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10.2 am
Mrs. Virginia Bottomley (South-West Surrey): I appreciate this opportunity to draw to the attention of the House a subject of overwhelming importance in my constituency. However, I assure hon. Members that I shall not speak for as long as the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman). When one has a safe seat, it is hardly fair to those hon. Members who represent less safe seats to speak for 30 minutes in this valuable debate.
Mr. Kaufman: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I have spoken in debates of this sort for more than 25 years on behalf of my constituents.
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael Lord): That is not a point of order for the Chair.
Mrs. Bottomley: The right hon. Gentleman knows that I respect him greatly but, in a debate such as this, it behoves us to be quite brief. I shall try to be that.
I wish to raise the matter of the future of the British Aerospace site at Dunsfold. In recent months, I have received many letters from the up to 1,000 employees on that site whose jobs are in jeopardy. I have also received many letters from members of the local community who value the contribution that the site, which dates back to 1941, makes to the local economy. Many other hon. Members who have Dunsfold workers living in their constituencies have also received letters, and the House will be aware that there is an early-day motion about this problem.
Dunsfold is the home of the Harrier. In the 1960s, this remarkable British aircraft was developed at Dunsfold and it has been manufactured and serviced there ever since. The Hawk aircraft was also developed at Dunsfold in the 1970s. It was manufactured at the site from 1974 until 1989, when production was moved to northern England. Both aircraft continue to provide employment for those at Dunsfold. The Harriers built at Dunsfold are in service to the Royal Air Force, the Royal Navy, the United States Marine Corps and the Spanish, Indian, Italian and Thai navies. The Hawks are in service in the United Kingdom, Finland, Kenya, Indonesia, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Switzerland, the United States, Oman, Malaysia and Australia. In other words, Dunsfold is an internationally known site that is important to other nations besides the United Kingdom.
The Secretary of State for Defence and the House must consider whether the proposed closure jeopardises the long-term viability and integrity of the Harrier fleet.There are also wider questions concerning regional development. These are highly specialised jobs in a prosperous region of the country. With the development of the service industry, financial services and otherrelated industries, specialised design and manufacturing engineering jobs are playing an enormously important role in the employment ecology of the south-east. We must ask how the regional development agencies, and therefore the Departments of Trade and Industry and of the Environment, Transport and the Regions, can play an effective role. Many of us are highly sceptical that regional development agencies are anything more than road blocks and paper pushers. The RDA has certainly been characteristically inert and inactive throughout this saga.
In recent months, I have been in regular contact not only with the management at Dunsfold but with the shop stewards, who have behaved in a tremendously constructive, enlightened and responsible manner. Alan Whyte, a supervisor, was recently quoted in the Financial Times as saying:
The Harrier is built differently from most modern aircraft in that it is essentially hand crafted. Many in the House have greater expertise in these matters than I, but all hon. Members will agree that the Harrier has systems and modifications that have never been used elsewhere. Those traditional aircraft skills, together with the unique Harrier experience, exist nowhere else.
Although British Aerospace has suggested that it will seek to redeploy the Dunsfold workers at other sites, that does not mean that all will be saved from unemployment. Some employees may be able to find alternative work in the area. However, we must not overlook the fact--I am sure that the Secretary of State will want to satisfy himself about this point--that this team has worked closely together for the past 10 years. A team has existed for 30 years, but this team has worked collaboratively for the past 10 years. Evidence suggests that only about 5 or 10 per cent. of the team would be prepared to relocate because their way of life and their families are established in the south-east. If those employees do not move to the north, it will raise serious questions about the viability of the Harrier programme.
A major new factor is the establishment of the Defence Aviation Repair Agency. The Under-Secretary of State for Defence recently met members of the shop stewards committee to talk about unfair competition. Serious questions remain. I have had on-going correspondence with the Secretary of State for Defence on this subject. The fact is that the rates charged to the Ministry of Defence for return to work on Harriers are £30 an hour at DARA and £51 at Dunsfold. That is because DARA's cost structure is not the same. It operates on an RAF base where infrastructural costs, such as security, runway maintenance and some power charges, are covered by
the MOD. DARA does not have to add in a headquarters charge, a write-off charge or a 10 per cent. profit margin. In other words, it is not a level playing field.
I ask the Secretary of State for Defence, through the Parliamentary Secretary, Privy Council Office, whether he will establish a formal partnership between DARA and Dunsfold on the Harrier programme. In that way, this wonderful site, those skilled workers and the contribution that they make both to the defence force in Britain and to our exports could be maintained. This Thursday, hon. Members whose constituencies are affected by the announcement and I will meet John Weston, the chief executive of British Aerospace. Obviously, we shall want to ask him many questions about how, with that expert team under threat, he can be confident that he can continue to satisfy many of his major customers, including, for example, Boeing, to which he is committed to delivering one aircraft a month.
That is not a matter for the House. However, the House should be concerned about whether the Secretary of State will intervene to ensure that the Harrier programme will not be put in jeopardy and that the assumptions are not over-ambitious and unrealistic, and to say whether he will be prepared to set up a formal partnership with DARA, as outlined in the early-day motion. Furthermore, the DETR and the DTI should reconsider their role. If regional development agencies and Government offices simply produce rhetoric and, when difficult issues arise, get involved only in passing paper, disillusionment will grow. Those jobs make an enormously important contribution in the south-east.
Mr. David Taylor (North-West Leicestershire):
I want to draw to the attention of the Minister and the House the urgent need for more effective ways to control the major problem for those who live near airports and airfields--aircraft noise, particularly at night.
