Aircraft Noise: Local Communities
Debate between Sarah Olney and Munira Wilson(1 week ago)
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Sarah Olney (Richmond Park) (LD)
It is a pleasure to finally begin the Adjournment debate. Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for granting this important and timely debate.
As the MP for a very vocal airport community, I welcome the Minister to his role and reassure him that he will be hearing from me a great deal over the coming Parliament. This topic is close to my constituents’ hearts. Every morning, at 4.30 am, they hear jet engines above their heads; every year, a Heathrow airport executive threatens to bring back the third runway; and every decade, a new proposal to change the flight paths is put forward.
My constituents are not alone. In the UK, more than 23% of the British population live between two and 10 miles from an airport. Although they accept that aircraft noise is a fact of life, they should not be asked to tolerate constant attempts to increase the number of flights above their homes. In the opening months of this new Parliament, Labour has a chance to step away from the damaging policies of the past and build a new relationship with airport communities—a relationship in which the needs of local people and our environment are genuinely balanced against the demands of the aviation industry.
To begin rebalancing the relationship, I urge the Department for Transport to consider three requests: first, to acknowledge the health impacts of night flights on airport communities and work to ban them above heavily populated areas; secondly, to accept that the expansion of Heathrow airport would fly in the face of Britain’s climate targets and have an unacceptable impact on my constituents in Richmond Park and elsewhere across London and the south-east; and thirdly, to recognise that any proposals to change flight paths above London and the south-east should be accompanied by a proposal for a “do minimum” approach, ensuring that people do not have to accept change merely for the sake of change.
I turn first to night flights, which are the most intrusive form of aircraft noise. There is clear evidence that they harm the physical health of residents who live under flight paths. Long-term exposure to nocturnal aircraft noise is strongly linked to sleep disorders and broader health impacts.
Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)
I thank my hon. Friend for giving way on that point and for securing this incredibly important debate. Like her constituents, the residents of Twickenham, Teddington, Whitton and the Hamptons are very concerned about the impact of aircraft noise above them. Does she agree that, given that the Civil Aviation Authority itself has acknowledged evidence that long-term aircraft noise has a harmful effect on children’s memory, sustained attention, reading comprehension and reading ability, for the sake of their health we need strict restrictions on night flights across our constituencies and all of west London? Frankly, at the moment these massive jet engines are flouting the rules overnight on a regular basis.
Sarah Olney
My hon. Friend is right. She speaks passionately on behalf of her constituents in Twickenham, who I know are blighted by these issues just as much as my constituents in Richmond Park. She is right about the health impacts of long-term exposure to nocturnal aircraft noise, which is strongly linked to sleep disorders and broader health impacts.
For each additional 10 dB of night-time aircraft noise that communities are exposed to, there is an increase of between 14% and 69% in residents’ risk of high blood pressure, increasing the risk of strokes and heart attacks. Other researchers have found links between long-term exposure to aircraft noise and an increased risk of obesity, depression and cardiovascular issues.
The human cost of these flights is substantial, but when I have raised this issue in the House, Ministers have fallen back on a study by York Aviation that argued that night flights add billions to our economy. That study has been repeatedly challenged on both its outcomes and methodology, and I urge the Minister to instruct his officials to examine the wider body of evidence.
Researchers at the transport research service and consultancy CE Delft found that a ban on night flights would harm the national economy only if the passengers who currently arrive on scheduled flights before 6 am were not transferred to other flights. In addition, the Heathrow Association for the Control of Aircraft Noise has pointed out that estimates of the value of night flights often massage definitions of night-time jobs, which inflate key figures. In the light of that, I urge the Government to commit to commissioning a full independent analysis on the impact of night flights on our economy, residents’ physical health and local people’s mental wellbeing, to inform a potential ban on night flights at Heathrow.
While night flights are a constant concern to my residents, the spectre of the third runway continues to hang over south-west London. Hansard shows that the third runway has been mentioned no fewer than 115 times in this House, and has been the topic of three debates, two early-day motions and countless open letters. Despite the efforts of dozens of MPs, the last Government resolutely refused to abandon the project. They said that we should ignore the 210 million tonnes of carbon dioxide that it would generate every year, the £100 billion it would cost to clean up the damage that the runway would do to our environment, and the impact it would have on air quality in our communities.
Munira Wilson
Does my hon. Friend agree that there is no way that this Government can meet their net zero and climate commitments if they give the green light to a third runway at Heathrow, as has been widely reported? Indeed, the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero has been on record in the past as having been very against a third runway at Heathrow. He should be fighting the corner of the environment and our planet, and the health and wellbeing of our constituents, by standing up to the Department for Transport’s giving any green light to a third runway at Heathrow.
