The government has unveiled proposals designed to improve Britain's major airports, including encouraging competition between them and promoting investment.

Under the plans - which will reform the framework for regulating airports - the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), will be given a new primary duty to promote the interests of passengers. The CAA will also be given a supplementary financing duty, granted new and more effective powers to take action against airports that underperform and new powers to investigate and take action against anti-competitive behaviour.

The proposals would also see a switch to a new regulatory licensing regime which will allow regulation to be tailored to meet the requirements of individual airports, rather than the same conditions being applied to all regulated airports. This, the government believes, will enable the CAA to better target regulatory activity where and when it is needed to protect the interests of consumers. Transport secretary Philip Hammond said: "The current economic regulation legislation for airports dates from 1986, so is in urgent need of reform.

"We have already announced that we do not support the building of new runways at Heathrow, Gatwick or Stansted. We want to make those airports better, not bigger. "The changes will help drive passenger-focused investment in airports - such as in new baggage handling equipment or building new modern facilities - and they will also allow economic regulation to be used in a more targeted way and remove unnecessary bureaucracy."

It was also announced that the government has decided not to give a new remit to Passenger Focus to represent air passengers as had previously been proposed. It believes it is important to have strong passenger representation but that now is not the time to be making changes which will just add to the burden of existing regulations. It will, however, be looking into options for strengthening existing passenger representation arrangements.