Civil Aviation Bill

Lord Trefgarne Excerpts

Wednesday 13th June 2012 Lords Chamber

[The Countess of Mar]

My Lords, I feel I have been here before. During the passage of the previous Civil Aviation Bill in 2006, I recall long discussions on Clause 8, relating to health—the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Oldham, may recall our exchanges then. These included my concerns, and those of injured pilots, over the effects of breathing what is known as “bleed air”, which could contain organophosphates, on the health of both airline crew and passengers.

The Civil Aviation Bill before us today includes the requirement under Clause 84, “Environmental information”, that:

“The CAA must publish, or arrange for the publication of, such information and advice as it considers appropriate relating to—

(a) the environmental effects of civil aviation in the United Kingdom,

(b) how human health and safety is, or may be, affected by such effects, and

(c) measures taken, or proposed to be taken, with a view to reducing, controlling or mitigating the adverse environmental effects of civil aviation in the United Kingdom”.

This is to be welcomed, but I would suggest that there is one environment in particular where this duty is avoided: the cabin environment. Despite growing evidence, contaminated cabin air continues to be a very serious threat to the safety and health of air crew and passengers of all ages. This has been known since 1954. Indeed, a year later, an engineer from the company that is now part of Boeing recommended that,

“in light of the risk of exposure to oil fumes in flight, airlines should either operate non-bleed ventilation systems or filter the engine bleed air before supplying it to passengers”.

The Civil Aviation Act 2006 clearly sets out the responsibility of the Secretary of State and the Civil Aviation Authority for,

“organising, carrying out and encouraging measures for safeguarding the health of persons on board aircraft”.

Five years ago, the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, welcomed the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee’s 2007 report on air travel and its call for urgent action on contaminated air, saying that this was a,

“very serious matter of public safety”.

Since that time, some research has been undertaken by the Department for Transport-sponsored Institute of Environment and Health at Cranfield University—more of which later.

I believe that more rigorous action is required and this duty cannot be abdicated in favour of the European Aviation Safety Agency—EASA. In 2007, the House of Commons Transport Committee’s report on the work on the Civil Aviation Authority stated that EASA was,

“not yet ready to do its job and it is vital that the UK transfers no further responsibilities to it. I see no evidence that the position has changed”.

Apart from the new Boeing 787, passenger aircraft use unfiltered, heated air drawn directly from aircraft engines and auxiliary power units for cabin air conditioning. This is termed bleed air, because it is bled from the compressor section of the engine. This system has been used since just after World War II, when engine temperatures and pressures were considerably lower than today. The use of compressed air for ventilation was described in 1946 as “fortuitous”. With rising oil prices, the aviation industry was faced with huge commercial challenges; since the initial introduction of bleed air, both performance and efficiency have become critical. As a result, it is normal for the temperatures to which oils are now exposed within the engine to be far higher. This is a serious toxicity concern because the base stock of the oil is known to thermally degrade when exposed to extreme temperatures. Combine this with the known design fault in engine oil seals and you have the perfect conditions for low-level oil leakage that can expose passengers and crew to toxic fumes through the unfiltered air they are breathing.

As highlighted in the recently published Australian Civil Aviation Safety Authority—CASA—report:

“Exposure to … fumes and vapours can result in acute short-term symptoms”.

The report stated that the organophosphate family of TCP includes TOCP, which is a known substance in engine oils and can cause adverse health effects. In some individuals, long-term disability and forced retirement have resulted from long-term exposure. Pilots and air crew are particularly vulnerable.

It was also proven in the 1950s that other parts of the TCP family in the oil were even more toxic than TOCP, and these were later acknowledged to be in the oil at far greater levels than TOCP. Even more concerning is the recent research undertaken by the University of Washington, which has found that the entire family of TCP chemicals is toxic. I am sure that I do not need to remind your Lordships that organophosphates are neurotoxins—also commonly known as nerve agents. A small ongoing study undertaken at the University of Nebraska has recently published an astonishing finding that 50% of airline passengers tested positive to exposure to TOCP. This was one flight only with a wide spectrum of people on board—it could have been you or me, or a member of our families. There have been many reports of contaminated air incidents for many different airlines. I can provide details if any noble Lord is interested.

A report from the German air accident investigation bureau, the BFU, showed a serious incident late in 2011 in which a Boeing 737 co-pilot was partially incapacitated shortly after take-off and again on descent after smelling a pungent smell. Blood tests undertaken at the University of Nebraska found,

“that the blood sample (was) positive for exposure to TOCP”.

