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Civil Aviation Bill

I am not just disappointed with the Government’s attitude towards Lords amendmentNo. 5; I am ashamed of it, because of the campaigns that I and a number of colleagues have waged over the years against night flights and their environmental impact on our constituents and on London overall. The only advantage of the amendment is that the debate allows me to miss the parliamentary Labour party meeting currently going on. The move to abolish the flight numbers restrictions stems from a concerted, well funded and lengthy lobby by the aviation industry to increase the number of night flights. Over a considerable period, aviation companies, BAA and others have plugged away at successive Ministers to achieve that end. The claim that the overall noise climate limit will be sufficient to protect people from noise disturbance is a disingenuous ploy to increase night flights. As we know from consultation, the industry is determined to increase the overall number of night flights. The argument is that the overall reduction in the noise climate will allow more night flights. The industry has mobilised for so long that it is bringing the issue to a head. But that argument fails to take account of how noise impacts on individuals and their families—our constituents. The disturbance affects their sleep, their work, the education of their children and their environment. When a family gets up for breakfast, it does not usually discuss how good was the night before or what the level equivalent of decibels of effective perceived noise was. They usually say, ““Did you hear that one at 5 am?””, or at 4 am or whenever. They discuss how it disturbed the children during the night and how the family has been disturbed over a long period. The noise disturbance is not related solely to aircraft in the sky. In my constituency, the impact for many residents comes from ground noise—traffic to and from the airport, with airport workers going to receive the night flights, the goods vehicles and the passengers travelling to and fro in their vehicles. Unfortunately, a vast proportion of that traffic still consists of cars and larger vehicles travelling through the areas surrounding Heathrow and through my constituency at night, disturbing the peace of residents. That is why the overall noise and movement limits, working together, offered at least some limited protection. I agree with what others have said across the House. Our ambition was to have no night flights at all, and we thought we would eventually be able to persuade a Government of the sense of it. The combination of overall limits and limits on numbers had some effect. The removal of the numbers will have a deleterious effect on my constituents because it will blight their environment and, as some have said, their properties for a long time to come. The delay to 2012 is no concession whatever. It is no compromise. It is probably dictated by the time that the Government need to implement the system effectively. Consultation is meaningless as some form of compromise offer to my constituents. We have been consulted so often on the development of the airport, and never listened to, that people are cynical about the entire concept. As hon. Members have said, in consultations over the past 30 years we have been promised no further terminals and no further runways. Ministers have raised in the House the issue of caps on movement, yet over time each proposal has been discarded. I cannot understand why the Government are going along with the idea. I cannot comprehend why they are flying in the face of popular opinion, as expressed by a vast range of the population of London and elsewhere. The only reason that I can believe is that the aviation industry has, yet again, been able to mount such an effective lobby that the Government have, again, conceded.