Debate on the Address

My Lords, I begin by congratulating my noble friend Lady Jones of Whitchurch on her excellent maiden speech. I should like to say to her that if before she started to speak she had any fears that she would not be able to compete in this Chamber, I think she need not have any such fears now. We look forward to hearing much more from her in the future. I was encouraged by the news in the gracious Speech that the Government intend to bring forward a Bill on climate change and it is clear that everyone else in the House is equally encouraged. Let us hope that we can look forward to some cross-party consensus on the issues that will arise. However, I am afraid that I shall return to a matter on which I have addressed your Lordships’ House more than once; namely, the increasingly damaging impact of aviation on the environment. This theme touches not only on the big issue of climate change, now pushed so dramatically up the political agenda by among other things the publication of the Stern report, but also—as the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, has just pointed out—by the very significant change in public opinion which we are beginning to see reflected in opinion polls and in comment. There is a much stronger sense of the issues we are facing over climate change, a sense that is more widely shared than perhaps we in the Palace of Westminster have quite got a handle on yet. But beyond the big issue of climate change, the question of aviation also touches on more local environmental impacts which we can sometimes overlook as we contemplate the scale of the global threat we face. In preparing for this debate I looked at recent research from the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change at the University of Manchester, as well as work from the Environmental Change Institute at Oxford University. What these much-respected groups have to say about the dangers we face from the current explosive growth in air travel makes for very sobering reading. They tell us that unless something radical is done to curb the current rates of growth in aviation, particularly in air travel, we have no chance of meeting the targets on carbon emissions put forward by my noble friend Lord Rooker in his opening remarks. This leads me and, I think, many others to the conclusion that current government policy on air transport, as outlined in the 2002 White Paper, is in urgent need of review because it is significantly behind the game so far as environmental impacts are concerned. On every previous occasion when Ministers have been pressed on the issue, the response has always been to point to growing demand and to suggest that restricting growth in the air industry would amount to an unfair denial of the supposed democratic freedom to fly. Even my noble friend Lord Davies of Oldham, when answering my recent Question on this issue and doing his noble best to look green but clearly feeling more like a chameleon on a tartan rug, felt obliged to say, "““One in every two of our fellow citizens took at least one flight last year””," and to refer to this activity as part of , "““our people’s needs””.—[Official Report, 2/11/06; col. 403.]" But in what sense can the wish to fly, say, to Italy for next to nothing or, come to that, the wish to eat strawberries in December honestly be described as a need? We have a tendency in a consumer-led economy to conflate needs with desires and call them freedoms. In few areas is this more apparent than in our ambivalent attitude to transport. But the time has surely come to recognise that the price we are asking our children and grandchildren to pay for our freedom to consume energy and pollute the atmosphere is simply too high and we have to do some big things now to make a difference. I welcome, of course, the Government’s intention to introduce a Bill on climate change and I look forward to seeing exactly what it proposes, but I fear that it will be too little and its effects will come too late in respect of aviation. Let me give a couple of statistics taken from the Oxford Environmental Change Institute study published last month. It states: "““In just ten years, between 1990 and 2000, carbon dioxide emissions from UK aviation have doubled. During the same period, the combined emissions of carbon dioxide from all other UK activities fell by around 9%. A review of various forecasts of UK air travel growth indicates that aviation emissions are set to more than double again between 2000 and 2030 and could increase to between 4 and 10 times their present level by 2050””." It also states, "““the UK generates more flights than any other European country; a fifth of all international air passengers worldwide are on flights that arrive or leave from UK airports. Hence, aviation makes a proportionally greater contribution to climate change for the UK than for most other countries””." It goes on, "““there are now five overseas holiday flights for every business flight made overseas by a UK resident””." And it says: "““Passenger traffic at UK airports has grown at an average annual rate of about 6% since the mid-1970s, with an increase of 12.5 million new passenger movements in the last year. Much of the recent expansion in flying has occurred because better off people are flying more often. There is little evidence that those on low incomes are flying more; flying cannot be regarded as a socially inclusive activity””." Further evidence was published only last week by the Civil Aviation Authority showing that it is the well off who benefit from cheap travel. Eighty-three per cent of passengers using Stansted airport in 2005 were As, Bs or C1s. Only 7.7 per cent were Ds or Es. There is further evidence from the Office for National Statistics which has just published figures showing that the trade deficit on air travel in 