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Civil Aviation Bill

I thank the Minister for that reply. I shall respond only to Amendment No. 30. No doubt the noble Countess will respond to the amendments to which she has spoken. I am fascinated by this. We have obviously got quite an armoury within this area. It is therefore rather strange that the Government will not agree to the Secretary of State being given a duty to ensure that that armoury is used. Being of a suspicious nature, I rather suspect that it is easier to identify what is happening on board an aircraft than it is when it is out in the open air and an awful lot more people are affected by it. We know about the problem of aircraft and air quality. Indeed, a very important Select Committee in this House has commented on that issue and brought the matter very much to people’s attention. Those who live under a flight path or near an airport suffer from the smell of discharging aviation fuel, which is prevalent all the time. If you do not go on the Underground to Heathrow you can actually smell it as you jet along the road. It is sweet, sickening, gives you a headache and causes other problems. I am sure many people are pinned with the responsibility of sorting this out but, at the end of the day, the person who holds the final responsibility—or should do—is the Secretary of State. I hear what the Minister says but I do not agree with him. The amendment would provide a welcome extension to the Secretary of State’s powers. A heading of ““health”” in a Bill such as this would be a clear indication, if nothing else, that the Secretary of State was taking the matter extremely seriously and was prepared to be charged with a general duty to ensure that the health of people living in the vicinity of airports was protected. I thank the Minister for his detailed reply. I shall withdraw the amendment today but, as I have said on other occasions, I am not sure that I will not come back to it. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. [Amendments Nos. 31 and 32 not moved.]