Civil Aviation (Air Transport Licences) Amendment (Hansard, 14 March 1995)

§ Mr. Michael Stern (Bristol, North-West)

I beg to move, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to provide for the publication to local planning authorities by the Civil Aviation Authority of the receipt of applications for the grant, revocation, suspension or variation of air transport licences and of any decision made by the Civil Aviation Authority in relation thereto.

My interest in the area arises indirectly from events in my constituency that led to a public inquiry into the proposals by British Aerospace plc to turn an airstrip into a full commercial airport, but I am not here today to debate those particular matters, which await a decision jointly by the Secretaries of State for Transport and for the Environment.

In preparing the evidence that I gave to the public inquiry, it transpired that the company concerned had perfectly legally and properly been applying to the CAA for various licences to operate an airport since 11 October 1988, but the first opportunity that any member of the public had to learn of those proposals was not until 5 February 1993, when the company announced that it had obtained various licences. My objection to the procedure is not that the company was doing what it considered proper for its own business but that the whole procedure of discussion and documentation of activities, which might conceivably have a great bearing on the lives and environment of my constituents, was going on in entire secrecy.

It transpired, when I investigated the matter, that the only requirement on the CAA—it is, of course, an agency set up by Government—in connection with the publication of any grant revocation, suspension or variation of an air transport licence, is to publish the granting of the licence in a number of highly obscure publications, which are, by and large, received only by airlines and others who are directly connected with the operation of civil aviation. I do not believe that that is sufficient and my Bill therefore proposes one modest additional requirement on the CAA, on any occasion when a licence is granted, revoked, suspended or, indeed, applied for—that it should notify the local planning 698 authority of the area in which the airfield or site of the proposed activity is situated, so that the local planning authority can decide what, if anything, it needs to do to publicise the application that it has received or granted.

Such a measure would not involve any public sector cost, but would involve notifying earlier the people who would be intimately affected by any proposed airport operations, to consider what effect those operations would have on their lives, their environment and their property, and if necessary to make representations to the CAA on that matter.

At the moment there is no such requirement to publish and, in allowing such a situation to continue, the Government are not fulfilling the requirement that they have set out on many occasions that our society should become more open. My constituents should be able to comment on any decisions taken behind closed doors in the privacy of the Civil Aviation Authority which affect or can affect their lives.

This modest measure will create more openness in the work of the Civil Aviation Authority without any detriment to its operations because it will be up to the local planning authority to decide how much publicity to give to the information that it receives.

The measure would be a modest step towards replacing the secrecy or opacity of the Civil Aviation Authority with rather more public scrutiny of the important operations that it conducts on behalf of the Government. I commend the Bill to the House.