Space Industry Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2017-10-18
Topic: Mixed Topics
Denis Tunnicliffe (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, Amendment 34 is about noise. Some 36 years ago I had a very pleasant life as a 747 co-pilot; it really was a splendid lifestyle. One would be given permission, on departure, to fly at 35,000 feet. You would think the difficult bit would be the take-off, but it is not particularly so. You point the plane down the runway, get to about 180 or 190 miles per hour, then pull the stick back and 320 tonnes of aircraft, including yourself and the captain, goes gracefully into the air. That is when the trouble starts, because you start to fly what is called a standard instrument departure, which often involves lots of twists and turns very early in the departure. The reason for that, not just in the UK but across the world, is to follow a minimum noise route. If you do not follow such a route, someone will ring up the airport, the airport will ring up your employer and your employer will have a free and frank discussion about your career. Noise has been at the top of the list of concerns about civil aviation since the jet age. Early jets were extremely noisy. I was privileged to fly the VC10, which has a noise footprint comparable to that of a satellite-inserting rocket; at least that is what my wife used to say In the Bill, I looked for provisions to protect people around spaceports from noise. From looking through the Bill—I am sure the Box will send a note if I am wrong—I am pretty sure that the word "noise" does not appear anywhere in it. I did not look for its near relative, the word "nuisance", which is what would be used in virtually any other environment. It is normally common-law rights—I am not a lawyer but I think they are called torts—to quiet enjoyment that allow one to use the courts to restrain the nuisance other parties bring to one. Looking for the word "nuisance" in the Bill—once again, I await correction—I believe it appears once, on page 23, in Clause 33(1), which states: "No liability arises in trespass or nuisance in respect of spaceflight activities carried out in compliance, or substantially in compliance, with the requirements and conditions imposed by or under this Act" In other words, the only reference to "nuisance" is to deny citizens the rights to use the courts to protect themselves Nowhere in the paperwork can I find the Minister writing to me and saying it, but I think he has said informally that this is just like aviation law, which has a similar clause that we will deal with in the same way. The folklore was that it was as simple as that, but I thought I would look it up. The most useful reference I found—I used Google; let us be realistic—was an online publication, politics.co.uk. I checked it out with our press department and I am sure it is a respectable organisation that does not produce fake news. The site had a section on aviation noise, which I will quote, simply because it is so much better worded than any speech I could create: "The Air Navigation Act 1920"— I knew it had gone back a long time— "provided the basis of the UK’s aviation noise regulation regime, by exempting aviation from nuisance sanctions, in order to stimulate the nascent industry. This principle was reaffirmed in the Civil Aviation Act 1982, which nonetheless set out a number of provisions for controlling noise at larger airports through a process of ‘designation’, which has only been applied to date to Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted. By their Section 78 designation, the Transport Secretary is responsible for regulating take-off and landing noise at these airports" So I sped to the Civil Aviation Act 1982 to see how it exempted aeroplanes from noise sanctions. Section 76 says: "No action shall lie in respect of trespass or in respect of nuisance, by reason only of the flight of an aircraft over any property at a height above the ground which, having regard to wind, weather and all the circumstances of the case is reasonable, or the ordinary incidents of such flight, so long as the provisions of any Air Navigation Order and of any orders under section 62 above have been duly complied with" Even that implies more control than the bland subsection in the Bill that I recommend be deleted. In fact, I hope the Minister will come back with a much better balanced subsection I then went on to read Section 78 of the Act, which is really quite powerful: "The Secretary of State may by a notice published in the prescribed manner provide that it shall be the duty of the person who is the operator of an aircraft which is to take off or land at a designated aerodrome to secure that, after the aircraft takes off or, as the case may be, before it lands at the aerodrome, such requirements as are specified in the notice are complied with in relation to the aircraft, being requirements appearing to the Secretary of State to be appropriate for the purpose of limiting or of mitigating the effect of noise and vibration connected with the taking off or landing … at the aerodrome" That section has enabled communities around those major airports to be protected over the years since 1982. I continue to quote from politics.co.uk, which says: "In practice, noise restrictions at designated airports"— Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted— "have been implemented through restrictions on departing aircraft noise, controls on night flying and (at Heathrow and Gatwick, under Section 79) housing noise insulation schemes … At other airports, the successive governments have continued to favour local resolution. Councils’ main instrument in this regard is the Section 106 Obligation, a condition that can be placed on planning permission. These Obligations can limit movement numbers, operating hours and the types of permitted aircraft. Voluntary agreements can also be reached. London City Airport and Luton Airport, for example, have agreed maximum noise exposure contours, which must not be exceeded" I put to the Minister that a combination of the fact there can be designation and the fact there is precedent for these local resolutions is why air operators agree these local agreements. There is a parallel in some of the banking regulations: because strong powers exist for government to implement appropriate protections, local agreements emerge. There is no strong power in this Bill to which communities can look. Therefore, I believe the Bill is insufficient to achieve the objective Compared with Clause 33, the whole of the aviation industry is, by statute and practice, better equipped to protect from noise those who live around airports. The Bill should be amended by the Government to have a more comprehensive regime to ensure that when this industry is as successful as so many people described on Monday, with massive numbers of movements, those living around the spaceports have adequate powers to protect themselves from noise nuisance. I beg to move.