| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
Mr. Murphy: I realise that the hon. Gentleman intends to withdraw the amendment, but he may be interested in my response to his two questions. First, he referred to the use of the word "may" in the clause. That matter will be considered as a consequence of our re-examination of clause 45. As he knows, the issues to which he referred are transferred matters and do not include the law and order budget. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for agreeing to withdraw the amendment.
Mr. Moss: I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 46 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clauses 47 to 49 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 50
Mr. Moss:
I beg to move amendment No. 28, page 24, line 38, at end insert 'or'.
The Chairman of Ways and Means (Sir Alan Haselhurst):
With this, it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments: No. 29, in page 24, line 39, leave out from 'Crown' to end of line 40 and insert--
No. 30, in page 24, line 43, leave out from 'appropriated' to end of line 1 on page 25.
Mr. Moss:
Clause 50 deals with the Assembly's financial powers. Tax-raising powers in general are defined as excepted matters and are to be found in paragraph 9 of schedule 2 to the Bill. They include taxes levied across the entire United Kingdom and any existing taxes in Northern Ireland. The list includes inheritance tax, stamp duty, general betting duty, pool betting duty, duty on gaming machine licences and duty on vehicle licences. From a reading of clause 50(1), which states:
Those tax-raising powers seem to be new powers given to the Assembly, but the Minister may correct me. I found identical provisions in the Northern Ireland Constitution Act 1973, in terms of the definition of taxes under excepted matters. Where do tax-raising powers appear in the Belfast agreement? I could not find them. No doubt, this is one of the necessary additions to that agreement about which we spoke earlier.
Our amendments would remove the powers of the Assembly to raise taxes. Even if the power remains on the statute, it is vital that the taxes referred to in the Bill are clearly and unequivocally defined.
Mr. Öpik:
The issue arose in regard to Wales. One of our biggest objections to the plans for the Welsh Assembly was it would not have tax-varying powers. I should be delighted if the Northern Ireland Assembly were given tax-varying powers, not least because, if there were cross-community support for varying a tax, that would imply that there was good reason to do so, but most of all because the most powerful indication of an
I look forward to the Minister's comments. I cannot support the Conservative amendment on this occasion.
Mr. Paul Murphy:
I have much sympathy with the point raised by the hon. Member for North-East Cambridgeshire (Mr. Moss) about the misleading nature of the clause. I understand that, for various technical and legal reasons, it would be difficult to amend the clause. However, it must be read in conjunction with schedule 2, which makes it clear that the clause does not refer to general tax-raising powers, about which the hon. Gentleman was troubled.
The hon. Member for Montgomeryshire (Mr. Öpik) spoke about tax-varying powers. Those were not part of the agreement and were not finalised. I have subsequently consulted parties in Northern Ireland, who are generally of the view that there should not be such powers.
The clause refers to the regional rate in Northern Ireland, which was set up by the Northern Ireland Constitution Act 1973 and which is used to discharge many functions in Northern Ireland that are normally discharged by local authorities in England and Wales. The Assembly will retain the right to raise the regional rate, but there are no plans in the Bill for a general tax-levying, tax-raising or tax-varying power. Consequently, I ask the hon. Member for North-East Cambridgeshire to withdraw the amendment.
Mr. Moss:
Perhaps the Minister and his civil service draftsmen will look again at the wording of the Bill. It might be helpful to define the tax as the general rate. That would overcome the problem quite easily. On that basis, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 50 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clauses 51 to 53 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
To report progress and ask leave to sit again.--[Mr. Dowd.]
Committee report progress; to sit again on Monday next.
Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 25 (Periodic adjournments),
Ordered,
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.--[Mr. Dowd.]
Mr. Michael Trend (Windsor):
The House will know from earlier debates my concern that Heathrow, while being a great asset to the country as a whole and to the south-east in particular, should be a good and responsible neighbour to those communities that surround it. Both west London and east Berkshire suffer greatly from the airport's environmental pollution, especially in terms of noise. The Government are consulting on the matter, and that exercise will take a significant move forward while the House is in recess.
I am very grateful to be able to raise my concerns before the House rises, and before one proposal in particular develops momentum and we are told that we had left it too late to object. The particular proposal is that there might be a change in runway preferential use at night. I shall return to that later.
My speech may seem complex, but it is necessarily so. It is not an emotional public relations exercise, but an attempt to convince the Minister and the House that we in Windsor face increased hazards to our health and well-being. First, however, I need to make a series of general but connected points.
The Minister for Transport in London will know that I have long advocated a total ban on night flights at Heathrow, and that remains my position. My constituents--indeed, all those who live around the airport--are entitled to a good night's sleep untroubled by the planes thundering in overhead. Other countries and other airports simply do not allow their people to be subjected to such abuse. It is a matter of priorities, and mine is the people in my constituency. The Government's priority should be the people who live all round the area, and not the carriers and the minuscule number of passengers who land at night.
This afternoon, I want to address what can and should be done in the period, which I hope will be brief, before the Government become persuaded of a total ban on night flights. First, the Government need to be absolutely clear that the main problem nowadays with Heathrow, for the great majority of those troubled by aircraft noise, comes from landings, not from take-offs. This in some measure reflects past successes in curbing take-off noise, and that should be recognised. However, I still find people, even those who are closely associated with the airport, who do not realise that the debate has moved on. Nowadays, landings are the big problem, especially for Windsor and the surrounding area.
Secondly, there is much misunderstanding about the effects of the process of runway alternation at Heathrow. That is also important from Windsor's point of view. I know that the Minister understands how these things work very well, but, for the benefit of those who may not, I should explain that, at any given moment, planes take off and land in the same direction. The direction of plane movement is determined by the direction of the wind. Planes both take off and land into the wind.
