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3.25 pm
Mr. Greg Knight (East Yorkshire) (Con): I welcome this debate and thank the Select Committee for producing its report. I compliment all hon. Members who have taken part for the high quality of their contributions.
I emphasise to the Minister what my hon. Friend the shadow Leader of the House said at business questions earlier: we look forward to an early debate on the aviation White Paper. If the Minister finds that he cannot answer some of the questions that have been asked today, we hope that we will hear the answers from him during the debate on the White Paper.
It is right to remind the House that we have recently celebrated the centenary of powered, sustained flight, and I congratulate the UK aviation industry on playing a major role in both civil and military aviation during that period. We believe that aviation is crucial to the UK's prosperity. We recognise that air travel is essential for business and economic success, and we appreciate that almost 180,000 people in the UK are directly employed by the industry. Moreover, well over 500,000 jobs depend on UK aviation, and much of our tourism depends on the availability of air travel. Many people in the more remote parts of the country, which we have heard about in the debate, require air services for essential journeys. I therefore applaud the industry for competing successfully in a deregulated market in recent years and opening up air travel to all through lower fares.
The Committee's report is welcome and poses many pertinent questions for those developing our aviation policy. As the Committee reminds us, the UK is the second largest aviation market, after the United States. If that position of strength is not to be threatened, we need to ensure that we make the right decisions.
A number of hon. Members have rightly referred to the environment, and emissions trading is possibly the way forward. The airline industry has accepted the need to look at the environmental costs involved in flying. As the Committee's report makes clear, emissions trading has the support of a number of environmental groups and the Government's technical advisors. Emissions trading would allow airlines to buy and sell permits to a capped quantity of greenhouse emissions, and the Government should certainly continue to pursue the development of such a system. Indeed, with the UK's
upcoming European Union presidency, this would seem an opportune time for the Government to push for EU-wide support in that respect, and I hope that the Minister will grasp that opportunity.I disagree completely with the comments made about taxation by the hon. Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham (Mr. Marsden). In our view, a system of taxes and fines introduced unilaterally in Britain without international agreement would be catastrophic for the industry and one of the worst examples of gesture politics that I can think of, so I hope that the Minister will join me in dismissing that possibility. The Conservative party agrees with the Transport Committee that a fuel tax on aviation could be imposed only internationally, and the likelihood of that happening is extremely remote at present, and it looks as though it will remain remote for the foreseeable future.
The report highlights the importance of striving for better air transport management. As I said in an intervention, it should not be assumed that doing nothing is the answer. As I pointed out to the hon. Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham, a shortage of capacity can in itself harm the environment. The pollution costs of aircraft having to wait in stacks or on airport aprons must be taken into account. The Government must constantly ensure that existing capacity is used efficiently.
We should appreciate that the airline industry, like the motor industry, has made use of developments in new technology to improve efficiency. I understand that the fuel efficiency of aircraft doubled between the 1960s and the 1980s. That trend must continue. There must always be incentives to encourage investment in research and in new aircraft design to help new technology to bring about savings and more environmentally friendly aircraft.
The White Paper accepts that noise from aircraft operations, particularly at night, is widely regarded as one of the least acceptable aspects of those operations, and my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Harborough (Mr. Garnier) is concerned about that. The Government say that their aim is to reduce the number of people significantly affected by aircraft noise, but that any night restrictions must be considered in accordance with a balanced approach. A commitment has been made to introduce new legislation to clarify and strengthen noise controls powers, and I hope that the Minister will say something about the time scale that he envisages.
The report questions the reliability of air quality assessments at Heathrow and other sites. The current assessments may not be sufficiently sound to enable the Government to make crucial decisions about future expansion plans.
Mr. Randall: I hope that my right hon. Friend will agree that the comments of the hon. Member for Manchester, Blackley (Mr. Stringer) about the environmental reasons at Heathrow being dubious were in themselves extremely dubious.
Mr. Knight: I agree. The hon. Gentleman should buy a house near Heathrow, and see whether he still takes the same view after living there for a year. We need to take such issues seriously, and the Government time
scale may be a little over-ambitious. It assumes full implementation of a tough package of measures to improve air quality, and the Government also talk about road charging. I am not sure that they will achieve that.Before consideration is given to constructing new airports, it is surely common sense to concentrate on making better use of existing facilities. It is a matter of great concern to a number of us that the number of slots at Heathrow and Gatwick allocated to regional routes has been drastically reduced, a problem was mentioned by the hon. Members for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody) and for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs. Ellman). In the past few years, regional services have certainly been curtailed from various regional airports, including Plymouth, Norwich and my local airport, Humberside. I find that distressing, because services were economically viable, but were dropped because of capacity constraints. Scarcity of slots at the major airports has led to more profitable routes pushing them out. We cannot allow that to continue unchecked, and I would like to know what the Minister is doing about it. Is he having discussions with the industry to see whether progress can be made, either without recourse to using the law or ahead of any use of the law?
The Select Committee report questions the entire structure of the industry, and the Committee was highly critical of the position taken by BAA, which strongly denies all arguments of that kind, although some would say, "It would, wouldn't it?" It stresses the high levels of investment that it brings to the industry, but it is right that there should not be an automatic assumption that BAA, in its present form, is the correct arrangement for all time. I can see why many hon. Members on both sides of the House feel that there is a case for a constructive review.
