypocritically, to shunt these older aircraft into the second and third world. If air transport creates atmospheric pollution, air pollution and noise pollution in the vicinity of airports, and road traffic pollution and congestion, then the Bill does nothing about atmospheric pollution and road network problems. The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, reminded us of the problems caused by ““predict and provide””, although it is a frightfully nice policy. I suspect that new Section 38C(3)(b) will attract interest in the vicinity of many airports, none more so than in Aberdeen where a surprisingly early close to night flying has been in force for many years. I believe that powers to do that in Scotland would be devolved to Scottish Ministers. In retrospect, I was brought up to believe that aircraft noise went with the prosperity which a nearby airport generated. Perhaps that attitude is changing. Certainly the noble Lord, Lord Soley, emphasises the economic importance of airports such as Heathrow. The noble Baroness, Lady Flather, spoke extensively about the outer flight path and in particular the problems at Windsor. I certainly admit that as a schoolboy at Eton there were occasions when aircraft were taking off in a particular direction when everything came to a halt for about four minutes—often quite a welcome four minutes. I hope that the noble Baroness will accept that the ever-larger aircraft may well arrive early and will need to be allowed to land ahead of schedule, and that may mean in the early morning. While flying to and from Iceland during the Recess, I noticed that Icelandair flies all its European routes from Keflavik in the early morning, albeit that it is an established part of a Reykjavik short break that you have to catch the airport bus at 5 am. The Bill does nothing to deal with the proper taxation of aviation fuel. Although air passenger duty does act as a poor substitute, it fails to tax properly because it taxes passengers rather than airplane movements. It does not, therefore, tax largely empty aircraft. Clause 5 brings some liberalisation to airports owned by local authorities in England and Wales. Presumably that will allow them not only to sell services but also allow retailing at those airports, which in turn may make the financing of the airport easier. I suspect that such airports will end up with larger terminal buildings, larger car parks and more local road congestion. However, I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Smith of Leigh, will be satisfied with Clause 5. In Clause 6, I am not at all surprised that the Secretary of State wants to dump the hassle of appeals over route licences. The failure of previous Secretaries of State, for example, to arrange for the city of Inverness, and hence the Highlands and Islands, to have a slot at Heathrow suggests that the appeal process did not work anyway. Is the Minister satisfied that airlines will not find other routes for appealing against CAA decisions? Is the Secretary of State not involved in the appointment of the CAA? Clause 7 has drawn interest from the House, and in particular from my noble kinsman the noble Countess, Lady Mar. She was, among other matters, concerned about the contamination of cabin and, even more importantly, flight deck air supply. That clearly needs further examination. There is also a real issue of DVT here for passengers. The Bill quite rightly has a clause attempting to deal with health issues for passengers and crew. I suspect that long-haul flights will be reduced by the addition of stopovers. That will add to the expense of flying and create more airport air and noise pollution. It may well lead to more people being banned from flying on medical grounds. Clause 8 seems eminently sensible, provided that it leads to a comprehensive upgrade of the documentation and deletion of all the outdated regulations. Clause 9 brings us to the mildly controversial Air Travel Trust Fund in place of the now partial ATOL arrangements. There must be no doubt that airline operators within a deregulated, free enterprise market will on occasion go bust and that some of their customers will be stranded away from home or be unable to fly at virtually the last minute. The question is whether airline operators should provide in advance a bond to rescue their passengers in the event of going bust, or whether every air passenger should pay into a fund to rescue those who fly with financially dodgy airlines. That payment would presumably be made by the airline. I think that the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, favoured the £1 levy. That reminds me of the End-of-Life Vehicles (Producer Responsibility) Regulations 2005, which come into force in 2007 and will require all manufacturers to pay for the scrapping of their vehicles. While mass-produced cars generally go for scrapping after 12 to 14 years, cars such as Rolls-Royce and Morgan are rebuilt endlessly and do not get scrapped. Those two manufacturers would probably regard such a regulation as unfair. If the context were that it was desirable to create more cheap flights, the air travel fund would be the right way to go. But on these Benches we believe that air travel creates significant pollution and congestion and does not desperately need to be expanded willy-nilly, particularly for leisure purposes. Hence we would prefer airlines to provide their own funding for bankruptcy. The Bill will need thorough scrutiny in Grand Committee. That is a suitable place in which to ensure that it will deliver the sensible proposals that it makes.