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Summer Adjournment

I have sat here all afternoon listening to a catalogue of complaints, and I am now going to add to that catalogue. I am sorry that my complaint will be rather shorter than the others, but the sincerity with which I put it before the House and the Deputy Leader of the House—this is my first opportunity to congratulate her on her promotion to the Front Bench—is none the less for the shortness of the time available to me. The hon. Member for Keighley (Mrs. Cryer) said that she would have to gallop through her 12-minute speech. I can assure her that we do a lot more galloping in Leicestershire than they do in West Yorkshire. I will do my best to bring to the attention of the House a matter that I have raised on a number of occasions: the noise that emanates from aircraft flying in and out of East Midlands airport and the disturbance it causes. I know that that matter concerns not only my constituents in Harborough, but the constituents of the hon. Member for North-West Leicestershire (David Taylor), the hon. Member for South Derbyshire (Mr. Todd), who is not in his place at the moment, and other Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Members of Parliament. The problem arises because East Midlands airport is the United Kingdom’s freight hub. There are other airports—in particular, Stansted, Gatwick and Heathrow—that attract more traffic. However, Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted are at least what is called designated under the Civil Aviation Act 1982. [Interruption.] I am talking about the favourite subject of the hon. Member for South Derbyshire. He is about to come into the Chamber, and I am sure that when he does he will listen with great intent. Those three airports are designated under the 1982 Act, which means that the Secretary of State for Transport can control the numbers of flights that go in and out of them, particularly at night, between the hours of 11 and 7. There is no such control available to the Secretary of State in the case of East Midlands airport. On a number of occasions, Ministers have been asked to take on that responsibility, and, on every occasion, for one reason or another, they have refused to do so. I have been told by the various aviation Ministers, who have followed one another almost as quickly as the aircraft coming into East Midlands airport, that there is no need for designation: everything is absolutely hunky-dory; the airport is controlling the noise; it is doing what it can to make sure that the aircraft flown by the aircraft companies obey the rules in relation to noise; and there is absolutely nothing to worry about. Ministers also say that it is entirely a matter for the airport, or for the Civil Aviation Authority. If one goes to the Civil Aviation Authority, it says that it is entirely a matter for the airport or the Government. If one goes to the airport, it says that it is entirely a matter for the Government or the Civil Aviation Authority. So, round and round we go. The last excuse I had was: ““It’s a matter of international agreement now. It’s all dealt with by the European Union and, unless we can get some form of international treaty, establishing some form of control of aircraft noise, there’s very little we can do.”” I am afraid that that will not do at all. To be fair to the airport—and I am not always fair to it—it has introduced a system of fines and penalties, or surcharges, on aircraft that breach the airport’s private noise levels. Wow—in the last accounting period the airport fined three aircraft, and introduced, I think, eight surcharges, of the thousands of aircraft that come in and out of the airport through the day and night. The intention is that, under the master plan, by—I think—2012 there will be aircraft coming in and out of that airport every 90 seconds carrying freight from around the world. Of course, freight does not mind when it arrives; air passengers prefer to arrive during more civilised hours of the day. I went to the national air traffic control base at West Drayton just west of London not so very long ago. It is easily forgotten by those who operate that system, and also by the pilots of course, that below the aircraft and all those little dotty lights on the control panel are people—human beings—who want to get a good night’s sleep. They are not getting it because of the noise. In the few seconds remaining to me, I want to say that the other context in which the whole issue is being played out is a reluctance by airports to allow the debate to continue. They will do anything that they can to suppress debate. I took part in an interview on BBC Radio Leicester last Friday, and I was given the distinct impression that East Midlands airport’s public relations team would rather the interview had not taken place. A public relations officer from the airport was there, ready to take part, but I got the distinct impression that he thought that the interview was wholly unnecessary, and that the issue was best not spoken about. Let me finish on a point that gives the issue a national focus. Next week, Heathrow airport and its various holding companies are applying to the High Court for an injunction to prevent approximately 5 million Britons from doing things that annoy it. The owners of Heathrow will attempt to ban them from the airport, the Piccadilly tube line, parts of the rail network and sections of the M25 and M4. The injunction would ban members and supporters of AirportWatch, an umbrella organisation, from setting foot on named locations in and around London. AirportWatch includes groups such as the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and the Campaign to Protect Rural England; I add in parentheses that the Queen is patron of both those organisations. If she is prevented from getting to Windsor castle for the weekend, I do not suppose that I shall be the first to know. It strikes me as ridiculous that huge great companies, whether they be Heathrow’s companies, or the Manchester Airport Group, which is owned by 10 local authorities in Manchester, and which wholly owns East Midlands airport, should resort to suppressing debate on a legitimate complaint about aircraft noise. My ability to debate is about to be suppressed, so I shall end my remarks voluntarily before you get to your feet, Mr. Deputy Speaker. However, I wish that the House and the Government would pay more attention to the damage caused to my constituents by the noise emanating from the airport.