Laser Misuse (Vehicles) Bill [HL]
Tuesday 19th December 2017
(7 years ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Laser Misuse (Vehicles) Act 2018 Read Hansard Text
Laser Misuse (Vehicles) Bill [HL]
Tuesday 9th January 2018
(6 years, 11 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Laser Misuse (Vehicles) Act 2018 Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Transport (Baroness Sugg) (Con)
My Lords, our transport sector continues to play a vital role in our economy and daily lives. Last year, UK airlines flew more than 1.2 million flights carrying nearly 154 million passengers. More than 37 million vehicles were licensed for use on the roads in Great Britain. Rail passenger journeys have more than doubled in the last 20 years, with 1.7 billion journeys in the last year, while over 60 million passengers travelled by sea. We rely on all modes of transport for economic growth and to go about our day-to-day lives. It is important that whatever the mode of transport, passengers and staff are safe. We can be proud of the safety culture across our transport sector in recent years but we cannot be complacent. Safety and security must be our top priority.
The Government are determined to protect pilots, captains, drivers and their passengers. We will take action against those who threaten safety. That is why we are bringing forward a new law, strengthening the rules against those who shine lasers at aircraft while for the first time making it an offence to shine a laser at cars, trains and ships. This important legislation was originally proposed as part of last year’s Vehicle Technology and Aviation Bill, but that Bill fell when Parliament was dissolved ahead of the general election. We committed to reintroducing this measure and that is what we are doing.
There are legitimate uses for lasers: as alignment aids in the construction industry, by lecturers and by astronomers who use them to point out stars at night. We are not legislating against the use of laser pointers but instead against their illegitimate use. Lasers can dazzle, distract or blind those in control of a vehicle, with serious and potentially even fatal consequences. The main problems with a laser attack are that it is sudden, very bright and distracting, and it can cause temporary visual disturbance for some time after the attack. In aviation, most events occur either on take-off and landing, or when aircraft such as police helicopters carry out civil safety duties.
Back in 2003, there had never been a reported case of a laser being shone at an aircraft. In 2004, there were six reported cases; by 2008, there were 200 and last year, there were more than 1,200 reported incidents. Thankfully, no aircraft, train or road vehicle in this country has had an accident as a result of these dangerous and senseless acts. But it is all too easy to imagine the potential consequences of a pilot being blinded by a laser while trying to land a passenger jet, or of a train driver being dazzled from a bridge. This is predominantly a problem for aviation but incidents have been reported on other modes of transport. British Transport Police recorded 578 laser incidents on the railways between April 2011 and November 2017. We believe these incidents are underreported, as the recording of laser pointers outside aviation is not mandatory.
It is already an offence under the Air Navigation Order to shine a light at an aircraft to dazzle or distract a pilot, but the maximum penalty is just £2,500 and, as a summary offence, it does not give the police the powers they need to investigate effectively. Alternatively, offenders can be prosecuted under another Air Navigation Order offence of endangering an aircraft, with a maximum prison sentence of five years or a £5,000 fine. However, this poses other difficulties for successful prosecution, as for a police officer on the ground and for the Crown Prosecution Service in court, it is very difficult to prove endangerment of an aircraft, so the power and penalties that come with this offence are not often used.
The Bill will make it an offence if a person shines or directs a laser beam towards a vehicle and the laser dazzles or distracts, or is likely to dazzle or distract, a person with control of the vehicle. It extends to all transport modes, and gives the police the powers needed to investigate and provide penalties that reflect the seriousness of the offence.
The offence will be a triable either way offence, which means that, depending on its seriousness, it can be tried as a summary offence or as an indictable offence. By making it a triable either way offence, it will engage powers for the police under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 to enter property for the purposes of arrest and to search a property after an arrest. These powers are not currently available for the existing aviation offence under the Air Navigation Order. The maximum fine is unlimited and the maximum prison sentence will be five years.
The measure will extend to the whole United Kingdom. We have been working with the devolved Administrations, which support this new law. The measure included in this Bill is reserved in Scotland and Wales. In Northern Ireland rail and road are devolved matters, but we expect a legislative consent Motion to be brought forward once the Northern Ireland Assembly returns.
While this Bill specifically covers the risk posed by shining a laser at a person in control of a vehicle, the Government have this week announced new measures to tackle the sale of unsafe laser pointers, including strengthening safeguards to stop high-powered lasers entering the country. More than 150 incidents of eye injuries involving laser pointers have been reported since 2013, the vast majority involving children. In many of these cases, neither the children nor their parents have known the danger involved, and the Government will work to raise awareness of the risks associated with laser pointers.
In addition, the Government have pledged additional support to local authority ports and border teams to stop such lasers entering the UK. This includes increasing the resources available to ensure an immediate impact on rogue importers. The Government will also work with manufacturers and retailers to improve laser pointer labelling, to indicate that they must not be pointed at eyes or vehicles and must state the power level of the product.
The measures in the Bill have widespread support from the authorities and the transport industry. BALPA, the airline pilots union, has welcomed its reintroduction, saying that it is good news for transport safety. It has also been welcomed by a number of airlines, airports, the National Police Chiefs’ Council, the National Police Air Service, the Military Aviation Authority, the Maritime and Coastguard Agency, the Rail Delivery Group, Public Health England and the Royal College of Ophthalmologists. We have seen support from across the transport industry, which is often the victim of this senseless crime, from the police, who will enforce the law, and from medical professionals, who understand the real risks laser attacks can pose. All agree that action must be taken. I beg to move.
Lord Monks (Lab)
My Lords, I am pleased to follow the Minister in discussing this matter. I start by declaring an interest as the president of BALPA, which has been campaigning on this issue for some years and is delighted that this House is now legislating to deal with what is a major challenge for civil aviation and other transport sectors, although civil aviation is perhaps the most affected. I am also delighted to be joined in this debate by the noble Lord, Lord Balfe, who is the vice-president of BALPA. We work across the House on matters such as civil aviation safety. The noble Lord has worked tirelessly with BALPA to get where we are today, and I am very pleased to work with him on this.
The Government are to be congratulated on bringing forward this Bill and on taking action more generally, as the Minister explained, on the threat posed by the misuse of laser pointers. This action is very timely—even, perhaps, overdue—as we have known for some time that laser pointers are becoming ever more powerful and cheaper and are being used surprisingly often to dazzle drivers of vehicles. Misuse seems to have been increasing, with three to four attacks daily on UK-registered aircraft and 96 attacks on train drivers reported in the recent period.
Lasers can be powerful weapons in the wrong hands and, as the Minister said, they often get into the hands of children larking about and thinking it is fun. As the Bill proposes, lasers need tougher control and regulation and a strong message needs to be sent out that it is totally unacceptable to misuse lasers in the way that some people are doing. The new offence in the Bill should make prosecution easier and punishments more appropriate. Existing laws are limited in comparison.
I am pleased that the Bill is being complemented by other government action. I note that in the past few days the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy has announced that it will clamp down on the importation of high-powered laser pointers. This too is a very welcome step and should help cut the number of laser attacks on vehicles. The proposed clampdown includes schemes to tighten border controls, give more expertise to local authorities and work with manufacturers and retailers to improve the labelling of laser pointers, to point out just how dangerous they can be if misused. Work is also going on with online retailers to try to make sure they use some discretion in their distribution methods. Raising parental awareness of the risks associated with laser pointers will also be very important. These are not toys for children to use to emulate the latest sci-fi blockbuster—they are highly dangerous, and can be as big a threat as a gun in the wrong hands.
