My Lords, I am by and large happy with the government amendments in this group and will talk particularly to Amendments 1 and 7. The wording is not precisely what we asked for, but my noble friend Lord Attlee has clearly listened to the arguments expressed in Committee, on all sides, and has gone a long way to addressing these concerns.
I will say something on Amendments 2 and 8 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Davies. I share his concern that “desirability” is rather limp—I think the noble Lord used the word “wishy-washy”. I would much rather have seen the word “duty” in there, as I feel we all have a duty to the environment in whatever
we do and the aviation industry should be no exception. I would like to have seen the licence holder having a duty, using the words of the government amendment,
“to take reasonable measures to reduce, control or mitigate the adverse environmental effects of the airport”.
However, that is not where we are. The Government have used the word “desirability” in their amendment, for the reason given by my noble friend Lord Attlee, and I do not suppose that they are inclined to accept any amendment to that.
Is the Government’s amendment fit for the purpose that we argued for in Committee? I believe that it is. Although there is no mention that the licence holder should have a duty to have regard to the impact of airports on local communities, which is something that I argued for in Committee, I believe that these amendments will deal with the impact of airports on the environment. Importantly, these amendments will provide the CAA with the flexibility it needs to allow regulated airports to invest in sensible measures to reduce the environmental impact of their operations, without fear of legal challenge from an airline, whose main preoccupation, in this regard, is simply to minimise airport charges. That was the kernel of the argument in Committee, and my noble friend Lord Attlee has addressed it. I welcome these government amendments as they stand, and I thank the Minister and his team for listening and responding.