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Lord Mawhinney: My Lords, again I am grateful to the Minister and I apologise if I am testing his patience. I am one of those who share his view that expansion needs to take place, but perhaps I may take him back to my question: given the experience at Heathrow, what makes him think that local control actually works?

Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, of course there are bound to be pressures with the expansion of airports. It is bound to create circumstances where additional flights occur, and it cannot be the case that in the locality this is greatly welcomed. But it is expected that airports act responsibly; that they work within the environment of their local consultative committees on which local people are represented; and that proceeds from charges can and do go to improve facilities in their locality.

I want to emphasise the obvious point. Of course there will always be challenges to any form of airport expansion. A balance must be struck. I want to assure the House that we have in place existing powers to guarantee that airports face up to their responsibilities. If they should renege on these responsibilities, this Administration have been in power for almost a decade, and the noble Lord will recognise, as he mentioned in his question, that we and Ministers from the previous Administration have faced up to these issues of airport expansion. A balance must be struck between the problems for the local environment and the need to provide greater scope for air travel. I am merely indicating that neither the previous Administration nor this one have felt the need to use the powers that we have under Section 78 because we find airports all too well aware of the fact that they will not see through their expansion plans unless they take an element of the locality with them.

Lord Clinton-Davis: My Lords, would my noble friend say something about the international response to noise? How are the Government going about this situation? It is no good taking action against Heathrow or any other BAA airports unless some sort of international initiative is forthcoming. That is very important.

Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, of course my noble friend is absolutely right. This Government's responsibility is to localities in which the airports are located. I must emphasise that we are dealing with Commons amendments at a fairly late stage of this Bill, and it is not for me to reopen or participate in a debate on airports policy at the present time. But to make the most obvious point, United Kingdom airports are not just in competition with each other; for Heathrow and the other London airports, the great challenges come from European airports. If we do not make adequate provision for flights from this country, the number of flights will not be reduced because
 
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aircraft will merely take off from Schiphol and other airports on the Continent without any enormous gain to our people.

Baroness Tonge: My Lords, the Minister would not expect to get away with his comments on airports reneging on their responsibilities without me making some comment. The airports have always reneged on their responsibilities in my experience, whether it be noise, nuisance created to the local community, or the number of flights, aircraft emissions, or the frozen effluent that used to drop and still does drop on my constituents in the Richmond Park area—when I was their Member of Parliament. They have never taken these issues seriously and have not kept promises given to the local residents that there would be no more expansion at Heathrow. It is about time that, instead of uttering the same old stuff about reneging on responsibilities and consulting with the local community, the Government actually took residents seriously and said that we cannot go on with this demand for increased air travel without considering local people and the environment.

Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, the noble Baroness will recognise that that is the Second Reading speech. If she were in the other place it would be defined as such, and at this stage in a Bill it would be ruled out of order. Today we are discussing a very late stage of the Bill; we are not at the Second Reading stage with regard to airports policy. Therefore, I ask the noble Baroness to allow me to concentrate on the specific issues before us today under the Commons amendments.

Charges are not the only lever—or even in the case of aircraft noise, the most significant one—that we will expect aircraft operators to use to address the impact of their operations on local people. The provisions of Clauses 3 and 4 of this Bill can do far more to drive improvements in the noise climate around airports. They will enable the operators of designated airports to charge penalties for breaches of the noise control measures the Secretary of State specifies. That is the impact of Clause 3. Clause 4 will empower the operators of non-designated airports to set up noise control schemes and to charge penalties for breaches. Of course, the revenue raised from those penalties will then be put to the benefit to the wider community.

I would argue that it simply would not be appropriate to impose a legal duty on all licensed aerodromes to impose noise-related charges. Such a move would be entirely disproportionate when many of these aerodromes are small in size and cause little or no significant disturbance. Indeed this would run contrary to the International Civil Aviation Organisation's guidance that noise-related charges should be levied only at airports experiencing noise problems. I would also remind the House of the Government's policy to do all they can to avoid unnecessary regulation.

The essential aim of Clause 1 is to provide clear statutory powers for airports to fix their charges by reference to aircraft emissions as well as noise. In fact
 
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the British Airports Authority already has an emissions-related charge at Heathrow and Gatwick—using its conditions of use—but the Government believe that it is important that there are clear powers for all licensed aerodromes to do so, should their local circumstances make it necessary.

As in the case of noise, there is not a case for imposing an obligation on all licensed aerodromes to impose an emissions-related charge. Given that the vast majority of aerodromes are not at risk of breaching air quality limits, it would be totally unjustified to impose such a widespread burden.

Lord Clinton-Davis: My Lords, as my noble friend knows, I held particular responsibility for aviation between 1974-79. During the whole of that time and subsequently, the Government and the Opposition did not raise a cheep about this. Does the Minister agree? The first time that this situation has emerged is with the present Opposition.

Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, my noble friend has greater powers of recollection than I and was more directly involved in these issues. The House will recognise that he is an authority on these matters and I am sure that what he says is broadly true. However, we made a promise in The Future of Air Transport White Paper to bring forward legislation enabling the Secretary of State to require an emissions-related element to be introduced, which is exactly what this Bill does.

Amendments Nos. 2 and 4 would, as I am sure noble Lords will recall, affect the way in which noise and emission charges should be set. The Government of course agree that it is entirely reasonable to expect airport operators to set appropriate noise charges. Again, not to do so would be at odds with ICAO guidance that noise related charges should be non-discriminatory between users and should not be established at such levels as to be prohibitively high for the operation of certain aircraft.

The Government are unconvinced that this is something that needs to be placed in the Bill. I can only repeat that airports have been making use of the power to set noise-related charges for nearly 25 years and there has been no suggestion that they have not done so in an appropriate or proportionate way. I recognise that there will be some disappointment among some noble Lords at the Government's position. I appreciate the particular interest that the noble Baroness, Lady Tonge, takes in these measures, given her former relationship to a constituency so close to London Heathrow.

Let me make it absolutely clear that should there ever appear to be a problem with the charging scheme, the Secretary of State has the power to direct an airport operator as to the manner in which the charges are to be fixed. It is not a question of powers and legislation but of choice with regard to policy. We will continually debate policy with regard to airports; they are destined always to be a controversial issue. However, we are
 
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discussing today an amendment to legislation, and I do not believe that noble Lords should sustain their position on their amendments. I beg to move.

Moved, That the House do not insist on its Amendments Nos. 1, 2 and 4 to which the Commons have disagreed for their reasons 1A, 2A and 4A.—(Lord Davies of Oldham.)

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