There will be a chance in Committee to review some of the Bill’s details, especially whether the offence should perhaps be more about shining the laser itself and not require proof that people in charge of the vehicle were dazzled. That issue was debated in the other place and no doubt will receive some attention in Committee here. We need to examine this point, which led to some differences in the other place. There may not be any differences in this place yet—I am not sure—but I would certainly be interested at some stage in the Government’s view on that.
It is a general welcome from me for the Government’s moves at present on this subject. Now is the time to move forward quickly on this issue, to stop the misuses of laser pointers and to give this Bill a fair and supportive wind.
Lord Trefgarne (Con)
My Lords, I too declare an interest in this matter, as I am a lowly member of the British Airline Pilots Association under the noble Lord, Lord Monks, and I am also president of the British Association of Aviation Consultants, both of which of course support this measure. I spent quite a long time in my earlier years on the fringes of civil aviation. I therefore very much welcome the Bill. There is no doubt that the present legal arrangements have not proved satisfactory, and a number of cases have been brought which have failed or were not brought because it was decided that they were bound to fail.
I very much welcome the Bill from the point of view of civil aviation. I was going to say something about military aviation, but the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig of Radley, will no doubt refer to that more adequately than I can when he comes to speak in a moment. I hope the Bill will speedily arrive on the statute book and I very much support my noble friend Lady Sugg.
Lord Craig of Radley (CB)
My Lords, I, too, fully support the thrust of this small Bill. As has been pointed out, there has been a considerable increase in laser-pointing at aircraft in recent years. No doubt the growing availability of laser devices online and elsewhere risks even greater exposure to such totally irresponsible and potentially dangerous use. Even a low-power beam can distract; a higher-powered device can blind. Videos demonstrating the efficacy of hand-held laser guns and rifles can be seen on YouTube. So I was pleased to learn yesterday of the government steps to clamp down on the sale and import of unsafe lasers, although a definition of unsafe—unless I missed it—was not actually mentioned.
It is right to criminalise all dangerous, distracting use of lasers against aircrew and to take this opportunity to extend the scope of the legislation to other types of vehicle and to protect the individuals in control or responsible for monitoring their safe operation.
In order to reduce or remove possible doubts about the coverage of the Bill, I have a few questions that, having given her notice, I hope the Minister will be able to deal with in her closing remarks. First, the Bill refers very specifically to the misuse of a laser beam. Some lasers are described as “pulse” or “burst” lasers, which may achieve higher powers than beam ones at similar distances. While the devices currently used are probably all of a beam type, is the Minister confident that both pulse and burst, or indeed any other variants of laser, are captured? This legislation just sticks to the one-word description “beam”. Would a laser gun or rifle be captured too? Might it make sense to use the phrase “laser device” or “laser pointer” in place of “laser beam” where it appears in this Bill to avoid any risk of creating a possible loophole in the legislation?
Secondly, Clause 1(8) refers just to a pilot of an aircraft. Larger aircraft will have flight deck crew members, not necessarily pilots, who as well as the pilot will have a role in monitoring the control of the aircraft. In the case of vessels, hovercraft and submarines, the involvement of the master or navigator as well as a pilot is included. As automation advances, even the use of the word “pilot” as a descriptor of the person in command and/or controlling an air vehicle might become outmoded. Might it therefore be better to use the word “individual” rather than the more restrictive word “pilot” in Clause 1(8) to cover the flight deck crew members or anyone else other than the pilot on board?
Thirdly, I seek to clarify the precise definitions of the start and end of a journey, as used in the Bill. For an air vehicle, this will include any ground movements—for example, taxiing to and from take-off and landing points, as described in the Explanatory Notes. What about an airliner stationary in its parking bay with its engines running? Opportunities for a member of the public in an airport terminal viewing area to use a handheld laser might exist at this point. Furthermore, is a road vehicle—presumably including motorbikes and other wheeled vehicles that use a motor to propel them—that is occupied, but not yet on the move, on its journey? I guess not, but it would be right to be sure.
Fourthly, I wonder whether for completeness horse-drawn carriages should be included. Should the risk to a coachman or driver be covered? An attempt to dazzle or distract the driver of a state coach with the monarch on board surely must be a crime.
The list of stakeholders mentioned in the pre-brief before the Recess included a variety of civil-aviation-related organisations—for example, BALPA, the CAA and the National Police Air Service. The MoD and the armed services were not. Has the MoD been consulted? The proposals deal only with the lasering of vehicles in the UK, but a service person, or a civilian subject to service discipline, might be chargeable under Section 42 of the Armed Forces Act 2006 for such a criminal offence when the Bill becomes law, even if committed overseas. I look forward to the Minister’s reassurances on these points of detail. Meanwhile, I support the Bill.
Lord Kirkhope of Harrogate (Con)
My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig, particularly as he knows so much about the details of the military aspect.
I welcome the Bill and am pleased that it has been taken forward, but I presume it is a holding measure ahead of the business department’s investigation into the market for lasers that is also currently under way. I hope that my noble friend the Minister will agree that, once that process is concluded, she and her officials will re-examine this legislation and, where appropriate, introduce consolidation measures. The Bill, while welcome, is not sufficient in itself because it leaves a lot to chance. The illicit use of lasers is growing year on year and the dangers are becoming more apparent. I do not declare an interest as such but I am a private pilot and a former director of Newcastle airport, so I will confine my remarks to aviation and hope that that will be understood.
There are particular dangers in aviation when lasers are directed at aeroplanes. These threats can be both while the plane is in the air and when it is on the ground, either taxiing or stationary. UK airports are recording laser attacks daily, and the number is increasing. In 2016 alone, there were nearly 1,500 such matters reported. Although, luckily, most of these did not cause health issues, we have evidence from elsewhere in the world where these matters are also being considered of serious injury to some pilots—some cases of retina damage. But the real problem here is not so much that health danger, although it exists, but the distraction, often at a critical moment of ascent, descent or manoeuvre, which at least complicates the work of pilots and presents dangers.
The statistics are, to my knowledge and belief, if anything understating the situation. The reporting mechanisms for these occurrences are far from clear. Within airport control zones, both on the ground and in the air, a report can be made, responded to and passed to the appropriate authorities quickly, but away from such zones—although these are not the majority of incidents—regional air traffic controllers do not always know how to handle reports, and the precise location of lasers is extremely difficult to determine from the air. We also have a separate military control in any event, but detecting and detaining someone using a laser—as we know, a laser could be as small as a fountain pen—by determining where they are located is virtually impossible, unless the source can be accurately pinpointed in some way. I am delighted to hear that the police are to be given extra powers to search suspects or premises when they have the intelligence to get close to where these events have occurred, but finding the locations alone is extremely difficult.
We have it in our hands to limit the sale of lasers, especially those of greater power than 1 milliwatt. Unfortunately, many people have been selling lasers which are described as low power but which in truth have been much greater in power. Anything greater than that level is a danger. We can limit the sale of knives, fireworks and acid, so why not lasers?
