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Civil Aviation Bill

I welcome my hon. Friends the Member for (Derek Twigg) and for Lincoln (Gillian Merron) to the Front Bench and to their new responsibilities. They deserved promotion, although they have been passed a poisoned chalice. In the past few months, the political parties have vied with one other to prove their green credentials. I am pleased that this Bill has appeared so soon, because one does not need to sledge across the Arctic while looking up the tails of half a dozen huskies or convene a summit of world leaders to identify an environmental issue, when there is one within 13 miles of this House, namely the impact of Heathrow airport in terms of noise and emissions. What worries me about the Government’s failure to accept the Lords amendment and the Minister’s failure to elaborate how the Government’s system would operate effectively is that nothing is being done on tackling noise emissions and NO2 emissions. I hoped that even if the Government were not to accept the amendment, they would explain how they would subsequently designate aerodromes which are not complying with a basic standard of emissions control, but we have received no information on that point. That is why the debates in the other place and in this place have moved further towards compulsion than some would have liked. It is often said that we have reached the stage with the aviation industry that we reached on the control of emissions from cars 30 years ago, when we had a long debate, which led us to incentivise research and development on improvements to engines and overall design and to control the usage of cars through either vehicle taxation levies or fuel duties. That is exactly where the amendment stands with regard to aviation. We thought that there would be an opportunity to introduce legislation that placed a duty on aerodromes and then enabled them to adjust their charging policies if necessary. That would incentivise the aviation industry to reduce emissions by way of research and development, better engine design and improved flight practices. It would not only encourage good practice in the industry overall but incentivise individual companies by not placing a duty on them. The vague power that the Secretary of State will have, with no clarification of how it will be exercised, lets them off the hook. That means that we will progress no further and that areas will still be blighted by emissions from the aviation industry. From my own perspective, this proves that yet again the aviation industry has dominated the policy-making network that surrounds the Department for Transport, while the voices of environmentalists and of constituents who are suffering as a result of these emissions have not been heard. It has been argued that the Secretary of State would be able to intervene at a future date. However, it would be invaluable if we could have a description of sorts as to how he would do so. What criteria would beused? How could representations be made to the Government to ensure that that mechanism was exercised by Ministers? What representations could be made by local communities? What would be the forum in which they would make those representations? What would be the role of individual MPs representing their constituents? At what stage would the consultation take place? How will these matters be brought before the House? At the moment, they are subject to the negative procedure, so there will be no opportunity for Members to trigger debate or even to comment on any decision that is made by the Government. I am afraid that I fully support the Lords in this amendment, because compulsion is the only way forward, not only to bring the industry to a realistic assessment of the impact that it is having on our environment, but to force it to take some action. Without compulsion, we will go on for decades without having a real and direct impact. As a representative of the constituency in which Heathrow is sited, I am aware that even with existing legislation and voluntary agreements, my constituents’ quality of life is directly affected by the noise and emissions that pollute the atmosphere. It was recently estimated that 5,000 of my constituents are being poisoned by air pollution from the airport. The existing system is not working. The amendment would introduce an element of compulsion and put some pressure on the industry, and we would be able to move forward in a consensual way, since every party wants to be the greenest party in the land at the moment. I ask the Minister at least to describe how he envisages that the system will work and have an effect in the absence of the amendment.