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Civil Aviation Bill

My Lords, I beg to move that the House do not insist on its Amendments Nos. 1, 2 and 4, to which the Commons have disagreed for their reasons 1A, 2A and 4A. As I am sure the House will recall, Amendment No. 1 was moved in the belief, which I readily accept is shared by others in this House and indeed in another place, that aerodrome operators would not voluntarily make use of the provisions in the Bill to fix their charges by reference to noise or emissions of aircraft. During proceedings both in this House and in another place the Government have gone to some lengths to explain why they view the situation in a very different light. Although the Government have of course considered most carefully the arguments that have been put forward, I regret that I cannot see a case for imposing a duty on more than140 licensed aerodromes to introduce noise or emission-related charges for all aircraft. Noble Lords will be aware that aerodromes can range in size from London Heathrow to a tiny airport in the Orkneys and Shetland Isles which has very few aircraft movements in any one day. Yet the effect of this legislation would impact on all aerodromes irrespective of their size. As noble Lords will recall from earlier debates, the power to charge by reference to noise has been available to airports for almost 25 years and many of our larger airports have regard to noise when setting their charges. But one of the key elements of our policy on aircraft noise is that, wherever possible, local controls are the best way to manage the local environmental impact of aviation. Imposing a blanket requirement that an airport’s charges must be set by reference to noise and emissions would undermine airports’ ability to reflect their own local circumstances. I want to assure the House, once again, that the voluntary approach does not mean that the Government are powerless if an airport were to disregard its responsibilities. The existing Section 38 of the Civil Aviation Act 1982—which was passed, of course, by a previous Administration—already gives the Secretary of State the power to direct specified aerodromes to make use of the charging power as regards noise. This power is to be found—it is now, of course, extended to cover charging by reference to emissions as well—in subsection (4) of new Section 38. No Government, of whatever political complexion, have found it necessary to use this power to date but I can assure the House that if it appeared to Ministers that it would be appropriate to make use of this power to deal with the noise and emissions-related charging practices, or lack of them, of any airport, that is a step that we would take, just as we have said that if there is evidence that a major noise problem at a non-designated airport is not being dealt with adequately through local controls, we will consider designating it for the purposes of Section 78 of the 1982 Act. The House will recognise that, at present, the designated airports are the three London ones of Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted, but we have the power to bring other airports within the same framework of designation if it should prove to be necessary.