House of COMMONS
MINUTES OF EVIDENCE
TAKEN BEFORE
ENVIRONMENTAL AUDIT COMMITTEE
Tuesday 24 February 2004
RT HON ALISTAIR DARLING MP, MR GRAHAM PENDLEBURY
and MR MICHAEL MANN
Evidence heard in Public Questions 273 - 366
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Oral Evidence
Taken before the Environmental Audit Committee
on Tuesday 24 February 2004
Members present
Mr Peter Ainsworth, in the Chair
Mr Colin Challen
Mr David Chaytor
Mr Malcolm Savidge
Joan Walley
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Witnesses: Rt Hon Alistair Darling, a Member of the House, Secretary of State for Transport; Mr Graham Pendlebury, Head of the Aviation Environmental Division, and Mr Michael Mann, Head of Economics, Aviation and Maritime International Division, Department of Transport, examined.
Q273 Chairman: Good afternoon, Secretary of State. Welcome back to the Environmental Audit Committee. Would you like to begin by introducing your two colleagues.
Mr Darling: Yes, I have got with me Graham Pendlebury, who is Head of Aviation Environmental Division in the Department and Mike Mann, who is Head of Economics in the Aviation, Maritime and International Division.
Q274 Chairman: Thank you. Last time we met we discussed the environmental consequences of expanding aviation capacity. Since then you have published a White Paper which has dramatically expanded the capacity of the aviation industry in this country and some people say has completely marginalised the environment, so this afternoon we want to be talking about some of the consequences of the White Paper. To set it in context can I just ask you how seriously you take the whole question of climate change?
Mr Darling: The question of climate change is very important across the whole of government. Can I perhaps take issue though ‑‑‑
Q275 Chairman: ‑‑‑ I thought you might!
Mr Darling: ‑‑‑ with your rather loaded introduction, I thought. What we tried to do in the White Paper was to set out what I regard as a measured and balanced approach to the needs of air travel over the next 20 to 30 years. I would remind you that we are talking about one new runway at Stansted which will not be available until 2011‑2013. We are talking about the possibility of a third runway at Heathrow but we do not envisage that being there until the mid part of next decade, and a runway in the Midlands after 2015 and one in Edinburgh, possibly Glasgow, after 2020 so when I read immediately afterwards that people characterised this as an immediate expansion of airports it was slightly misleading. It is over quite a time period and during that time, on any view, the propensity of people to travel on business and on pleasure is likely to grow. If I may make two points - and one is in relation to the White Paper - we did set out a number of measures which I regard as being of critical importance in general in regard to emissions control and in regard to noise, and of course very specifically at Heathrow. Indeed, whether or not you build a third runway there we believe it is very important to try and mitigate the environmental effects of the airport. That is necessary whether or not there was any expansion, for obvious reasons. What the Government tried to do was to balance our need to be able to cater for air travel and at the same time recognising of course that there are environmental implications.
Q276 Chairman: Secretary of State, we have heard the mantra before and I have also heard it said that the White Paper was about as balanced as the Hutton Inquiry. Nobody is saying that there is an immediate expansion as a result of what you have announced but there is a very substantial increase in capacity in terms of numbers of people flying every year from 180 million to very nearly 500 million. That is substantial by any standards. Can we come back to your attitude towards the question of climate change. I take it that you do accept that it exists as not only a concept but a scientific probability?
Mr Darling: Of course I accept it is a problem which we have to deal with, which is why the Government as a whole has signed up to a substantial reduction in CO2 emissions. Whilst there is a whole range of measures that we are taking right across the piece, and aviation clearly contributes to that, as I say, a balance does have to be struck between our need to move around with the effect inevitably there is some environmental consequence. There will always be an argument as to where exactly you strike that balance and there is a proper debate to be had on that. Obviously as one of the principal authors of this report I believe we have struck an appropriate balance but I quite accept, though, there are those from different extremes, if you like, who would take a different view, and they are quite entitled to do that.
Q277 Chairman: I take it that you have seen the recent reports of the leaked document that was commissioned by the Pentagon about climate change and its possible catastrophic effects on global security?
Mr Darling: I have not read it, no.
Q278 Chairman: I commend it to you. The Pentagon is not normally interested in these matters but they are taking a very serious interest in it and there is a report they have commissioned that recommends that global warming should be elevated to the status of a national security issue.
Mr Darling: I did see reports of it, I have not read it. You are right that the issue of climate change and global warming is of immense importance to us. It still does not get away from the fact that any government has to strike the right balance between taking measures that will protect and improve the environment in which we live and at the same time ensuring that people can move around. That applies as much to other modes of transport as it does to aviation.
Q279 Chairman: Secretary of State, how you judge that balance has to be placed in the context of an assessment of the importance and potential impact of climate change and global warning. The Government's Chief Scientific Adviser, Sir David King, has said, as you know, that he regards this problem as even more serious than the threat of international terrorism. Do you agree with that?
Mr Darling: No, I think both matters are serious but they are distinct. I think the Chief Scientific Officer was making a very strong point that the question of climate change and the environmental impact of a number of activities is of great importance. I think the threat of global terrorism and the threat we face from global warming are distinct and I would not group them together personally. I understand perfectly well of course the point he makes. He was seeking to get across in a very graphic way the importance that he and indeed many people attach to global warming. I personally would not equate them because I think they are different.
Q280 Chairman: The Prime Minister said in front of the Liaison Committee quite recently that the issue of climate change is "of fundamental importance to the long‑term security and stability of the world". I take it you would agree with that?
Mr Darling: I always agree with the Prime Minister.
Q281 Chairman: Very wise, Secretary of State! And yet the White Paper, by your own admission, will contribute significantly to the very process that is causing the problem.
Mr Darling: Yes. I accept that whatever means you choose to use to move around will have an environmental impact. The question is what balance do you strike in terms of enabling people to move around with measures you put in place to mitigate the environmental effect of that. For example, in the White Paper it sets out a number of measures that the Government is going to pursue, whether it is greater control of emissions by landing charges or whether it is the EU Emissions Trading Scheme or continuing the argument that we need to continue at an international level in relation to aviation meeting the costs of pollution it causes; there are a number of things to be done. I am not suggesting for a moment you would advocate this, but to put it at its extreme if we simply did nothing and we said, "Okay let's just let our airports clog up," we would end up with the situation that we have in other modes of transport in this country, where successive governments of both political colours, frankly, did not take the decisions they should have done and the strains on our road and on our rail system are there for all to see.
Q282 Chairman: That is very interesting because of course the Government have done quite a lot to draw the public's attention to the problems. In a sense, it is easier if you are sitting in a traffic jam for hours to realise the problem, but the Government has made efforts to discourage people from excessive use of their cars. To what extent have you thought of applying that to aviation and air travel?
Mr Darling: We had this argument when I was last here in the summer. Indeed, I recall it dominated much of the proceedings.
Q283 Chairman: I was thinking of education here and awareness.
Mr Darling: The first point is it is not our policy to stop people from travelling. We are clear, if you take the car in urban areas for example, that we do want to encourage people to use public transport where that is appropriate, but it is not our intention to say in the extreme, "Stay at home". In relation to general education, if that is the question you are asking, my guess is that people are much, much more aware today about the environmental impact of not just travel but other emissions as well in a way that they certainly were not maybe 15 or 20 years ago. So I do not think people are at all ignorant of the effect it has. As I say, what we were trying to do in the White Paper is to strike the right balance between planning ahead for the future over the next 20 to 30 years and at the same time making sure we meet our general objective which is that polluters ought to pay the cost for the damage they cause. Things are slightly more difficult in aviation, of course, because for historical reasons taxation of aviation fuel, for example, is dealt with by international treaty. That does not apply to any other form of fuel that we consume. Of course by its nature aviation is a very international business. I think that most people in this country are acutely aware of the fact that the environment has been damaged. One of the reasons we signed up to put ourselves on a path to reduce CO2 by 60 per cent was precisely for that reason. You need to look at these things across the piece. Each sector has got to play its part. Of course, we also need to make sure we look at other areas as well.
