Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether the Government has used the methodology in his Department's WebTAG guidance to assess the annual cost of aircraft noise on health in the UK each year.

Health impacts associated with aviation noise are already factored into policy appraisal where there is relevant robust evidence, including monetisation of these costs where this is possible. Earlier this month Defra published a review of recent research on the effect of exposure to noise and hypertension. This information has been integrated into the policy appraisal process as set out in a report published in November 2014 by Defra for the Inter-Governmental Group on the Costs and Benefits of Noise. The report is: Environmental Noise: Valuing impacts on: sleep disturbance, annoyance, hypertension, productivity and quiet.

It has also been incorporated into DfT’s Transport analysis Guidance (WebTAG) (the DfT’s transport appraisal guidance and toolkit). This can be found at https://www.gov.uk/guidance/transport-analysis-guidance-webtag.