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Civil Aviation Bill

My Lords, there has been quite a lot of debate about local authorities in the past few moments and I shall comment on that, but initially I want to support the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley. Obviously, in relation to the airport that I know best—Stansted—there is some unease about the amount of work that will be done in the neighbourhood with the continued expansion there, and that fits in very much with the amendment. So I support the amendment. However, in my experience, there is no way that local authorities can afford to do the work that has been suggested. The money for that has to come from the expansion of the airports or other things. Certainly, the authority that I lead is one of the largest in the country with a budget of £1.5 billion, but we would have no capacity to put money into that work. The money has to come from other areas.