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Civil Aviation Bill

I declare an interest as president of the Aviation Environment Federation. I like my noble friend’s idea of including ground emissions in the first clause, but I wonder whether that could be related in some way to the emissions caused by the large proportion of cars bringing people and workers to the airport. That is part of the debate that we have regularly in transport Bills about what proportion of the workforce and passengers come by private car, and how they can be discouraged from doing so and encouraged to use public transport instead. The case of Heathrow Terminal 5 is a classic example of failure to provide better transport in that regard—which could have been done with a public inquiry. But that is another story. Perhaps we had better keep away from the debate about airlines not paying any duty or tax on their fuel, as that will come under a different amendment. But I worry about the issues around Amendments Nos. 6 and 7 and agree with what other Members of the Committee have said about them. The Government produced a White Paper saying that they would predict and provide for whatever demand for air travel or transport there might be in future; then they said that they could not possibly make any change to the arrangements for duty or tax on fuel because it would be political suicide. So I worry about a situation in which airports and airlines are all as one in trying to get as many punters as possible to use their facilities. The need for an independent arrangement for monitoring emissions and noise is absolutely fundamental. I do not know who it would be yet, but there is a fundamental need for someone independent to ensure that we do not end up with some sort of happy family, with everyone saying, ““Yes, let’s have as many passengers as possible and adjust the figures so that they’re as good as possible, and keep the costs down and so on””. It is interesting that there is provision in Amendment No. 1 for an airline to appeal to a Secretary of State, but I do not see anywhere in the proposals the ability of local authorities or local people to appeal to him. I know that that is not quite relevant—but that seems to encourage the bulldozing of a policy, which will end in tears before long. I support the measures in Amendment No. 6 on monitoring emissions and publishing figures and, in Amendment No. 7, in the name of my noble friend Lord Clinton-Davis, the measure to take account of,"““economic, social and wider environmental interests””." Finally, it is fine monitoring these things but who will enforce them if things go wrong? I do not see that, but maybe I have missed something. Enforcement by someone who is not in this happy family of wanting to ““grow”” everything is essential if these clauses are to have any credibility at all.