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Mr. Tony Colman (Putney) (Lab): I declare an interest as vice-chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on sustainable aviation. The group is especially pleased that we are having this debate on the Floor of the House, and we look forward to hosting the launch of the response to the White Paper by the Sustainable Development Commission later this month. I particularly wish to thank Jeff Gazzard, of the Aviation Environment Federation, for his work in providing information to Members on both sides of the House to better inform this debate.
I have spoken on aviation in the House on several occasions, because Heathrow airport, aircraft noise and pollution remain the No. 1 issues for my constituents. It is always good to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) in such debates, and I am sure that the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Dr. Tonge) will also seek to catch your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The link between our constituencies is that we all suffer under the flight path.
Two weeks ago—the Minister will note that this is, as he would wish, six months on from the White Paper's publication and not a knee-jerk reaction—the Putney
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Society arranged a public meeting at the Putney Methodist church to bring its members up to date. The meeting was packed. Gerald Jones, the chief executive of the London borough of Wandsworth, spoke of his and the council's concerns. John Stewart of HACAN spoke about the forthcoming challenge to the White Paper, given that it is under judicial review in the High Court. I expressed my deep concern that the Government are not listening to my constituents, as is evidenced by the White Paper. Three key questions come from that meeting, and I should like the Minister to respond to them. I realise that there were perhaps clues to the answers in parts of his opening statement, but I should like to go through the questions quickly. The first question concerns the cap on traffic movement, the second is on night flights and the third is on mixed mode.
First, will the 480,000 cap on air transport movements still be the legal limit for Heathrow? That figure compares with 457,027 air traffic movements in 2003. The Minister has said that a draft statutory instrument has been laid before the House today to allow local authorities around Stansted to decide whether any removal of the cap or any change in the number of air traffic movements is necessary. I hope that he will consider introducing a similar statutory instrument to cover air traffic movements at Heathrow, which should perhaps be under the control of the Mayor and the Greater London authority.
Secondly, the Minister has announced—if I heard him correctly—that a new consultation on the 16 night flights at Heathrow that are the bane of my constituents' lives will be held in the very near future. Perhaps he could say what that means, thus enabling us to question him on the nature of that consultation, before the House rises for the summer recess. There are rumours that the definition of any possible new regime would relate not to the number of flights, but to the overall noise level during the night. Could the number of flights be increased beyond 16? Will the consultation allow for the banning of all night flights to and from Heathrow? Will it take account of the new World Health Organisation community noise exposure guidelines that have now been brought into play? I was concerned to hear the hon. Member for Ashford (Mr. Green), speaking for the Opposition, use the phrase—if I heard him correctly—"if we are going to allow more night flights". I would be interested to hear whether the Opposition are therefore in favour of more night flights, as that would be of great interest to my constituents.
Thirdly, there is concern about mixed mode—the end of alternation on runways at Heathrow. Those at the meeting in Putney were concerned that the White Paper was ambivalent on the subject. I received a letter from the Minister in which he said that, as yet, there is no proposal to end alternation and that, if there were such a proposals, there would be full public consultation and environmental impact assessments, which could not be completed before 2007. Only then could consultation take place. Perhaps he can confirm that. Again, for the record, I wish to say, as hon. Members on both sides of the House have said, that I totally oppose the end of alternation. The Minister said that the press reports to date have been "just daft". I hope that he will keep us informed of the issues and ensure that the MPs who live under the flight path are fully involved.
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We meet three days before the elections on Thursday. I understand that the Labour party mayoral candidate, Ken Livingstone, opposes the third runway and any night flights. The Mayor's significant planning powers must come into play on those issues, as they did not on terminal 5. Given the European elections, I should mention that Robert Evans, the current lead Member of the European Parliament for London on aviation, has also opposed the third runway and night flights. If he is re-elected—I am sure that he will be—he will continue to work with the European Commission and the European Parliament for united opposition to night flights into major cities across Europe and to fight for new, more stringent noise and pollution standards. It is very important to bring together all the concerns that are equally expressed by those who live under the flight paths to Schiphol or Charles de Gaulle airports.
I have previously begged the Minister to attend the International Civil Aviation Organisation meeting in Montreal this September, but he said that it is for civil servants only. Last month, I met Sharon Pinkerton, assistant administrator of the United States Federal Aviation Administration, and she is certainly going. She is lobbying Ministers for a voluntary emissions policy, not a mandatory one as the European Union wants. I ask that, at the G8 meeting in Georgia and the follow-up meetings, the impact in terms of global warming of uncontrolled aircraft emissions and the need for mandatory controls be on the agenda. Let me point out that the G8 meeting is literally "The Day After Tomorrow."
The United States Minister pointed out that aviation fuel for domestic use is fully taxed in the United States, that tax being hypothecated to deal with environmental damage due to the aviation industry. I know that the Minister has met with his US counterpart: he might want to put on record his wish to follow that US lead in the taxation of aviation fuel.