Heathrow has two main runways, so when planes are taking off to the west on, say, the southern runway, they land to the west on the northern runway. At regular
intervals, while the movement of planes remains to the west, landings switch from one runway to the other, so that planes take off on the northern runway and land on the southern. This affords the residents of west London relief from the noise of landing aircraft. I am pleased for them that they get this relief.
However, the same is not true when the movement of flights is towards the east. That is because of the so-called "Cranford agreement," which means that planes cannot take off on the northern runway towards the east--over Cranford.
When I last brought this matter to the attention of the House, I was able to demonstrate that there is in fact no such agreement. The Minister at the time was Steven Norris, and he had notice that I was going to raise the matter. His officials no doubt searched the former Department of Transport from the attic to the basement, and no agreement was found. The Minister told the House that there was no such agreement.
Before the debate, I alerted the hon. Member for Feltham and Heston (Mr. Keen)--who represents Cranford--that I would mention the matter again today. Now is not the time to go into it in great detail, but I hope to return to the arrangement--which I take to be a political fix from the past--at some later time.
The so-called Cranford agreement means that, as planes cannot take off on the northern runway towards the east, they have to use the southern runway all the time. That in turn means that all planes landing from the west have to land on the northern runway, the approach to which lines up precisely over Windsor. When aircraft movement is to the east, the planes come in low and noisy over Windsor, Datchett, Horton and other communities in my constituency and others.
Once we have understood that, we can dispel the misunderstanding that east Berkshire somehow has it easy because fewer planes land from the west than land from over London. Roughly 30 per cent. of daytime arrivals come in over Windsor, with 70 per cent. landing over west London. However, because there is no runway alternation, when the planes are landing to the east, the whole 30 per cent. of the landings take place over Windsor. When the wind changes direction and the plans land from over London, no one area is affected for the full 70 per cent. of the time.
Due to alternation, two communities in west London are affected roughly 35 per cent. of the time each. The difference between landing from the east and west is not really 70:30 per cent. If one thinks of the three communities involved--two on one side of the airport and on one the other--the difference is really 35:35:30 per cent. Far from being the lucky partner, Windsor's position is closely comparable to that of the two areas in west London also affected by landing noise.
I come to my third point. I have told the House before that Windsor has done badly from the modern electronic landing system at Heathrow, which now brings in planes with monotonous precision right over our heads--although I recognise that there is a safety gain. I also recognise that, in general, marginal improvements are made year on year in reducing aircraft noise. Those of us who follow these matters closely are grateful for that--even for minor incremental improvements. However, such benefits as may have come to Windsor in the past 10 years have been more than offset by the modern inflexible landing system which I have described.
The fourth point is that we in east Berkshire know without looking out of the window or at a weather vane when we are in for it--by that, I mean when the plans will come crashing in over our heads. In summer and winter, the same weather system that, happily, drives us out of doors infuriatingly drives the planes right over our heads. The west winds bring clouds and rain, but when the wind is in the east, the weather is usually fine and clear. On hot summer evenings--when people like to sit in their gardens or sleep with their windows wide open--and on those marvellous, clear, crisp winter days when people wish to get out of their houses and enjoy a respite from the winter gloom, we in east Berkshire get the full landing treatment, thanks to Heathrow.
I hope that I have shown that the problems created by aircraft landing over east Berkshire are severe, and deserve to be better understood and recognised. That brings me to the pressing matter of runway preferential use at night. As part of their consultation exercise, the Government put forward the idea that current runway preferential use could be reconsidered. British Airways recently put out a press release, stating that there
I hope that the Government will not be influenced by BA, or by others, to consider a change in preferences. Windsor is not the lucky partner in daytime landing--it experiences roughly the same misery from landing noise as any other community. That has become worse due to the modern technology used for landings, and it is always bad when the weather is at its best.
Windsor's position would become substantially worse if night preferences were changed. The percentages of flights landing from the east and west at night differ from the daytime figures, largely because of a natural difference in ambient wind levels. Recent figures from the Department show that, between 4 am and 6 am, there is a five-knot westerly preference, which means that the split is roughly 85 per cent. of flights landing over London and 15 per cent. over Windsor. Thankfully, that is better than the daytime figures.
The Government, however, are considering options on having no preference or a five-knot easterly preference for those hours. If the no-preference option came in, my constituents would be subjected to an increase from 15 to 40 per cent. of all night flights. With a five-knot easterly preference, the current 15 per cent. would increase to 80 per cent. or more.
'(2A) Notwithstanding any other provision of this Act and any Order in Council made under the provisions of this Act, the Assembly shall neither impose nor vary taxes.'.
"in pursuance of a recommendation which . . . is made by the Minister of Finance and Personnel; and . . . is signified to the Assembly by him or on his behalf",
it would seem that the Assembly could pass a vote
"which imposes or increases a tax".
That is in subsection (2)(d). In addition, under subsection (3), powers are given to the Assembly to impose or increase a tax, as long as there is cross-community support. It is not clear from the Bill, however, which tax or taxes that applies to--presumably, any taxes outside the list that I enumerated.
That this House, at its rising on Friday 31st July, do adjourn till Monday 19th October.--[Mr. Dowd.]
Question agreed to.
That, at the sitting on Friday 31st July, the Speaker shall not adjourn the House until she shall have notified the Royal Assent to Acts agreed upon by both Houses.--[Mr. Dowd.]
24 Jul 1998 : Column 1407
1.29 pm
"should be a review of runway preferential use at night"
and that that
"should test the benefits and feasibility of a switch to 'easterly preference'."
I find such a proposal completely unacceptable.
| Next Section
| Index | Home Page |