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Organophosphates

My Lords, I do not think it is anything to do with Treasury pressure; this is to do with a proper, intensely scientific investigation which has to establish cause and effect. I am merely saying to the House that at present we are not in a position to do that. The noble Lord, Lord Tyler, and the noble Countess, Lady Mar, referred to the HS146 issue and cabin air quality. When that issue was presented to me five years ago, I was shocked by the representations that were made. I did my very best to discover the nature of what we knew about this issue, how much had been substantiated and how dangerous it was to passengers and to cabin crew and pilots. My voice would be but a bleat in the wilderness compared to that of BALPA and airline pilots across the world if an aircraft as popular as the HS146 was capable of producing a persistent and threatening illness. HS146 is not grounded on that basis; crews do not refuse to fly the aircraft. I know that there are anxieties about the issue, which needs full investigation. I am not saying that there are grounds for complacency, far from it; the last impression that I want to give from this debate is any suggestion of complacency. We have the machinery in place to examine this fully to produce answers to these very difficult questions.