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Civil Aviation Bill

My Lords, this has been an interesting debate and noble Lords opposite have raised the question of when the Secretary of State must do something and when he may do something. Coventry has been repeatedly mentioned by noble Lords. If someone complained about the noise at Coventry, who would that have to be for the Secretary of State to intervene? Coventry is an example of where a local authority owns an airport and, therefore, has a commercial interest in its success. That interest has everything to do with running lots of planes in and out of it, but has it anything to do with how noisy they are? That clearly matters to the residents, but we should consider whether that matters to the bean counters in the council. I would be interested to know under what circumstances a Secretary of State would take into account the views of residents affected. Many more airports than Coventry are affected, including Blackpool. How would the Secretary of State balance the interests of both parties before deciding whether he would look at the matter? That is the big worry. My noble friend mentioned the ICAO policy on airports that have noise problems, but who decides whether the airport is experiencing the problem or the residents around it? Words are all good and fine, but while there has to be a cut-off somewhere—the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, mentions a figure of 500 in Amendment No. 4E—many of us would feel much more comfortable if there was a requirement to take noise and other environmental considerations into account for the larger airports. Some of them do it already and some might if the Secretary of State intervened, but why should they not do it as a matter of course? It is a question of ““the polluter pays””. I shall listen to other contributions with great interest before deciding which way I shall vote if there is a Division.