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Air Travel and Health (Science and Technology Committee Report)

The Government will not react to that until we have the results of the Cranfield study. We are not so much rejecting the recommendation as not answering it on the basis that we believe firmly that until we have the Cranfield work we cannot take a view on a sensible way forward. I will briefly touch on the other points raised by the noble Lord, Lord Tyler. He talked about the problem of chemical reactions and the disinfection of long-haul flights to certain destinations, but fume events also occur on short-haul flights. The Committee on Toxicity intends to consider chemical mixtures when it has the results of the Cranfield work. The claim that we face near disaster is unreasonable, as is the claim, which I totally refute, that we are not discharging our duty on this. If you look at the thoroughness with which the Aviation Health Unit and the CAA do their work, they are clearly discharging their responsibilities. That is confirmed by the prominence given to aviation health as a response to the committee ever since 2000, and the amount of research initiated in the UK alone. I have covered points made by the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, in the rest of my remarks. On the 30-minute rule, in many ways he answered the other points for me. It is important that we encourage airlines to be sensitive about this, and from personal knowledge it is a difficult issue. It is about operational guidance. We do not believe that we should make another rule, which would have to be strictly enforced and could produce some extremely undesirable consequences. Finally, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, once again for initiating this debate. I liked all the nice positive things that he said about us at the beginning. They were somewhat drummed out of my mind by the details that I had to pick up thereafter. Once again I thank him.