There are many other things that I would like to say, but I shall have to leave some of them to another occasion because of the shortage of time. However, the hon. Member for Argyll and Bute (Mr. Reid) made important comments about security. It is obviously crucial that all airports, large and small alike, maintain and combine high security with efficient procedures to reduce delays. We will support anything that the Government seek to do on that. The need to keep an eye on security has been brought home to us by the tragedy that has occurred today as the result of an act of terrorism.
I would like to ask the Minister some questions before I conclude. What judicial reviews have been notified to the Government about airport expansion plans since the White Paper was published? Are any discussions taking place between the Government and the bodies involved? Does the Minister accept that demand for slots at Heathrow and Gatwick has exceeded supply for the last four years and that, under his proposals, there will be a wait of another 10 years before anything is done to alleviate the shortage? Does he accept that the loss of access from the regions that I have mentioned could have a damaging effect on the UK economy if speedy action is not taken?
In some ways, air travel has provided a refreshing contrast to the growing problems that have beset surface transport, largely because it has the freedom to respond
to increases in consumer demand that Government direction or inaction has denied elsewhere. The air travel industry has shown the fastest growth of any type of travel in recent years, with dramatic reductions in fares and charges. Those improvements have been the direct result of the increased competition made possible by liberalisation of the European air market.Whatever the Minister says when he addresses the House, I am sure that we all wish the industry well in facing the challenges that need to be addressed as it goes towards its second centenary.
3.37 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Mr. Tony McNulty): It will be nigh on impossible to address all the serious issues raised by all hon. Friends and most honourable colleagues in the 10 or so minutes that I have to speak. However, I shall do my best to do justice to many of their comments.
As I think the hon. Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Randall) said, I would welcome a full day's debate on the White Paper. There are several reasons why it has not yet been held. The House may be assured that I am at the front of the queue of those exhorting the business managers—of whom I was once one—to hold such a debate.
I welcome the Committee's report. Although it predated the White Paper by some months, many of the issues in it are, as my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody) said, as germane today as they were when it came out. In fact, they are even more germane after the White Paper.
As others have said, the White Paper starts from the premise that the best starting point is the greater utilisation of existing capacity. That must be the right and logical place to start. We will work from there to see where we need to go beyond that. I am heartened by the response to the White Paper, which sets out the framework for the next 25 or 30 years. I agree about the importance of aviation not just to our economy and to regional development, but, in the broadest terms, to the whole country and not just to the south-east.
Although the hon. Member for Aldershot (Mr. Howarth) is not in his place, I shall say in passing—I did not want to forget this—that the White Paper recognises the importance of the smaller sectors of aviation, such as business aviation. I was going to tell the hon. Gentleman that I was grateful to him. I have lost count of how many times I have read the stuff, but this is the first time I have noticed a mistake in it. He exhorted us to remember the importance of Farnborough to business aviation, but paragraph 11.101 on page 132 states that we recognise that there is
- "additional capacity to cater for business aviation demand: Farnborough, Biggin Hill, Blackbushe, Fairoaks, Farnborough, Northolt and Southend."
Much of what my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich said about the aspects of where, who and who pays is important, and it is addressed in the White Paper, as is the importance of regional airports and of route development, which many hon. Members mentioned. We can consider how that could be based on
the Scottish model, with public service obligations, and how it fits within the European context. The interconnectivity—another fashionable word that we probably should not use—of all our regions with the economic hub of London is terribly important and is also recognised in the White Paper. I was not sure about what my hon. Friend said about coming out fighting, saying which airports will expand and balancing that with protecting regions' interests. Perhaps I shall discuss that with her later because I think that we have probably done that. She rightly said that there would be no major development in the next five years. The new runways and additional capacity identified in the White Paper will certainly not happen within five years—a time scale of 10 years has been indicated. However, to pursue the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Luton, North (Mr. Hopkins), that does not mean that existing capacity cannot be optimised in a shorter time, so I wish Luton airport well in that regard, as I have before.It is unusual in such an important debate for two Liberal Democrats to express about four different views. I take seriously the point raised by the hon. Member for Argyll and Bute (Mr. Reid)—as I did in Question Time on Tuesday—on the connection of what is such a peripheral region with the rest of Scotland, let alone the rest of the United Kingdom. We tried to address such points in the White Paper. Both the Scottish Secretary and the Secretary of State for Transport are speaking to HITRANS and others involved with the highlands and islands.
I take the hon. Gentleman's point about security at smaller airports seriously. To be perfectly honest, I do not have on me the details of the time frame for the consultation that has just started, but I shall write to him about that. We are considering tailoring a package for smaller aircraft that use smaller airports to take account of some of the cost aspects that he mentioned. Security must be absolutely paramount, in the first instance, but there must be scope for tailoring the package to the size of the airport and the planes that utilise it. That is an entirely fair point and I shall write to him about it.
I disagree with the hon. Gentleman's point that someone other than the aviation industry should pay for security. I also disagree with a further point that he blithely put. He suggested that given that there is cross-integration among security measures, we should use air passenger duty to pay for them. However, not two weeks ago, on 1 March, the hon. Gentleman's leader—if I may use that phrase—said that the Liberal Democrats would abolish air passenger duty. The hon. Gentleman would spend it on his local airport, but his colleague, whose constituency is not a million miles away from his in the north of Scotland, would abolish it. That does not really make sense. When the White Paper was published on 16 December, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said that it was apparent—this is certainly true of the hon. Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham (Mr. Marsden)—that
- "Liberals are in favour of air travel but not airports."—[Official Report, 16 December 2003; Vol. 415, c. 1441.]
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