Sarah Olney
Again, my hon. Friend is absolutely right. In the past week the Prime Minister gave new impetus to the achievement of our net zero targets, and it is essential that we have another look at the damage that a third runway would cause at Heathrow. We must seriously re-examine the case for proceeding and, as my hon. Friend says, also look at the impact it would have on our communities.
A meta-analysis of 70 studies published between 2000 and 2020 has shown that researchers consistently find elevated levels of ultra-fine particulate matter in airport communities. Constant exposure to those particulates can lead to decreased lung function, oxidative DNA damage, and premature death. Allowing the third runway and the 260,000 flights that it will add to London’s skies is not only an annoyance to residents; it is a risk to their health.
The third runway would have further far-reaching consequences other than simply tainting the air that my constituents breathe. At COP29 this week, the Prime Minister vowed to cut UK emissions by 81% before 2035, but his own Chancellor has refused to take the third runway off the table. I know from reading the 115 references to the third runway in Hansard that Ministers from both main parties are happy to avoid answering questions from Opposition MPs. For that reason I urge the Minister to consider the words of his colleague, the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, who said:
“I raise the issue of the Heathrow third runway gingerly, but if we are so serious about this climate emergency, I do not see how we cannot look at all the things that the Government and the private sector are doing and ask whether they make sense in a net zero world.”—[Official Report, 24 June 2019; Vol. 662 , c. 522.]
In the last Division on the third runway, seven members of the current Cabinet, including the Prime Minister, opposed expansion. I urge the Minister to work across Departments to ensure that Government policy reflects their commitments to our local communities and our planet before any decision on the third runway is made.
Finally, night flights and the third runway have been constant sources of concern to my residents over the past decade, but they must now contend with the Government’s new proposals for airspace modernisation. Although I understand that the proposals are intended to improve efficiency at the airport and bring aviation in London into the 21st century, I ask for caution. Last year, the London Assembly passed a motion calling on the airport to recognise the damage that its proposals would have on Richmond Park’s wildlife and ecology. The motion highlighted that redirecting 60,000 planes over London’s largest nature reserve flies in the face of decades of conservation efforts. Indeed, the noise from long-haul flights and the additional pollution from fuel dumping could change that fragile ecosystem for years to come.
At the same time, airspace modernisation would lay the groundwork for an increase in the number of aircraft movements at Heathrow, and expose new communities across south-west London to aircraft noise directly above their homes for the first time. The proposed UK airspace design service will of course help to guide the development of those new flight paths, but it is essential that the public are given a genuine chance to choose between the proposals. When the proposed flight path systems are put to public consultation next year, I urge the Minister to ensure that residents can choose a “do minimum” option. New guidance systems can be integrated, and small amendments to current systems made, but ultimately there should be an option to maintain the path in a roughly similar location. We should not ask communities simply to accept change for the sake of change. They deserve a real choice over the future of their skies, rather than a forced decision between bad options.
London is one of the most overflown capital cities in the western world. Hundreds of thousands of Londoners across the city experience the negative impacts of aircraft noise, yet the Government tiptoe around real measures that would improve residents’ lives. By banning night flights, abandoning the third runway, and giving our constituents a genuine choice over the positioning of flight paths, Ministers would demonstrate to London’s airport communities that we are being heard. The previous Government’s policy on the aviation sector was marked by an inability to stand up for the rights of communities in the face of Heathrow and other airports. The Minister now has a chance to be better than his predecessors, to put people before profit, and to consider what is really best for the capital and airport communities across the UK.
Munira Wilson
I heard the Minister from a sedentary position call my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney) a luddite when she made her point about airspace modernisation.
Munira Wilson
Yes, I am afraid so. The Minister is making the point that we need modernisation. I say to him respectfully that I, my hon. Friend and our constituents recognise the need for innovation and to move with technology as it changes. Of course we want to reduce carbon emissions, and we support a better Heathrow—not a bigger Heathrow—as we understand its importance to the economy, but on airspace modernisation we could still achieve some of the benefits by adopting a “do minimum” approach, gaining benefits from modernisation while not coming up with lots of new flight paths and really intensifying noise over certain areas that might not be overflown at the moment. We have seen how in other countries airspace modernisation has led to noise sewers. Will he offer reassurance to the residents of Teddington, Twickenham, the Hamptons and St Margarets that those places will not end up becoming noise sewers? Will he please commit to a “do minimum” approach and transparency on the process?