Q284 Chairman: We are just very keen to help you with your responsibilities in transport to enable transport, and aviation in particular in this case, to play its part. When we find in the integrated policy appraisal at the back of the White Paper one tiny paragraph which deals with the whole question of climate change and does not make any recommendations at all or quantify the scale of the problem, might we not be forgiven for suspecting there is an element of complacency?
Mr Darling: I do not think you should draw that conclusion. To start with there is an entire chapter that discusses various environmental implications. Of course, in addition to the appendix to which you refer, since that time, as you know, the Government has made available all the supporting documentation which is in the House Library and on the Internet and there are quite substantial documents - and I am just looking here at the aviation and global warming document which was published in January - so it is not the only thing. If you have simply directed yourself to one particular paragraph, no matter what that paragraph was and no matter where it was, you would not get the whole picture but if you look at the whole picture I do not accept the general point you are making which is we did not consider the environmental impact of what we were doing.
Q285 Chairman: Incidentally, that supporting information when we last looked was not on your web site.
Mr Darling: It should be.
Mr Pendlebury: It is not on the web site and actually there were some reasons for that partly to do with the size of the files which was causing problems in downloading these things. Certainly we can make them available as widely as we can.
Mr Darling: They are certainly available in the Library of the House, which is the conventional means of communicating them to people like yourselves.
Q286 Chairman: They were strangely difficult to get hold of however when I tried to the other day.
Mr Darling: I will make it my business to check and see what has happened. It certainly should be available and that is how successive governments have communicated to Members of Parliament.
Q287 Chairman: Since you mention the supporting papers, there is this one on global warming which has already been referred to and I noticed in that the reference to ACARE (the Advisory Council for Aeronautical Research in Europe) on which you base a statement in the White Paper to the effect that believe that they can achieve a 50 per cent reduction in CO2 by 2020. Is that all that ACARE said?
Mr Darling: No, but I think the statement in the White Paper was right. Are you saying we misquoted them or something?
Q288 Chairman: With the greatest respect, it was not right because what they also said was that "the 2020 targets would not be achieved by developments for the current engine architecture and that more radical changes will be needed". They went not on to say: "To maintain the same rate of progress as today to 2020 and beyond will require break-through technologies and consequently higher-risk approaches" Do you have any idea what kind of technologies those may be?
Mr Darling: It is not our position that any one thing is likely to achieve the target but in sum they will help do that. As I think I said to you in the summer and I say to you again today, clearly there is a formidable challenge in reducing the emissions and dealing with the effects of aviation. I made the point about having to strike that balance between people's needs and doing that. If you take engine technology, for example, there is no doubt engines are much cleaner than they were 25 or 30 years ago and quite recently the industry signed up to a further reduction in the amount of nitrogen dioxide they use, but you would not rely on engine technology alone to achieve your ultimate objective. There is a whole range of things.
Q289 Chairman: There seems to be a degree of scepticism within the industry about these technical developments which are supposed to be going to happen to enable the impact of aviation on climate change to be reduced. I have got something here from the Royal Academy of Engineering who also refer to the ACARE study and they say: "It is not yet clear what form these new technologies might take, but without such advances it does appear that if growth in aviation continues" - which of course it will under your scheme - "the contribution aviation makes to global warming is likely to rise." How do you square that statement with what you actually put in the White Paper? What you did was refer to ACARE and said they are saying you can get a 50 per cent reduction by 2020; that is simply not correct.
Mr Darling: We are not saying because of improved engine technology the adverse effects created by increased aviation will be sorted out. What is undeniably the case is that engine technology has improved but there must come a point where with all the improvements in the world you cannot go that much further. Some way down the line if we move to hydrogen fuels there might be another step change, but that is really beyond the time‑frame that we are contemplating here. As I say to you, what we sought to do was to strike that balance that I have referred to and all the information is available, and this has been a pretty open process and people ‑ you noted yourself ‑ can get at what the information is. My argument is not that aviation is not a problem in terms of emissions and clearly there are things that need to be addressed and things that need to be done - and you are almost coming at this from the point of view (and it may be simply your line of questioning, I do not know whether you believe this) that the answer is that we should either stop flying altogether or stop it where it is or whatever. I think that approach would not work either. The correct approach, in my view, is to look at all these problems and try to sort them out problem by problem. Some of them are more difficult to solve than others.
Chairman: Just for the record, I can assure you that I do not think anyone on this Committee is talking in terms of stopping people from flying or halting aviation in its tracks, that is not where we are coming from at all, but we are concerned about the proposed growth trajectory. That is what we are interested in and seeing how we can mitigate that. Colin Challen?
Q290 Mr Challen: Can I follow on from that with a question about technologies because in this paper, one of the 27 that supported the White Paper, at the end in Annex E it virtually rubbishes all the other technologies that have been mentioned. Hydrogen, for example, would have many disadvantages, biofuels are too difficult, and on fuel emissions the RCP finds no serious suggestion of really major change in engine design for the foreseeable future. It does not go into others, perhaps a few improvements will be found, but there is nothing to substantiate the idea that technology, as in George Bush's imagination, is going to save us from the consequences of great expansion in consumption. Where are these technologies that are going to help us out of this fix?
Mr Darling: We did not, as far as I am aware, consult George Bush when we drew up these proposals.
Q291 Mr Challen: It is his policy.
Mr Darling: In relation to technologies, as I was saying to the Chairman, I think we can over the next few years look forward to a steady improvement and more efficiency. What I was saying to him was in terms of a step change to something radically more efficient and less environmentally damaging, like hydrogen fuel cells for example, for cars we reckon that is at least 20 to 30 years off and for aviation my information is that it is probably longer than that. For us to have predicated our argument on that new technology or something radically different being available on a much closer timescale would have been misleading. Nobody is in the business of rubbishing technological advances. Indeed, I think I made the point during my statement to the House on 16 December that there had been quite substantial advances made in that engines were much "cleaner" than they were, say, 25 or 30 years ago.
Q292 Mr Challen: Might I suggest that one alternative that has not been looked at here is the issue of dirigibles where you do not need runways and you do not need airports. This has not been looked at, and perhaps it might be laughable but it is a technology that was used unsuccessfully at first but it has now seriously developed and there is no mention anywhere in the White Paper, as I recall, of that technology that could perhaps fix many of the problems faced in the context of global warming. There is a major gap and I hope you could give a commitment perhaps that that would be looked at in the near future?
Mr Darling: All I would say to you is at the moment most people who fly tend to fly in what you might call a conventional aeroplane.
Q293 Mr Challen: So we cannot possibly approach their behaviour and try to manage it as we are trying to do with cars? A lot of people in cars do not like public transport but we have to tell them that there are alternatives. Could that not also be applied to aviation?