I congratulate the Civil Aviation Authority and the airport operators for their approach to education. They hold an annual UK Airports Safety Week in which community leaders and young people are told about the threats and dangers relating to the operation of aviation in the UK. These have been a great contribution, so education plays a part. Indeed, as I mentioned, other countries are also being plagued in this way, but they have taken very stern action. The United States has a federal offence relating to the abuse of lasers. In France, there are clear limits on the power of devices. In Switzerland and Canada, there are strict rules on the use of lasers.
I must add that there is a need to be clear on definitions. Strongly focused torches or LED equipment can also distract if pointed at vehicles or aeroplanes. We heard earlier that lasers have been in existence for only a few years. Before that, we were plagued by real nuisances where torches were used to try to distract pilots landing at our airports. Even before that, airguns and other weapons, as it were, were used to disrupt aviation. There have always been risks.
I also want to mention that there are legitimate uses for strong lights. We need to be sure, in our Committee stage at least, that we bear in mind the air navigation processes regarding emergency lighting. As I am sure noble Lords will know, when an airport has a radio communication issue with a plane, or there is some disruption, it has to turn to the use of coloured lights. A steady green light in aviation means that it is clear to land at an airport. A steady red light means that a plane must continue circling and not land. I have to say that sometimes, if we are not careful, there could be confusion, bearing in mind that nearly all the lasers that have been used to disrupt aviation have been either a green or a red light. We have to be very careful. This would not affect large airports as much, but in the case of smaller fields or facilities, it could be a problem.
I very much welcome this legislation as a start, but we must understand that it has to be refined and updated on a review basis. I am afraid that I am old enough to remember the Dangerous Dogs Act. That Act has little to do with aviation, of course, but it bothered me enormously when I was a Home Office Minister. Everyone clamoured for something to be done after nasty incidents had occurred in which adults and children were attacked by dogs. Our good intentions were soon thwarted by the lack of flexibility and the prescriptive nature of the legislation. We failed to understand that the best intentions and determination to legislate must follow full due diligence, otherwise the practical outcomes add up to less than we need to alleviate the original problem.
Lord Balfe (Con)
My Lords, I also begin by declaring my interests as the vice-president of BALPA. The noble Lord, Lord Monks, said some very kind things earlier. I have known him now for over 30 years, and I do not think we have had a cross word in all that time, and we have often worked together.
Lord Balfe
He used to vote for me, indeed. Now, fortunately no one ever has to vote for me again.
I congratulate the Minister on bringing forward this legislation. It is much appreciated and it is necessary. As a number of noble Lords have said, it is a work in progress. This will always be a work in progress as technology is constantly lapping around and moving us forward. Fortunately, speaking at this point in the debate, a lot of things have already been said, so I do not need to repeat them.
I say, first, that I welcome the statement from the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy about clamping down on unsafe lasers. As has been mentioned, Public Health England recommends a limit of one milliwatt, and I believe that at some appropriate time, we should look at whether there can be some restriction on sales of lasers beyond this strength, particularly since quite a bit of evidence has been adduced and brought forward to show that lasers are often mislabelled; indeed, many people have no idea of the strength of the lasers they are using. They are now both powerful and cheap, and we need to have a look at the incorrect labelling of some of them.
I have also had drawn to my attention the fact that we tend to think of lasers affecting big jumbo jets flying into major airports. This is part of the story, but another part of it, as with drones, is the danger to helicopters. In 2016, 10 medical helicopters were the subject of laser attacks, as were a number of police helicopters. With helicopters, it is a much more dangerous situation in a way. It is the same with drones. A helicopter is much less protected and much less able to withstand an attack.
I have four questions that I should like to put to the Minister, not because I expect an answer tonight but because I would like her to look at them in developing and bringing this legislation further forward. The first is the definition of a journey as it applies to an aircraft. The contention is that a journey is best defined from the points of what is called “doors closed” to “doors open”. When a door is closed, the aircraft is officially on its way, whether it is being pushed back or using its own traction to get to where it takes off, or whether it is on its way down the runway—there are a number of instances, but the fact is that the doors are closed. That is repeated, in reverse of course, when it lands. It has not completed its journey until the doors are open; until then, it can always be moved and it can always be the subject of further developments. I should like the Minister to look at the definition of a journey as it applies to an aeroplane.
The second thing is the level of parental responsibility. We have to make sure that it is not a defence to say, “Oh, it was Jimmy who was shining it”. Obviously, you cannot say, “Last week, when he was not with you, your son shone a laser at someone and you’re responsible”, so there is a need to look at this. I do not have the solution, I am afraid, but I have the problem to address to the Minister of the extent to which underage persons can be made the liability of their guardians or parents.
The third area is the powers to find out whether people have a laser—in other words, what is known by the rather emotive term of “stop and search”. Clearly, this is a much wider issue, because you cannot have one law for lasers and another for knives or other offensive weapons. But it is something that needs to be considered. I point out that, with regard to airports, there is a separate security procedure whereby anything deemed dangerous can be removed at the security barrier. It would seem sensible that there should be the same level of security for people going on the roof or to viewing areas as there are for people passing through the airport itself. Can the Minister look at the extent to which security at airports could be bettered?
Finally, we have the question, again from aviation, of air traffic control towers, which are also part of the structure of flying but are clearly not vehicles. Can the Minister look at whether shining a laser at an air traffic control tower and air traffic controllers should in some way be brought within the Bill? At the moment, it applies only to moving vehicles which, as far as airports are concerned, does not include the air traffic control tower.
With those words, I close by welcoming the Bill and what is in it, realising that all these measures have to go forward and will be subject to revision as time moves on. I hope we are starting at least to tidy up one small and essential area of our safety in this area.
Baroness Randerson (LD)
My Lords, like other noble Lords I welcome this Bill and the other announcements made yesterday by the Government. This is another example of an issue created by modern technology and, as is so often the case, the Government have struggled to keep up with the development of that technology. Once again, we certainly will support the Bill as far as it goes, but we believe that the Government need a more comprehensive approach to this problem. My thoughts chime very closely with those of the noble Lord, Lord Kirkhope, on this issue.
This is certainly a substantial problem, and the Minister has outlined that problem in statistical terms and correctly identified that there is underreporting of these incidents—probably greater underreporting in the case of trains than planes because it is not yet an offence to shine a laser at a train. Although this is already an offence in the case of planes, I agree with other noble Lords that the penalties are not adequate, and that these offences are not easily dealt with by the police because of the need to determine intent. The existing fine is not adequate either. When you look at the potential to cause an accident involving hundreds of people, a maximum fine of £2,500 is certainly not adequate.
We welcome the wide meaning of the term “vehicle” in the Bill. It is easy to appreciate that a laser pointed directly at a motorist is just as likely to cause an accident as one pointed at an airplane pilot, although not one involving as many people. As the power of lasers increases and the beams widen, the problem will only get worse. In the case of planes, the standard response that the co-pilot can take over is not necessarily workable. I agree with the comment about control towers and whether they should be included in the Bill: in other words, should “vehicle” also include control towers?