2005 was £18.8 billion compared to just £2 billion 10 years earlier. Fifty-four million overseas flights were made in 2005 by UK residents, who spent £28 billion while they were away. This compares with only 22 million foreign visitors coming to the UK, who spent only £12.3 billion. We are often told that imposing significant as opposed to minimal constraints on the growth of air travel would have terrible consequences for our economy. I do not underestimate the importance of jobs in the aviation industry and of the economic activity it generates more widely but, set against the social and economic disbenefits of growth now becoming apparent, I wonder whether the evidence for that claim really stacks up. I sense that the Government’s preferred option—and, indeed, that of the party opposite—is to think about these matters as essentially problems for the future to which we should take a responsible but gradual and incremental approach. In most circumstances, I am a natural gradualist, but on this matter I believe the future is now and there are choices we must make now. I know the Government are already considering some of them. It must be right to include aviation in any EU emissions trading scheme, although this measure will take a long time to achieve any significant impact and its effectiveness will depend crucially on the design of the scheme, as the European Committee of your Lordships’ House pointed out recently in its report. It is right that the cost of air travel should rise. The Civil Aviation Authority figures seem to indicate that the people flying most frequently could certainly afford to pay a lot more. Bringing in an air passenger duty would be one effective way of countering the trend towards even cheaper fares and would not, as the Oxford institute points out, require international agreement, unlike the taxing of aviation fuel, although that must surely also be pursued. Another possibility would be the application of VAT to domestic air tickets. The Oxford study points out: "““An appropriate fiscal package for flying would also raise significant public revenue … One estimate suggests that aviation’s tax advantages amount to £9 billion p.a. of lost revenue for the UK Treasury””." There is one further thing that could be done now which would have a major effect and is at the top of the list for both the Tyndall Centre and the Oxford institute. I refer to an immediate moratorium on further expansion of runway capacity at UK airports. At this point, I must declare an interest, because I live less than 10 miles from Stansted and am directly under its main flight path. It might be thought, therefore, that everything I have to say is driven by self-interest. Oddly enough, my life would probably be made slightly easier if the extra runway proposed for Stansted were built, because the flight paths would change. But for every other reason, the plan should be sent back to the drawing board, along with similar plans for Luton, Birmingham and Edinburgh, and all the proposals arising from the 2002 White Paper to increase passenger numbers at virtually every UK airport. The best, quickest and cheapest way to limit demand for air travel is to limit the capacity for aircraft to take off and land. I suspect that when my noble friend comes to reply, she will say that to do so would shift business to other European airports and damage our economy thereby. But what is the evidence for this belief? She may say that technologies are leading us to quieter, less polluting aircraft, making restrictions on growth unnecessary. If this has crossed her mind, I refer her to Dr Alice Bowes of the Tyndall Centre who, in a recent e-mail to me, put paid to that hope as follows: "““The fundamental point is that all of the other sectors within the UK’s economy have many opportunities to improve energy efficiency and use alternative fuels, even today. However, the aviation sector does not have that luxury and, furthermore, the long lifetimes of aircraft lock the aviation industry into current airframe designs and high-carbon fuels for around 30 years. Hence the need to tackle growth””." I fear that my noble friend may also say that it is undemocratic to prevent people flying if they want to. But is it not far more undemocratic to concrete over vast swathes of this country for extra runways, for car parks and support services, creating not only enormous growth in carbon emissions but misery for hundreds of thousands of people through increased noise, traffic and other pollution, so that more of our better-off citizens can fly more often on holiday abroad, taking their spending power with them? The Stop Stansted Expansion campaign, to which I am grateful for its excellent briefing, has estimated that if BAA’s current planning application for full use of the existing runway at Stansted were to be approved, an extra 80,000 flights a year would be generated, giving rise to 12 million tonnes of carbon dioxide, an increase of 5 million tonnes on present rates. If a second runway were to be built, emissions would rise to the equivalent of 23 million tonnes per year; in addition, there would be huge extra pressure on an already fragile infrastructure, such as road and rail links, for which no proper provision has been made. These effects are replicated in all the proposals for UK airport expansion. To allow airport capacity to grow, knowing what we know now about the environmental effects of aviation, would be fundamentally irresponsible, benefiting nobody in the long term. I can put it no better than the Independent leader writer who wrote on 2 November: "““From now on, everything the Government does will be seen through the green prism of the Stern report. The last thing Britain needs—whether in 2030 or before—is anything that could be seen as facilitating more air travel””." Amen to that, my Lords.