Mr Darling: Up to a point. For example, within the UK within this country, as I said to you when I was here in the summer, I think there are very powerful arguments for people choosing to travel by train as opposed to aeroplane, particularly in England where when the West Coast Main Line upgrade first stage is finished this year, the journey time between Manchester and London will be just about two hours. That is much, much more attractive than going out to Manchester airport, flying down to Heathrow and coming in, whereas in the past two or three years, when the work has been going on, people have said it is quicker to do the flying. Obviously in a whole number of ways it has improved so they could take the train. Similarly, since the Channel Tunnel Rail Link first stage was opened in September, it has seen a dramatic increase in passengers and when I last checked this the Channel Tunnel Rail Link had 60 per cent of the travel market between London and Paris. This is an example of where people do have a choice and do have alternatives. When you are talking about people flying to America or the Far East it is less easy to see (certainly with America) what alternatives there might be. I am certainly not against choices, I am not against new technology as and when it comes along ‑ you would be absolutely mad to be against that. What I think, though, the Government has a duty to do is to, as it did here, to look ahead over the next 20 to 30 years and say what is likely to be around and what is the correct response to that. As I said right at the start, people can have different views on that. Simply because you look at an argument and say, "Well, I am not entirely convinced by it", that is not to rubbish it nor is it to turn your face against things that might happen in the future that might cause you to take a different approach.
Q294 Chairman: I will have to look at the Department's web site and see if there is any work being done on the form of transport I have just suggested which could be very suitable for short haul journeys in Europe and cause far less climate change damage than perhaps the conventional form of air travel. The Department has predicted a three‑fold increase in passengers per annum compared to what we have now; 180 million now to 500 million passengers per mile in 2030. The White Paper is trying to satisfy 470 mppa. That rather suggests that you are just predicting and providing but this is not something which you have really accepted you are doing, is it?
Mr Darling: No, I have never accepted that argument. Let me just set out our approach to it. Firstly, my view of predict and provide is you are building runways on spec. You are saying, "Let's build them and we hope they fill up."
Q295 Mr Challen: You would need a business case to do it, would you not?
Mr Darling: Remember that unlike the rest of public transport, the aviation infrastructure is to be built by the private sector not by the Government, so whether it is Stansted, Heathrow, Birmingham, Edinburgh, wherever, it is going to be paid for by the private sector. If you take the South East of England you have a situation where already Heathrow (certainly), Gatwick (approaching) and Stansted (rapidly) are reaching capacity. We are talking about building a runway at Stansted which will not be ready until the beginning of the next decade and at Heathrow there are big environmental issues to be sorted there. I hardly think it is fair to accuse us of predicting and providing in the South East. In the Midlands and Scotland what we have said is if our predictions are right this is what we think may be necessary. Remember this is a framework document. It is not saying you are definitely going to get all these things, there is planning permission of course, but what we are saying is this is the framework, this is what we think might be necessary and we will proceed accordingly. If, for example, the demand did not materialise or people found different ways of travelling then they would not build these extra runways because there would be no commercial case for having done them.
Q296 Mr Challen: I assume that the Department's research that led to this prediction has been based on some solid appraisal. At what point of growth would the Department find it unacceptable, would it be 600 mppa or 700 or 800? Have you drawn the line here? What happens if it exceeds those predictions?
Mr Darling: No, our approach was to look at all the information we had, to set out what we thought might happen. We consulted, as you know, for over a year. The general consensus was that our predictions on the information we had were probably about right. Where there was clearly a difference, there were people who responded to us to say, "Yes, this may be right but we think you should do things to stop it rise that far." There were one or two who said they thought even more people would fly. My approach on this was of course I looked at these predictions and of course I looked at the pressures we are likely to face, but a lot of my approach was driven by the fact that you test those predictions against what you can see happening in different parts of the country. If the figures do not work out that way, if the demand, for one reason or another, does not look like it is going to materialise, then the runways will not be built because nobody is going to put up that sort of money. Building an extra runway and terminal capacity is extremely expensive.
Q297 Mr Challen: If nothing else is done and there is a further increase in cheap fare traffic then clearly growth could go through the roof. The integrated policy appraisal appended to the White Paper refers constantly to the Government "encouraging" growth, so clearly you want to see more growth. It is not so much predict and provide, it is promote and provide, is it not?
Mr Darling: No. The Government certainly wants to see economic growth and the Government wants to see people increasingly become better off and more prosperous, and the consequence of that is they will probably want to travel more for business and for pleasure. Obviously, it is in our interest to provide people choice where that is appropriate, and I mentioned for example what you can do within the UK, but I sometimes find that predict and provide is used in a pejorative sense by people who think you should not be doing this at all. I really think generally the approach we have taken is a reasonable one given the pressures that we face. That is not for one minute not to accept the extremely valid points that are made by you and by other people about the fact we have got to have regard to the environmental impact of flying. The two things go together, they are not distinct. Of course people who do not like the policy anyway will seek to rubbish us and say, "Of course they did not consider the environmental impact"; that just is not right.
Q298 Mr Challen: I draw a distinction between predicting something and promoting something and this White Paper seems to encourage and promote growth in air travel. It does not do anything to limit it. I do not see very much in the White Paper that actually seeks to manage this growth. We have seen the consequences of predict and provide in road transport, which we are now trying to manage.
Mr Darling: Unfortunately, we did not do too much predicting or providing in road transport.
Q299 Mr Challen: Unfortunately we got it wrong. I dare say all the predictions were exceeded by the actualities, and that could well happen here, so what is the Government doing to try and restrain that growth so that the growth in aviation and particularly carbon emissions does not sweep out of the whole arena everything else that the Government is trying to do with climate change to reduce the UK's emissions.
Mr Darling: Our policy is not to stop people from travelling. You mentioned the roads for example, and I think again successive governments either did not predict or due to various restraints chose to ignore their predictions and they certainly did not provide. That is one of the reasons that we have so many congested roads. Our policy must be to enable people to move around and to travel but to do that in a way that takes account of the environmental consequences of that. I know because we spent a lot of time (which I do not propose to go over again, especially since the Chairman has assured me in relation to your own beliefs and intentions) in arguing these things like last time, but our policy is not what is crudely termed "demand management". I know you have heard quite a lot of evidence on that fairly recently. Where I think we do need to do more is in areas that were set out in the White Paper in relation to the charging depending upon the emissions of individual aircraft, the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme and to continue the argument at international level because that is where these things are governed about the need to make sure that aviation, like everything else, meets the cost of the pollution it causes. That is a more fruitful way of going rather than saying let us try and limit the number of people who fly and therefore the number of aircraft that are in the sky.
Q300 Chairman: The December 2003 Departmental paper on air traffic forecasts predicted that by 2030 UK residents would make 103 million return trips abroad as opposed to 75 million trips to the UK by foreign tourists. Does this not rather give us a negative tourist balance? Does that not demonstrate that it is not too good for the economy? If more people are flying abroad for their holidays than coming here, it is not doing us much good, is it?
Mr Darling: I think there is a long tradition of people in this country who look out of the window on a night like this and think, "I might like to go somewhere for a sunny holiday." It is a fact that people travel and go abroad. You could take the view to say, "Sorry you can't go" or, "We are going to make it more difficult for you to go," but I do not think that is an approach the Government should take. A lot of people come and visit this country. A lot of people in our country, especially as we become better off, are going to visit other places. I do not think that travel is necessarily a bad thing, provided you are alive to the consequences of it and provided that we as a country and actually we as a world take account of the fact that it does have environmental consequences and that we seek to do everything we can to mitigate that. Almost implicit in what you are saying ‑‑‑
Q301 Mr Challen: We are not doing anything to mitigate it in aviation terms; that is the point.