Recent PhD findings by Dr Susan Michaelis, specifically investigating this issue, found that 32% of the UK pilots in the survey population experienced medium to long-term ill health, 44% reported short-term effects and 13% experienced such chronic ill health that they were no longer able to fly. What we have here are threats to flight safety combined with a public health issue that can no longer be ignored.

The United States Air Force’s newest fighter aircraft has been having major problems with the oxygen system, with pilots reporting a range of hypoxic-like physiological symptoms. With a growing number of in-flight incidents, the United States Air Force grounded its F22 fleet for several months from May until September 2011. Several investigations failed to find the root cause of the problem and the US Secretary of State for Defence recently limited the aircraft’s operational capabilities and required NASA to resolve the issue. The F22 on-board oxygen-generating system takes some of its supply from the bleed-air system, and contaminated bleed air is one of the two issues considered to be the potential cause of the problem.

While attention is often focused on certain aircraft types, such as the BAe 146 and the Boeing 757, in fact the bleed-air system suffers from a flawed design affecting all aircraft using bleed air to supply cabin air for breathing. These fume events are alarming, both in their severity and their frequency. However, many sources—including Dr Susan Michaelis, the European Aviation Safety Agency and the Federal Aviation Administration in the US—have shown that these dangerous events are actually being underreported. What we have is a failed reporting system.

A survey for BALPA undertaken in 2001 and later published in a leading occupational health journal showed that less than 4% of the contaminated air events experienced by pilots in aircraft were recorded on the CAA mandatory occurrence report database. Pilots and cabin crew are too often unaware of, or complacent about, the health and safety implications and come from a culture that accepts fume smells as normal. Worse still, too many are too frightened to report such incidents for fear of losing their jobs. They are aware of the commercial pressure on airlines as, once a defect such as contaminated air is reported, it must be investigated before the aircraft can fly again. I am aware that DHL instructed its pilots not to report selected fume events, confirmed by the CAA in the House of Commons, because these are “acceptable”. This is in direct contradiction of European regulation 859/2008, which states that incidents that could endanger aircraft safety should be reported to the regulator and recorded in the aircraft technical log. Furthermore, European Directive 2003/42/EC requires all suspected oil fume or contaminated air events to be reported to the national authority. I know that the Minister is aware of this because he has given me that answer in reply to a Written Question.

Pilots can also be reluctant to report any symptoms experienced for fear of exposing themselves to a medical that could, ultimately, lead to their licence to fly being revoked. This is acknowledged by the Department for Transport, which notes in its FAQs on cabin air quality that a UK study is unlikely to be successful as,

“pilots … would be legally obliged to report any health impairments found ... to the CAA, who licenses them”.

A recent example of two British Airways pilots who were cited by the airline to be filing a higher than average number of contaminated air reports illustrates this point: one had his medical certificate withdrawn after TCP was found in his blood, while the second pilot died in his mid-40s of a brain tumour after repeated exposures which were in many cases reported, but clearly ignored. The British Airways head doctor, however, is quoted in the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee’s 1st Report of Session 2007-08, entitled Air Travel and Health: an Update, as saying that he had,

“no evidence to suggest there is a serious medical problem”.

It is against this background of underreporting and an industry eager to avoid the commercial implications that the research by Cranfield was undertaken. In the House of Lords 2007 report, it was noted that as the original proposal was to sample “around 1,000 flights”, the size of sample offered only a,

“remote chance of capturing an event”,

if the incidence of contaminated air events is as low as the Government claim. In fact, the sample used was just 100 flights, yet the presence of TCP was detected in 23% of flights. Additionally, 38 reported fumes of which the majority were described as oil or oily-type smells. A mandatory occurrence report, or defect report, was not triggered on one single flight despite this being a requirement under the European directive and regulation. Clearly, the Government’s accepted estimate of the frequency of fume events is flawed and, despite government denials, this problem is being seriously underreported. Indeed, despite censuring the Government while in opposition for their dithering on air cabin quality, with secret studies behind closed doors, putting air crews and passengers at risk, when in office, the Secretary of State for Transport, Theresa Villiers, appears to have done an about-face. Ms Villiers’ interpretation of the Cranfield report was that,

“there was no evidence of pollutants occurring in cabin air at levels exceeding available health and safety standards and guidelines”.—[Official Report, 10/5/11; col. WS37.]

