§ 10.35 p.m.
§ Mr. Hugh Jenkins (Putney)I beg to move,
That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry Order 1970 (S.I., 1970, No. 1537), dated 19th October, 1970, a copy of which was laid before this House on 19th October, be annulled.This Prayer seeks to annul the Order which establishes the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry. I am sorry that the right hon. Gentleman has left. If he had been here I should have wished to assure him that the Prayer is not to get rid of the person occupying the position of Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, although some people might think that this would be an uncovenanted blesing in addition to the advantages which I seek to draw to the attention of the House. That is not the object of the exercise. It would perhaps be an additional benefit if we are successful in persuading the House that the Order should be annulled, but that is not the intention behind the Prayer. I hope to persuade the House that the Order is defective and that the Government should take it back and replace it with a new Order.The Order transfers to the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, among many other matters, responsibility for the control, limitation, and reduction of aircraft noise; whereas the White Paper, as I pointed out on 3rd November at col. 921, makes it clear that this responsibility for the control, limitation and reduction of aircraft noise was intended to be transferred, with all other forms of pollution control, to the Secretary of State for the Environment. Clearly this was the intention set out in the White Paper, Command No. 4506. But the Order which purports to implement the proposals in the White Paper in this respect fails to do that.
Can anyone doubt that the proposal in the White Paper was right? Can anyone doubt that one powerful Minister should be responsible for all matters of environmental pollution without exception?
It was an enlightened White Paper in this respect—I am not making any other qualification—and in my constituency I said that if the Government did this I 1612 would praise them in this House. I hoped to be able to praise them. I was, therefore, taken aback when I found that the Order setting up the new Department failed to carry out what seemed the clear intention in the White Paper.
There is no exception in the White Paper to the statement that the Minister will be responsible for noise pollution among other forms of pollution. It does not say "except aircraft noise". It says "all" other forms of pollution. If I am right in thinking that this was the intention, who can doubt that the Order, which locates the responsibility with the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, is wrong and should be looked at again?
Was it a mistake perhaps? I thought so until, on 29th October, I asked the Prime Minister about it, and in a Written Answer, at column 199, he made it clear that whatever may have been the original intention in the White Paper published earlier that month, by that time second thoughts, and as I shall argue wrong second thoughts, had prevailed. Why? Presumably on the same grounds that had been deployed to deprive the citizen of his right to sue aircraft operators. This is not a party issue. The decision of 1949, which deprived the citizen of the right to sue aircraft operators—a grave loss of a proper right which should rest in the citizen—was a decision of a Labour Government, and it has been maintained since then.
They were the same grounds as those which persuaded my right hon. Friends to allow responsibility for limiting aircraft noise to rest in the hands of the Department which is mainly responsible for creating aircraft noise. This is the job of the Department of Trade and Industry. There is nothing wrong in that. The incidental and sad consequence of expanding our trade must necessarily be to increase the quantity of aircraft noise over the country, and it does not lie in the hands of the Department to limit that for which it is responsible for increasing.
It is said that the limitation of aircraft noise is expensive. This is true. As the Minister put it in answer to a Question that I asked on 9th November suggesting that certain limiting action should be taken:
… it would impose losses on airlines, the airport and the economy."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 9th November, 1970; Vol. 806, c. 18.]1613 The consequence of improving any amenity always entails the possibility of economic loss. That is something that we have to face.The Secretary of State for Trade and Industry has no duty to limit aircraft noise if that conflicts with his primary duty to maximise trade, and the argument against locating this responsibility in this Department is that the minor duty of limiting noise conflicts with the major duty of maximising trade. So long as we have responsibility for limiting aircraft noise located with two men and a boy in an odd department in the Department of Trade and Industry, we shall not have creative conflict, and the real issue here is that the Government have decided not to provide the necessary machine to bring this about.
The Secretary of State for Trade and Industry is the wrong Minister to be responsible for pollution problems of any sort. All other forms of pollution lie correctly with the Minister responsible for that area. The problem of aircraft noise alone has been allowed to remain in the hands of the Department of Trade and Industry.
