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Civil Aviation Bill

My Lords, I am sorry to have to say to my noble friend that the opposition to this measure does not come only from the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives. There are also some people on this side of the House who have doubts about whether the Government are on the right track with this issue. However, I shall seek not to stray into Second Reading territory. I simply ask whether the Minister recognises that, notwithstanding the points that he made about the necessity for acting proportionately and for having balance in the argument, which I accept, the amount of research and information on the impact of noise pollution is growing at quite a rate. Nowadays, it is rare to go for a week, or sometimes a day, without seeing further evidence emerging of the damaging impact on individuals, the environment and communities of noise and carbon emission pollution. Therefore, I respectfully ask the Minister whether he recognises that it may not be a bad idea at this stage, given the rate at which our knowledge of these issues and awareness of the dangers that we face are growing, to have a little more strength in the way in which the regulation is effected with the airport owners than we have had in the past. I submit that it is not enough to say, ““It has worked for 25 years, so why change it?”” There are reasons why we need to take this matter more seriously than we have done before. There is good reason to suppose that a little more toughness might not go amiss at this stage.