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David Taylor: I am disappointed that the Minister uses the old debating tactic of summarising what people have said in a wholly inaccurate way and then knocking the argument down. No one has suggested that substitution to fast rail services would remove the need for internal flights. We are talking about containing growth and securing the best benefit from the welcome investment that the Government have made in the St. Pancras to Ebbsfleet line and elsewhere. Could the Minister please be a little more accurate in his summing-up speech?

Mr. McNulty: My hon. Friend would have been better served—I know the reasons why he was not—had he been in his place for the whole day and listened to the whole debate and the whole of the rail substitution arguments advanced today, rather than just part of them. With the best will in the world, I understand why he was not—I said that at the outset and I respect that—but to enter the debate belatedly and to make comments about the course of the whole debate is not entirely fair on my hon. Friend's part. I say no more than that.

It is the same when we come on to taxation. Saying that we should scrap air departure taxes paid by passengers and that it would be much fairer if airlines paid a duty on every plane—passenger or freight—taking off from a British airport, as though that were a new way forward that would solve all our environmental problems, is again short-sighted nonsense. The proposal to tax the aeroplane and not the passenger is based on the principle of the polluter paying, but that is not the case. It does not take a genius to work out that those charges would immediately be passed on to business, commercial and personal flights. It will not be the polluter that pays.

That idea is simplistic and crude, at best. It does nothing about providing incentives to cut back on emissions, as we are proposing, either in respect of landing charges or the EU emissions trading scheme. It does nothing to incentivise people to reduce noise through noise charges or to bring about compensation and mitigation measures, which already apply to freight rather than passenger flights. It makes no allowance for discerning qualitative differences between aircraft—both this and the last Government have recognised the importance of that—and it takes no account of the
 
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economics of an industry that already creates incentives to obtain high load factors. Of itself, the idea is crude and it is not necessarily a panacea, which is the usual context in which it is offered. It comes from the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Inverness, West (Mr. Kennedy). It does not go far enough and it is in no way a substantive contribution to the debate: it is entirely knee-jerk.

The comments of the hon. Member for Edinburgh, West and others, including the Chairman of the Environmental Audit Committee, on the EAC's report are entirely right. It is one of the most critical reports ever made of the Government, but it is equally, as I said earlier this morning, one of the most flawed reports that a Committee has ever produced. The EAC persists in comparing aviation total climate change impacts with CO ₂ -only impacts of other non-aviation sources. The figures are simply wrong. We have made the offer in substance, and I repeat it now, to sit down with members of the Committee and anyone else and go through the figures in detail.

The EAC report is manifestly wrong. It does not acknowledge that figures for international aviation emissions include all emissions from flights departing from the UK, even though the Kyoto protocol does not allocate those emissions to states. I suspect that that will be news to the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Dr. Tonge).

The UK is the only country in the world to produce figures that allocate international aviation emissions in this way. There is much noise about Kyoto and the attempt to sort out emissions, but the White Paper's provisions, if they came to fruition—

Mr. Paul Marsden: That is a big if.

Mr. McNulty: Of course it is, but would the hon. Gentleman prefer us to do nothing? The White Paper's proposals, if they came to fruition, would go way beyond Kyoto. They include emissions that are not mentioned in Kyoto, and in an environmentally managed system. That must be good for everyone.

Mr. Peter Ainsworth: Will the Minister give way?

Mr. McNulty: Of course, given that I am talking about the hon. Gentleman's Committee's report.

Mr. Ainsworth: The Minister is being more than usually patronising. He is also incorrect in his analysis of the EAC report, with which he disagrees. He knows that we have calculated—using the Government's own numbers and forecasts, and the policies announced in the White Paper—that aviation will account for about 70 per cent. of all UK CO2 emissions by 2050. We discussed this matter on the radio this morning, but he did not explain then why the Department has assumed that there will be no decrease at all in non-CO2 greenhouse gas emissions for the next 50 years. Will he explain it now?

Mr. McNulty: I did deal with that this morning. I said that those figures were simply modelling constants that
 
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statisticians tell me are factored in, in a standard way, to provide a description of prevailing conditions in 2030 and 2050. However, I repeat that the EAC report compares apples and pears—that is, two distinct sets of figures.

We have dealt with the national and regional dimensions of this matter, but the international dimension is also important. The EAC report quotes selectively from the Johannesburg declaration, which makes it clear that sustainability involves a range of economic, social and environmental measures. The declaration rightly deals also with the need for efficient and affordable transportation and access to markets. It recommends that transboundary pollution should be dealt with through international consensus and not unilateral action.

How can we penalise smaller third-world and developing countries that want to grow by imposing on their aviation systems the standards that prevail in the developed world? The question has arisen before, and the answer is that a balanced approach is required.

Mr. Ainsworth: Will the Minister give way?

Mr. McNulty: I will, as long as the hon. Gentleman answers one key question to do with his report. He exhorts the Government to deal with "unnecessary" air transport. I should be grateful for a short definition of what "unnecessary" air transport might be, and how it might be policed.

Mr. Ainsworth: It is for the Government to respond to our report, not for me to respond to the Minister. He will know that the Government signed up to a sustainable consumption policy as part of the Johannesburg commitments. How does he square that policy with the fact that air traffic is to treble over the next 50 years?

Mr. McNulty: Again, the hon. Gentleman selectively quotes the Johannesburg declaration. I agree that the declaration talks about sustainable consumption, but it also talks about efficient and affordable transportation, access to markets, and about dealing with transboundary pollution by international consensus as opposed to unilateral action. The Johannesburg declaration dealt with all those elements, which are all very important when it comes aviation's international role, especially in respect of developing countries. It is not sufficient to focus on one line of the declaration.

The EAC report contains no suggestion as to what "unnecessary" air transport might be, but I forgive the hon. Gentleman for that. I am sure that "Is Your Journey Really Necessary?" posters will be put up at all airports. The suggestion in the report was ridiculous, and remains so.

David Taylor: I sense that the Minister is about to leave the topic of emissions trading, so will he confirm that there will be a stringent cap on emissions under the emissions trading scheme? Will he assure the House that that cap will be progressively lowered, that the process will be transparent and that alleged reductions will be independently verified?

 
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Mr. McNulty: If my hon. Friend reads the ICAO—International Civil Aviation Organisation—report on emissions trading, which was partly funded by the Government, although the Committee suggested that it does not exist, he will see that the mechanisms involved are discussed. That work has been repeated by both OXERA and DG ENV. Appendix B of the White Paper contains some of the early work on a possible emissions trading scheme for the European Union. I cannot confirm that the system he has just described will be the one that prevails but it sounds not dissimilar to a system that I would intuitively be happy to accept.

Someone said earlier that there was little support for an emissions trading scheme in the EU, but they were profoundly and utterly wrong. The support in the EU for a trading scheme grows by the day and the month. I freely admit that there is some resistance to the scheme, which is why we want to get some impetus behind an EU scheme at the ICAO level—not least from some of the larger member countries. It is no accident that the larger members of ICAO who are resistant to such a scheme are not unlinked to those who have yet to sign up to Kyoto, let alone ratify it.

The hon. Member for Hertford and Stortford (Mr. Prisk) and my hon. Friend the Member for Braintree (Mr. Hurst) will have to forgive me, but I shall not discuss Stansted when we do not even know whether the legal challenge permitted by the High Court will be successful.

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