§ 18. Mr. Hugh Jenkinsasked the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he has received the appendix to the recent document published by the British Association for the Control of Aircraft Noise entitled "The Heathrow Racket", a copy of which has been sent to him; and if he will publish his conclusions on this document.
§ Mr. NobleI have received it. I do not accept its theme that the size and incidence of Heathrow's noise problem has in any way been misrepresented by the Department. On the contrary, the severity and spread of the disturbance has long been fully and publicly recognised.
§ Mr. JenkinsThe right hon. Gentleman may give that answer, but is he not aware that tens of thousands of noise infringements take place on landing which are totally ignored in official figures? If he cannot stop these infringements, will he not at least record them so that we know about them? As 75 per cent. of the night movements are freight movements, are all these night movements necessary? What comments has he to make on the conclusion in the document which I have mentioned that the official policy in this matter is one of deliberate, massive deception of the public?
§ Mr. NobleThe third part of the question I have already answered. On the first part of the question—the hon. Gentleman knows this because we have discussed these matters on a good many occasions in the House—there is no point in monitoring the landing noises when it is made obligatory for an aircraft to fly at a certain angle and the pilot in charge of the safety of that aircraft has to use his engine to maintain exactly the right slope. There is no point in monitoring unless one can prevent the noise—noise which may sometimes be necessary for the safety of passengers.
I accept that a great proportion of freight traffic flies at night, and this is an important part of our export effort. If we were to restrict all the freight services to the day, it would make the congestion there infinitely worse, indeed intolerable.
§ Mr. AllasonIs my right hon. Friend aware that the noise nuisance indicator is now a very poor representation of nuisance from aircraft noise, and is it not time that another committee was set up to discover a better way of indicating the extreme nuisance which flows from noise?
§ Mr. NobleEven my hon. Friend will agree that I am most receptive to any ideas to try to improve this intractable and difficult problem. A committee will report on this matter very shortly and possibly will produce some rather better suggestions on the best method of monitoring.