Airport Watch Conference, ULU 18th June

This weekend I went to represent Birmingham FoE at the Airport Watch conference and discovered that there has been a lot of evidence gathered both on the environmental, but also the economic effects that aviation is having on this country.

The day was divided into 3 parts: in the morning session we had presentations on the different areas that will be covered in the scoping document on aviation which the government is consulting on at the moment. Then, in the afternoon session we were able to question civil servants from the DfT who are working on this on the process on how it will work. For the final session, we had the minister for aviation, Theresa Villiers, who spoke on the government's attitude on various aspects of what we had been talking about through the day. This was the first time a minister had attended a gathering of aviation campaigners and her presence was a welcome sign.

Generally, quite a positive thread ran through the day's presentations, especially from the two chairs, John Stewart of HACAN and Airport Watch and Tim Johnson of AEF. The main reason for their positivity seems to be the government's very different tone to the previous administration and the presence of Theresa Villiers as minister, who was one of the main people within the conservative party pushing for abandoning the 3^rd runway at Heathrow.

In a way, it was a shame that the presentations were given in the morning when the speakers were just preaching to the converted (the attendees from airport watch and related groups would have known most of what was said already). The presentations were all very good and showed how well our evidence base is building in order to fight the case of the airports and airlines economic arguments, as well as their technical and environmental ones.

It was heartening that the government has made the consultation so open (in complete contrast to the one on HS2) and that they have deliberately left an appropriate time-frame for people to be able to collect evidence to back up their arguments. There is still a complete imbalance in the financial resources available to pro and anti-aviation campaigners, but we were given assurance that the evidence provided will be scrutinised properly, unlike the evidence given by the aviation industry which formed the basis of the 2003 white paper.

One of the biggest themes of concern to come out of the day was the conflict between the government's localism agenda and the need to tackle aviation and climate change at a national or even international level. I think that Theresa Villiers was left in no doubt that she needed to go away and look at that to ensure that all the work on the aviation framework was not going to be in vain. There was some assurance that issues of national strategic importance will be tackled at a national level, but this does seem to be a contradiction in much of government policy and the dots need to be joined up a lot better in many areas, if we are to be able to tackle environmental problems, particularly the country's climate change targets.

With no economic case for airport expansion, growth incompatible with legally binding CO2 reduction targets and a growing awareness of the blight on local communities in terms of both air pollution and noise are issues that sound alarm bells loud across government. The aviation industry surely has quite a battle to win in order to persuade people that business as usual can continue.

Joe Peacock

Tax cuts for the most under-taxed??!!

I was amazed to find Jerry Blackett calling for airport taxes to be cut in the Birmingham Post on March 14. How unfortunate it is that at a time when people are losing their jobs and facing tax rises on everyday items he should be defending the already under-taxed aviation industry.

The figures he quotes for losses to the economy are dwarfed by the subsidies the aviation industry already receives and the money that is taken out of the economy by people flying abroad.

VAT has just gone up to 20%, as people must be very aware, yet how much VAT does the aviation industry pay? None on anything! They don't pay VAT or any other tax on fuel, they pay no VAT on buying aircraft, servicing of those aircraft or meals served on aircraft. With this lack of taxation, public money being proposed to be put into paying for Birmingham Airport's runway extension and no suggestion that the industry is liable for the environmental damage it causes, in fact they get a very good deal indeed.

Compared to car travel, aviation benefits from an annual tax subsidy of around £9 billion and how many people actually benefit from this? The country suffered from an annual tourism deficit of over £15bn in 2009, down significantly due to the recession. Perhaps a further adjustment is needed for people to spend more money in this country and bring more money into the treasury.

At a time when people are losing their jobs because of cuts to public services, we should not be giving any further money to activities that benefit so few people. The majority of people don't fly and would rather that those who do pay their fair share of tax.

See Fair Tax on Flying for more info

Joe Peacock

Extremist? Moi?

The Birmingham Post ran an editorial yesterday attacking our position on the runway extension at BIA and stating, amongst other things, "how out of touch they are with the real world" and asking us to come clean about our agenda.

Now when I was on the radio recently, airport chief Paul Kehoe uttered the legendary phrase "I don't know what planet Friends of the Earth are on" and this seems a remarkably similar line of attack.

The accepted "wisdom" around making economic policy in the West Midlands all seems to be based on there being limitless resources that we can carry on exploiting regardless. What kind of real world is that, exactly?

The real world is the one in which recently the High Court ruled that the Aviation White Paper of 2003, on which all current expansion is based, was obsolete because it does not comply with the Climate Change Act of 2008. It is also based on oil costing $10 a barrel, which is never going to be the case again and the Stern report 2006 also indicates that the economic case for dealing with climate change should be re-examined so as to mitigate now and not allow business as usual.

The concerted efforts by those driven by ideological opposition to government intervention in markets to tackle climate change or short-term business interests to find some real evidence of collusion or fiddling the figures in "climategate" have all failed, so we now have to get on with dealing with this problem. With consensus shown by the leaders of the three main parties on this (if not all the solutions), we are not saying it is time to ground all flights, but that expansion is not the answer when resources are limited and the business case does not stack up.

Localise West Midlands have also blogged on this in support today and their points about "a fuel-scarce future" are as key as any on the impacts of climate change. Prices will only go one way, whether through taxes or demand outstripping supply in the near future, so to rely on affordable oil for air travel is unwise to say the least, as is thinking that biofuels can replace oil without having a devastating effect on the world's eco-systems and capabilities to grow sufficient food.

Unless aviation plays its part in cutting CO2 emissions, other sectors will have to make much deeper cuts, so where would you choose to make those cuts? Also, aviation is currently massively subsidised and ticket prices have fallen compared to the cost of living over the past decade, whereas trains and bus ticket prices have gone up considerably and are among the highest in Europe.

The economic benefits of aviation are wildly exaggerated, as we have pointed out on many occasions. Even Heathrow's claims to make the economy money have been debunked and London is the one place that doesn't have a tourism deficit from aviation. To say only areas that have a large international airport from where people can fly non-stop to destinations all over the world can be successful econmically is also to ignore data from all over the country.

Therefore, our agenda is simple - don't subsidise high carbon polluting forms of transport, such as aviation and give local people a fair deal by spending money from the public purse on projects that have a real benefit.

This doesn't mean we are being extreme, but we want the real story behind the claims on economic benefits to be examined more carefully. If we are to build a long-term sustainable economy that is not dependent on a fast-disappearing resource, we should not be looking to increase airport capacities now, but be planning to use the skills of people in the region to build local markets that are not dependent on aviation.

Once new government guidance is drawn up that relies on the latest scientific and economic data around climate change, oil supplies and low-carbon alternatives we can decide how to best manage demand for aviation. Rushing into decisions to fund extra capacity now would be foolish and waste valuable financial resources at a time when the public purse is being squeezed hard.