I was told in 2005 that there are no safe levels set for exposure to the mixture of substances from heated synthetic oils or for the organophosphate TCP. Peer reviewers for the Cranfield study used descriptors such as “very serious deficiency”, “very varying quality”, and “serious weaknesses in sampling”. Interestingly, earlier research by the same establishment on behalf of the Government concluded that because,

“current risk assessment practices are largely based on evaluating the toxicity of single chemicals at high doses”,

and because humans are exposed to a mixture of chemicals on a daily basis,

“there could be many uncertainties in the hazard assessment”,

particularly related to low-level exposures. It would appear that we are making the science fit the policy, not the policy fit the science.

As long ago as 1997 I used the term “intellectual corruption” in a speech in your Lordships’ House on the subject of organophosphates. I was not in the least surprised to learn that the second and final Department for Transport-sponsored air-monitoring swab-sampling study by the Institute of Occupational Medicine, in Edinburgh, recently found TCP in aircraft at low levels, with estimated airborne concentrations of TOCP found to be very low.

[Lord Trefgarne]

My Lords, I apologise for interrupting the noble Countess, but if she could move one pace to her left, we could hear a little better what she is saying.

[The Countess of Mar]

I have a chest problem caused by organophosphates.

The Department for Transport publicly states that,

“it would be proper for DfT to be alerted of any findings out of the ordinary. Should that happen the DfT will consider what action might be appropriate to ensure that people can continue to fly without risk to their health”.

However, I must remind noble Lords that, as with the Cranfield study, no fume events were reported, and yet TCP at higher levels than TCP found elsewhere was detected, indicating that the substance originated from the aircraft. Of great concern is that the levels of the neurotoxic parts of the TCP stated to be in the oil are a direct contradiction of what Mobil advised in 2000. While ExxonMobil, formerly Mobil, the manufacturer of the oil, stated at the Australian Senate inquiry into this issue that the levels of the most toxic part of the TCP were over 600,000 times higher than the TOCP part, this Department for Transport-sponsored study has stated that the difference is only three times higher. One might ask who would know better. Making science fit the policy provides a wonderful excuse for inertia.

TCP has clearly been found in all aircraft surveyed. Controversially, the Institute of Occupational Medicine study states that there are government-set exposure standards available for the neurotoxic parts of TCP, but this is not the case. TCP as a whole and the most toxic parts do not have established exposure standards and, as we know, there are no exposure limits set for the mixture of ingredients in the aircraft environment. How can the researchers compare the enclosed environment of an airline cockpit with a normal office environment?

As well as organophosphates, there is a chemical known to be in the oil as an antioxidant at 1%, N-phenyl-alpha-naphthylamine, which is quite a mouthful, or PAN, which is much easier. It has an acknowledged contaminant as a by-product, beta-naphthylamine, or BNA. This is a prohibited schedule 1 category 1 carcinogen that has long been known to cause human bladder cancer. While oil certification standards used to say that suspected human carcinogens are prohibited in the oil, here we have a known human carcinogen in the oil as a contaminant totally ignored. The levels might be low, but repeatedly exposing people to human carcinogens is not acceptable. The new certification standards have removed this prohibition and simply say that all the regulations must be met. The other phrase that has been removed by the Civil Aviation Authority stated that,

“the lubricating oil shall have no adverse effect on the health of personnel when used for its intended purpose”.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

My Lords, I thoroughly agree with the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Rogan. When I was Shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, and therefore about twice a month a regular customer of Belfast City Airport, I realised how enormously important for the economic self-confidence of the Province is that link to Heathrow and, through it, to international networks. I also very much agree with my noble friend Lord Clinton-Davis, who spoke of course, on the basis of very considerable personal experience in having held two immensely important positions in civil aviation. I will follow very much the logic of what he said.

Of course, as always, I listened with great attention to the Minister. He started off by saying something that we would all agree with, which is that aviation is “vital to our economy”—I think I noted down his remarks correctly. To my amazement, he did not say anything at all about the fact that the aviation industry is in fact facing a major competitive threat at the present time and is extremely worried about the future. You might hope that a Government of the day would take that on board and do something about it. Far from it, unfortunately. That is a very troubling situation.

Most of us were brought up thinking complacently—perhaps we always were very complacent about this—that Heathrow was the biggest airport in Europe and so we were quite safe as we had the centre of at least the European aviation industry right here in our country. That is no longer true and is becoming less true all the time. Already two of Heathrow’s rivals, Roissy Charles de Gaulle and Frankfurt, have more aircraft movements than Heathrow. By the end of this decade, which is only eight years away, they will almost certainly have more passengers, as will Schiphol, so Heathrow will be number four and going down.