Many thousands of these laser pointers are already on the market and in people’s homes. Many of them are mislabelled with no health and safety warnings and in many cases are owned by people who do not understand the dangers they pose. A friend told me recently that her grandchildren were given laser pens as Christmas stocking-filler gifts. Their immediate reaction was to point them at each other. Fortunately, their parents understood the dangers posed by those pens, and the well-meaning relative who gave them as gifts was gently given the information she needed to avoid making such a mistake again. However, there are over 150 recorded instances of eye damage caused by lasers, most of them to children. Earlier this week, I saw on television a young boy whose eye had been damaged by a laser pen. Lasers pose a danger not just to those in charge of vehicles but to people’s health.
I believe that the potential power of lasers nowadays means that it is time for us to consider treating them as offensive weapons, as BALPA suggests. The noble Lord, Lord Kirkhope, drew an analogy with knives. We all own and use knives. However, we accept that clearly set-out criminal offences apply if they are carried or used for criminal, illegal or threatening purposes. The number of people who legitimately need to use or own a laser is very much smaller than those who need to own a knife—we all do—so the problem should be much easier to deal with. In fact, the number is so small that it is reasonable to suggest that those who need to own a laser should be licensed. This proposal was put forward as a policy option by the Government in their call for evidence last August, but was not included in yesterday’s announcement. Therefore, I ask the Minister: why was it not included, as I believe that licensing is used in some other countries?
I welcome yesterday’s announcement, as I said, as at least a start on a comprehensive approach, but it was a limited start. I say to the Minister that the market simply will not fix this issue. I rather suspect that when the Government say that they will support local authority teams to carry out increased checks at the border, they probably mean that they will provide some advice and not provide a big increase in money or resources, which is what they really need. I am also sceptical that working with manufacturers, as the Government suggest, and with retailers, will deal effectively with the problem end of this market—and it is a market with a very long tail. To detect small, easily shipped and cheaply purchased lasers, many of them bought online, is a complex problem that needs a bold and comprehensive approach.
Last August, the Government also consulted on banning adverts for high-powered lasers and on the potential for a social media campaign. Can the Minister explain why these options are apparently not being pursued at this moment? What will the Government do to ensure that labelling is accurate and to penalise manufacturers and retailers who sell mislabelled products?
Finally, I take this opportunity to press the Minister again on the issue of drones, which are clearly not tackled by the Bill. There are so many similarities between lasers and drones. They are both modern technology with a legitimate use, which in the wrong hands can become dangerous weapons. They are uncontrolled modern technology at this time, and many hundreds of thousands of drones were sold as presents this Christmas, so the problem will multiply in the coming year. Yet the Government still have not brought forward legislation. They had a golden opportunity to link the control of drones with the control of lasers in the Bill, but unfortunately, that opportunity has been allowed to slip past. Laser control does not have to stand alone. As the Minister told us, originally it was part of the Vehicle Technology and Aviation Bill, so why are drones not included now, and when can we expect to see some government action on them?
Lord Rosser (Lab)
My Lords, we support the Bill, which provides for one specific means of addressing a growing problem, which has been raised on a number of occasions in this House. As has been said, that is the increased number of laser attacks on aircraft—more than 1,200 attacks per year compared with, I think, some half a dozen in 2004. A further aspect that makes action urgent is the rapidly increasing power of lasers.
Half the members of the British Airline Pilot Association, responding to a survey a few months ago, said that they had experienced a laser attack in the previous 12 months, and 15% said that they had experienced three or more. These incidents happen mainly during take-off and landing—the critical phases of a flight—and happen suddenly. They can cause temporary visual disturbance for some time after the attack and may result in instruments being obscured and night vision being disrupted. In some cases they can lead to permanent sight damage, and are a threat to those flying in aircraft so attacked, and thus also a threat to safety. As the power of lasers increases and the beams widen, BALPA has expressed concern that before long, there will be incidents of both pilots in an aircraft being temporarily incapacitated, leaving no one able to fly the aircraft. With single-pilot aircraft, including helicopters, there is of course no second pilot.
Such incidents are not confined to aircraft—they happen on our railways and to shipping—but it is only with regard to aviation that the recording of such incidents is, as I understand it, mandatory. There is currently an offence in respect of laser attacks under the Air Navigation Order but it does not give the police the powers, as the Bill will, to enter a property for the purposes of arrest or to search a person or property after an arrest; nor does the current maximum penalty of a £2,500 fine reflect the seriousness of such offences. However, I ask the Minister: will the Bill give the police the power to stop someone whom they suspect is carrying a laser without good reason? If the Bill does not do that, why did the Government come to the conclusion that such a power was not necessary, bearing in mind that a laser in the context of the offence under the Bill would presumably be regarded as akin to an offensive weapon?
The Bill, which extends to the whole of the United Kingdom following an agreement with the devolved Administrations, makes it an offence for a person to shine or direct a laser beam towards a vehicle which,
“dazzles or distracts, or is likely to dazzle or distract, a person”,
in control of that vehicle when “on a journey”. The word “vehicle” is intended to have a wide meaning, with the new offence covering all modes of transport—air, sea, road and rail. However, as has already been mentioned, there have been reports of laser beam attacks on control towers at airports, which one would have thought could have potentially serious consequences both for safety and for the staff affected. Does the Bill also cover laser beam attacks on control towers, and the staff monitoring or directing aircraft, and, if not, why not?
The offence will be a strict liability offence, with it not being necessary for the prosecution to prove intent to harm or endanger, but it will be necessary for the prosecution to prove that the elements of the new offence have been committed. However, can the Minister clarify what the prosecution will have to prove? Proving that a laser beam has been shone or directed towards a vehicle will presumably be insufficient, as there is also the requirement to show that it has dazzled or distracted or is likely to dazzle or distract a person in control of that vehicle.
In that regard, the statement in the Government’s response to the call for evidence on laser pointers that:
“The Bill creates a new offence of shining a laser at aircraft and other modes of transport”,
would not appear to be entirely correct. What will the prosecution have to do to prove the requirements in relation to dazzling or distracting a person in control of the vehicle, and how straightforward will it be for it to do so? If we are seeking to clamp down on the use of laser beams and pointers in this dangerous way, it will not help if we set a bar for the prosecution case which will be very difficult to prove. It would be helpful to have the Minister’s response to that point. It would also be helpful if she could say why the Government did not think that it would be sufficient simply to prove that a laser beam had been shone or directed towards a vehicle with a person in control, bearing in mind that there is a defence for a person so charged, to which I will now refer.
Clause 1(2) provides a defence for a person charged with the new offence, but the onus will be on the person so charged to provide sufficient evidence to show either that they had,
“a reasonable excuse for shining or directing the laser beam towards the vehicle”,
or that they did not intend to do so and,
“exercised all due diligence and took all reasonable precautions to avoid doing so”.
Can the Minister confirm, or otherwise, that the test against which such a defence would be determined would be on the balance of probabilities rather than beyond all reasonable doubt?
For the new offence in the Bill, the maximum term of imprisonment on summary conviction is 12 months; on indictment it is five years and/or an unlimited fine. What considerations and reasons have led the Government to believe that these are the appropriate maximum terms of imprisonment on summary conviction and conviction on indictment, and how would they anticipate the level of an unlimited maximum fine being assessed and determined?
