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Civil Aviation Bill

Very well. I shall therefore deal with Amendment No. 30, which has been moved, and the others which have been spoken to. I am grateful for the way in which the issues have been presented because these are very important matters. I thought for one moment there was a danger that the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, might wax lyrical as he moved onto the question of the definition of ““tranquil””—I thought we might get a little Keats or Shelley—but instead he said that ambient noise was exceedingly low. This does not measure up to past poetic statements on tranquillity but, nevertheless, it will certainly do as a definition of the nature of our problem. The noble Lord is right to say that there is no objective measurement of tranquillity and we are therefore stuck with the subjective. This might bring in the poet but it would not do much good for the legislation which is before the Committee. I address my response, first, to the amendment moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham. The question of health at and in the vicinity of airports is of great importance. The two main issues, inevitably, are noise and emissions. The noble Baroness is right to seek assurance that the Bill helps to reinforce existing measures, as, indeed, it is meant to do. On pollution, we published our air quality strategy in January 200. This set out the health-based objectives for the eight main air pollutants and the deadlines for achieving those objectives. It identified the actions required at national and international levels and the contribution which the Government, industry, transport, local authorities, business and individuals can make to improving air quality. Clause 1 is directed towards the realisation of those objectives through a legislative framework. The measurement of both pollution and noise raises significant issues. We all recognise the difficulties and are therefore all mindful of them. Had we not been careful with our arguments earlier, the noble Countess, Lady Mar, would have reminded us of the science-based judgments on these issues. I know she will return to this subject later when we come to consider her significant amendment. I make the obvious point that although we may not be able easily to define objective standards in crucial areas, we are able to measure levels of improvement and reduction in pollution, both in emissions and noise, and we are determined to do that. We expect airport operators to undertake appropriate health impact assessments when taking forward any plans for expansion. We framed our proposed environmental objectives for each airport in the recent consultation on night flying restrictions at Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted, taking into account the World Health Organisation guidelines on community noise and night noise as long-term targets. We considered that this approach to the World Health Organisation guideline values for night noise is consistent with its recommendations. We also recognise that it sets very demanding targets and we shall not achieve these—I nearly said ““overnight””, which will not be the case in this context—in the short term. However, the Bill is an important step along the road in improving our capacity to address the issues and to put obligations on airlines, and on airport authorities in this case, to improve performance. We are committed to taking into account the guideline values of the World Health Organisation and will do so over the long horizon of our air transport White Paper. We also support its conclusions for regular reviews and revisions of the guidelines as new scientific evidence emerges. We all recognise that we need advances in scientific measurement of the problem and of strategies for combating it. The guidelines of the WHO on aircraft noise were recommended as long-term targets for improving health. That is why its demands are so stringent and it looks decades ahead. We cannot achieve them in the short term, but we are mindful of the objectives which the guidelines establish. They recommend that cost-effectiveness and cost-benefit analyses should be considered when making management decisions relating to their implementation. We are carrying out this process as part of the regulatory impact assessment of the restrictions. As I said on the last group of amendments, the Government are well aware of the desirability of minimising noise in sensitive areas and around sensitive buildings such as hospitals, hospices and schools. We have taken that very much into account in framing our policy on aircraft noise. Again, as I said on Amendment No. 28A, we are concerned to ensure that what is offered is acoustic insulation or other forms of mitigation of dangers to health from excessive noise. We all recognise that disturbed sleep is a considerable factor in ill health, so the night noise aspects are particularly important. That is why we are applying the night noise restrictions to Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted and all the schemes include noise insulation. They also include a provisional proposal that the insulation scheme criteria should apply to non-domestic buildings where people are obliged to sleep on most nights because of the nature of their work or the care they carry out. We expect to see these arrangements established through voluntary agreements by airport operators, but we have the capacity to impose them if responses are not good enough. We therefore do not believe that Clause 7 needs to be extended—