People say, "Let us talk about the problem, and not about the machinery of Government". We cannot talk very much about the problem tonight but, even if we could talk about it all night, noise will get worse and worse until we establish a situation in which decisions about it are taken, not within the Department, but between Ministers of equal power and authority. This is the key to the whole question. The decision must rest with Ministers of equal power and authority, Ministers with conflicting responsibilities and conflicting duties. We need a creative conflict to solve or even to ameliorate the problem of aircraft noise.
Some people think that if men of goodwill can only get together, all problems can be solved, but we know that this is not true. There are genuine conflicts of interest. These are not even straightforward questions of right and wrong; there are clashes between the necessity to increase the nation's trade and the equal necessity to enable the citizen to enjoy his life in reasonable peace. We must provide administratively for the reality of that clash.
1614 Why should aircraft noise be the only form of pollution outside the protection of the Secretary of State for the Environment? Is the Prime Minister afraid that the right hon. Member for Worcester (Mr. Peter Walker) would overpower the right hon. Member for Knutsford (Mr. John Davies) so much that the economy would suffer, that the Knutsford duck would not hold his own in Cabinet discussion? Surely the right hon. Member for Worcester could be trusted not to take too much advantage of his right hon. Friend's lameness? The Prime Minister could always help with a verbal splint.
But this is not a party matter. It is tempting to think that it might be a question of personalities, but it is not. There are strong arguments—which no doubt the right hon. Gentleman will repeat tonight—that aircraft noise is only an aspect of the operation of aircraft. I hope that he will take the Order back, but I am afraid that he will tell us that the Department with operational responsibility should also be responsible for noise control, that the noise makers are the best judges of noise limitation. This is apparently the argument that has produced the Order in defiance of the White Paper and of the experience of other forms of pollution.
Whenever have the polluters effectively controlled pollution? Countervailing forces in the community have always been needed, and this is my argument. The Department of Trade and Industry is—inevitably and properly—a pollution Ministry, and that Department and that Secretary of State should not have the responsibility of being the judge for the community in their own cause. It is not fair to the Secretary of State or to the community.
§ Dr. Alan Glyn (Windsor)All hon. Members who have the same problem of aircraft noise and the same duty to our constituents will have followed what the hon. Member has said. But the answer must be not what any particular Minister thinks but a corporate decision of the Cabinet as to what level of noise would be tolerable to citizens living in range of airports. I agree that in many constituencies the level is far higher than can be tolerated, but the hon. Member will agree that it must he a Cabinet decision.
§ Mr. JenkinsI agree that it is a Cabinet decision. I am asking that the forces within the Cabinet should be more fairly balanced. At present the matter comes for Cabinet decision having been determined departmentally. I am seeking to establish that there is a Minister responsible in the Cabinet for this matter so that a more balanced argument may be adduced within the Cabinet.
I do not rely on my remarks to persuade the hon. Member for Windsor (Dr. Glyn) of the correctness of my case. He may care to hear some words of his Town Clerk, Mr. Waldram, who is also the honorary secretary of the Local Authorities Aircraft Noise Council. This official of Windsor—
§ Mr. JenkinsThe hon. Gentleman obviously knows his area better than I do. Perhaps he also knows the views on this issue of his Town Clerk.
§ Mr. JenkinsI am sure that those views are the same as the views held by many of my constituents, the main one being that we should do something, between us, about this problem of noise; and I am suggesting a more effective way of dealing with it.
