Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Robert Goodwill and Liz McInnes

Thursday 28th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Goodwill]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right in some ways. We have not delivered the support for those environmental schemes that we should have delivered. I am pleased that the Rural Payments Agency has now taken that over from Natural England. I met its chief executive this week. If we cannot to get the money out on time, other farmers will not be incentivised to join those schemes, so my priority is to improve the situation, as we did with the basic payments scheme.

[Liz McInnes (Heywood and Middleton) (Lab)]

3. What assessment he has made of the UK’s progress on meeting the Aichi biodiversity targets.

Cabin Air Safety/Aerotoxic Syndrome

Debate between Robert Goodwill and Liz McInnes

Thursday 17th March 2016 Westminster Hall

[Liz McInnes (Heywood and Middleton) (Lab)]

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

First, I will declare an interest, having been a Unite rep in a previous existence; I remain a member of the union. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Jonathan Reynolds) for securing this debate, and for his very measured opening speech.

My background is in science; I used to work as a biochemist for the NHS. So I am very wary about jumping to any conclusions; we need to weigh up the evidence. However, I support the request for an independent inquiry into this issue. The evidence is quite compelling and we need to progress. The employer’s duty of care has been talked about, and it is absolutely key to this issue that we assess the evidence that is available, examine the incidents that have occurred and try to establish whether there is a causative effect. We really need to take some action, and I hope that that is what we decide to do at the end of this debate.

Both my hon. Friend the Member for Stalybridge and Hyde and the hon. Member for Crawley (Henry Smith) have already talked about cabin air and where it comes from. It is quite significant that the new Boeing 787 uses a different method of supplying cabin air. The air is supplied by electronically driven compressors that take air directly from the atmosphere so there is no contact with the engines; there is no possibility of a seal failing and contaminants from the engine oil getting into the cabin air. One of my constituents, who is an air steward, has suggested to me that this new plane has been developed because it has been recognised that there are issues with the old system of bleed air. Again, however, that is speculation.

[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Mr Robert Goodwill)]

I asked precisely the same question of my officials: was it done for that reason? They said, no, it was done for other reasons, not because of the air quality issue. Obviously, however, the effect is that air does not have to pass through the engine. The aircraft was designed for efficiency and that change was one way of making the aircraft more efficient; it was not made in reaction to this bleed air quality issue.

[Liz McInnes]

I thank the Minister for that intervention; that is very useful information. It reinforces the point about speculation and causative effects. Obviously, cabin crew say that the air issue was the reason why the 787 was developed with that system. If there is a public inquiry on this matter, I hope that information about that system will form part of the evidence.

My hon. Friend the Member for Stalybridge and Hyde said that some statistics showed that fume events occurred in one flight in 2,000. One of the statistics that I pulled out is from the Committee on Toxicity of Chemicals in Food, Consumer Products and the Environment. COT reported in 2007 that fume events occur on one flight in 100, so again there is some dispute over the incidence of these events. There is also anecdotal evidence that fume events occur even more often than that, but they are not being reported. The really surprising thing about all of this is that there are no chemical sensors in the aircraft. The noses of the cabin crew are the only detectors.

My constituent asked me not to give her name, but she was quite happy to talk to me about her experience as a cabin crew member. She described these fume events to me. She said that she has been in cabins when fumes have entered. She has flown for four different airlines and fume events have happened in planes from all four of them. She said to me, “Fumes come in. You smell the oil. It’s not being acknowledged by managers and higher officials in the airline industry when these incidents are reported.” When I spoke to her, she compared the effect of fume events with Gulf war syndrome. With Gulf war syndrome, we had soldiers coming back to the UK with massive neurological problems and it took a very long time for any investigation to be made and for it to occur to somebody that these problems were happening too often to be a coincidence. It is interesting that she made that comparison.

My constituent said to me that all cabin crew want is for this problem to be recognised and acknowledged. Until we have a full investigation, cabin crew will not feel that their employers are doing everything they can to safeguard them while they are at work.