---

Civil Aviation Bill

moved Amendment No. 1:"After Clause 4, insert the following new clause—" ““SOUND-PROOFING OF DOMESTIC AND COMMUNITY BUILDINGS AFFECTED BY AERODROME USE (1)   The Secretary of State shall, no later than one year after this section comes into effect, make regulations under section 20(1) of the Land Compensation Act 1973 (c. 26) (sound-proofing of buildings affected by public works) imposing a duty on responsible authorities to insulate domestic and community buildings, such as schools and nurseries, hospitals, nursing homes, hospices, places of worship, libraries and other public use buildings against noise caused, or expected to be caused, by the use of aerodromes for the taking off and landing of aircraft. (2)   Such insulation should provide for internal noise environments equivalent or better than the ““good”” category of BS 8233 where relevant. (3)   In making provision as to the level of noise giving rise to such a duty in respect of a building or class of buildings, and the area in which a building must be situated if the duty is to arise in respect of it, the regulations must make reference to the noise attenuation of individual rooms in domestic and community buildings such as those outlined in subsection (1) above.”” The noble Lord said: My Lords, in Amendment No. 1 we return to the issue of the adequate soundproofing of properties close to airports. I thank the Minister for the letter which I received this morning, but that letter does not in my view constitute a sufficient response to the amendment, which we moved for the first time earlier in the Bill’s passage. We understand that the Government have powers under the Civil Aviation Act 1982, by negative resolution, to make a scheme requiring the operator of an aerodrome to provide the necessary sound insulation to properties around the aerodrome. The noble Lord, Lord Davies, said in his letter that the airport would need to be designated. As far as I understand it, the airports at Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted, with which I am chiefly concerned, are designated airports, and so we can take it that the Government have sufficient power to make it possible that insulation is provided. Our information is that the communities around the airports and most particularly around Heathrow suffer excessively from noise. We are asking that the Government activate their powers to make provision for houses and, more particularly, schools, hospitals and other such buildings to be sufficiently insulated against noise. The Government have indicated that they will move towards doing that over a 30-year time horizon, but I suggest that for most of the people being affected 30 years is so long that either they will be dead or they will have long since passed out of places of learning. What we seek in the amendment is to hear from the Government what steps they propose to take immediately to give effect to the powers which the Minister’s letter says they already have. The amendment is faulty to the extent that we suggest that they take powers; we understand that they already have them. We therefore want to know when they are going to do something about the powers that they already have. Evidence from the London Borough of Hounslow shows that the noise levels experienced by those who live in that area exceed the amount of noise that people ought to be subjected to. In the White Paper, The Future of Air Transport, there is no doubt that people who live around these airports will have to put up with more flights and more noise. Therefore, I think that this is the right time to say to the airline industry, ““You must pay for some insulation””. It appears to me that that has a greater call on airlines’ resources than cutting yet another pound or two off the ridiculously priced cheap flights that they advertise daily in the newspapers. I believe that they have a duty to the residents around airports that is as great as or greater than their duty to the passengers whom they seek to attract to their flights. I beg to move.