---

Civil Aviation Bill

I am grateful to the Minister for that comprehensive reply. I shall study what he has said very carefully. He was right that aeroplanes have become quieter, but more of them are flying around. What that does to the overall noise profile would need to be looked at carefully. The Minister did not answer the comment of the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, about the article in the Times yesterday on changing the pattern of landings and take-offs at Heathrow. I am told that people who live under the flight path organise their lives, their garden parties and whatever they do, knowing full well that planes will not be flying overhead for a particular eight-hour stretch. If they are not going to have any knowledge of that in the future, it will further downgrade their quality of life. I accept that some people want to live near the airport because they have jobs there, but they still have a right to a decent night’s sleep whenever they are sleeping. However, I would suggest that an awful lot of other people who live there are stuck in a kind of low-value property trap that they cannot get out of, because they probably do not have a very good job or enough income to buy a more expensive house, and nobody will buy the house except at a cheap price. So I am not sure that we have quite got to the end of that matter. The Minister quoted the powers under Section 79 of the Civil Aviation Act 1982. He said ““on a voluntary basis””. It was not clear who is going to be the volunteer. Will it be the Government, the airport or the poor old householder? If it is the airport, which says no, but the householder wants to proceed, we are not much further forward. One or two airports—Coventry is one example and Manchester another—are owned by the local authority. That suggests that a conflict of interest exists, because the local authority will want to bring more and more planes into the airport. Will that incentivise it to provide more insulation? It is a difficult question. I shall study with interest what the Minister said, including the idea of airport operators carrying out noise control. It is a great idea, but who is going to make them do it if they do not want to? I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. Clause 5 agreed to.