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Civil Aviation Bill

My Lords, I take the opportunity to follow the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, about possible future increases in the Secretary of State’s powers. I beg the Minister to take this matter seriously. I recall our debate on the White Paper on airports policy a couple of years ago. Two questions were raised which worried me very much at the time and continue to worry me. First, in considering the possible expansion of Stansted, the Government’s document made no reference to the fact that the southern boundary of Stansted Airport was the northern boundary of a unique forest in southern England which is regarded by dendrologists as a matter of great importance. It is astonishing that the department responsible for environmental matters did not even refer to that. The second issue is the possibility of creating a new airport in Sheppey. There was also a short page on that, and it relied exclusively on the danger that an airport there would have to migrating birds. The paper did not examine the issue properly or reveal that it would be perfectly possible to move the bird sanctuary created by the RSPB a few miles further to the east, thus making it possible to consider a new airport serving London which would be approachable over sea any time of the day or night, open 24 hours a day and very close to the Channel Tunnel link. I hope that when future plans are made for these important decisions on airports—this is not specifically on the subject of the amendment today—great care is taken by the department to ensure that the highest quality of environmental information is available to it. I think the White Paper showed that that was not the case.