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Civil Aviation Bill

moved Amendment No. 9:"Page 2, line 41, leave out subsection (2)." The noble Lord said: Clause 2(2) must surely be one of the most contentious elements of the Bill. As it stands, it will amend the powers by which the Secretary of State currently controls noise at three designated airports—Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted. Again, I must declare an interest as leader of Essex County Council, since Stansted is in that county. The current method of controlling night noise at the three designated airports relies on the effective operation of a movements limit and a noise quota system. By amending Section 78 (3)(b) of the Civil Aviation Act 1982 in this way, the Secretary of State would be empowered to discontinue the application of limits on the number of night aircraft movements at Stansted, Gatwick and Heathrow. That the Government have included this provision is unsurprising. They set out their intentions in the 2003 Aviation White Paper, in which they made clear their commitment to introduce legislation including,"““An amendment to section 78 of the Civil Aviation Act 1982 so that controls such as night restrictions could, subject to public consultation, be set on the basis of noise quotas alone, without a separate movements limit””." To do that would be a gross misjudgment on the part of the Government. The movements limit and the noise quota system cannot be viewed in isolation. They must be seen as complementing one another in the protection of local communities from the terrible consequences of night noise. I must say that I have had as much lobbying and discussion on this as on any issue with which I have dealt on the Front Bench. The Government’s intention to move to a control scheme that relies solely on night noise quotas would result in a lesser standard of protection since the methodology is dramatically flawed. First, there is no official index in the UK that is specific to night noise. Consequently, the Government make no distinction in the method by which they measure noise during the day and the night. For residents on the ground, current methodology is highly unsatisfactory. While noise is measured in decibels, the index of exposure to aircraft is a measure of the equivalent continuous sound level that is averaged over the timeframe, which fails to recognise that noise has vastly different implications at night. Decibels alone are not a measure of nuisance. This method is wholly inadequate for assessing disruption of sleep caused by the impact of a relatively small number of noise events across the night. Cumulatively, those noise events may not break the relevant noise quota. However, they may result in a person being disturbed on multiple occasions throughout the night. Even more concerning is the implication that as aircraft become less noisy, more flights could be accommodated within the same noise quota. Less noise does not necessarily equate with less disturbance. Reliance solely on a quota system could dramatically exacerbate the situation that I have outlined, resulting in increased night disturbances for people living near airports or under flight paths. The problem is further increased in rural areas such as Stansted where ambient noise levels are very low at night. The noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Hudnall, made that important point at Second Reading. In such places, all night flights create disturbance. Consequently, the only truly effective way to address the problem is to retain the movements limit on night flights. Unlike the complexity of the noise quota system, a movements limit is easily understood, transparent and open to validation. In addition, it provides protection to people living near to airports, but not necessarily under flight paths, from the attendant problems of ground noise, which the quota system is unable to properly address. At Second Reading of this Bill in another place, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State gave assurances that night movements limits would remain in place at Stansted, Heathrow and Gatwick until at least October 2012. However, it is my opinion that if this section remains unamended it would be perfectly possible for night movements limits to be abolished as early as October 2006—the start of the new night flights regime for Stansted, Heathrow and Gatwick.