In my brief time in the House, there have been several debates about the need for action on behalf of those communities enduring chronic night noise from local airports. I want to make my own contribution and suggestions for a possible way ahead. Earlier this year, early-day motion 533, tabled by the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Dr. Tonge), summarised the impact of aircraft noise on nearby communities. As it said, night noise has adverse social consequences and may have a damaging effect on the health of those who live close to airports.
Civil aviation is powering ahead, fired by open access policies. Published air traffic predictions show an annual growth trend of 6 per cent., which will double the number
of flights every 12 years and could dramatically upset the delicate balance between economic expansion and environmental restraint.
Airlines and airports say that aircraft are becoming quieter, and indeed they are. The phasing out, under international agreements, of the noisier chapter 2 aircraft by 2002 is welcome, but it should be noted that, already, 80 per cent. or more of UK-registered large jets are of the more modern and theoretically quieter chapter 3 type. Despite the progressive introduction of those quieter engines, overall noise is escalating because of the greater number of larger aircraft involved, so Government intervention is absolutely necessary.
Last July, the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions published a transport White Paper, which stated, among other things, that the Government would enact legislation to enable local authorities to enforce noise mitigation measures for airfields and airports. That legislation and those enforcement powers cannot come soon enough. Noise is a very important issue for those whose homes are near airports or under flight paths.
My particular interest in this matter arises from the presence of East Midlands airport in my constituency. The airport's origins were very much rooted in the local authority consortium that developed it, managed its operations and liaised effectively with nearby residents if problems arose. Since its sale to the private sector some years ago, the airport's fortunes have taken off rapidly.
The airport is now a major employer for our area: 5,000 jobs are located in and around the airport. It is a major regional asset in the provision of scheduled and charter passenger flights. It is a major player in the air freight market. It is the latter point that can produce problems for those living near the airport.
The airport is surrounded by many villages in Leicestershire's border region with Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire. My hon. Friend the Member for South Derbyshire (Mr. Todd) and I recently attended a meeting of the parish councils from those villages, who have formed an umbrella group called the Association of Airport Related Parish Councils, or AARPC. Each parish council itemised to us a litany of concerns about the airport, but in every case the core worry was that of night noise, either from over-flying or ground running.
AARPC is urging the local planning authority to protect the well-being of communities near the airport by imposing appropriate restrictions on airport operations. What it is seeking appears to me to be a good template for the extra environmental powers that central Government should consider giving to local government. I shall give two brief examples.
First, AARPC says, flight paths should be agreed soas to minimise the over-flying of residential areas, particularly at night. Secondly, the group is pressing for a regulatory framework that can ensure that ground running and the older chapter 2 or comparable freight aircraft are not a feature of night operations.
It is not only local parish councils that protest long and loud to me. I have a sizeable postbag of complaints from individuals, particularly from the large village of Kegworth. I see a continual stream of constituents at my advice sessions. I have spoken at public meetings called to discuss airport noise. At least three independent community groups are lobbying hard for environmental
improvements to the airport. They are Save Aston Village Environment, or SAVE, People Against Intrusive Noise, or PAIN, and Wings.
Two criticisms frequently surface in my discussions with residents and protest groups. The first is their belief that airport authorities are not policing the flight paths of user aircraft as closely as they might, especially at night. Secondly, residents and protest groups believe that local authorities should monitor aircraft noise at a range of locations in the affected communities. The data from that comprehensive array of survey points would firmly establish the shape and size of the noise contours within the overall noise footprint. The results of the survey should be subject to systematic audit by an independent body before being brought into the public domain and being fed into the planning process when further development is being sought by airport operators, or for enforcement action if appropriate or necessary.
To be fair to East Midlands airport, I must point out that its development policy recognises that it has a duty to minimise and manage the impact of its business on the environment and local villages. Indeed, the first key issue spelt out by its development policy document is tackling the noise associated with planned increases in air traffic movements, which will be linked to two projected extensions to the runway.
Within the obvious and paramount requirements of airport and aircraft safety, the airport has a duty to minimise the noise generated by its operations, but more has to be done if local communities are to be satisfied and noise levels are to be acceptable.
I shall now move briefly from the particular difficulties of our regional airport to the general lessons that can be learned from our experience and applied to the national scene. There is an increasing demand in a fast-moving world for rapid distribution of goods. That in itself puts enormous pressures on air freight services, which can translate into a serious environmental impact on airport communities, binding their quality of life tightly to the operational characteristics of their commercial neighbour. Airport communities badly need a control framework that resident and environmental organisations agree is so lacking at present.
Environmental limits must be set for existing and new or extended airports. Those limits would be permanent criteria that would have to be observed at all times. Their range and type would of course vary to reflect local geography and circumstances, but a number of core limits would apply to all airports. Those would include a cap on the number of air traffic movements, a restriction on types of aircraft to be operated, approved tracks for aircraft related to runway configuration and controlled times of operation. The limits would also specify noise contours to be observed. They would control overnight running of engines or ground power units, the location of public safety zones and a good deal more. The overall aim is to fix limits on air traffic and noise levels permitted at an airport and to define a physical area beyond which further development will not be sanctioned.
An unquestioning attitude to demand-led projections for airport growth is entirely inconsistent with any concept of sustainable development with which I am familiar. In an ideal world, there will be no need for
national noise legislation. Indeed, the White Paper specifically encourages airports to enter into voluntary noise mitigation agreements with their local authorities, and planning policy guidance 24 spells out how planning authorities can best use powers to minimise noise impact by specifying conditions and criteria for permitting noise-sensitive and noise-generating developments.
"I have been working here for 29 years and to come in this morning and hear that the job will come to an end over the next 18 months has come as a little bit of a shock."
All of us accept that we live in a world where employment insecurity is part of day-to-day life. However, there are particular questions surrounding these highly skilled and specialised professions, which have been honed over 30 years of work on the Hawk and the Harrier.
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