I received this letter from the town clerk on 5th November, and hon Members may have copies also. In fact, it was addressed to the Secretary of State for the Environment—as it should have been, since it deals with pollution. Mr. Waldram is the secretary of this large and influential body, the Local Authorities Aircraft Noise Council, which has representatives not only from Windsor but from most of the London boroughs. It is a body of increasing importance which has studied this matter with the excellent technical assistance of the Chief Health Inspector of Windsor, Mr. Holmes. Mr. Waldram's letter stated:
Since the publication and putting into effect of the Government White Paper Cmnd. 4506 on the Reorganisation of Central Government, I have been asked by my Council to put forward once again their suggestion that the problem of the disturbance and nuisance caused by the noise of low flying 1616 aircraft approaching and leaving airports, the monitoring of the noise created by these aircraft, and research into the effects of such noise, should be transferred to the Department of the Environment and not continue to be the responsibility of the Department of Trade and Industry, formerly the responsibility of the Board of Trade.My Council feel very strongly on this matter and are supported in their contention by Paragraph 31 on Page 10 of the White Paper referred to in which it is stated that 'The Department will concern itself with, amongst other things—noise pollution, a matter which they are prepared to pursue locally, regionally, nationally and in some cases internationally'.That is the Department of the Environment. The letter went on:This, to my Council's way of thinking, is precisely the way the problem of aircraft noise should be dealt with, and they feel that your Department is the appropriate Department to undertake this task.My Council quite appreciate that there are technical problems involved in the control of aircraft in flight which are within the scope of the former Board of Trade, now the Department of Trade and Industry, but they feel that it is unfair to ask the same Department on the one hand to have full responsibility for the development of the aircraft and air travel industry, and on the other hand to have responsibility for the control of aircraft noise, so that one section of the Department could be in conflict with another.I could not have put it better myself. The letter said:So far as technical knowledge is concerned, it seems to my Council well within the bounds of possibility that technical problems could be sorted out by co-operation between the Department of the Environment and the Department for Trade and Industry.I am therefore asked by my Council to press very strongly indeed for the problems of aircraft noise to be transferred from the Department of Trade and Industry to the Department of the Environment, which in our view is the appropriate Department to deal with the problem.Copies of this letter are being sent to all Members of Parliament whose constituencies include local authorities in membership of my Council.That is a pretty wide area covering the whole catchment area of London Airport (Heathrow).
§ Mr. John Nott (St. Ives)The hon. Gentleman is being much too kind to the Government and is over-simplifying the matter. If he had any responsibility for Concorde's noise, he would know that his letters on the matter would be passed first to the Department of Trade and Industry, then would be sent by the Department to the Ministry of Aviation 1617 Supply, then back to the Department of Trade and Industry, whereupon they pause for some weeks, and then they go back to the Ministry of Aviation Supply. So there is a third Department involved. Would he bear this in mind in pursuing the most excellent cause for which he is noted?
§ Mr. JenkinsI am most grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his reinforcement. I did not pursue that point because I want to leave some time for other hon. Members on both sides of the House. Naturally, as I am of a kindly nature, I did not want to rub it in too much. I will leave that to hon. Members opposite, who I trust will be as much of a thorn in the flesh of their Government on this as I was of my Government. I hope that there will be some hon. Gentlemen who will perform that very necessary rôle, until we achieve the change which is essential.
I urge the Government to take the Order back or even give us an undertaking that they will reconsider the point. If they do that, I will urge my hon. Friends not to divide. If the Government will not give such an undertaking, although I will not divide the House, because I have given an undertaking in order to persuade the Government to give us this opportunity, I am not at all sure that I can answer for hon. Members on either side who believe, as I do, that a wonderful opportunity to redress the balance in favour of the citizen on the ground—in favour of amenity—is in serious danger of being lost tonight.
§ 10.58 p.m.
§ Mr. Charles Curran (Uxbridge)The hon. Member for Putney (Mr. Hugh Jenkins) has raised a question of considerable importance, at any rate to everybody who lives within earshot of a British airport. I want to press the question a stage further than the hon. Gentleman did.
The hon. Gentleman raised the question whether the Department of Trade and Industry is the right Department to be concerned with aircraft noise. He argued that this Department has a vested interest in the promotion of aircraft noise and that to put it in charge of controlling aircraft noise was rather like putting a dog in charge of a butcher's shop. The 1618 hon. Gentleman may be right, but I shall suspend my opinion on the merits of that argument until I have heard the Minister.
I do not mind whether the Department of the Environment looks after the question of aircraft noise or whether the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry looks after it provided that I know how this Department is to treat its rôle.
I want to know exactly how the Secretary of State proposes to use the power that we are giving him to concern himself with aircraft noise. I hope that we shall get from the Government a plain statement about that. Will my right hon. Friend take the position that he is concerned about the noise and its effects on people living round airports, or will he take the position that he must concern himself only with the expansion of trade and that, if people living within earshot of airports have to suffer seriously, that is too bad and little can be done? I am not sure what position he will take, and therefore some questions must be put to him so that we can discover the yardstick that he proposes to use.
