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Justine Greening: I will withdraw amendment No. 14, but I am not satisfied with the Minister's response. I understand that my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury will return to the subject on Report. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Mr. Brazier: On a point of order, Sir Nicholas. Forgive my ignorance of procedure—I should know this after all the years that I have been in the House—but at what stage do we take the vote on new clause 6, which was deferred earlier? Is it taken at the end of the sitting?
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The Chairman: The hon. Gentleman has given the answer to his question. It will be at the end.
Dr. Pugh: I beg to move amendment No. 30, in clause 2, page 3, line 30, leave out '10%' and insert '20%'.
This is a simple and straightforward amendment, with which we need not detain ourselves for too long. It puts up the rate of fines from 10 per cent. to 20 per cent. It is a probing amendment, the thrust of which is to understand where the figure of 10 per cent. comes from. We do not want to end up with a situation where the penalties and costs of both pollution and generating noise are simply read into passengers' bills and the costs are passed on down the line and become part of trading practice. They must be effective, and we are not entirely convinced that a 10 per cent. level is completely effective.
Statistics for Birmingham international airport, which currently has a system, show that it collected £9,448 in fines in 2003–04, accounting for 15 infringements of the code then in place. That works out at £630 per offence, which is a sizeable chunk. About 22,000 people in the vicinity of Birmingham international airport are affected by each of those infringements. Their recompense—if I can put it like that; their trouble—is 3p per person. It makes minimal difference in terms of the penalty that they see delivered, and it probably makes a limited difference to the operational costs of the airlines. The suggestion that the fines be increased from 10 per cent. to 20 per cent. is throwing the gauntlet down to the Minister, and is questioning whether that 10 per cent. is sufficient, and if it is thought to be sufficient, how its sufficiency was established.
4.30 pm
Mr. Syms: The hon. Gentleman made a brief point about the levels of fines. He gave us information specific to one airport, and I should like to hear from the Minister whether the CAA collects from all airports the information on fines allocated first to airlines and secondly to particular aircraft. Is there a league table? Is there an aircraft that has been fined the most? Beyond the daily fining of aircraft, do we try to use that information? The relevant point is not whether the fine is £500 or £600. To be honest I am not too worried about the levels of fines; I am worried about what we do with the information. Do we have nasty aircraft and quiet aircraft lists? Do we know which carriers specifically are better and which are worst, so we can differentiate the regime? If we do not have that information, is it not something that we ought to hold?
I should be interested to know what we do with the information about noisy aircraft, because if one or two make the most noise and one or two carriers are the worst noise polluters, we should hit those who cause the most nuisance, rather than those who cause the least nuisance but occasionally make the odd infringement. When we discuss the penalty system in more detail, it would be better to set it to hit airlines that transgress the most, rather than those that by and large undertake to respond reasonably to their environmental records.
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Mr. Brazier: This is a good probing amendment, as it simply tries to get to the bottom of the scale of the fines. I thoroughly agree with the remarks made by my hon. Friend the Member for Poole (Mr. Syms). It would be interesting to know what is done with the information. I stand to be corrected, but as I understand it a level five fine is only £5,000. When reference is made to the manager, it is actually the airport that will end up paying it, and for a particular offence the effect of the amendment would be to raise the maximum fine from £500 to £1,000. It seems rather a modest amount, particularly for the persistent offender.
The hon. Member for Southport (Dr. Pugh) made it clear that this is a probing amendment, and I shall not go into the appropriate amount for a fine. However, what seems to be missing is the discretionary power to levy a substantial fine against the sort of persistent offender whom my hon. Friend mentioned.
The airlines are not cash cows, and I shall develop that point shortly in another debate in which I shall seek to restrain an amendment. However, it would seem reasonable to allow greater discretion in circumstances involving a particular persistent offender.