Mr Darling: That is not true. The White Paper sets out a number of things that we ought to be doing.
Q302 Chairman: Ought to be doing.
Mr Darling: Yes and that we intend to do. I do not accept the argument that somehow you should restrict people in this country being able to travel abroad. I may have misunderstood you but that seems to be implicit in the question that you ask.
Q303 Mr Challen: It is a question about trying to control or manage the growth in something. If something has a demonstrable effect on the climate which has a demonstrable effect on millions of people not in this country but elsewhere who will suffer serious consequences who will never be able to fly, is it not our responsibility to share some of the load, to make some kind of sacrifice?
Mr Darling: You are rather confirming what I thought, that what you should be saying to your constituents or my constituents is, "Sorry, you should not be going abroad."
Q304 Mr Challen: We have been there before.
Mr Darling: We seem to have got there again.
Q305 Mr Challen: It is a return trip!
Mr Darling: I am beginning to wonder whether it is. I think that what you need to look at is emissions as a whole and you need to look at aviation emissions alongside emissions from other areas as well and our over‑arching objective must be to reduce them. That is not to say you do not do anything about aviation. I am not arguing that at all. What I am saying though is you bear down on the aviation emissions in different ways as you can. There are some things we can control in this country, there are some things we need to do on a European-wide basis, there are some things that can only be done through international treaty, and that is the world in which we live.
Q306 Mr Challen: I accept that those international responsibilities make it very difficult to negotiate, particularly with certain countries that do not really want to address this problem, but in this country we tax petrol very highly, 400 per cent effectively, which is partly there to manage demand so why can we not use these same economic measures to try and manage demand in aviation?
Mr Darling: Because taxation of aviation fuel is dealt with by international treaty and we are bound by that.
Q307 Mr Challen: We do not seem to be doing much to effect these things. I understand that the last Aviation Treaty was 1947 or 1948. There is no urgency about it.
Mr Darling: It is a long time ago and it does need to get agreement and it is not just one particular country that you may have in mind that has difficulties over this. There are a lot of countries from the very parts of the world that you are concerned about which are also going to take some persuading. It does not get away from the fact that aviation by its very nature is pretty international. Never mind the treaty aspect of it, the practical problems of going it alone are immense. Suppose one country decides to put on a surcharge and it abrogated the treaty to do that then it is quite easy for an aircraft to nip across the border and fill up somewhere else.
Q308 Mr Challen: Are we arguing in favour of fiscal or economic measures or instruments at these international gatherings?
Mr Darling: Yes we do.
Q309 Mr Challen: What kind of response have we had?
Mr Darling: It is fair to say that it is mixed. European countries as a whole tend to be more sympathetic and other countries not. If it is helpful to you, Graham has fairly recently returned from such a gathering and he will happily tell you what the mood of the meeting was.
Mr Pendlebury: I can do that briefly. I was actually the chairman of the meeting that you are referring to in Montreal with 180‑odd delegates there and Mr Mann was present there as well. We had very long discussions on the subject of economic instruments and charging mechanisms and the problem that we faced is that Western European members of this body are the only countries who actually speak out in favour of economic instruments and market-based options, other than voluntary measures which find some favour with the US. So we do plough a pretty lonely furrow and certainly the developing countries as well as the United States and Russian Federation are deeply hostile to any demand management or economic instruments.
Q310 Mr Challen: In the absence of these other options at the present time, and we are still waiting for the Emissions Trading Scheme in the European Union, has the Government or Department considered increasing air passenger duty as an interim measure?
Mr Darling: Obviously any matters relating to taxation would be for the Chancellor to consider alongside the rest of his fiscal arithmetic, if you like. All I want to say about APD is remember it was never introduced as an environmental measure. It was introduced because the then Chancellor was a bit short and was looking for somewhere to get some money. It was subsequently badged as an environmental measure but I do not think it is. It is a pretty blunt instrument. One of the things I was looking at was the figures of aircraft using Heathrow recently in connection with the fact we needed to tackle the Heathrow problem. The average age of Heathrow aircraft is a lot younger than the rest of the fleet and the newer the planes the cleaner their engines tend to be. If you want something targeted on driving down inflation, a landing charge that was perhaps more geared at getting at the dirtier engines might be a better way of reducing environmental damage than the blunt instrument of APD. The answer to your question in relation to APD and any other tax, obviously that is something the Chancellor will consider Budget to Budget.
Q311 Mr Challen: Can I ask about the 27 supporting papers that were published in support of the White Paper. What was the basis of the collation of these items? It does seem rather accidental. It is just a collection of things, many of which do not seem related to each other and leave out other things that would have supported the White Paper, for example an in-depth piece of research on the impacts of economic instruments on the price of fuel. It might also have addressed the question of public opinion, not only of people who want to fly and who perhaps do not at the moment but also the public opinion of people who live in the vicinity of airports already and those who might face considerable expansion. Have you ignored public opinion? Where is the supporting evidence there?
Mr Darling: Far from it. First of all, to answer the first part of your question, what we have done is we have published everything we have got on the principle if you make it available to people there it is and they can draw their own conclusions. As you might imagine, this is a process that started before I became Secretary of State and had been going for some time and different bits of work are done at different times and it is best just to make these things available. In relation to what do the public think, we received thousands of representations from individual members of the public as well as the organisations you would expect in relation to airports. For example, there was almost universal opposition to Cliffe Airport. There was complete opposition to a new airport in the Rugby area. Indeed, just about every airport in the country was the subject of letters for and against. Indeed, all these representations, unless people asked for them to be confidential (which is a standard practice in all government consultations) are available so that people can see what they thought.
Q312 Chairman: But, Secretary of State, did you have all these documents available when you took your decision before publishing the White Paper. I notice that the one on aviation and global warming, for example, is dated January this year. The White Paper came out in December.
Mr Darling: That is the date on which we published it and that is why it has got January 2004.
Q313 Chairman: Why did you not publish them on the same day as the White Paper?
Mr Darling: I think it was a matter of logistics. There was an awful lot of stuff, as you yourself have observed, and it was put out in January as the legitimate thing to do. I do not think there is anything wrong in that in that this is not an emergency piece of legislation that I published on the 16th and the deed was done. This is something that I hope will stand for some considerable time. Indeed, as you might imagine, there are many, many people now gearing themselves up to challenge what we are doing and the information we have got is fully available to do it. There are many happy lawyers around at the moment.
Chairman: I am aware of that.
Q314 Mr Savidge: Before going on to the main topic I want to ask you about which is emissions trading, can I tease out a little further the main discussion we have been having. All of us fully appreciated what you said at the start that obviously there is a strong and proper desire for people to travel for leisure and for business. Nobody is suggesting that that be banned or anything. The concern we are expressing that has to be balanced with that is if we do not find economic instruments or some form of instrument that controls the growth of flights, there is at least the possibility of catastrophic climate change destroying both the holiday resorts and the economy. The happy punter you referred to who looks out on the cold weather might find that the weather becomes considerably worse here and at the destination he would like to go to.
Mr Darling: I do not dispute the general terms of what you are saying. I was asked right at the start whether global warming was an important consideration and the answer is a very important consideration. That is why, as I said before, we attach considerable importance for example to getting a European Union Emissions Trading Scheme (including aviation) off the ground. I think it is very, very important. So too is taking account of aircraft emissions and landing charges. These are very, very important matters. On the point Colin Challen was raising on taxation of fuel, that is important too. However, we live in an international world and we do not always agree with the views that governments are taking but that is the world in which we live and we have just got to get on with it. You are absolutely right that in aviation and other areas as well if we do not do anything then the consequences will be very bad for us, so it is very, very important, but it all comes back, as I said at the start, to striking that right balance between providing sufficient capacity to enable people to move around and at the same time dealing with the environmental consequences.
