Night Flights: Impact on Communities

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—(Mike Wood.)

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for granting me the opportunity to have this debate on this issue. It is quite well attended, which is nice to see. I welcome the Minister, my former colleague on the Public Accounts Committee, to his place. It is a pleasure to see him here. I understand that he is going to be the Minister for Hammersmith Bridge, so I look forward to our many constructive communications.

Night flights are the most intrusive form of aircraft noise and there is clear evidence that they harm both the physical and mental health of residents who live under flightpaths. This summer, the delays and chaos at Heathrow airport resulted in an increased number of flights landing through the night. For my constituents and for many others across west and south-west London, that disturbance resulted in countless sleepless nights.

This disturbance is completely avoidable. Night flights are by no means essential for airport operations. These flights can and should be moved and it is within the Government’s remit to ensure that that happens.

I therefore have two asks of the Department for Transport. My primary call is for a ban on scheduled flights at Heathrow airport between 11 pm and 6 am. That is the only way we can be sure that residents will not continue to suffer from noise disruption. If the Government will not commit to that, they must commission a full independent analysis of the impact of night flights on the health of local communities, the environment and the UK economy to inform future policy development.

I will give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson) first.

It is as if we were co-ordinated.

I congratulate my hon. Friend and constituency neighbour on securing this important debate. My constituency of Twickenham is, of course, that bit closer to Heathrow and further along the flightpath, so I wholeheartedly welcome and support the two asks that she is making of the Minister today about trying to balance the economic benefits of night flights against the health risks and the distress that they cause to constituents. Does she agree that the Government could start by looking at extending the night-time restriction to 10 pm, from 11.30 pm, given the large number of frequent late-night departures that are blighting my constituents’ sleep?

My hon. Friend raises an important point. We would like to see night flights restricted as much as possible to increase the amount of sleep that our constituents can get.

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech and an excellent point on an issue that is pertinent to her constituents with regard to Heathrow, and affects my constituents in Edinburgh and, I am sure, people surrounding every other airport in the country. Night flights are a constant problem. I find my constituents constantly facing the problem of disturbed sleep—more so now that flights are increasing again post pandemic—which has both a physical and an emotional impact on them. Perhaps what we really need is some way of being able to control this, because the airports themselves at the moment cannot seem to control night flights.

I thank my hon. Friend for that excellent point. She is right, which is why we are calling for independent analysis and tracking so we can see exactly what goes on.

I commend the hon. Lady for securing this debate. I spoke to her earlier in relation to this. Belfast City airport is an example of where things can happen. It is in a built-up area. Local residents were unhappy with night-time flights, which are not allowed into Belfast City airport after 9 pm and there is a fine if that happens. Does she not agree that, although people may live under a flightpath, it does not mean that they should simply be expected to live through ever-increasing mayhem? It is a case not of buyers’ remorse, but of mental health impact, which should necessitate regulation. Does she agree?

I agree 100%. It is important to think about the mental health impact as well as the physical impact.

The hon. Lady may not know this, but my staff and I became somewhat expert on this matter in 2015 when there was a flightpath consultation by Edinburgh airport. My Livingston constituency has, I believe—although it may be debated—around 70% of Edinburgh’s flight traffic during the day, but also at night. What we learned from that experience was that there was a complete lack of community consultation. Would she include in her asks of the Government that community consultation, compensation, proper structures and oversight of that must be implemented? You would not put a road through somebody’s constituency without proper consultation. Why would you put a flightpath over people’s homes without consulting them properly?

That point is powerfully made. The Government set the current night flight regime at Heathrow airport, but the restrictions are simply not stringent enough and the true number of night flights is significantly higher than the quota allows. An average of 16 flights per night are permitted to land at Heathrow each year between the hours of 11.30 pm and 6 am, but flights may receive special dispensation not to be counted towards the overall quota if they are delayed due to specific reasons such as weather conditions or air traffic control disruption.

From July to September this year, 231 flights were granted dispensation. That is between two and three additional flights per night on average. In total, 475 unscheduled night flights arrived at or departed from Heathrow airport due to extreme delays and disruption. At times, my constituents would suffer almost continuous noise from aircraft overhead. That is partly due to the Government’s complete lack of long-term planning, which saw airports engulfed in chaos and flight schedules thrown into the air. However, it also proves that the current restrictions are insufficient to limit the impact on residents when disturbances to flight patterns occur.

The eastern fringe of my constituency, my home town, is directly under the flightpath of Glasgow airport. A local group in my constituency, the Whitecrook Aircraft Noise Association, has been fighting for years for local residents affected by noise to be given the necessary support to alleviate its effects. When the hon. Lady asks her questions of the Minister, one of the most important and basic questions is what the Government are going to do to stop night-time flights across our constituencies.

Indeed, that is the pertinent question: what are the Government going to do?

I thank the hon. Lady, my neighbour, for giving way. To answer her question, we know what the Government are doing: they are increasing the misery for our constituents. The southern part of my constituency is already under the flightpath and the whole of it will be if, God forbid, the third runaway is ever built. There is a totally cavalier attitude, particularly to depriving people of sleep. No other country, certainly in Europe, would put up with an airport like Heathrow’s being expanded and the transgressions that night flights in particular make on the people who have to live with them.

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right about expansion, and I will come on to that later.

The current night flight quotas are in place until October 2025. The Government have agreed to consult on proposals for the next regime over the course of 2023, but that will be of little comfort to many Londoners facing a further three years of disruption. Night flights are becoming an increasing issue across London. Data from the Civil Aviation Authority shows that night-time noise events from Heathrow affected 974,000 people in 2018—that is 140,000 more people than in 2006.

The hon. Lady may be coming on to this point, in which case I apologise, but over the years we have been arguing that this issue is not just about the numbers, but about the impact on physical health and mental health in particular, the stress and lack of sleep it causes and the consequences of those things for people’s quality of life. The Government have never really taken that into account, so I hope that she will be able to at least focus their attention on the real effects that this issue is having on people’s lives.