Civil Aviation Bill

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. I have omitted to say that one can have an imbalanced regime of charges that can deliberately skew the economic benefits or appeal of Stansted compared with Heathrow and Gatwick. There is deep concern in the aviation world that within the Bill are provisions from which will emerge decisions and a regime that will create an artificial case for the expansion of Stansted. The imbalance and inequity that it is thought will emerge from this has caused deep concern. It has the prospect of being utterly perverse. The Minister needs to tell the House that there will be some form of uniformity in the manner in which contracts that allow penalties, fines and charges for noise and emissions will be applied. If they applied only to two airports and not as much to another, funny things would happen. That means that the Bill would not succeed in being a universal, cogent and coherent environmental measure. We need some serious answers from the Minister. We are asking that airports monitor emissions and noise levels annually and publish the annual figures and statement of intent as a price for confirming in law considerable powers. That hardly seems unreasonable. It is not burdensome to require them to publish those details, because if they do not know them in the first place the Bill means nothing whatever. As the Minister herself pointed out in Standing Committee B on 5 July,"““details of an aerodrome’s charging policy will be available as part of the condition for use of the aerodrome. In the case of BAA, which runs the designated airports, the conditions for use are made publicly available on the internet. Similarly, Manchester is an example of a non-designated airport that does so.””" She continued:"““As regards noise, the largest airports are covered by the Aerodromes (Noise Restrictions) (Rules and Procedures) Regulations 2003 which implement the European directive on noise-related restrictions . . . It includes a description of the effect of a noise climate without further measures and, for those measures already planned to lessen noise impact over the same period, forecasts noise contours, including an assessment of the number of people likely to be affected by airport noise.””—[Official Report, Standing Committee B, 5 July 2005; c. 36.]" The agencies are collecting figures but, again, I have serious concerns about the methodology used for the measurement of noise. We simply ask the airports to prove that the charges produce the results specified. If they treat them as a means of milking the airlines, the airlines should have recourse to the Secretary of State. None of that should be burdensome, and it would simply provide minimal information on something that is of huge public concern. Much of the information is already being provided, and the amendment would simply put its provision on a statutory footing. It is not ““Mission: Impossible””—it is not even mission tricky. As I said earlier, amendment No. 10 essentially defines the Secretary of State’s concomitant duties in setting targets for the emission and noise to define a logical regime within which the Bill’s powers could be exercised. The amendments are a constructive contribution to the Bill, and they give it far more cogence as well as more coherence and a better shape. They will make the legislation far more palatable and practicable for those affected by it, whether they are airlines or people who live under flight paths. We hope that the Minister will see reason and appreciate our good intentions in tabling the amendments. I very much hope, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that we can press at least amendment No. 1 to a vote.