Q315 Mr Savidge: You stress that the UK sees the EU Emissions Trading Scheme as being a key part of policy and getting that in place by 2008. Will that therefore be a key objective of the UK Presidency of the EU in 2005?
Mr Darling: Yes, it will.
Q316 Mr Savidge: Do you think we have prospects of getting it by that time?
Mr Darling: Yes, it will be one of our priorities. As to the prospects, we are already talking to other Member States and, as Graham Pendlebury has just said, if you look at the international scene I think there is more awareness and more commitment to doing something in Europe than there is in other parts of the world. That is not to say the argument is done and dusted and it is just a question of putting the thing in place, but it is very important. There cannot be anybody who is not concerned about the consequences of global warming and, you are absolutely right, if we do not do something there will come one day when the sunny destinations will not be there.
Q317 Mr Savidge: In discussions with the governments of other Member States of the EU, have you found that they are uniformly in favour of an Emissions Trading System or have there been other instruments that they would prefer?
Mr Darling: I think there is a variety of approaches. The distinction I would make is not between an Emissions Trading Scheme and people saying, "No, no, we would rather have some other form of taxation, although they are some, I think it is varying degrees of signing up to doing something, and a lot depends on the individual airlines in these countries. On the point made earlier it is not just the United States - and it is very easy to characterise the United States as being the bad boys in all this - there are lots of developing countries. I have met, as you might imagine, counterparts in different parts of the world and from areas of the world which have had experience of environmental damage from various causes who are going to be quite difficult to convince, I think.
Q318 Mr Savidge: There was talk at one stage of an emissions charge as an interim measure. Has that been abandoned now or is that still on the table?
Mr Darling: I think the Committee looked at this. You canvassed this with John Healey when he came to speak to you a few weeks ago. No, it has not been abandoned. There are some difficulties, as John said, in relation to whether or not it would be characterised as a fuel tax and whether or not the thing could work. As I was saying to Colin Challen, I think the things that bear down on the causes of pollution, like dirty engines, are things I am in favour of. I have looked at an emissions charge and I can see how people have sought to characterise it because inevitably it is based on distance because that is what you consume fuel doing. You are saying that it might be a tax. The one thing that I am very clear about in this area, whether it is an attempt to build an extra inch of runway or doing anything to aircraft, there is no shortage of people who will go and take you to court. It is the way the world is now.
Q319 Chairman: On the emissions charge question, is there any talk still going on in European circles about an emissions charge? We heard last year when we looked at this whole area that there had been some consideration at an EU level.
Mr Darling: It is certainly something that has been discussed. Again I will ask either Michael or Graham to comment on this. I think it would be wrong to give the impression ‑‑‑
Q320 Chairman: --- We will not hold our breath there.
Mr Darling: --- There is plenty of talk in Europe on many things, as you know, and this is one. Do either of you two want to say something?
Mr Pendlebury: The European Commission commissioned some work on an en route emissions charge some while ago now done by a Dutch consultancy film called CE Delft. When those consultants produced their report the Commission backed off and simply published it and invited everybody to comment but with no time scales and so forth. That is probably about 18 months ago now and it has rather fallen away. There is not really much appetite for it. I think emissions trading is seen as a more fruitful measure. I think also, partly responding to the other gentleman's comment about an interim measure, the view has been taken that it would take so long to get an en route emissions charge designed and up and running and agreed that it would not have the characteristic of an interim measure. You probably could not develop this until about 2008 anyway so we should focus on where we think is the most effective method, which is getting aviation inside the EU Emissions Trading Scheme.
Q321 Mr Savidge: If we are unable to reach agreement on an European Union Emissions Trading System would we at that point consider any unilateral action such as considering taxes or charges and would there be any value in having any consultation on such measures as a contingency in case, do you think?
Mr Darling: Two things. I would be most reluctant to throw in the towel before we even got going. It is not a good negotiating tactic. It is accepting defeat. As I said to you, I think the mood in Europe is rather different to the rest of the world for various reasons. As I was saying to Colin Challen, I do not think we can act unilaterally. The Government attaches some importance to adhering to its international obligations and remember you break international obligations and it is not just that narrow area in which you are signalling to the world you are no longer wishing to be bound by, you are sending a lot of other signals and I do not think we want to do that. I do think it is worth spending some degree of political effort to get a trading scheme in Europe. As I say, I think there are a number of European Union Members who can see the merit in this. It would be wrong to say there is no environmental awareness in other parts of the world, there is, but I think in Europe there is sufficient that it is well worth putting the effort into doing that.
Q322 Mr Savidge: I would share your hope that it would be possible to negotiate a European Union trading system. How far do you think it might be difficult to extend that internationally, to get full agreement internationally, and how far do you feel that it might be, given that one could have a certain degree of flexibility within tax regimes, easier when one comes to negotiating worldwide to achieve that with a tax administration, or do you think it would be easier with an Emissions Trading System?
Mr Darling: There is no doubt that for anything in this world if you can point to something that works it is much easier to argue to other people, "Why don't you try this too?" What is interesting is that there are a number of airlines who have said to us that they can see the merit of it not because they are particularly commercially enthusiastic but because they recognise there is this tension between their wish to fly people and their need therefore to have airports and so on with the fact that there is a genuine environmental concern. Political climates in countries change from time to time. So I think if we could get an Emissions Trading Scheme going in Europe and working and the airlines, for example, saying, "Okay, it was not so bad, we are still here, we are still trading," then it is easier to sell it but, as Graham was saying, it is not just the United States. There are a lot of developing countries which are basically saying, "You have done all this for years so don't you try and stop us doing it. We want to be able to do these things unimpeded", despite the fact that a number of them can see first hand what environmental damage can do, not necessarily from aviation but from other things as well.
Q323 Joan Walley: I think in response to what you have said already it could well be that there could be a greater political awareness of the threat of global warming which could very quickly bring plan B into operation and might very well hasten the need to reduce the growth in air traffic. Just going back to the emissions trading, and you have said just now how very, very important it is, and we started to look at some of the detail of how it could operate, I just wondered in terms of the European scheme what account you think should be taken of the extra impact of aviation due to radiative forcing? I know that we touched on that earlier but I want to try and get your views now you are into a situation of trying to make something work within Europe. Where would you put the value on that?
Mr Darling: I would not put a numerical value on it and it is a relatively new consideration, but you cannot possibly ignore it. There may be arguments about just what it does but it is clearly an important consideration.
Q324 Joan Walley: So that would be on your agenda during the EU Presidency?
Mr Darling: Yes, and clearly there are a number of emissions that concern us, whether it is nitrogen dioxide, carbon dioxide, the compounding effect of radiative forcing field, and so on. They are all important.
Q325 Joan Walley: What I cannot quite see is how you are preparing to factor that into the discussions on European Emissions Trading into the agenda that you will be leading on during the UK Presidency.
Mr Darling: Quite simply this: what we are doing is we are in the process of speaking to other Member States with a view to getting such a scheme off the ground. It may be that the thing has to be done in stages. I certainly would not want to be in a situation where the whole thing failed because I could not get everything into it. I am trying to be as helpful as I can without actually disclosing a negotiating position such that we are getting in the way of what we are trying to do.
Q326 Joan Walley: So is this on your agenda ‑ to take account of that?