By way of ascertaining what is in his mind and discovering how he will use his powers, I want to refer to a concrete case rather than deal with generalisations. It is the case of the community living alongside London Airport in the village of Longford. It is a small village a mile or two from the airport, and the eardrums of its inhabitants are being assailed day and night by aircraft noise. I want to hear from my right hon. Friend what action, if any, he proposes to take about the grievance that I put to him by way of a test case.
I have received a letter from the chairman of the Longford Residents' Association. The village is a long-suffering place. Its inhabitants have been assailed day and night by aircraft noise, and I recognise, as they do, that little can be done about it. But some things can be done, and I want to know whether my right hon. Friend is prepared to do them.
The chairman of the Longford Residents' Association writes that aircraft noise in the village has reached crisis point, during the last week or so, because of the extension of No. 1 runway at London Airport, which runs behind the village, being used for take-offs in an 1619 easterly direction. The result is that, because the runway extension is used for this purpose, the consequences to the people living in Longford are very serious. The chairman says:
The conditions we are experiencing now have turned the village into a bedlam of noise and vibration which can cause lasting suffering … Not once during any stage of the preparation for this extension to the runway has there been any discussion or consultation with the residents, and, since it has become operational, not one scrap of protection in the form of blast screens or earth banks has been provided or, so far as I know, has ever been thought of.I again put the question to my right hon. Friend: does he regard this state of affairs as satisfactory? Is it satisfactory that no consultation of any kind was held with the residents of this village before a new assault was made upon their eardrums?When this Statutory Instrument is accepted and my right hon. Friend becomes responsible, will he make it his business to see that in future there shall be no addition to the noise volume of London Airport without consultation with the people who will suffer from it? We are entitled to clear answers to these questions. We want to know how the Minister will use his powers.
As every hon. Member with a constituency adjoining an airport knows, it is very difficult to get information about noise control. It is even more difficult to get anything done about it. We have all had that experience. I want to know whether we are to fare better under the new régime, with the Secretary of State responsible, than we did under the old régime when the Board of Trade was responsible.
On the answers to these questions, I, and, I think, some of my hon. Friends, will make up our minds about the merits of the matter. I have raised a constituency case as an illustration, but this is a problem which concerns a great many places elsewhere, too. It is by no means a localised problem. It is of far greater range, extending to everyone who lives within earshot of London Airport. In the village of Longford, the inhabitants are being used, and have been used for a good many years, almost as guinea pigs for a scientific experiment to discover how much noise the human eardrum 1620 can stand. Now this experiment is being taken a stage further.
Does my right hon. Friend accept this extension? If he does not, what steps will he take? Until something is done—I hope that it will be done quickly—the conditions of life in the village of Longford will be intolerable. Some of the people living there now find that they cannot sleep there any longer and they have to move away at night. Some of them find that life is simply not tolerable. It has been very near to intolerable in the past, and now the limits of tolerance have been passed.
We are entitled to ask my right hon. Friend to tell us how he proposes to use his powers of regulation of aircraft noise, and, in particular, what yardsticks he proposes to apply. How does he intend to measure the limits of the tolerable in noise around London Airport and other airports?
§ Mr. Deputy Speaker (Miss Harvie Anderson)Order. I remind the House that this is a debate of limited duration. It seems that a number of hon. Members have an interest which they wish to express. I hope that they may have opportunity.
§ 11.7 p.m.
§ Mrs. Shirley Williams (Hitchin)I shall not detain the House for long, Mr. Deputy Speaker, because I recognise, as a Front Bench speaker, that I ought not to take up back-bench time. I wish to give an illustration of the difficulties which the Order presents for many people.
Last summer, there was an inquiry into Luton Airport, which adjoins my constituency, undertaken by the Secretary of State for the Environment. In the course of his rulings and decisions on that matter—it was a request for planning permission for expansion of the airport—he indicated that the noise level was already undesirable, and, further, he considered that there should be the closest possible scrutiny of any increase in aircraft movements. However, an increase of aircraft movements of 42 per cent. in night flights alone has been announced for the coming year.
The Board of Trade, which is responsible for the consultative committees established under the Civil Aviation Act, 1968, and which is responsible for giving 1621 clearance to these aircraft movements, appears so far to have taken no action. Thus, on the one hand, we have the Secretary of State for Environment recognising that a serious situation exists, and, on the other hand, we have the Board of Trade, apparently, taking no action about it.