Do the Government envisage most cases coming to court being capable of being dealt with, if the case is proved or a guilty plea is entered, within the sentencing powers available to magistrates, or do they envisage most cases being dealt with at a higher court because the sentencing powers of magistrates will be insufficient for the seriousness of this kind of offence if the case is proved or a guilty plea is entered? Will lay magistrates have the power to sentence for up to 12 months on summary conviction for this new offence in the Bill?
The documentation we have received indicates the number of cases of laser incidents reported each year since 2010 to the Civil Aviation Authority. How many of these reported incidents have resulted in the alleged perpetrators being brought before a court in each year since 2010, and in how many of these cases has a conviction been secured?
What information, if any, do the Government have about the age of those committing these offences and the equipment they are using? It would appear that the answer might be very little, since the Government’s response to the call for evidence states:
“There is no meaningful data on who the perpetrators are, where they have obtained the laser pointers used, or what strength laser pointers they have used”.
If so, is this not a somewhat surprising deficiency, bearing in mind the length of time over which concerns have been expressed about the dangers and extent of laser beam attacks?
Under the terms of the new offence in the Bill, how many cases a year do the Government anticipate being brought before the courts? What do the Government anticipate will be the likely additional workload for our courts as a result? What impact on the number of laser offences being committed against aircraft and those in control of them, as well as more generally against vehicles, do the Government expect the measures in the Bill to have?
The Explanatory Notes to the Bill state:
“The creation of this new offence is intended to capture the use of laser pens and pointers, and other means of producing a laser beam”.
Does the reference to “other means” of producing a laser beam also include the use of a drone to carry and project a laser beam? In view of this reference, is there any level of laser beam that would be considered to lack the power to enable an offence under the Bill to be committed by using it, taking into account the reference in the offence to “dazzle or distract”? If so, what is that level?
Clause 1(1)(a) states that an offence is committed if,
“the person shines or directs a laser beam towards a vehicle which is on a journey”.
This issue has already been raised, but what is the definition of “on a journey”, which will apply to all forms of transport covered by the Bill? For example, does it include an aircraft, ship, car or bus that has not yet moved but has a person sitting at the controls who is dazzled or distracted by a laser beam? If it does cover this situation, why are the words “on a journey” necessary? If the Bill does not cover such a situation, why not, bearing in mind the potential serious damage that can be done by a laser beam to the sight of the person in control of the vehicle, irrespective of whether it is actually moving or “on a journey” at the time?
The penalties on summary conviction differ slightly between England and Wales and Scotland. If an offence takes place close to the border between England and Scotland, where is the offence deemed to have taken place? Is it deemed to have occurred where the person shining or directing the laser beam was located at the time the offence was committed, which could be in England, or is it deemed to have taken place where the person with control of the vehicle was dazzled or distracted, which could be a short distance away over the border in Scotland?
I referred earlier to the increasing power of lasers. I appreciate that the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy conducted a consultation on the laser market and potential uses for laser pointers last autumn, and I thank the Minister for making available the Government response to that call for evidence.
The response states that most of the injuries come not from laser pointers bought on the UK high street but from those purchased primarily online or overseas, and that most higher-strength lasers are bought from manufacturers or suppliers based outside the United Kingdom. In addition, a significant number of these are being supplied without the correct or appropriate information, classification or output marking, and are of a class of laser that should not be sold to the public. Whether the actions the Government now intend to take in the light of the call for evidence will prove adequate will no doubt be the subject of further debate.
The response also states:
“Government will take action to improve frequency and resourcing of enforcement activities at ports and borders with the aim of improving safety of the market for laser pointers and increasing enforcement activities against imports of dangerous high powered laser pointers”.
I have to say that that response is strong on generalities and weak on specifics. What does it mean in terms of specific targets or objectives, resources being made available or practices being changed? Frankly, the £100,000 total grant to local authorities referred to in the Government’s response will not solve the problem.
We seem unable to stop people being illegally trafficked into this country in the back of lorries through our inadequately staffed major border entry points, so why do the Government think we should accept that this performance will improve considerably in respect of imports of dangerous high-powered laser pointers?
The Government already appear to have rejected the option of a licensing system restricting the purchase and ownership of high-powered laser pointers, on the grounds that it would risk increasing the rates of laser attacks. No doubt this, too, will be the subject of further debate, but fortunately we do not apply that particular argument in relation to gun licensing. The significant increase in the number of laser attacks has occurred not under a system where there is licensing, but under a system where there is not.
I conclude by reiterating our support for the Bill, as far as it goes, given that the current offences and sentences in respect of laser attacks are inadequate in the current situation. Whether the actions the Government said in their response to the call for evidence that they intend to take are sufficient, though, is another matter.
Baroness Sugg
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords for their contributions today and for their broad support for these measures. I shall aim to answer as many questions as I can. If I am not able to address every issue, I will follow up in writing.
On the types of lasers, we have not defined lasers in the Bill because our legal advice is that the term would be understood and there would not be difficulty in prosecuting based on whether or not a light source was a laser. The offence would cover all forms of lasers, including laser pens, pointers and laser guns; and the term “beam” would cover laser pulses and bursts, as the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig, mentioned.
The offence specifically covers lasers rather than any light source because of the risk of inadvertently catching normal and acceptable light sources, such as car headlights, which might dazzle and distract the pilot or the driver of another vehicle. Lasers are the predominant risk. The police have not raised the same concern in relation to other lights, such as strobe lights, as they have with lasers.
The noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig, asked whether Clause 1(8) should refer to an individual rather than a pilot. We have sought to capture those persons who are in control of the vehicle, and in the case of an aircraft these will be the pilots. We specifically refer to the pilots monitoring the control of the aircraft to capture co-pilots. When a laser beam is shone or directed at an aircraft, the light often tends to refract and fill the cockpit with light, so it is difficult to imagine another member of the crew being dazzled or distracted but not the pilots.
Many noble Lords raised the definition of a journey. Similar concerns were raised during the Committee stage of the then Vehicle Technology and Aviation Bill, which referred to “flights” for aviation rather than “journeys”. We have taken on board those concerns and amended the Bill to ensure that all parts of the journeys are covered. “Journey” will bear its natural meaning. It is intended to start when the vehicle is ready to commence its journey and end when it comes to a final stop at its destination. That includes taxiing in the case of an aircraft and for all vehicles will cover temporary stops along the way such as stops at train stations, bus stops, traffic lights or, indeed, when waiting to take off.
Lord Berkeley of Knighton (CB)
For clarification, the Oxford English Dictionary defines “journey” as the act of travelling from one place to another. The point made by several noble Lords, including my noble and gallant friend Lord Craig, and the noble Lords, Lord Balfe and Lord Rosser, is that this is still a little vague in regard to, for example, a flying lesson, which starts in one place and returns to the same place; helicopter pilots, who initially only go up and come back down again; or even a driving lesson, which departs and returns to the same place. Would the Minister comment further on that?
Baroness Sugg
I thank the noble Lord for his intervention. Trying to define all the different types of journey which may take place is complicated. As I say, our advice is that “journey” is the best way to describe it, but I will take the noble Lord’s comments away and consider them ahead of the Committee stage.
The noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig, also mentioned horse-drawn carriages, which I am afraid will not be covered by the Bill. We have not seen any evidence of a problem, so horse-riders will not be covered either. We work closely with the British Horse Society and other organisations but, as I say, they have not raised any safety concerns. However, we will keep the issue under review and perhaps follow it up with them.
We have consulted carefully with the Ministry of Defence on the Bill and indeed with the Military Aviation Authority. The offence will cover both military and civilian vehicles, and the Bill has received support from Ministers in the Ministry of Defence. We will continue to work closely with the MoD and the MAA, some of whose representatives are also members of the UK Laser Working Group, which meets regularly.
On licensing and import controls, as I mentioned in my earlier speech, we have committed to providing additional support for enforcement activities around the import of lasers. We are working to deliver more effective labelling and to promote public awareness. However, after considering the evidence, we do not intend to introduce a licensing regime.
Baroness Randerson
What precisely does the Minister mean by “support for local authorities”? That is the key thing. Support can mean providing advice and information or it can be firm, practical help.
Baroness Sugg
We are working with local authority ports and borders teams to advise them on prioritising the checking of imports. We have allocated a grant of £100,000, as the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, mentioned, to help them have an immediate and targeted impact. We are also working with online retailers and importers.
Lord Rosser
Although I do not want to state the obvious, could I ask the Minister to confirm that the £100,000 is the sum in total across all local authorities? It is not £100,000 for each local authority involved in this activity.
Baroness Sugg
Yes, I can confirm that it is a total of £100,000. Perhaps I will get some more detail on exactly what work the department is doing with local authorities to help them deal with this issue.
On the licensing regime, the evidence we gathered in our call for evidence did not indicate that a ban or a licensing regime would have a positive impact on public safety. We believe that introducing legislation to license the supply and purchase of high-powered lasers would not tackle illegal imports that are purchased online or indeed the many people purchasing them while on holiday. We have looked at international examples. Australia and New Zealand have taken legislative action to impose a ban or a strict licensing system, but that did not actually have a positive effect on reducing the number of these laser incidents.
We do not think that we should classify laser pointers as offensive weapons. I understand the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, that only a few people use lasers in a legitimate way, but we think that it would penalise them. However, if a pointer is adapted for use to cause injury or if it is intended to be used to do so, it would then be classified as an offensive weapon.
My noble friend Lord Balfe raised the issue of children who commit this offence and the responsibility of their parents. Obviously, children under 10 years of age cannot be charged with committing an offence, but other steps can be taken such as a local child curfew or a child safety order. Of course, children aged between 10 and 17 can be arrested and taken to court. However, I understand the point that my noble friend has made and I will discuss it with my colleagues in the Ministry of Justice.
Air traffic control towers were mentioned by my noble friend Lord Balfe, the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, and the noble Lord, Lord Rosser. The Bill does not currently cover air traffic control towers, but it is an interesting point. I am aware of a number of incidents where lasers have been shone at fixed installations. Such installations are often located in controlled areas so there is less scope to shine a laser, but we can certainly consider whether air traffic control towers should be included in the Bill.
My noble friend Lord Kirkhope asked about regional air traffic control and how best to deal with these reports, in particular as regards general aviation. The CAA has published a safety notice on laser attacks which provides guidance for air traffic controllers, principally to inform the police immediately and pass on all relevant information. However, obviously I understand that in general aviation the practice is perhaps not as well known as it should be. We will discuss the matter with the CAA.
A number of noble Lords raised the regulation of certain strengths of lasers. It might be helpful to say a few words on the current situation on the classification of lasers in the market. Lasers sold in the UK are classified in accordance with the current British standard on laser safety, which sets out eight classes of laser products. The classification scheme for lasers indicates the potential risks of adverse health effects. The higher the class number, the greater the radiation hazards posed by the laser. Under the General Product Safety Regulations, only laser pointers considered safe for general use should be made available to the public through general sale. The higher classes 3 and 4 are not suitable for sale to consumers. Laser pointers above 1 milliwatt are generally accepted to have limited specialist uses and can be removed from the market. But obviously, as I said, consumers purchase products directly via the internet and while overseas on holiday, which is of course more difficult to control.
My noble friend Lord Balfe and the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, mentioned stop and search and whether the police need these powers. It is worth noting that the police already have the power to stop and search for laser pointers where they have reasonable grounds to suspect that the pointer is intended to cause injury. That is because the laser would then be deemed an offensive weapon. The Government are clear that the power of stop and search, when used correctly, is vital in the fight against crime, but the Home Office is currently conducting a review to achieve greater transparency on this. While this work takes place, it would not be appropriate to consult on extending the power of stop and search to cover lasers, but my department, together with the Home Office, will consider consulting on proposals to apply the power of stop and search to laser pointers as soon as that review is concluded, which I expect to be later this year.
On sentencing, five years is the maximum jail term, as I said, and would be imposed in only the most serious cases, but we believe it is important to have an effective deterrent for these sorts of offences. As I explained, it will be a triable either way offence. It will be up to the courts to decide which court should hear each case, dependent on the seriousness. For a summary offence tried in the magistrates’ court, the maximum imprisonment will be restricted to six months in England and Wales or 12 months when Section 154(1) of the Criminal Justice Act is commenced.
On the point from the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, on where the case would be tried if the offence is done across a border—which, I must admit, is something I had not considered—I imagine it will be where the person holding the laser has his feet placed, as that is where the offence would be committed. I will certainly take that back to clarify. He also asked how many people had been found guilty of committing this offence. In 2016 it was 10 and in 2015 it was 16. I will send the noble Lord the full figures I have available.
The noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, mentioned drones. As I said at the end of November, it is our intention to bring forward drone legislation in the spring of this year. That is still our intention. I understand the importance of the issue and the desire to act quickly on this, but we have decided to separate the treatment of drones from that of lasers as they present different challenges. I look forward to bringing forward drones legislation as quickly as possible.
As the noble Lord, Lord Monks, mentioned, I am lucky enough to have both the president and the vice-president—and, indeed, lowly members—of BALPA in your Lordships’ House, so I want to take this opportunity to thank BALPA for its engagement with my department on this and many other issues that face the aviation sector. I hope that I have addressed all the issues raised. If not, as I said, I will follow them up in writing.
We believe that the existing laws are not strong enough, with the police unable properly to investigate and prosecute such incidents. The police lack powers to search the homes of suspects. Even when a conviction is secured, the maximum penalty for dazzling or distraction is only £2,500, and there is no specific law against shining a laser at a ship or at motorists at the wheel. This new offence will act as a deterrent to these dangerous incidents happening in the first place, but if they do occur, the proposals will help the police bring the offenders to justice.
The safety and security of the travelling public must always be a top priority for the Government. With more than 1,000 attacks on aircraft reported each year, as well as those on other modes of transport, we have a duty to act. I ask the House to give the Bill a Second Reading.
Laser Misuse (Vehicles) Bill [HL]
Tuesday 23rd January 2018
(6 years, 11 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Laser Misuse (Vehicles) Act 2018 Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 75-I Marshalled list for Committee (PDF, 70KB) - (19 Jan 2018)
Lord Craig of Radley
Lord Craig of Radley (CB)
My Lords, I will speak to the first group of amendments, Amendments 1, 4, 5 and 7, which are in my name and that of the noble Lord, Lord Oxburgh. I fully support the purposes of this short Bill and I thank the Minister for her thoughtful letter of 15 January, copied in the Library, commenting on points that I made at Second Reading. These amendments, and others in my name which come later, have been drafted in an attempt purely to highlight, and as necessary close, any possible legal loopholes in the intended coverage of the Bill.