Mr Darling: I think the answer, Joan, is yes it is, but what is important, I think, is to get the principle accepted and then to get something that is workable and then build on that. I almost want to get across the corroborative if I had said no then I would be ignoring something that was quite important. What I do not want to do, though, is end up in a situation where you fail for wont of getting every single thing that you want. That is an extreme position but you know what I mean.
Q327 Joan Walley: While we are on the question of the UK's leadership within the European Union, can I refer you to the Liaison Committee that took place in the House a couple of weeks or so ago when the Prime Minister was talking about the G8 ownership next year and he was talking about an initiative that helps to investigate the full extent of the scientific and technological possibilities of reducing the damage that aviation fuel does. Is that something that your Department is already working on in respect of taking these initiatives forward through both the EU and the G8?
Mr Darling: I think we are working with Defra on that, are we not?
Q328 Joan Walley: I think we need to look at the detail of this because I think the devil is always in the detail on these things.
Mr Pendlebury: Certainly you are absolutely right, one of the fundamental things we have to do is try and get some greater certainty in the science about the precise nature of aviation impacts because one of the great difficulties that one has in the international fora is that those who are against taking measures will always say, "There is too much scientific uncertainty here. We do not know what the radiating forcing impact is. Is it two, is it four, is it something else, therefore that is no basis for developing the policy instruments," and one is always vulnerable to that argument. Therefore, we certainly think it is absolutely right that there should be more effort put into actually establishing scientific certainty, insofar as that is possible. It is interesting in the meeting in Montreal that one of the many papers that the UK tabled ‑ and we tabled more than any other country ‑ was on the very subject of where does ICAO and its offshoots get its scientific advice from and the UK proposed the establishment of a permanent scientific advisory panel. That idea inevitably, because we are always in a minority on these things, was voted down but nevertheless we had a very interesting discussion about that subject and some proposals were developed as a compromise for saying yes we need to have periodic scientific fora where aviation policy makers and manufacturers and so on meet with the scientific community to get greater certainty. So yes you are absolutely right, we are 100 per cent on board with the Prime Minister's initiative on that.
Q329 Joan Walley: We will watch with great interest developments on that. Moving on to other details on aviation emissions, do you think in respect of the agenda that you have got that could be a sign to individual nations in terms of how the EU agenda is drawn up?
Mr Darling: How do you mean? In terms of assignation?
Q330 Joan Walley: I am moving away from radiative forcing now to looking generally at the bones of how you would draw up a trading system within the EU context and how you would be getting individual countries to be allocated.
Mr Darling: Obviously the nuts and bolts of a scheme are something that we are in the process of talking to people about. We are not at the stage yet of saying here is a scheme or here is a putative scheme, if you like. You are right if you are having a trading scheme, of course you would have to have some degree of allocation because that is how the scheme works. I am not in a position now to say, just to get my retaliation in first, and I happy to be as helpful as possible. What I am reluctant to do, because this is not going to be plain sailing and there are discussions to be had, is to be in a position where we are putting all our cards on the table now and there may be some things we want to discuss with people. I just want to leave you in no doubt that we would not have put this in the White Paper if we did not attach importance to it and, equally, we would not have put down that commitment if we were not prepared to give it absolutely our best shot. I suspect that some of the detail you are asking for I cannot provide you with at the moment.
Q331 Chairman: It is not that this is so important within the context of the White Paper but that it is the only show in town, is it not, in terms of protecting the environment and dealing with that side of things? It is called balance. If this does not come off, obviously there is nothing else in your hand.
Mr Darling: There are other measures referred to in the White Paper which I have touched on. However, it is important; I make no bones about it. It is tempting to say that it is all too difficult and it is not going to succeed; therefore, we are going to have to look at something else. I do think that we need to give it our best shot. Whether it is in Europe or whether it is in international discussions, if you do not win the first time round you keep going at it because it is very important. I would hate to end up with a choice that you either carry on doing all this and do so much damage to the environment that future generations will curse us for all time to come, or you end up grounding everybody and not being able to do anything. It is worth all governments, us included, in Europe and elsewhere doing everything we possibly can to control emissions. Sadly, there are some countries who are more willing than others.
Q332 Joan Walley: Just going down a different rout on that, I notice that the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change commissioned, along with Defra, a project to identify various methods for allocating emissions to countries. I wonder if you could give us a bit of detail about when that is likely to report and what progress there has been on that?
Mr Pendlebury: If I may answer on this, you are absolutely right. The whole question about the allocation methodologies fundamental to us is, of course, one of the reasons why international aviation was not included in the Kyoto Protocol in the first place, because there was no immediate answer to the question of how you allocate these quintessentially global emissions to particular bodies. You are also absolutely right that UNFCCC's subsidiary body SUBSDA is looking at this work. It is one of the other papers that we tabled in Montreal in order to get some more momentum behind that. You are also right that Defra have commissioned a study into allocation -----
Q333 Joan Walley: So when is it going to be published?
Mr Pendlebury: Mike, do we know when that is due to report? We sit on the steering committee for that but I think it is probably some months away from reaching some conclusions. They are looking essentially at about eight different allocation methodologies, one of which is the one that you have alluded to, which is that you allocate somehow to national countries. That potentially is quite a difficult issue for the UK because we are such a major global hub for aviation, with this figure that we often quote of 20 per cent of all international air passengers starting or finishing their journey in the UK. It is a situation that the Netherlands face similarly with Schipol. If you allocate to countries the UK and the Netherlands would get a very significant allocation, so we have to be very clear that we understand the policy implications of all that because there are other possible allocation methodologies. I am afraid I cannot answer your precise question as to when the Defra project is due to report.
Mr Mann: I am not sure of the exact date.
Mr Darling: If we can we will let you know. It may be that they do not have an end date.
Q334 Mr Challen: Can I just ask about the onset of contractual convergence? I do not know whether you are familiar with that and whether that has been included in the aviation input to those studies.
Mr Pendlebury: I am not aware that it is.
Q335 Mr Challen: Is the department aware of this concept which has now been floated at the United Nations Framework Convention?
Mr Pendlebury: We are not deeply aware of it. I know you questioned some previous witnesses before this committee on it and I was interested to read that. That concept is not one that has particularly featured in our thinking. The work that UNFCCC is doing through its SUBSDA body is not looking particularly at that concept as I understand it.
Q336 Joan Walley: Going back to the way that the thinking is progressing, if you have not got anything concrete to take it forward, if you were looking to get some agreements, what I am not clear about is that it is likely, is it not, that there would be some kind of half share of international aviation emissions?
Mr Darling: A half share?
Q337 Joan Walley: Yes, in terms of how you allocate different emission trading systems because of the very nature of international flights between countries.
Mr Darling: Sorry - I follow.
Q338 Joan Walley: The point that I make is that if that is the case I want to know what talks you have had with other government departments about the effect that that would have on the 60 per cent carbon targets. Would it not mean that we would have to be watering that down?
Mr Darling: As Graham was saying just a moment ago, there is not yet anything like an established or accepted methodology for allocating international trading emissions. We are alive within government as between Defra, DTI, ourselves and other government departments that if they are to be allocated then it will have an impact. What the impact is going to be I do not know until we get to the stage where these allocations are allocated. As Graham was saying, one of the problems that we have is that we have a very large share of international aviation simply because London is one of the busiest international airports in the world, but how we allocate it I cannot tell you yet, and therefore the implications of what it might mean to us.
