Civil Aviation Bill — Night flights — removal of quota — 8 Mar 2006 at 17:15
Those voting 'Content' agreed to remove Clause 2(2) from the Civil Aviation Bill which would have deliberately weakened the power of the Secretary of State to impose limits on the number of takeoffs and landings at an airport. It would have done so by deleting Section 78(3)(c) of the Civil Aviation Act 1982, and replaced it with:
[The Secretary of State may] impose other restrictions for limiting cumulative amounts of noise and vibration caused by aircraft of descriptions so specified taking off or landing at the aerodrome...
This is similar in effect to the 'Night Flights' amendment that was rejected by the Commons on 10 October 2005.
Essentially, the Lords voted to preserve the status quo, whereby nightflights are limited by a simple cap on numbers rather than a complex system of 'noise quotas'. Campaigners fear that this is deliberately weak and would mean more night flights, causing more disturbance, even if each one is marginally quieter.
Party Summary
Votes by party, red entries are votes against the majority for that party.
What is Tell? '+1 tell' means that in addition one member of that party was a teller for that division lobby.
What is Turnout? This is measured against the total membership of the party at the time of the vote.| Party | Majority (Content) | Minority (Not-Content) | Turnout |
| Con | 97 (+2 tell) | 0 | 47.1% |
| Crossbench | 15 | 9 | 13.2% |
| Green | 1 | 0 | 100.0% |
| Independent Labour | 1 | 0 | 100.0% |
| Lab | 0 | 115 (+2 tell) | 55.2% |
| LDem | 49 | 0 | 66.2% |
| Total: | 163 | 124 | 42.8% |
All lords Eligible to Vote - sorted by party
Includes lords who were absent (or abstained) from this vote.