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Civil Aviation Bill

I am extremely grateful to my noble friend Lord Smith. I was going to refer to Manchester Airport, but he has already done so. He is right: these schemes are in place, and I think that we recognise the value that they represent in two respects. First, they condition the behaviour of airlines, and, secondly, they obviously incentivise better behaviour on the part of airlines organising their flights. My noble friend raised a most interesting point. I was not sure of the mechanics of the decisions on where the resources should go. I am certainly grateful that the system is a little more sophisticated that someone phoning up, complaining and getting a £10 cheque through the post, which the noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, rather whimsically indicated might be the lowest level at which it would operate. Of course, it makes sense for there to be full consultation on that. I think we would all have reservations about airport operators answerable to no one making decisions about where such resources would go after the proper benefits had been achieved in terms of conditioning airline behaviour. We are also interested in where some of the rewards might go. That is an interesting point, which we might develop in due course. I am grateful to my noble friend for highlighting the experience of Manchester. Manchester is at least equalled by Heathrow in terms of the charging regime. I do not have details on where resources go in relation to Heathrow, but I am able to confirm that we currently have a regime of constraint on airlines which break existing arrangements. I recognise the significance of this issue, but I hope that I can persuade the noble Lord that the creation of a new independent body may not be necessary to meet the objectives to which he subscribes and which the Bill is certainly directed at achieving. After all, monitoring noise is part of the day-to-day operational business of airports, including the designated airports, and I can reflect the fact that they have done so with some success and that they have carried out charging. The Civil Aviation Authority’s environmental research and consultancy department advises the Secretary of State on noise monitoring procedures at the designated airports, as does the aircraft noise monitoring advisory committee, on which there are independent advisers. The consultative committees of the airports receive regular reports on noise and track-keeping and have the expertise to make detailed queries about the information that they are given. Therefore, the airport manager is answerable through that framework. I do not believe that the designated airports will be unwilling to penalise airlines for breaches of their noise control procedures. As my noble friend Lord Smith indicated, they are active where action is justified. Clause 3 merely gives statutory force to their existing actions to encourage airlines to improve their operational noise performance and, indeed, to charge penalties for breaches. We consider that the current practice has been working well. I say that not only because Manchester Airport has been quoted in this case; there are other examples too. Achieving adherence to noise preferential routes requires investment in procedures and training, which have a cost and time commitment associated with them. Therefore, if airports are already doing this, it is clear that proper thought has been given to the issue and that proper procedures are in place. We believe that the penalty scheme provisions will helpfully put beyond doubt the airports’ powers to charge penalties for breach of their noise restrictions. Clause 3 gives the Secretary of State the power to direct the establishment, revocation or amendment of a penalty scheme at those airports. That is right because the penalty scheme is intended to drive compliance with the noise restrictions which have been put into force. Given that reserve power for the Secretary of State, I do not think that there is a role for an independent body. My noble friend Lord Clinton-Davis threatened me with additional amendments later on. Well, he did not threaten me at all—he promised me them; it is only I who look on amendments as a threat in any way, shape or form. He indicated that some constructive amendments might come forth in the not-too-distant future. Let me assure him that all the arguments which he advanced today will probably relate to the issues around Clause 4, when we reach that point. In fact, the noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, has tabled an amendment that sounds remarkably similar to the one that my noble friend Lord Clinton-Davis may propose. But he will recognise that we shall have plenty of time to debate these issues; the noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, has already identified the salience of that point. The noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, referred to charging 10 per cent at level 5; he was referring to Clause 2. They are not penalties for what we are discussing, however; they are penalties for failing to put in place noise measurement equipment. There are no provisions in this Bill for the level of charging. I may be giving the noble Lord fertile ideas to introduce them, but there are none in the Bill, and I want to reassure him on that point. I am grateful for this short debate—