Planning Bill

moved Amendment No. 135: 135: Clause 22, page 13, line 18, after ““providing”” insert ““and will be permitted to provide”” The noble Baroness said: I also speak to Amendments Nos. 136, 137, 139 and 158. I declared an interest earlier, in that I am affected by development at Heathrow, but the amendments to this clause are about all airports. In the Commons on Report, the Minister, Mr Healey, commenting on the intensification of the use of airports, said that it seemed, "““an anomaly that the new planning system should deal with a significant increase in capacity at airports only when that was the result of physical development””.—[Official Report, Commons, 2/6/08; col. 515.]" I agree but I am scarred by experiences around the inquiries regarding Heathrow. I do not mean the length of the last inquiry, but conditions imposed appear to melt away, undertakings given appear not to be undertaken and so on. I want to probe some of the Bill’s provisions, and distinguish between what an airport is capable of supporting and what it is permitted to provide. The terminal 4 permission permitted an increase in the number of passengers. There was little confidence in that locally, and I think that lack of confidence has been borne out. The Bill should give as many assurances as possible by referring to the airport being capable of providing or what it is permitted to provide by way of air passenger transport services. I shall not repeat the long discussion in the Commons about, among other things, the Cranford agreement and runway alternation at Heathrow. The Minister said that he would clarify the position to the extent that he could. These issues were raised in particular by John McDonnell. I have checked with him and he believes that he did not receive any follow-up correspondence from the Minister. Are my amendments relating to what is permitted in this context covered by Clause 31(2)(c), which refers to, "““an increase in the permitted use of an airport is treated as a material change in the use of the airport””?" I was interested to note that a significant increase is described in terms of air passenger services as an increase in the number of passengers. I believe that the number of air movements, or possibly the number of passengers and air movements, are normally referred to in this context. The figure of 50,000 more air movements a year to which I have referred in my amendment may not be correct; I was advised that it was equivalent to 10 million passengers. However, this is a probing amendment and I hope that the Minister will not go into the detail of the numbers. There is a point of principle here rather than of numbers. The Stansted decision, to which I think my noble friend Lady Tonge will refer, was announced last week, and dealt with movements as well as passenger numbers. For many purposes the numbers of flights are most relevant. Flights use fuel and disturb people—I use a mild term—on the ground, however many or however few passengers are on any given flight. I hope that the Minister will respond favourably to these probing amendments. I am genuinely puzzled as to why the relevant clause deals with the matter in the way that it does. I beg to move.