Cabin Air Safety/Aerotoxic Syndrome

Jeremy Quin Excerpts

Thursday 17th March 2016 Westminster Hall

[Jeremy Quin (Horsham) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Gillan.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Jonathan Reynolds) on securing this debate and on the fine way he set out and shaped the discussion. He explained a lot of the technical detail and referred very appropriately to the coroners’ reports. He also highlighted, as did the hon. Member for East Lothian (George Kerevan) and my hon. Friend the Member for Crawley (Henry Smith), the fact that at the heart of the matter are a lot of personal tragedies of which people around the Chamber will be aware. Like my hon. Friend, I have a close interest in Gatwick airport, which borders my constituency of Horsham. As the Minister knows from other discussions, that can occasionally be a mixed blessing, but I am delighted to say that it means a large number of aircrew and retired aircrew live in my constituency. It is a great pleasure to represent them.

I knew nothing of this issue prior to my election to Parliament, but I have been shocked by the number of people coming forward, some with very obvious medical issues, who have apparently suffered from aerotoxic syndrome. It comes as no surprise to hear that Unite is currently dealing with some 61 cases. I am fortunate to have in my constituency Captain Tristan Lorraine, who over 15 years has devoted a lot of study to this worrying condition. I am grateful to him for his support and willingness to share his findings.

Like other Members, I am no GP, but it seems apparent that there is significant evidence that aerotoxic syndrome exists and is a real condition. One constituent wrote to me:

“I was exposed to contaminated air. These exposures were notified to the Government regulator. I presented my medical reports to the Civil Aviation Authority…the CAA accepted the reports and revoked my medical certificate to fly without asking for any further opinion. British Airways retired me on ill-health grounds.”

Given that that is what is happening in practice to those who have suffered from contaminated air, and that that is the reaction of those in the know, I am mystified as to why successive authorities have consistently not found any long-term effects from contaminated air. I am no conspiracy theorist and I understand that the Government and others have in good faith relied on academic work on the impact of the relevant chemicals. Nevertheless, as we are all aware, we are talking about complex and varying combinations of chemicals.

After earlier reports of contaminated air in cabins, the Countess of Mar asked the then Minister, Lord Davies of Oldham:

“What exposure standards currently apply to any synergistic effects of simultaneous exposure to numerous chemicals which may be experienced by aircraft passengers and crew during a contaminated air event in a reduced pressure environment?”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 25 October 2005; Vol. 674, c. WA167.]

The Minister replied: “None.” That parliamentary question was asked and answered more than 10 years ago. I believe that since then, four reports have been sent to the independent Committee on Toxicity. The Civil Aviation Authority found,

“no positive evidence of a link between exposure to contaminants in cabin air and possible acute and long term health effects.”

As my hon. Friend the Member for Crawley said, the European Aviation Safety Agency is due to present a report on in-flight cabin air measurement in the autumn, and we look forward to seeing and studying it. Notwithstanding all the reports, aircrew in particular, and others, appear to suffer ill effects as a result of engine bleeds, which have been linked by coroners’ reports and others to the circumstances we are discussing. Aside from hard-working crew members who are clearly at regular risk, I am concerned that the travelling public, the unborn and the young are being exposed to a complex cocktail of chemicals about which there is clearly an element of doubt. I do not for one second question the integrity of the reports or, indeed, of those who have received them, and unlike the hon. Member for Heywood and Middleton (Liz McInnes) I am certainly no biochemist, but we are all acutely aware of substances in the workplace—including tobacco, asbestos and organophosphates—for which it took years to establish that positive link to ill health to which the CAA refers.

The hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde referred to international solutions, and he is of course right. He also referred to the Boeing Dreamliners, and I was delighted to hear the Minister’s intervention on the hon. Member for Heywood and Middleton, because if the Dreamliner solution not only solves this problem but is more efficient, that is a very positive solution indeed. We all know that engine bleeds happen, and that the technology exists to prevent them. This is a genuine, ongoing source of concern. Does the Minister agree that we have every right to assume that the precautionary principle should apply in this area?

--- Later in debate ---

[Grahame M. Morris (Easington) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship again, Mrs Gillan.

I thank the Backbench Business Committee for the debate and all Members who supported the application for one. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Jonathan Reynolds) for the professional and comprehensive way he put forward the case, and to the contributions of both Government and Opposition Members, in particular that of the hon. Member for Crawley (Henry Smith), who I suspect has not got the credit he deserves for raising the issue. The proposals and suggestions have been extraordinarily helpful, and I hope that the Minister will respond positively.

I must declare my interest as chair of the Unite group in Parliament. I am a proud member of Unite and I feel, as my colleagues do, that this is an important part of the work we do for our members and their families. I also pay tribute to Matt Bass’s parents, Charlie and Fiona, who might be listening to the debate today. I had the great privilege of meeting them and some Unite members who are air crew. At a meeting in Parliament, they relayed to us their personal experiences and concerns.

I thank my trade union, Unite, for its excellent and detailed briefing on such an important issue, and a number of Members have emphasised some specific aspects. It is important to recognise the valuable work of Unite in investigating concerns and protecting passengers and cabin crew from toxic fume events. I am concerned that airlines, regulators and, with due respect to the Minister, Governments do not seem to be terribly active in considering contaminated cabin air.

It would be remiss of me not to remind people—the general public who are listening to the debate or reading it in Hansard—that Unite has established a fume event register and a helpline, which are available through the website. Given the lack of any official reporting, I hope that when air crew and members of the public who are frequent flyers feel that there has been such an incident, they will use the Unite register to report it. We need the evidence and an objective assessment. We need public and cabin crew affected by fume events to come forward and identify them.

If we are not successful in convincing the Government to take action and to investigate the matter fully, we will need evidence because the only other option for people is to seek legal redress. As my hon. Friend the Member for Heywood and Middleton (Liz McInnes) mentioned, Unite is taking up the case of 61 of our members in relation to this issue. Earlier in the debate, the hon. Member for Horsham (Jeremy Quin) suggested that there was not a causal link between symptoms and exposure, but I am old enough to remember the arguments made against any causal link between smoking and lung cancer, or exposure to asbestos and the development of mesothelioma and asbestosis. I fully understand the reluctance of the industry to have an investigation, because of the potential costs involved, but it is beholden on us and the Minister in particular to look into such a link with all seriousness.

[Jeremy Quin]

I think I might have misheard the hon. Gentleman, but, if not, I would not want the record to suggest that I think there is no causal link—I am concerned that there might be. The hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Jonathan Reynolds) referred to asbestosis and we have also heard about organophosphates. I think there may be a causal link, and I am keen that the precautionary principle applies until we get really hard evidence that there is not. Like the hon. Gentleman, I am genuinely concerned.

[Grahame M. Morris]

I am grateful for that intervention; I did not mean to misrepresent the hon. Gentleman’s position. It is important that we look at evidence. Considerable pressure is building to have a proper investigation and to make an objective assessment as to whether there is a causative link between the symptoms, which are wide and various—I do not propose to go into them again because other Members have already done that—and exposure to toxic air fumes that have come from engines through bleed air systems.

Other Members have referred to the new generation Boeing 787 Dreamliner, which uses bleed-free systems. Those systems are not an industry standard, nor does Boeing’s decision seem to mark the beginning of a transition to a safer system. I echo the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Stalybridge and Hyde, because, apart from anything else, Unite has a substantial number of members involved in the aviation industry—not just flight and aircraft maintenance crew but those working in the manufacture of aircraft components and engines. I do not seek to damage confidence in the industry, but it is important that we ensure that this safety-critical industry enjoys complete confidence and we have those necessary assurances and investigations.