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3.33 pm
Dr. Jenny Tonge (Richmond Park): I join the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody) in congratulating our air traffic controllers. We are grateful for the astonishing job that they do. This country has an enviable air safety record at the moment. However, I should like to address the factors behind my constituents' genuine concerns about air safety. We are constantly reminded of the issue in Richmond Park.
After the Southall rail crash, when safety was questioned, Mr. Justice Scott Baker said:
We have heard about aircraft flying with near-empty tanks. I got an unsatisfactory response when I questioned the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions about that after one incident. I was told that it was not this country's responsibility. That is extraordinary, when the aircraft are flying over our people.
We also hear about near misses in the sky. We are reassured that there are many more aeroplanes in the sky now but that the number of near misses has not risen in proportion, but they are certainly well publicised. People are very conscious of them and the number is rising each year, even if the proportion is not. The Minister shakes his head, but paragraph 21 of the Select Committee's report shows how numbers have risen.
Over the past 12 months, we have had some frightening attacks from the air in my constituency. In December last year, the body of a boy fell into a--thankfully derelict--site in Mortlake from an Air India flight. The boy had stowed away in the wheel housing and fell on a gas works next to a school. The Civil Aviation Authority carried out a full investigation after the inquest, but the only result was that the airline was asked to make tighter checks before its planes took off. That is not much comfort to my constituents when they remember that bodies have fallen out of the air.
On 12 November this year, a block of brownish ice fell through the roof of the school that was missed by the body 12 months ago. I shall not use unparliamentary language to describe what that brown ice really was, but the airline described it as
The situation is worrying. The Minister might investigate and name the airlines involved in such outrages. Why are such aircraft that come in to land at our airports not severely fined? Money from those fines should go on environmental projects or further safety measures. Eventually, somebody will be seriously injured.
The number of aircraft coming in over my constituency is another subject of concern. In 1993, the British Airports Authority forecast that, if terminal 5 went ahead, Heathrow would be able to take 420,000 air traffic movements every year. By 1996, there were 423,000 air traffic movements.
Mr. Gerald Howarth (Aldershot):
Does the hon. Lady accept that the number of aircraft movements is not limited solely by terminal capacity, but--much more importantly--by runway capacity? It is an extraordinary achievement of British airports to have produced so many more movements with the same amount of runway. Terminal buildings are not the problem.
Dr. Tonge:
That point is made to me often. The danger is that, because we were promised no further development at Heathrow after terminal 4 and we now face the prospect of terminal 5, we know also that it will not be long before there could be a third runway. That is one of the problems for my constituents--promises and forecasts never come true, and are always overturned by events.
By 1997, the number of air traffic movements had increased. In 1998-99, we are already seeing in the region of 425,000 to 430,000 air traffic movements a year. Even without the new terminal or further development at Heathrow, estimates are already way above predictions. It is no wonder my constituents do not believe a word that BAA says. It is all lies to them.
My constituents do not believe very much of what is told them by the Government either when it comes to air safety and what will happen in and around Heathrow. We know that BAA will go on increasing air traffic movements with or without terminal 5. Will air traffic control cope in the future? Has that been considered? Will a privatised industry cope? Will it all have to cope on a shoestring until we start having collisions and crashes and the ensuing inquiries come up with the same remarks as were made after the Southall train disaster?
Mr. Tony McWalter (Hemel Hempstead):
It is with some trepidation that I rise to speak, as I am not a member of the august Select Committee. However, the nub of the issue is something on which I have a little expertise. During this year, I have been privileged to be a member of the parliamentary armed forces scheme. As a result,
By instinct, I am strongly in favour of keeping the air traffic control system within the public sector. One feels strongly about it because its record and professionalism have been so good. People have referred a great deal to the achievements of air traffic controllers. Having witnessed them at first hand, I have to say that I am somewhat worried about the quality of the instruments that they need to use to carry out their job.
It is true that air traffic controllers have fantastic expertise and ability to cope, but increasing air traffic year on year means that their task gets more and more difficult, and the ancient instruments that they use to monitor air traffic movements become more and more strained.
The Government are right to be concerned about trying to find a way forward that will meet that severe challenge. Even if we have a system that has been incredibly safe for 20 years, if we keep increasing the capacity, there comes a point at which it will no longer be safe.
With a database that has an order of complexity of 100, some people think that one can perform much the same operations to cover a database with an order of complexity of 120 or 200. However, there comes a point at which the extra demands being made require one completely to redesign that database, and to think again about how one copes with the extra pressures being put on it. That is true even in elementary arithmetic. Perhaps most of us can multiply two double-digit numbers, but most will find it difficult to multiply two quadruple-digit numbers. That small increased complexity taxes us to our limits.
In computing terms, that is what is happening with air traffic control. We are faced with the need for a radically new system. The Liberal Democrats say that there is a strong need for new infrastructure. I am not worried about that so much as the expertise available to us in IT to cope with the transition. Change we must, and all those locked into the current system--be they air traffic controllers or pilots--are worried about the change. They know how complicated it has become; they know how big Topsy has grown.
Yet we must find a way of managing that change while keeping the outstanding safety with which we have managed change over the past couple of decades. Doing that will require new resources. I am old-fashioned enough to think that, if that were the only issue, air traffic control should remain in the public sector and we should find those resources. However, I am much more worried about the problem of expertise.
North of the border, people talked this week about the number of civil servants with extreme expertise in fisheries, but little expertise in IT. That is also true south of the border, and in the British Isles in general. The public sector in general lacks the IT expertise that is needed to make the transition. That is due partly to history, partly to the way in which we recruit civil servants, and partly to pay rates. In my constituency--a high-tech constituency--people get £50,000, £60,000 or £100,000 a year for doing such jobs. It would be difficult
to earn that much in any job in the public sector. Such people accordingly migrate towards the Microsofts and IBMs of the private sector.
"There may be a conflict between profit and safety."
Many comments and comparisons have been made since then about the effects of privatisation on safety factors. Despite assurances about responsibility for safety being separated from the privatised NATS, people are very worried. That is a prime concern for my constituency, which lies under the two approach flight paths to Heathrow. We cannot forget about air safety. When aircraft pass over the area every one or two minutes during the day--despite runway alternation, thousands of people are affected every day and every night--conversations stop, teachers stop teaching and at night sleepers awake. There is a constant reminder of what might happen.
"frozen effluent created by seepage through the aircraft structures."
Whatever it was, it was very nasty. Luckily, it came through the roof of the school and not into the playground where the children were playing. The CAA promised
another full investigation, but we have not heard any more about it. I was told on the telephone only two days ago that one of my constituents, Mr. Malcolm Welchman, was narrowly missed when walking along the pavement by another block of brown ice falling out of the sky. The incident has been reported to the CAA, which is trying to track the aircraft from which it came.
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