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Civil Aviation Bill

As I am the Member of Parliament for Windsor, thousands of my constituents live under flight paths, which is also true of many otherhon. Members, and as a member of the Standing Committee that scrutinised the Bill, I am aware of the sleight of hand contained in the legislation. As an advocate of reasonable measures to protect the environment for people living under flight paths and close to airports, I am pleased to speak in favour of Lords amendment No. 5. I am also pleased to have the chance to speak against Government amendment (a), which is not only illogical, but sneaky, unworkable and underhand; it seeks to remove protections and open up the night skies to a flight bonanza. Let us be clear that the frequency of noisy flights ruins the sleep of residents. The economic benefit associated with the use of airports for business activity is certainly desirable, and if air traffic needs to expand, perhaps we can allow for it in the long term with quieter aircraft, provided that air quality is kept within tight limits and access to airports is available. However, it is a sobering thought that our tourists spend £16 billion more abroad than incoming tourists spend visiting the UK, which is perhaps an issue for the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The Civil Aviation Act 1982 empowered the Secretary of State to limit the number of flights at designated airports. A straightforward limit on the number of flights is easily understood by everyone; for example, 16 flights are currently allowed at Heathrow during the night period and, despite the disturbance, affected residents know what that limit means. If the noise associated with a particular flight is louder than 90 dB on the ground, people are likely to be rudely awakened. It is the noise created by individual aircraft combined with the number of flights during the night that disturbs residents’ sleep. Government amendment (a) is strange. It proposes that at some future point the noise made by individual aircraft and the number of flights during the course of the night will be ignored. Instead, the Government want to rely on a complicated scheme based on average noise levels during a night period. Average noise levels have never woken anyone, because it is the absolute noise and frequency of flights that disturbs people. We must ask ourselves why the Government propose to scupper Lords amendments Nos. 5 and 11, which are sensible. Let us take a quick look at how the Government’s scheme will operate. The night noise quota scheme ranks aircraft types according to their noisiness on take-off and approach for landing. For example, if the noise is above 101.9 dB, the quota count for that aircraft is assigned as 16. If the noise is between 99 dB and 101.9 dB, the quota count for that aircraft is halved and becomes eight—the scale is exponential. If the noise is between 96 dB and 98.9 dB, the quota count for that aircraft is halved again to four. The quota count continues until the noise level falls below 90 dB, when the aircraft is assigned a quota count of a half—I hope that hon. Members are still with me. The Secretary of State then sets a limit on the total quota count points for the average across a season or a night period, which translates into a number of flights. If we were to use the pure quota count system that the Government are seeking to introduce today, twice as many flights would be allowed at night with planes rated at 95 dB than with planes rated at 96 dB. The system is complicated, and complicated systems are often designed to hide simple truths. Why have the Government introduced an amendment to remove the flight limit, after indicating in writing to many hon. Members that they would support the Lords amendment? There is only one explanation, and I have heard no other so far: the Government want to allow an increase in the number of flights at night. As I have said, they have argued that the measure will not be introduced until 2012, but hon. Members should not be deceived. That is not a concession, because the arrangements until 2012 will be announced in the next week or so, and it is simply not possible for the Government to change that agreement before 2012. The Government are trying to appear reasonable by making a semi-concession, when they are in fact behaving completely unreasonably—it is a phantom concession.