Heathrow is enormously important and I make no apology for focusing on it. I fear that the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, was completely wrong to say that it is all right because although there is not enough capacity at Heathrow there is enough capacity at Birmingham, Luton or somewhere else. People who want to come to London want to get there as quickly as possible. That is particularly important in the business world. Frankly, the noble Lord did not focus at all on the enormously important economics of the hub and spoke system—what an economist would call the networking effects, which are so important in the aviation industry. If Heathrow is not allowed to become a hub, somewhere else will and it will not be Luton or Birmingham. It will be Schiphol, Paris or Frankfurt. I illustrate that by means of a brief personal anecdote.

In February I was lucky enough to be part of a parliamentary delegation to Mexico. The IPU was rightly concerned to save taxpayer funds and got the best deal that it could, which involved us flying via Schiphol. We went to Schiphol and changed, which meant that we flew 300 kilometres in the wrong direction and 300 kilometres back over the United Kingdom again. That is 600 kilometres more than we needed to fly. We took off twice rather than once. As we all know, most carbon emissions occur on take-off and early altitude gains. I should think that we emitted twice the carbon that we would have done had we been able to fly directly from Heathrow to Mexico City. I witnessed some colleagues taking advantage of Schiphol Airport’s fine duty-free shopping facilities. That, again, is very good news for the economy of Schiphol and of the Netherlands but very bad news for this country. I say to the Government and to the Liberal Party—they should be aware of that and focus on it but they simply are not doing so.

The Bill sets out the obligations of the Secretary of State. I am, of course, totally in favour of the Bill, which was conceived by the previous Labour Government, as has already been pointed out. Clause 2 is headed: “Secretary of State’s general duty”. Clause 2(1) states:

“The Secretary of State must carry out the functions listed in subsection (3) in a manner which the Secretary of State considers will further the interests of users of air transport services regarding the range, availability, continuity, cost and quality of airport operation services”.

The Secretary of State is doing nothing of the kind at present, nor did her predecessor. That is precisely why we have the current problem and why it is cheaper to fly to Mexico City via Schiphol than it is to take off directly from Heathrow—that is, taking off from Heathrow to Schiphol, and then flying from Schiphol to Mexico. Why is that the case? It is because there are not enough slots at Heathrow. Therefore, airlines that want to put on more flights cannot run them from Heathrow. They have to reserve the slots at Heathrow for the high-margin flights going to destinations such as New York, Chicago and Washington DC, where there are lots of first class and club class passengers. The other aircraft with a greater proportion of discounted passengers have to go elsewhere, and so they go to Schiphol, Roissy or Frankfurt. That is the simple logic and the Government must face up to that fact.

The key issue is not just the importance of the aviation business as regards employment. As has been said, it generates nearly half a million jobs in this country. However, it is important for two other reasons as well. First, it is not the only factor or the leading factor but is certainly a factor in location of business decisions. If you decide that you want to locate an international headquarters in a particular city, one of the things that you undoubtedly take into account is the air communications. If you put your office in London and you have to go via Birmingham to get there, that is a very major disincentive to coming to London at all. The aviation business is very important as regards business traffic. It is also important as regards tourism. If you ask the Government whether they care about tourism, they will say, “Of course, we care very much about tourism. It is a very important industry”. However, in practice, they are handicapping tourism over and over again. We have the problem that we are not part of the Schengen visa system so people coming to this country as part of a European tour—the bulk of private tourists from outside the EU coming to the EU come on organised tours—often will not take the trouble, time or additional cost involved in purchasing a British visa. That is a big handicap. We now have the longest delays at our border controls of anywhere in Europe as a result of mismanagement by this Government. That is also a handicap. If we now have shortages of airline slots and people are diverted to Birmingham—I again take the example put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw—that will also be a considerable deterrent to tourism. Therefore, it is no use the Government saying that they care about tourism if their policies have the effect of weakening British tourism’s competitiveness worldwide. That is exactly the situation.

[Lord Trefgarne]

Everything the noble Lord is saying is directed towards more operations, more slots and more flights from Heathrow. What was the policy of the Government, of whom he was a distinguished member, between 1997 and 2010?

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

Our policy was to expand Heathrow and build a third runway. That was the policy which I supported then, which I support now and which I trust my party will support again at the next election. It is the only policy that seems to make any sense. As regards the third runway that we were planning to build—the BAA third runway—I read an interesting proposal the other day which I recommend to the noble Lord, who knows a lot about this subject. It was produced by the Institute of Directors. Noble Lords may be surprised to hear a member of the Labour Party referring to the Institute of Directors but I thought that it came up with an interesting proposal for a third runway to be built within the existing perimeter of the airport to the south, which would be something like 2,600 metres in length and would greatly improve the situation. The scheme has been well documented and the noble Lord may like to look at it. However it is done it is clear that all the airlines and BAA are of one mind on this—the solution is the one that, had we won the previous election, we would have implemented, I am proud to say.