I note the Minister's commitment to meet local groups and MPs on whom changes at Heathrow will have an impact. To date, such meetings have not taken place with the Putney MP or Putney groups. It is extremely important that the BAA and all those involved in the debate, including the Minister, ensure that all those affected by the potential changes at Heathrow are involved and consulted at every stage. Sustainable aviation is possible, but it needs leadership from my Government beyond that which they have shown so far.
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Mr. Francis Maude (Horsham) (Con):
I have only a few points to make—indeed, that is all I have time for. I accept the need for greater runway capacity in south-east England. I am not one of those who believes that capacity should be controlled, restricted or capped: the free availability of air travel is an undoubted good. In addition, I am a Kyoto sceptic who doubts that reducing air travel will do much to alleviate the effects of global warming. I am not a luddite—I accept the need for expansion. I have said many times that my preference is for the Government to make long-term, serious investment in a new airport, preferably on the coast so that flight paths can be over water and not over people's houses, and where 24-hour operation is therefore possible. That seems to me to be the long-term way to
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build a secure future for Britain's important aviation industry, but I concede that that argument is over—at least for the time being.
I am not opposed to expansion at Gatwick—the airport with which I am most concerned from a constituency viewpoint. There are about 30 million passenger movements a year at Gatwick, and there is scope with a single runway to increase that number—an increase that I support—to 40 million or 45 million, if that is what the infrastructure can sustain. All of us whose constituencies are near Gatwick appreciate that it is an important economic motor for the area. We support the airport's continuing expansion, but that is a far cry from supporting either a second runway there, or the option of a second runway being allowed to remain open at this stage.
Gatwick MPs might, at first sight, be thought likely to appreciate the Government's perhaps not so surprising commitment not to seek to overturn the legal agreement between West Sussex county council and the BAA that no new runway will be built before 2019. One might have assumed that that commitment would be taken as given, but it was not. However, our confidence in the commitment has been shaken somewhat by the lack of consistency in the Government's pronouncements on the subject of Gatwick in the past few years. In their original consultation paper, published in July 2002, the Government stated, in very clear terms:
"The Government has concluded that an option for a new runway"—
"that could not be available until very late in the 30-year period of the forthcoming White Paper would create unnecessary blight and anxiety."
Hurrah to that, we thought at the time. We all know that that decision was overturned by the High Court and the Government were forced to look again at least at the decision-making process that they went through, but we thought that the substance of the decision, which must have been carefully thought out before the Government put it in print in a consultation paper, would remain solid.
Not a bit of it—when the White Paper eventually saw the light of day, that decision was changed in substance, and the Government proposed
"to keep open the option for a wide-spaced runway at Gatwick after 2019."
That is the Government's fall-back position, to be used if it is impossible for airport operators and developers to overcome the environmental hurdles against a third runway at Heathrow. One might expect that option to be bottomed out and a conclusion reached soon, but that has not been the case. I think that the Minister said—he will correct me if I am wrong—that it will be 2010 or 2012 before the issues relating to a third runway are resolved. In response to a parliamentary question in which I asked whether the Government would release the safeguarding of land at Gatwick when a decision was made on Heathrow, he said:
"The situation at Gatwick will be reviewed at the stage when any planning application for a new runway at Heathrow has been decided."—[Official Report, 7 June 2004; Vol. 422, c. 1W.]
Again, that postpones a decision on Gatwick. It took two years just to write the report on the inquiry into a fifth terminal at Heathrow, and the whole planning
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process took seven or eight years. If we add seven or eight years to the date on a decision on overcoming environmental objections at Heathrow, we approach the time when the legal agreement on Gatwick comes to an end anyway.
The position is unsatisfactory for many reasons. When the Government published their initial consultation nearly two years ago, they said many splendid and bold things that I applauded. In section 1.3 of the introduction, entitled "Why are we looking 30 years ahead?", they said:
"A long-term framework will provide greater certainty both about those developments that are likely to happen and those that are not. This will help reduce the anxiety that uncertainty causes."
None of that anxiety has been removed. A maximum amount of long-term blight has been created, and the Government have done nothing to reduce it.
A second runway at Gatwick would have a devastating effect on the area. It is already highly developed, with increasing pressure for development. The Deputy Prime Minister has instructed that 50,000 houses should be built in West Sussex over the next 15 years or so. The economists hired by the two county councils affected by Gatwick concluded that a new runway would require the building of housing equivalent to another Crawley. We all love Crawley dearly, but the prospect of building another Crawley on top of the development that is already being imposed on West Sussex is not viewed enthusiastically in my constituency or in the environs of Gatwick. The maximum amount of uncertainty and blight has been created, not just around Gatwick but around all the airports in the south-east. I hope that the Government will think again, and do what they can to accelerate the decision-making process so that the uncertainty, blight and anxiety, to use the words that they themselves use, can be lifted from as many people as possible as soon as possible.
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