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Civil Aviation Bill

moved Amendment No. 39:"After Clause 10, insert the following new clause—" ““COMMERCIAL FLIGHTS OFFICER (1)   The Secretary of State shall appoint a commercial flights officer whose duties shall be specified by the Secretary of State but shall include— (a)   the requirement to collate and publish factual details relating to all inquiries referred to him by a Member of Parliament relating to aviation matters, predominantly, but not exclusively, concerning nightflights, noise from aerodromes attributable to aircraft taking off and landing and on approach to an aerodrome along a flightpath or in relation to a deviation from a flightpath; (b)   conduct any inquiry into aviation matters that he believes necessary and within the scope of this remit as laid down by the Secretary of State. (2)   The commercial flights officer shall have unrestricted access to radar tapes and all other information relating to his inquiries, which shall include aircraft type, operator, time of flight, height, speed, route of origin and destination held by any organisation, company or group the commercial flights officer believes may possess it. (3)   Any organisation within the United Kingdom concerned with the monitoring and movement of aircraft in-flight or at an aerodrome shall hold information concerning an aircraft’s flight origin, destination, route, altitude, speed and operator for a period of no less than six months.”” The noble Baroness said: The aim of the new clause is simply designed to establish a single point of contact for members of the public who have complaints about aircraft noise. Currently, there is no central point for members of the public who have been disturbed by noise and flight-path deviations. Instead, the responsibilities are dispersed among a number of agencies and organisations. The result is that people are completely confused and do not know where they should go to make these complaints. The amendment is designed to address this problem by establishing the position of a commercial flights officer, to be modelled very much on the ombudsman. The commercial flight officer would have the necessary power to co-ordinate these disparate sources of information. The clause is also designed to focus solely on those disturbances caused by commercial aviation and is not intended to impact upon general aviation. That is why we have chosen the word in the Title so carefully. I recognise that some Members may be concerned about the resource implications in establishing commercial flights officers. Others may fear that if such a position were to be created that that person would be inundated with complaints. However, that is not the desire of those of us who propose this amendment, nor do we wish to create any further unnecessary bureaucracy. To that end proposed subsection (1)(a) stipulates that all complaints and inquiries made to the commercial flights officer must be made through a Member of Parliament. That would allow the MP to filter out frivolous or malicious complaints and allow those members of the public with genuine grievances to have their complaints dealt with in a thorough and effective manner. The new clause also includes a number of provisions designed to enable the commercial flights officer to conduct his duties more effectively. Subsection (2) would enable unrestricted access to radar tapes and all other information relating to such inquiries. Subsection (3) ensures that all organisations that play a part in guiding and controlling the aircraft in air space are now required to hold this information for six months. Currently, many airports delete radar records after 30 days. We must not underestimate the disturbance and distress caused to members of the public who live in the vicinity of airports. Indeed, we have majored on that during the passage of the Bill. It is important to introduce a mechanism whereby members of the public with legitimate grievances can have their complaints investigated by a truly independent body. I beg to move.