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Civil Aviation Bill

My Lords, we are having another debate about a vital issue that concerns us all in this House and the public at large—noise and emissions from aircraft. There has been growing interest in this and, even as we debated the Bill over the past few months, the issue has been much more in the public eye. I have some sympathy with the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, but I am in the middle here. I totally agreed with the Minister when he stated that local circumstances were the most important consideration. I am very much a localist and do not like too much direction from us in this place about what happens in a local area. However, the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, highlighted an example. I too have visited Birmingham airport, one of two airports that are close and of a considerable size in urban areas, and where there should be some alignment of practices. I would be interested to hear the Minister’s comments on that. In spite of the intervention by the noble Lord, Lord Clinton-Davis—I do not dispute what past Secretaries of State have done—it would help us all if the Minister could categorically repeat what he has just said, so that it is put determinedly in Hansard that Secretaries of State would intervene and issue directions. I do not normally like them to direct too much, but here I would very much support that. If an airport was not complying with the sort of things that we would like, the Secretary of State should definitely intervene to try to put that right. If that was the case, I would not support the amendment.