I put the point in the strongest possible terms. The Board of Trade, which set up the consultative committees which are responsible directly to the Board of Trade, so far appears to be quite unwilling or unable to take any action in the matter.
I make one final point, since I see the Minister shaking his head. At an earlier stage, when the Board of Trade was approached on a similar matter, it did take certain action. First, it set up consultative committees, and, second, there was an attempt to reduce the noise created by night movements by, for instance, preventing training flights and the running of aircraft on the ground. None of that seems to have been taken further in the last few months.
I give that example to illustrate how dangerous it is for functions to be divided in the way which has been described by my hon. Friend the Member for Putney (Mr. Hugh Jenkins).
§ 11.10 p.m.
§ Mr. John Nott (St. Ives)I shall be brief; I wish to refer purely to the question of the Concorde test flights.
When I originally sought advice on which Ministry I should send my complaints on Concorde tests to, I was told that the responsibility lay with the Department of Trade and Industry. Therefore, I forwarded my complaints about damage from supersonic flying to that Department. However, they were then passed to my right hon. Friend the Minister of Aviation Supply. I waited for some time to receive an answer, and having received none I made inquiries through my right hon. Friends and was told that this was a matter for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry. I waited, and about a week later received answers from the Ministry of Aviation Supply.
Why is it not possible for one Department to be responsible for the whole question 1622 of noise pollution, whether from aircraft noise in general or Concorde supersonic testing? It is wrong that the Ministry of Aviation Supply and the Department of Trade and Industry, which are sponsoring the aircraft industry, should be judge and jury in their own case. I see no reason why they should be excluded in a special way, when every other Department is subject to some sanction from the Department of the Environment.
I do not want to delay the House, but I should like to quote one example of the effect of supersonic flying over my constituency. The Minister may say that this is an infrequent occurrence. There have been only four or five supersonic test runs over my constituency, but I have forwarded over 200 letters of complaint to my right hon. Friend the Minister of Aviation Supply about the matter.
I am delighted that my right hon. Friend the Minister for Trade is to answer the debate, but this confuses me even more, because my right hon. Friend and my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary sitting beside him are the only Ministers in the Department of Trade and Industry from whom I have not yet had any communication on the subject. Understandably, I am trying to end my confusion.
My example concerns constituents who live near Helston, in Cornwall. They were carrying on their business quite quietly one day when Concorde came over their house. My constituent states in a letter:
My home, in which my wife and I have lived for the last 30 years, is one of the old traditional Cornish cottages, of which it is a good and much-praised example. The roof is typical of these old Cornish houses, i.e. it is of considerable thickness, of very small slate bonded by mortar and maintained by periodical coatings of cement wash, which results in a rigid surface, which if undisturbed has almost unlimited life and withstands the severest storm of wind and rain.I shall not read the whole letter. It tells how Concorde flew over and, according to builders' estimates, did £405 18s.-worth of damage to the roof. The whole roof was destroyed, and it must be rebuilt. My constituent, very reasonably, is also putting in for £100-worth of damages for the repair of his cottage and 1623 £200-worth of personal damages. He says, and I very much agree:This incident is not an accident in the same sense as storm and tempest, or even a crashed aircraft, are an accident, but the direct and foreseeable result of a deliberate risk taken by the British Aircraft Corporation and the Aviation Ministry in the course of testing not only its flying capabilities but also the effects of its supersonic flight at ground level.Through the post this morning I happened to receive the sonic bangs exclusion clause from my insurance company for my own house in Cornwall. I can remember so often being told by very knowledgeable right hon. Gentlemen opposite when they formed that magnificent Government whose memory—[HON. MEMBERS: "The hon. Gentleman is spoiling it."] I am sorry.The British Insurance Association is perfectly well able to assess the likelihood of damage from this cause. It has excluded any kind of liability for damage caused by supersonic testing and supersonic overflying of my constituency.
Could my right hon. Friend answer these simple questions? Why is it that we cannot have one Ministry responsible for environmental matters to include pollution from aircraft noise? If that is not possible, can he clarify whether he is responsible, as Minister for Trade, for this matter, whether the Secretary of State, as his overlord is responsible, or whether the Minister for Aviation Supply is responsible? Who has responsibility? Why was the matter not clarified at least three months ago?
§ 11.16 p.m.
