Lord Cryer (Lab)

My Lords, I understand the economic arguments for the expansion of Heathrow, and the connectivity arguments we just heard about. However, I want to address the issue of overflying, which was mentioned earlier. I was a Member of the other place for a long time, always for an east London constituency. Throughout that time, I dealt with issues of overflying, largely to and from London City Airport but, to a surprising extent, to and from Heathrow. One of the problems was that the technology advanced in such a way that the flight patterns were narrowed. That meant that fewer homes were being overflown, but those that were had a much more intense time of it, and the misery of the noise was compounded. My noble friend may not be able to answer this question now and may want to write to me, but can he say something about mitigating the noise factors? That might include using advanced aircraft, which we are always assured are going to be cleaner, greener and quieter. Whether or not that happens—the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, seems to be having an uncontrollable fit of the giggles—perhaps he could talk about that and how the technology might develop to mitigate the problem of overflying.