§ 9. Mr. Chris Mullin (Sunderland, South)What estimate she has made of the environmental impact of the projected expansion of air travel with special reference to climate change; and if she will make a statement. [86772]
§ The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Margaret Beckett)The intergovernmental panel on climate change has estimated that, if current rates of growth are maintained, air travel and air transport could be responsible for between 3 and 15 per cent. of manmade forcing of the global climate by 2050. There is a growing view that the aviation industry, like other industries, needs to pay for the environmental damage that it causes.
§ Mr. MullinMy right hon. Friend has obviously noticed that the aviation industry appears to have plans for indefinite expansion. Has she also noticed that the Department for Transport appears to go along with those plans? Has her Department been consulted, and if so what response has it given?
§ Margaret BeckettMy hon. Friend is right to point out that the airline industry, like any other industry, is understandably trying to grow. He is also right to draw attention to growing concern about the potential impact. However, I do not think it fair to my right hon. Friend the 999 Secretary of State for Transport to say that the Department appears to be considering unrestrained growth.
It is always important for a Government to maintain a balance between identifying what may happen and considering what decisions they need to take as a result, and considering what ought to happen. I can only say that, as ever, we are engaged in dialogue about the possible impact, not only within our own Government but in the EU and with the International Civil Aviation Organisation, where continuing discussions are taking place.
§ Mr. George Osborne (Tatton)Dialogue is all very well, but if future expansion is to take place we need to know the impact of major airport expansion not just on the global environment, but on the local environment, which concerns people in my constituency who live at the end of the runways at Manchester airport. As her Department sponsors such projects, will the Secretary of State undertake research into the environmental damage that aircraft cause?
§ Margaret BeckettI take the hon. Gentleman's point. I am sure that he will appreciate that such damage is difficult to assess. We hope to be successful in reducing other sources of pollution through other measures. If so, pollution from aviation will play a larger part. However, that is not easy to assess, which is why it was not included in the Kyoto protocol agreement. We shall have to consider the problem carefully, but there will not be any easy, quick answers.
§ Norman Baker (Lewes)Is not the hon. Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin) right when he says that the Department for Transport is planning for a massive expansion of the airline industry, and caves in to every demand that it makes? Does not that have massive environmental implications, such as the doubling of carbon emissions between 1990 and 2010, and a further take-off after that? Is not the reality that the right hon. Lady's Department, however well meaning, has no power within Government these days, and the Department for Transport and the Department of Trade and Industry do what they want irrespective of the impact on the environment? Is it not time she had a word with the Prime Minister to put the environment back at the heart of Government?
§ Margaret BeckettThe hon. Gentleman suggests that we should do more to assess the environmental impact of aviation, but there is no easy, separate assessment that we can make. All I can say to him is what I said to my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, South. Neither the Department for Transport nor the Government as a whole are indifferent to these issues. Unlike the hon. Gentleman, we recognise that this is a difficult issue to which no one, especially not the Liberal Democrats, has any easy answers.
§ Mr. Mark Field (Cities of London and Westminster)In the right hon. Lady's discussions with the Secretary of State for Transport, will she stress the importance of examining the cumulative impact on the environment, especially of the proposed third runway at Heathrow?
§ Margaret BeckettAs I said, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport is engaged in a long and thorough consultation process. He is mindful, as I am, of the varying effects that these decisions have on the environment. As both Conservative Members have observed, there is an impact on the local environment as well as the international effects.