Q339 Joan Walley: But in terms of your framework document what account are you taking of the way in which that could impact upon commitments that the government has already given which are very important in terms of the domestic agenda and the way in which that could impact on other sectors who might feel that they were being very badly treated compared to the way the whole agenda could be developed with aviation?
Mr Darling: The answer to your question is two-fold. One is that we have already got commitment set out in the Environment White Paper last year. We are working towards these and we will stick to those. When there is international agreement on the allocation of the international flights we will clearly have to consider what we do about that. It is very difficult to say, "How would you deal with the problem?" when we do not know precisely what the problem is going to be.
Q340 Joan Walley: I accept that, but what I want to know is how you are going to be safeguarding that 60 per cent commitment that has already been given as far as the domestic agenda is concerned, from which aviation at the moment is excluded, given the talks that will need to take place.
Mr Darling: You press on with those commitments in the meantime and make sure that you do everything you can to stick to that track on which we have set ourselves. That is the answer to that.
Q341 Joan Walley: So you would not have aviation undermining those commitments that have already been given?
Mr Darling: What would be most unfortunate would be to take on another obligation and the way you deal with it is by not pursuing the other objectives. The precise way in which we deal with these things is very difficult for me to answer given that I do not actually know what precisely the scale of the problem is that we are going to have to reach yet. On the central point which you seek reassurance on, is the government committed to the Environment White Paper, yes we are committed to that. How we deal with international emissions really depends on how they are allocated and therefore what is necessary.
Q342 Joan Walley: And in terms of your not knowing what the scale of the problem will be, that begs the question, does it not, about the kind of modelling that would be needed to start to get the detail of how to factor it in, so what modelling has your department been doing?
Mr Darling: Again, you not only have to work out what you are going to do; you also need to work out what the scale of the problem is, and until we have an agreement on that it is very difficult - there is theoretical modelling, I suppose - to reach a conclusion as to what you might do. Can I be more helpful than that? Mr Pendlebury will be more helpful than I am.
Q343 Joan Walley: Hopefully he can tell me what modelling there has been to explore this.
Mr Pendlebury: This document Aviation and Global Warming sets out our assessment as underpinning our White Paper on what we think the scale or volume of aviation climate change or greenhouse gas emissions will be. The point that you are making, as I understand it, is that if, perhaps as part of an allocation methodology that is used for bringing aviation into the EU Emissions Trading Scheme, it is decided that international aviation emissions should be allocated to states, say split 50/50 between country of origin and country of destination so you are bringing international aviation emissions into domestic emissions inventories, then, other things being equal, you would need to look at your overall domestic emissions reduction target because you are adding in a whole new set of emissions. In that sense, yes, you are right. You would probably want to look at that overall target.
Q344 Joan Walley: My question is whether or not there has been any scenario modelling by the department to look at these two different issues and how that would affect the existing domestic commitments that have been made and other sectors of industry, presumably, which are going to have to contract because of the targets that the government requires to be met, and how the aviation industry sits alongside all of that. Is there modelling going on now because if there is not how can you factor this into the general framework and provide the basis for the negotiations that would then be needed within the European Union context?
Mr Darling: We have not reached that stage yet, have we?
Q345 Joan Walley: But when will you?
Mr Pendlebury: The basic premise of your question only works if you do not adjust the target in order to take into account aviation. What you said was, would other sectors need to contract further in order to accommodate aviation. The answer to that would only be yes if you stuck to your existing target but added in another huge chunk of emissions from aviation which was not previously there.
Q346 Joan Walley: But that then begs the question about the extent of expansion within the aviation industry that would be acceptable provided that the government was not requiring other industry sectors to have to contract in order to take account of that because you have only got so much at any one time.
Mr Darling: I suppose you can go a long way down the road of "What if this?" and "What if that?" and so on. We have not got to that stage yet.
Q347 Joan Walley: No, but you are not doing any modelling?
Mr Darling: Are we doing any modelling on that?
Mr Pendlebury: We are.
Q348 Chairman: Sorry - that was not clear.
Mr Pendlebury: The question that you are asking is, what would be the cap that was set on aviation emissions?
Q349 Joan Walley: I have not even reached that stage yet. I am asking what modelling there would be.
Mr Pendlebury: There is no specific modelling going on as we speak on that particular issue but it is something that clearly has to be done if aviation is going to be brought into emissions trading schemes.
Q350 Joan Walley: If there is not any modelling then why not and, if you are saying that it is something that has to be done, how are you going to go about doing it?
Mr Pendlebury: This document again in effect models what we think will be the aviation greenhouse gas emissions out to 2050 and it presents three different scenarios, so in that sense there is some modelling. Because this is the work that was done in the run-up to the White Paper, so it is in a sense an historic document, it was based on the assumption that there would be three new runways in the south east; that was the central scenario used. We have not got that, so that adjusts things slightly. The work that we have done here also does not take into account the possible impact of any economic instruments, so in that sense it is a slightly conservative figure, but there is in here a set of assumptions about what we think will happen under different scenarios. What we would need to do further is to say, "Okay; what do we think might be the results of bringing aviation into the European Emissions Trading Scheme, and possibly other measures as well, to see what kind of effect that has?".
Q351 Joan Walley: That was exactly the point of my question.
Mr Pendlebury: That is what we will need to do further.
Q352 Joan Walley: Yes, but it is a question of what we would need to do and what we are going to do. What we really need to know is how you are going to go about doing that and are you going to be doing it by a working party of the kind that you have just mentioned you were chairing a couple of weeks or so ago in Geneva, or wherever it was? How are you going to be getting this modelling off the ground? Otherwise, I do not see how you can even be at the starting point to look at some kind of European Union negotiated position or strategy to try and get agreement round.
Mr Pendlebury: The first thing that we need to do and that we are in the process of setting up is getting together with the European Commission and some like-minded Member States to address precisely those issues.
Q353 Joan Walley: Which like-minded Member States?
Mr Pendlebury: Remember that we only launched this in the middle of December, so we are still at an early stage of trying to prepare our submissions.
Mr Darling: There is a distinction, I think, between what we are trying to do in Europe, where I think we are further ahead, for all the reasons that I have stated, where we are in the process of discussing these things with other Member States, and if you look at the wide problem that was left after Kyoto where the international emissions were not included because they were not being allocated. It is quite difficult to be doing modelling on various scenarios which may or may not come to pass and, given the time it took to get Kyoto agreed and what subsequently happened, as we well know, in relation to Kyoto and here, the country that we keep referring to is guilty of having withdrawn, so it is not going to pursue it, at least for the time being. It is very difficult then to be modelling all sorts of other scenarios into them, "What if this?" and "What if that?". What I said to you before this exchange was that I think it would be quite wrong to get ourselves into a position where we became very focused on what we would do if we got all the aviation but we stopped doing what we are already signed up to do with the reductions in Kyoto and in the White Paper itself.
Q354 Chairman: But you do accept that the two are intimately related? You cannot include aviation without it having an impact on domestic targets.
Mr Darling: Yes.
Q355 Chairman: I think Mr Pendlebury actually said, "If you include aviation you have to look at the domestic target". I would just like to ask Mr Pendlebury, when you say you have to look at the domestic target, presumably that is with a view to watering it down?
Mr Pendlebury: Not necessarily.
Q356 Chairman: It cannot possibly be with a view to increasing it, can it? It is not logical.
Mr Darling: The answer to that question is, once you knew what the allocation was and once you had worked out the implications were, ministers, the government - the Commons - would have to take a position on that, but we are not at that stage yet. You can speculate until you are blue in the face on these things. All I am saying to you is that I think it is premature to be doing so. I would rather concentrate on getting on with what we are supposed to be doing and then try and do our level best to seek international agreements, whether in Europe or elsewhere, to get the agreements that I referred to.