Ms Buck: It may be helpful if I set out the purpose of the power in section 78(9) of the Civil Aviation Act 1982 to impose fines on the operator of a designated aerodrome. The fines are payable by the manager of an aerodrome designated under section 78 if he fails to perform the duties set out under section 78(8) when the Secretary of State requires him to do so. Those duties are to provide, maintain and operate noise measuring equipment in the vicinity of the aerodrome, as specified by the Secretary of State, and to report the noise measured by the equipment to the Secretary of State and to permit the inspection of equipment. There is no fine for noisy aircraft. There may be some misinterpretation of this element of the Bill.
The powers in section 78(8) have never been required, as BAA has voluntarily provided noise monitoring equipment and reports at the designated airports of Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted. As a result, fines have never had to be levied. The Government's reasoning in providing for a daily fine of up to £500 in the new provisions is that a daily fine equal to that imposed for the first offence appears disproportionately high. I believe that we may be dealing with different issues and on that basis I ask the hon. Member for Southport (Dr. Pugh) to seek leave to withdraw the amendment.
Dr. Pugh: We have had an interesting debate. Of course, it was tangential to the clause, but we will have words with our researcher. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 2 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
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Clause 3
Power for aerodromes to
establish penalty schemes
Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD): I beg to move amendment No. 19, in page 3, line 34, leave out subsection (1) and insert—
'(1) A competent authority established in accordance with this section (referred to in this section and section 78B below as the ''competent authority'') shall have the power to set maximum departure and arrival noise limits for aircraft and to determine and collect penalties from aircraft operators who exceed these limits.'.
The Chairman: With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments: No. 20, in page 3, line 43, leave out 'relevant manager' and insert 'competent authority'.
No. 21, in page 4, line 2, leave out 'relevant manager' and insert 'competent authority'.
No. 22, in page 4, line 5, leave out 'relevant manager' and insert 'competent authority'.
No. 23, in page 4, line 11, leave out 'relevant manager' and insert 'competent authority'.
No. 24, in page 4, line 14, leave out 'relevant manager' and insert 'competent authority'.
No. 25, in page 4, line 19, leave out 'relevant manager' and insert 'competent authority'.
No. 26, in page 4, line 25, leave out 'relevant manager' and insert 'competent authority'.
No. 27, in page 4, line 30, leave out 'relevant manager' and insert 'competent authority'.
No. 28, in page 4, line 33, leave out 'relevant manager' and insert 'competent authority'.
Tom Brake: I draw hon. Members' attention to proposed new section 78A(1), in clause 3, which states:
''The person for the time being managing an aerodrome . . . may establish and maintain a penalty scheme.''
The amendment would ensure that such a scheme was set up by a ''competent authority''. That term might need definition, but perhaps it is worth explaining first why we feel that a competent authority is needed, rather than necessarily the airport manager. That brings us back to the issue that we discussed earlier in relation to Coventry airport. Is the manager of Coventry competent—I am sure that he or she is—when it comes to setting noise limits for aircraft departing from the airport that are flying for the company that owns the airport?
In discussions with the CAA, it has identified, for instance, that there is a department within the CAA called the environmental research and consultancy department. The ERCD is already responsible for monitoring noise and emissions at three designated airports and it carries out consultancy work at other airports, so it might be the appropriate competent authority. Clearly, it is doing work on noise and emissions and it is doing work at a number of designated airports. Therefore it might be the sort of authority that we need to see in place at airports such as Coventry to ensure that a proper noise scheme is implemented, rather than one that perhaps works to the advantage of a particular airline. All the other amendments in the group relate to that and would
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replace in the appropriate places the phrase ''relevant manager'' with ''competent authority''. Like many others, this is a probing amendment to give the Government an opportunity—
Graham Stringer (Manchester, Blackley) (Lab): The hon. Gentleman makes a perfectly good principled and theoretical point, and I think that I understand it, but has he any evidence relating to current schemes involving noise monitoring by an airport? Has he a list of complaints that that does not work in practice?
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