Civil Aviation Bill

: I had not intended to speak on the Bill once I saw that the amendments dealing with support for stranded air travellers had not been pursued, but the representations that I have heard from Opposition Members and one or two contributions from Labour Members bear no relationship whatever to the debates and discussions that we had in Committee. From the comments that have been made today, I simply do not recognise the Bill that we went through line by line in Committee. I should like to deal with some of those points, but first I want to take up a point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell), whom I certainly would not accuse of being a luddite. He is right to say that there must be a balance between the economy and the environment, but he is in error about the facts when he says that we need Government intervention and not for the aviation industry to get its own way. There are two points to make on that. First, the aviation industry and the Government were one and the same creature—they were indivisible—until about 16 years ago, when BA, BAA and some airports were privatised. Secondly, my hon. Friend makes the point that there has been a policy of predict and provide. I do not mean this in a pejorative way at all, but the only hon. Members that I have previously heard claim that the Government have a predict-and-provide policy have been from the Liberal Democrat party. Quite clearly, there has not been a predict-and-provide policy in aviation. Had there been such a policy, there would be much more capacity in both the south-east and the rest of the country. Part of the aviation industry has been restrained in its growth, and the Government have made it clear in the White Paper that such things are down to commercial decisions, not to any predict-and-provide approach by them.