§ The Minister for Trade (Mr. Michael Noble)I appreciate the fact that a large number of hon. Members would like to speak, but unfortunately this is a short debate.
The hon. Member for Putney (Mr. Hugh Jenkins) has spoken, quite rightly, of his feeling that the Department of Trade and Industry and its predecessor Departments have not done enough to tackle the problem of aircraft noise. He suspects that the civil aviation industry is so powerful that its representations prevail in the minds of Ministers over complaints from individuals about aircraft noise. If this were the case, there would 1624 be grounds for saying that responsibility for civil aviation and for control of noise should be separated. Otherwise, so the argument would run, the Minister responsible for civil aviation is judge and jury in his own cause and amenity considerations take second place to the development of civil aviation. But surely the truth of the matter is that no industry can prosper, nor can any policy of developing an industry succeed, if that industry is increasingly at odds with its neighbouring social communities. The fact that my right hon. Friend is responsible for civil aviation by no means renders him insensitive to the social problem of noise or unwilling to give it proper priority. Indeed, as the target for all the protests, we are hardly likely to be allowed to lapse into a state of indifference.
The other day, at Question Time, I caused some merriment when I said, in agreeing with one of my hon. Friends, that one of the most disappointing features is the fact that, in so many of the letters one has to write—and one has many hundreds in the Department—it is an almost impossible task, however hard one tries and whichever Secretary of State is responsible, to give the sort of answers people want; indeed, it is often almost impossible.
There is, indeed, a need to maintain the right balance between considerations of amenity and the interests of civil aviation. This need is not new, nor is it affected by the setting up of the Department of Trade and Industry. Not only present Ministers, but successive Ministers of this and previous Administrations, have had to face exactly the same problem of trying to strike a balance in this field. Much has been done already on the amenity side of the balance.
§ Mr. Hugh JenkinsBut the problem which faces all of us concerned is that this is a deteriorating situation. It is getting worse. What we are seeking is a reversal. What we are asking the right hon. Gentleman to do, and so far he has not done it, is to give some indication that, under the present Government, such a reversal and improvement in the situation is for the first time possible.
§ Mr. NobleI will be honest with the House, as I always try to be, and say that I do not believe that it is possible 1625 to make an improvement. I have said in answer to every letter and on every occasion I have been asked in the House that, for the next three or four years, until aircraft are redesigned, I cannot honestly say that I can see an improvement. I am sorry about it.
§ Mr. NobleI am sorry but I cannot answer the debate, and I cannot be honest with the House, if I get into arguments about whether I think there is going to be an improvement. At Heathrow, for example, a variety of measures have long since been adopted and remain in force.
§ Mr. NobleTime is very short and I am unable to give way if I am to say all I want to say, and the debate will end al 11.30.
§ Mr. Russell Kerr (Feltham)On a point of order. It was my impression that we had an hour and a half for the debate. Am I not right?
§ Mr. Deputy SpeakerThe debate has to close at 11.30.
§ Mr. NobleThe hon. Member will appreciate my problem.
These measures include severe restriction of the number of movements of aircraft between 11.30 p.m. and 6 a.m.; the monitoring and restrictions applied on noise from aircraft taking off; a steeper glide slope for aircraft landing than is internationally recommended; concentration of aircraft movements whenever possible in an east-to-west direction so that they fly over less populated areas, noise insulation schemes and so on.
Such measures impose considerable penalties upon the industry. Airlines are not able to expand as rapidly as they would like in an industry with a major growth market open to it. Airports also are unable to maximise the use of facilities in which vast sums of money are invested. These measures imposed to protect amenity, as part of the process of striking a balance between amenity and commercial interests, are, therefore, costly in straight financial terms.
1626 Most of the measures I have mentioned for the protection of amenity—the glide slope, east-to-west operation, noise monitoring and so on—are in fact an inseparable part of operating techniques. Several of these measures cannot be implemented except through the air traffic control system and all are subject to the overriding considerations of safety. The scope for such measures is limited by constraints imposed by the air traffic control system and, I must emphasise again, by the paramount need for safe operation. It would therefore be a retrograde step, or even downright impractical, to divorce responsibility for operating techniques from control of noise, by assigning the latter to a separate and necessarily inexpert Department. This would inevitably result in interdepartmental procedures over noise abatement becoming slow and cumbersome. Time would be wasted in disposing of impractical suggestions, while potentially practical measures might not be properly explored.