As I mentioned at Second Reading, I felt that the use of “beam” as a generic description of all lasers was inadequate. There are other lasers that fire bursts or pulses of light. A laser exists that uses infrared bursts, down which a lightning-type bolt will travel to hit a target, rather like an extended Taser shot. On YouTube, you can see demonstrations of so-called laser guns and laser rifles. There are a number of hand-held laser-type devices at prototype stage for use in conflict or riot control. If developed into production, such devices could be acquired and misused in ways featured in this Bill. Laser technology is still developing. A beam is defined in this context by the Oxford English Dictionary as a ray or shaft of light. This does not seem to be sufficiently comprehensive, even when combined with the descriptor “laser”, as in “laser beam”. The Minister’s letter defines “laser” by coherence and as comprising a single frequency of light, and equates that to “beam” in the Bill.
My simple amendment, replacing the word “beam” with “device”, in no way detracts from the beam connotation but seeks to cover all types of laser, existing or in future development, more comprehensively than just using the word “beam”. As I am no expert in electronic engineering, I am grateful for the support of my noble friend Lord Oxburgh, a most respected fellow of the Royal Society and former chief scientific adviser to the Ministry of Defence. His support, and some legally informed support, gave me confidence to pursue this point in Committee and to explore the Minister’s brief dismissal at Second Reading and her subsequent, rather superficial justification for relying on the word “beam” in the Bill. The combination of the words “laser device” and,
“shines or directs a laser device towards a vehicle”,
as would appear in the Bill if this amendment were accepted, seem to deal with a beam and with any other or future type of laser that might be misused.
Finally, I have a query. Should a low-power, clinically safe laser be used, would its low power be an acceptable defence because it could do no more than possibly dazzle or distract the person with control of the vehicle, at worst? A laser’s power is not mentioned in the Bill. Is the Minister satisfied? Perhaps she will let me know at a later date that power is not relevant to the Bill. I beg to move.
Lord Oxburgh (CB)
My Lords, I rise to support my noble and gallant friend Lord Craig. We should be grateful to him for drawing attention to this aspect of the Bill. I apologise to the Committee for not having been free to participate at Second Reading. Fundamentally, what my noble and gallant friend is trying to do is to future-proof and, dare I say, lawyer-proof the Bill. It would not be useful to have counsels who did not really understand what they were about arguing over this in court.
I notice that the last five or six subsections of Clause 1 relate to definitions of words which are in general, commonplace use. I suggest that the Minister adds a subsection to that group defining what the Government mean by laser. In doing so, dare I suggest that she consult the holder of my former office in the MoD, who could give up-to-date advice on appropriate wording for the definition of a laser here? The fact is that there are lasers of different kinds, different definitions of laser and some devices which would be called a laser under one definition but not another. It would be quite useful to add a subsection, duly considered, from an authoritative source that dealt with that.
Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood (CB)
My Lords, it is plain that anyone trying to dazzle or distract someone in control of a vehicle by using any laser device ought to be guilty of a criminal offence. The critical question raised by this group of amendments is whether the dazzling or distracting light produced by every sort of laser device can properly be described as a beam. If it can, there is no need for this amendment. But if, as I understand is being suggested by my noble and gallant friend Lord Craig of Radley, supported by no less distinguished a scientist than my noble friend Lord Oxburgh, other laser devices such as a laser gun or rifle can reasonably be said to produce light not by beam, but in some other way—by pulse, burst or whatever—the Bill as drafted may well not catch these other sorts of laser misuse.
As a lawyer, I thought to remind myself of the cardinal legal principles that apply to the construction of statutes. To this end, I consulted Bennion on Statutory Interpretation, the sixth edition of which runs to no fewer than 1,200-odd pages. The only relevant principles perhaps worth mentioning here are what is called the principle against doubtful penalisation and the principle that ordinary words in the English language should be given their ordinary meaning, understood as they are in common language.
As to the principle against doubtful penalisation, the court’s approach will be that a person should not be penalised except under clear law, so that penal enactments require a strict construction. As to the principle that words should bear their ordinary meaning, it could perhaps be argued that a pulse or a burst of light is not, in the ordinary use of the English language, properly to be described as a beam.
I am certainly not saying that if this issue were to reach the courts, it is likely that the Bill as drafted would be found wanting. Indeed, I strongly suspect that it would be held to encompass all laser misuse, as so plainly it is intended and right that it should. But if there is any scintilla of doubt about that, and if that doubt can be quite simply removed by adopting this amendment, then why on earth not do that? That surely is the sensible question the Minister should ask herself today.
I add only that if the Bill team is wedded to the word “beam”, then why not simply add to that, “or device”? Alternatively, we could go down the road suggested by my noble friend Lord Oxburgh and in the definition provisions at the end explicitly put the matter as he has suggested, which would take it beyond the reach of any lawyer, however imaginative.
Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)
My Lords, I have to announce that Her Majesty’s loyal Opposition do not have a firm position on this amendment, but I hope the Minister is listening to this debate and will come forward with pretty concrete assurances that the law is clear, or with an appropriate amendment.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Transport (Baroness Sugg) (Con)
My Lords, I understand noble Lords’ intentions in tabling these amendments, as they quite rightly want to ensure that the wording in this legislation is as strong as possible and does not include any loopholes. The amendments aim to capture all the different type of laser products that could be used to dazzle or distract the person in control of a vehicle, and indeed even some products which may not exist yet.
The Bill does use the term “laser beam”, but I can assure noble Lords that the Bill is not limited to any particular type of laser and that all variants of laser should be captured by this. Following the helpful contributions of the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig, at Second Reading, I sought further expert clarification on the definition of a laser, including from the Department for Transport’s chief scientific adviser. All types of lasers emit focused beams. Therefore, despite the varying properties that different types of lasers will have, all will still produce a beam, and it is this beam that will dazzle or distract the person in control of the vehicle.
The term “laser” would cover the pulse and burst laser products that the noble and gallant Lord referred to. These products still emit a laser beam, just of a shorter duration. Short-duration laser beams can be very intense and transmit as much power in the pulse as a lower-power continuous laser, so I agree it is important that these are included in the Bill. We expect the courts to interpret “laser” with this wide definition.
Lord Craig of Radley
My Lords, I thank those who have spoken in this debate, and the Minister for her full explanation of the position taken by her department. I have no intention of pushing this beyond the discussion that we have had, but I look forward to any further suggestions coming from the Government on Report, such as a definition of “beam”, which I would welcome. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Randerson
(b) the person shines or directs a laser beam at a building used to control vehicle traffic.”
Baroness Randerson (LD)
My Lords, the amendments in this group all tackle the need to include aircraft control towers within the ambit of the Bill. This is something that I raised at Second Reading. Control towers obviously play a vital part in ensuring the safety of planes, and I am glad that when I and other noble Lords raised this at Second Reading the Minister appeared to take our concerns to heart.