Q357 Mr Chaytor: Secretary of State, when you announced the go-ahead for the additional runway at Heathrow you said that this would only be possible if stringent environmental limits were to be met. What are those stringent environmental limits?
Mr Darling: They are the ones that I set out in my statement and in the White Paper. We have got to ensure that in particular the nitrogen dioxide levels are reduced. You were not in earlier when I referred to Heathrow, that whether or not you were going to build a third runway there the nitrogen dioxide levels are too high and they ought to be reduced for the general good of people living there.
Q358 Mr Chaytor: Is the EU not -----
Mr Darling: It is the mandatory duty. For the general good of people living in the Heathrow area we want to reduce emissions anyway, regardless of that.
Q359 Mr Chaytor: By how much, because there is a new statutory limit of 2010 to 2015?
Mr Darling: It is 2010. We want to make sure that it is compliant with the EU mandatory duty. We have to make sure it is compliant. The answer to what we are doing is that we as government, and the airport operators, the local authorities and various others who are involved, have already started the process of bottoming out what the source of these emissions is because they are not all caused by aircraft. You can imagine at Heathrow that they come from various sources. Aircraft, yes, but they come from the ground equipment, they come undoubtedly from the large volume of traffic, and not just coming into Heathrow. The fact is that the M4 and the M25 are immediately adjacent to it and there is other generation plant and so on. The idea is that in the next year or so we will bottom out what is causing the problem and then we will move towards dealing with it. BAA, the airport operator, already has a programme for a reduction in getting more fuel-efficient cars and the handling of aircraft in terms of how long they are allowed to run their engines and so on when manoeuvring on the airfield; these are all matters that are being dealt with. In addition to that, the government as you know is also looking generally at issues such as road pricing in relation to traffic. We are also discussing the rail provision so that we can try and improve the railway links in and out of Heathrow, so there is a variety of measures that have been put in place, all with a view to making sure that there is compliance with the mandatory limits and also with a view generally to reducing pollution, which is a good thing anyway.
Q360 Mr Chaytor: Can you give us a timescale for when this set of limits, because we are not just talking about NOx, we are talking about CO2 and we are talking about noise as well?
Mr Darling: On NOx we have to comply by 2010. What I have said in the White Paper is that we thought that it would be likely that Heathrow could meet these targets by the mid part of the next decade.
Q361 Mr Chaytor: Can I just stop you? "These targets" - at the moment we only have the EU targets. The domestic targets you have talked about just a moment ago have not even been agreed yet.
Mr Darling: No. Remember that the EU mandatory targets would have to be met for the airfield as it is now. If you were to build a third runway then that obviously lifts the barrier that you have to get over and before you could build a third runway at Heathrow you would have to make sure that the effect of all that was compliant. All the time within the greater Heathrow area we have got traffic problems, we have got other airfields and sources, so our best estimate is that in order to be compliant with the mandatory limits - also, as you rightly say, there are other objectives that we would like to do which are not mandatory - we do not think it would be possible to see another runway at Heathrow, as we say in the White Paper, until the middle part of the next decade. There is a lot of work to be done across a huge area there.
Q362 Mr Chaytor: When will we see the publication of the non-mandatory emissions?
Mr Darling: I cannot tell you yet.
Q363 Mr Chaytor: But can you absolutely assure us that those will all be published before any detailed work on design and construction is under way, because you can see the concern?
Mr Darling: Apart from anything else I suspect you would need all that information to go through a planning inquiry, and indeed, when the Terminal 5 inquiry was held and the inspector published his results, there were limits that were imposed on BAA, the airport operator, that they have to comply with as a condition of operating Terminal 5. I understand the point of view where they say, "Look: if you are going to put in a planning application" - and I know that is quite a bit off yet - "we want to know all the information there is: what your limits are, what the measurements are". They say that one of the problems we have got at the moment is that if you go round the Heathrow airfield the measurements differ from place to place, as you might expect, and the sources of the concern differ as well, depending on where you have to be, and so there is work to be done yet. As for making it public, yes, in any event this information is eminently gettable from the government, if not from parliamentary questions next year under the Freedom of Information Act.
Q364 Mr Chaytor: One of the issues surrounding Heathrow is not just the emissions from aircraft but also from road transport and in the air quality paper that your department have produced you propose the idea of a congestion charge on traffic to try and get these emissions down. Is there not a paradox here that you are sanctioning congestion charging and demand management for road transport and in a way you are rejecting demand management for air transport?
Mr Darling: This is going into the area that earlier I assured the Chairman I was not going to go into. Obviously, at this late hour I had better just deal with it. There are two separate issues here. The purpose of congestion charging, were you to do that, is to encourage people to use other forms of public transport, and that is the purpose of the London congestion charge, and if you did it for Heathrow you would be trying to do that, encourage people to use the train to get in and out of Heathrow and so on. It is not to stop people from travelling. It is not saying, "We do not want you to travel. We do not want you to go near Heathrow. We do not want you to come and do business in central London", or whatever it is, so there is a philosophical difference between the two. What the government is also looking at, and you may recall that I announced this last July, is whether or not in the longer term we could have a road pricing scheme which is a country-wide scheme, or at least in a wider area, whereby you are charged on the distance you travel and the time of day that you travel. That might, for example, have implications for motorway traffic, not just traffic coming in and out of Heathrow, but neither of these things is geared to stopping people from doing things. I am having to go over the ground that we covered before you got here, but -----
Q365 Mr Chaytor: I would not want to repeat that. Could I just put in one point about the philosophy of it? Would you not accept that the purpose of any form of congestion charging is also to concentrate the individual's mind as to whether the journey is really necessary? Does this not equally apply to air travel?
Mr Darling: I think the answer to your question is, it can. If, for example, you were travelling to work and you were going across into a congestion zone, you are not saying to that person, "Is your journey really necessary?", unless you take the view that they do not need to go to work, which, as you know, is not the government's policy. What you are saying is that perhaps you ought to be encouraging someone to take the bus or the train and that is what London's congestion charging is all about. When the argument is applied to aviation, and we touched on this in the last hour or so, it is almost a nonsense thing. What we were saying was, "We want you to travel by another mode of travel". What we were not saying was, "We do not want you to travel at all", and that is where I think the disagreement is between us. There is a further point, again which we have covered at some length, and that is, should aviation meet the cost of the environmental damage it causes? Yes, it should. At the risk of repeating myself though, this is something that to a large extent is governed by international treaty. It does not lie in the hands of one individual country to do something about it.
Q366 Mr Chaytor: If the third runway goes ahead and the EU limits are met and the mandatory limits are published, at the end of the day how many people within the Heathrow area will still be suffering from the effects of NOx and pollution? What is the price worth paying in terms of numbers of people?
Mr Darling: We give general indications of people affected in the White Paper and the supporting documents. The answer to that question depends on what you have managed to do to reduce the risk of someone being affected by the levels of nitrogen dioxide that would be unacceptable. If you walk down the street in central London there are all sorts of substances that you will come across. It really depends on what you do, where exactly you site either the runway or the associated terminal buildings that go with that, so a lot would depend on what your solution was, but in terms of the general number of people affected the work we have done is set out in the White Paper with our best estimate of things as we see them at the moment.
Chairman: Thank you very much, Mr Mann, Mr Pendlebury, Secretary of State.