§ Mr. NottOn a point of order. May I ask through you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, whether my right hon. Friend can say something about those living on the ground around airports instead of speaking about the safety of aircraft and the British aircraft industry?
§ Mr. Deputy SpeakerThat is not a point of order for the Chair.
§ Mr. NobleIf my hon. Friend would not interrupt me, I might be able to get to that later. If hon. Members keep interrupting me, I shall not be able to answer what is a major debate in a short time.
The result would be to fragment what is now an integrated function and this would be inconsistent with the Government's general policy on organisation set out in the recent White Paper (Cmnd. 4506). Rightly, this is not a matter of party political differences. I think it is the case that the hon. Member for Putney put similar arguments forward while the last Administration was in office. The fact that responsibility for civil aviation 1627 was combined with responsibility for aircraft noise, then as now, shows that the previous Government reached the same view and, I suppose, for much the same reasons. This is far from saying, however, that the Department of the Environment has no part to play. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment, as well as having direct executive responsibility for such things as clean air, and inland water, also has a co-ordinating responsibility right across the board. This is to ensure that other Ministers with executive responsibilities can take full account of the Government's general policy towards the environment. This is really the nature of the relationship between my right hon. Friends the two Secretaries of State.
The interface between their responsibilities is evident, for example, in the relationship between land use planning and civil airport development. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment, as part of his final responsibility for land use planning, would obviously seek to ensure that a new airport development was not such as to create an unreasonable nuisance to the surrounding neighbourhood. He would also seek to ensure that fresh building development did not take place in the immediate environs of an existing airport, where a new community would be exposed to unreasonable aircraft noise. Both my right hon. Friends and their Departments are already in close touch with each other on such matters.
It is by no means always the case that civil aviation interests have their way at the expense of amenity. The most recent example is a proposal which was put forward for a runway extension at the Leeds/Bradford airport. A public inquiry was held. Authority to proceed with the extension was refused, to the bitter disappointment of the civil aviation interests concerned and of their customers. I therefore see no reason for anyone to suppose that the balance of the decision-making process is tilted against social considerations.
I should like to answer one or two points raised during the debate. The hon. Member for Putney asked that decisions in these areas should be taken between Ministers of equal power and authority. I will not try to distinguish 1628 between my two right hon. Friends. They are both of great power and I believe, of great authority.
§ Mr. John Silkin (Deptford)I know that the right hon. Gentleman's Department is doing everything it can to bring these conflicting dilemmas into some sort of order. Is this not really a case of an appeal from Caesar unto Caesar—although the comparison does not really hold good today?
§ Mr. NobleI do not think so, at least not in my experience over the last few months. I can assure hon. Gentlemen that there is probably no single subject in the Department of Trade and Industry in which people are more deeply involved trying to find solutions.
May I turn to the point raised by the hon. Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Curran) about Longford? The people there have suffered considerably over the last fortnight because No. 5 runway, the southern runway, was out of order. If the wind was from the west then all the take-offs went straight over that village and they have had a very tough time. I am glad to say that the runway is back in operation and if the wind is from the west then the village may suffer a little less. We have asked the Chairman of the British Airports Authority to look particularly at this village to see whether anything can be done to help in sound insulation.
The hon. Member for Hitchin (Mrs. Shirley Williams) asked about Luton. This is not the responsibility of the Department. The number of aircraft that take off from there is a matter for the Luton Corporation. I have met many delegations from her constituency and from others. The Department gives all the help it can in a number of ways, trying to minimise the noise nuisance.
My hon. Friend the Member for St. Ives (Mr. Nott) read a letter from his constituent about the damage to his roof. I have the greatest sympathy. I also live under the Concorde route. I know these things vary and that peoples' susceptibilities to noise vary greatly. For two of the last three possible flights I was working in my greenhouse and I am sorry to say that not one pane of glass was broken. I would say to those who live under the Concorde route that they 1629 are having, at least, a limited amount of interference with their quiet and pleasant life, unlike many of my hon. Friends who live close to London Airport or other airports where noise is a continuous problem.
To sum up, every conceivable practical means that we can devise or of which we