Of course, the whole of this is against the background of the present Government’s neglect of infrastructure generally. We have had the postponement of the high-speed rail project.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Trefgarne]

My Lords, I start by declaring an interest. I am chairman of Fairoaks Airport Consultative Committee—a small privately owned aerodrome only about 10 miles from Heathrow in Surrey, but not a candidate, I can assure your Lordships, for the third London airport.

I start by saying that I, too, accept the broad thrust of the Bill. The great issue before civil aviation and the Government is the provision of sufficient runway capacity in the south-east. At the moment as everybody knows, Heathrow, if not full, is close to it, and there is much speculation and discussion as to where the additional capacity should be provided. I listened with interest to the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Soley, who was, I think, saying that he is in favour of a third runway at Heathrow. He was once the distinguished Member of Parliament for Hammersmith, as I recall. Indeed, I remember it only too well, because for a while I was the junior Aviation Minister while he was the MP for that constituency. I seem to remember him coming to represent the views of his constituency about flights in and out of Heathrow, as they passed over his constituents, in a fairly critical manner. But perhaps the world has changed. In truth, it has changed, and I must be fair to the noble Lord, because the impact of civil aviation on the population underneath is less now than it was 10 or 20 years ago. He is entitled to take that view and therefore perhaps to now accommodate the idea of a third runway at Heathrow, although that is not a popular view among those who live a little nearer to the airport than do his former constituents in Hammersmith.

[Lord Soley]

I think I remember the meeting the noble Lord is talking about. It would have been in the very early 1980s. Actually, it was about night flights. I have been in favour of a third runway since 1989 or 1990, and I spoke in favour of it in the House of Commons. However, night flights are different, and I would not go back on that. We have to be very careful about night flights.

[Lord Trefgarne]

I agree with that. Indeed, I recall that one of the very first issues I was asked to deal with as the junior Aviation Minister—I was there for only nine months, I think—was the numbers of night flights permitted from Heathrow. I dare say the noble Lord came with other Members of Parliament from local constituencies to make their representations to me.

If a third runway is not to be provided at Heathrow—and the Government seem to have set their mind in that direction—then where is it to be provided? Of course, I listened with interest to the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Patten, about a sort of mega-airport, as he seemed to be saying, with two runways at Gatwick and two at Heathrow, connected by some wonderful new interconnecting railway. I must confess I have not heard that proposition before, and no doubt the Minister will want to consider it very carefully.

I also listened with interest to the speech of the noble Countess, Lady Mar. She has, of course, made her representations on these matters to your Lordships on several occasions before. They ought to be considered carefully, but it is also fair to say that very few, if any, of the major air-worthiness authorities take a similar view to her. For example, I would have thought that if there were a real issue along the lines that the noble Countess was predicating, presumably the Civil Aviation Authority would have taken some steps to move in that direction. Perhaps it will one day. Perhaps she is a voice crying in the wilderness; perhaps she is a sort of John the Baptist, who will in due course convert us all. But she does, at least, deserve the courtesy of a proper consideration of what she has said, so I shall read it with care. Like almost every noble Lord, I have been a passenger many times in my life, but I was also a pilot for some years, so I am no less interested than she is in these matters.

My noble friend Lord Jenkin of Roding referred to some of the important considerations that arise from Part 1, particularly the ring-fencing of the assets of BAA and any other airport operator which finds itself in a similar position, and the question of the right of appeal when those assets are ring-fenced. He makes an important point that will need to be considered carefully when we get to Committee. My noble friend can count on my interest at least, if not support, in these matters when that time comes.

Further provisions of this Bill which are not sufficiently covered are those for general aviation, in which I have played a small part over the years. General aviation is now largely excluded from Heathrow, for obvious reasons, and is almost totally excluded, though not quite so, from Gatwick. It is therefore required to operate from places like Farnborough, and indeed Fairoaks, to which I have already referred. That presents difficulty, particularly for interconnection with other flights, but I do hope that some provision for general aviation can continue to be made, if not at Heathrow then at least at Gatwick and Stansted.

The time marches on. I certainly intend to play a detailed part when we get to the Committee stage of this Bill. I support the broad thrust of what is proposed, but there are a number of detailed matters which will need further consideration.