Civil Aviation Bill

I am grateful for that intervention. The hon. Gentleman clearly intends to carry on for Luton South where Lorraine Chase left off; we have brought forward this Bill, and we have heard what the Secretary of State had to say. I welcome the Bill, which is timely, because we all know that aviation is an industry that is as important to Britain as it is maligned. It is important because it employs 1 million people throughout the country, sustains a tourist industry employing 2.6 million people and generates about £9 billion of Treasury receipts every year, plus all the Treasury receipts that it generates by making our economy work more effectively and better. There is no doubt in the minds of operators that they want better regulation. We want regulation that puts passengers first. We want regulation that ensures that security in the age of the terrorist with trainers is sharpened and honed. We want to ensure that transparency at the Department for Transport, at the CAA, among operators and at airlines is the best that it can be. However, we do not want regulation that loads unnecessary bureaucracy on to airport operators or that drives up costs that are of no benefit to the travelling public or to operators that simply want to make a fair buck by doing better and more efficient business. Birmingham is the airport in my neck of the woods. It has one runway and carries 8.6 million people a year. It could double its capacity without changing its infrastructure in any way. It has a plan to extend its runway so that it can carry bigger planes with more passengers, more fuel and more baggage for further distances, as far as the far east. That could extend its carriage capacity by up to 27 million passengers a year. At that point, it would begin to compete with airports such as Gatwick.