Response to the consultation on Aviation 2050

Dear Minister

I write about the lamentable lack of control over noise from flights into and out of Heathrow over my constituency, and the past change to routes. These did considerable damage by raising noise levels and undermining trust in the regulatory authorities. In 2014 without any consultation NATs narrowed the Compton Gate , denied there had been changes and then said we had to put up with them. The more concentrated flight paths have caused considerable nuisance to constituents. Some flights have also seemed to be lower and noisier than they should be.

I welcome any attempt to rectify this unfriendly approach to neighbours to Heathrow. I welcome various developments which could reduce noise levels in future and recommend you give them priority.

1 Eliminating stacks by slowing planes on their route to the Uk so they can land when they arrive.
2.Using higher flight paths so planes stay higher for longer
3 Regulating and managing noisy planes out of the fleets
4. Encouraging systems at airports which reward quiet flyers
5.Low power low drag systems to reduce noise
6. Minimising routes over built up areas

As you introduce Performance based navigation it is most important to us that you offer several routes to provide respite. No-one wishes to live under a newly imposed motorway in the sky always in operation.

Yours sincerely

The Rt Hon Sir John Redwood MP, D.Phil, FCSI

Labour says it wants to be involved in Brexit. It is and will be. Next week if there is a vote on the government’s Withdrawal Agreement Labour’s votes against will matter given the divisions on this proposal within the Conservative party. Labour is understandably reluctant to set out a positive approach to Brexit given the wide range of views within the party, but will oppose most of what Mrs May produces as an opposition usually does. They have set out a wide range of reasons for being against the Withdrawal Agreement.

Mr Corbyn is treading a careful path against the background of trying to lead a party much more divided over Brexit than the Conservatives. The Conservative party in the Commons contains up to 12 MPs who cannot reconcile themselves to Brexit and who used a number of opportunities to try to derail or modify the Withdrawal Bill as it went through. There is now a slightly larger group who say they want to prevent leaving without an agreement. The rest of the Conservative Parliamentary party accepts Brexit, including more than 100 who were Leave campaigners and strongly believe in it. The Conservative membership is also strongly pro Brexit, and an increasing proportion of the Conservative vote in the last General Election came from Leave voters who saw the party as the best way to get Brexit implemented.It is easy to unite practically all the Conservative party on Brexit by ensuring it happens.

In contrast there is a much larger group of Labour MPs who cannot reconcile themselves to Brexit, who try various Parliamentary tactics to seek to derail or delay our exit from the EU. There is a small group of pro Brexit Labour MPs, and some who accept the verdict of the voters and who fear for Labour’s future if it is seen to stop Brexit. There is a larger group of pro Jeremy Corbyn MPs who wish to use Brexit to try to secure a General election. The membership is heavily in favour of Remain, whilst the voters are split between some very pro Leave constituencies and some very pro Remain constituencies. There is no way the leadership can suit all their audiences. The Manifesto said it would want to implement the referendum result. The best course for the leader is to oppose much of what the government does, to unite his forces by concentrating on trying to force an early election, and hoping that in practice the Brexit issue gets settled by the Conservatives so he can move his party on to more unifying terrain.

Next week the question is a simple for or against the Withdrawal Agreement. It’s not a difficult question. It is difficult to see why many would want to vote for it, given the way it guarantees another 21 to 45 months of Brexit rows and likely continuing political paralysis because of the continuing talks with the EU. That would make a deeper split in Labour that much more likely.
Labour seems to understand that adopting a second referendum as their policy as their pro Remain group want to do would be very damaging to their poll position. It would mean losing more of their Leave supporters who would feel insulted and let down by telling them they got it wrong the first time. The Lib Dems found backing a second referendum left them a poor third in the 2017 General election.

The sales figures for 2018 were down in 2018 on 2017 by 4.6%. Within this the pattern was

North America plus 7.2%
UK minus 1.5%
Europe minus 7.8%
China minus 21.6%

The Uk performance was especially good given the fall in the overall market thanks to higher Vehicle Excise Duties, the attack on diesels and the general squeeze on car loan credit. As JLR said “The UK’s performance in particular has been encouraging”

It is a great pity JLR has to reduce its workforce thanks to a nasty decline in China and a marked slowdown on the continent.

I have been asked to comment on the Speaker’s ruling on Wednesday. I will do so when I have heard the Speaker’s further consideration, which he promised to Jacob Rees Mogg and Iain Duncan Smith who raised important questions at the time. At issue is the question of whether a Business motion tabled by government should be amendable, and what putting a motion forthwith means as this is often referred to in Standing Orders.

There is a lot of confusion and deliberate misinformation about trading under the WTO. Here are some facts that might help.

1. All our current trade is under the WTO, as the EU is a member. The UK will become a full member with vote and voice as soon as we leave the EU, as we never surrendered our membership when we joined the EU.
2. There is no WTO schedule of tariffs that automatically comes in. Each member of the EU files its own tariff schedule and trades with anyone under that who wish to trade. The WTO requires a member to trade with any other member on the same terms, unless there is an approved Free Trade Agreement that exempts the countries from the common tariff of the Schedules. A country is always free unilaterally to cut or remove tariffs.
3. If a country’s trading terms are disputed by another member there is a dispute resolution procedure. A dispute does not stop trading under the published terms whilst the dispute is being resolved.
4. The EU does not have Free Trade Agreements with the USA, China, Brazil etc so we trade successfully with them at the moment under WTO rules and under the tariff schedule set by the EU. Once out we can sign Free Trade deals with these countries removing these tariffs, or could cut some of the tariffs unilaterally any time we wanted to make imports cheaper.
5. The so called side deals the EU has with these countries are mainly unimportant or unrelated to trade. Some are multilateral agreements that the UK has signed anyway.
6.The one agreement we currently have through the EU that may be important, the General Procurement Agreement, gives us access to public procurement opportunities in signatory states, and gives them the same access to the UK. The WTO has now agreed the UK will be a member of that Agreement in our own right on departure from the EU.
7. The EU has free trade agreements with a number of mainly smaller countries. The top five, Switzerland, Canada, Korea, Norway and Turkey account for three quarters of the exports involved. Switzerland, for example, has agreed to continue all current preferences with the UK as well as with the rest of the EU on our exit. No country with an FTA with the EU has indicated any wish to terminate the agreement with the UK once we leave. Transferring the current deal to both the remaining EU and to the UK is a relatively straightforward process.
8. The WTO does not require us to impose new checks at borders or delay imports into the UK. They recommend risk based checks. As the risks of EU product will not go up the day we leave the EU there is no requirement to impose new difficult checks.
9. If the UK and the EU agree to negotiate a free trade agreement once the UK has left the EU on March 29 this year, we could agree to impose no tariffs on each other and would get WTO consent to not impose them pending the negotiation of a full free trade agreement.

Peter Lilley has published a good pamphlet with Global Britain and Labour Leave setting out more detail called “30 Truths about leaving on WTO terms”