This issue is of serious concern to BALPA, and with good reason: since May 2013, 13 laser attacks on control towers in Britain have been recorded under the mandatory occurrence reporting scheme. In the year 2013 alone there were eight incidents. These attacks are widespread: two in Liverpool, one in Coventry, two in Manchester, two in Luton, one in Jersey, one at Heathrow, one in Bristol, one in Cardiff, one in Edinburgh and one in Birmingham. It is worth noting that one case, at East Midlands Airport, was so severe that it led to the air traffic controller concerned having to take an unplanned break. Noble Lords familiar with rostering in control towers will realise that that is disruptive and could undermine safety, as controllers have carefully timed breaks to ensure that they are always fully attentive and alert. Someone having to cover an extra unexpected shift might already be tired.
Your Lordships will note from the list that I read out that, unlike drone incidents, laser incidents are not concentrated largely in London. Smaller airports are equally affected, maybe because control towers are more easily visible and accessible than that, for example, at Heathrow.
Amendments 2, 6 and 8 widen the Bill to include a building to control vehicle traffic, and Amendment 2 removes from the Bill the stipulation that the laser must dazzle or distract, or be likely to dazzle or distract. This may still be difficult to prove. I have taken on board information from the police, who have found it difficult to enforce the current legislation, and sought to widen the provision as much as possible. I notice that the amendments tabled by the noble Lords, Lord Tunnicliffe and Lord Monks, cover much the same issues.
I very much hope that the Minister will be able to give us a positive response on both these issues: the inclusion of control towers and simplifying and broadening the offence so that shining the beam at a control tower is sufficient to be considered an offence. I beg to move.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Palmer of Childs Hill) (LD)
I need at this stage to mention that I cannot call Amendments 3 or 4 because of pre-emption if this amendment is agreed.
Lord Tunnicliffe
My Lords, this group of amendments falls under two issues: one is control towers and control buildings, the other is what I call “to dazzle or not to dazzle”. Amendments 2, 6, 8, 10, 12 and 14 refer to the former—I accept that they also refer in part to dazzling or not dazzling—and I tabled Amendment 3, which is directly on the dazzle issue.
I think everybody involved with the Bill supports the central idea that we should prohibit the shining of lasers at aircraft because of the associated risk. Beyond that, there has been a degree of mission creep. The Government’s piece of mission creep has been to want to apply this to all vehicles—fair enough. The aviation lobby’s mission creep has been to want to apply it to control towers—fair enough. When you have had those pieces of mission creep, it is reasonable to apply it to control buildings, although I would be more supportive if there were concrete examples.
We in general support the thrust of the amendments, but I am slightly uncomfortable, because they start to nudge up against the concept of lasers as weapons. The Government must take on board the concept of the use of lasers as weapons in society in general and study this worrying development. That relates to matters such as importation, the crime of carrying such a weapon, and so on. But we do not want to confuse the Bill by going into that territory. I hope that the Minister will take that concern back to her colleagues. I believe that there is already work in BEIS taking place.
To dazzle or not to dazzle is all about gaining a successful prosecution. Our amendment increases the probability of successful prosecution, because it does not require the court to have, completely misquoting Elizabeth I, a window into men’s minds. In other words, the court does not have to prove what people were thinking when they did it. I know that there is general discomfort about strict liability offences, but the issue here is about balance. It boils down to: for what other purpose, having regard to the defence in Clause 1(2), would anyone shine a laser at a vehicle other than to dazzle and distract? That simplicity pushes one towards taking away the dazzle and distract requirement for successful prosecution. I shall deal with my amendment at the appropriate time.
Lord Monks (Lab)
My Lords, first, I declare my interest as president of the British Airline Pilots Association. I want to speak briefly to Amendment 14 which, as the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, said, overlaps with others in the group. On all sides of the House, we are trying to protect not just pilots and the drivers of vehicles but those who control traffic, especially those in control towers at airports. Laser pointers can be a very offensive weapon and their dangerous use should be regarded as rather similar to waving around a gun or other offensive weapon. None of us is under any illusion; the Bill will not be easy to enforce, but it needs to send a strong message about what is acceptable and what is not. I think that it does that but I hope that we can tweak it a bit so that it strengthens that message. The amendments are all designed to add weight to the Bill’s central message on that score.
The noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, spoke about air traffic control, and I will not repeat what I hope were her persuasive points for the Minister to consider. I would just add that such is the range of modern laser pointers that they can reach control towers in controlled areas remote from perimeter fences. Controllers at some distance could be affected by dazzle and distraction in the same way as pilots. As we know, and as has been said, their role is crucial in scanning the airport. Those of us who have had the privilege of joining them in their control rooms have seen that they look physically as well as at the screens; they look at the ground as well as up in the air. They check for obstructions and any hazards that might impede landings, in particular, but check other movements as well.
As such, it is incumbent on us to try to ensure that they are protected as much as possible from thoughtless or malicious laser use. We are coming close to zero tolerance when it comes to laser users flashing them about when people are moving vehicles and aeroplanes.
Baroness Sugg
My Lords, I will first speak on the amendments which propose removing the need to dazzle or distract from the offence. The principal focus of the Bill is to protect transport operators and the general public. While this amendment seeks to help to address the problem, the Government believe that it goes further than is appropriate. The Government aim to be proportionate when we create new criminal offences and we do not want to penalise behaviour that does not present a risk to transport safety. The offence we are creating would specifically address the risk of harm as a result of shining a laser which dazzles or distracts, or is likely to dazzle or distract, a person physically operating a vehicle.
These amendments would go further than that by criminalising activity where there is no risk of harm. The proposed offence would cover shining or directing a laser when it is,
“likely to dazzle or distract”.
This will mean that prosecutors will not necessarily need to prove that the shining of a laser actually dazzled or distracted the person in control of the vehicle, only that it was likely to and therefore potentially risked public safety.
The question was raised about how difficult it would be for the prosecution to show that the person in control of the vehicle was dazzled or distracted. In most cases, we would expect evidence to be available from the person who had control of the vehicle that they were dazzled or distracted. A statement directly from the victim would be strong evidence on this point. On that basis, the Government are not convinced that removing the need to demonstrate that a person has been dazzled or distracted would be proportionate to capture the type of activity we want to deter.
Moving on to the amendments seeking to make it an offence to shine a laser at traffic control installations, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken on this amendment, which clearly has a lot of support on all sides of the House. The Bill has been drafted to deal with the safety risks faced when a laser distracts or dazzles the person in control of a vehicle and therefore does not currently include non-vehicles such as traffic control installations. When we look at laser attacks in aviation, the vast majority of incidents reported are targeting aircraft—1,200 in the last year alone—whereas the number of reported attacks on air traffic control towers averages out at around three per year. That said, air traffic control personnel have an important responsibility in controlling and monitoring the movement of aircraft taking off, landing and manoeuvring on the ground, so I recognise that a laser attack on a person carrying out those duties clearly presents safety concerns and could endanger aircraft.
Baroness Randerson
My Lords, I thank the Minister for what is overall a very positive response. However, I make one further point about removing a reference to “dazzle or distract”. I understand the viewpoint, but the reality is that lasers are so frequently mislabelled that those using them to shine them at control towers cannot have any real idea about how strong the beam is and, therefore, how dangerous it is. I say that because, in pursuit of more information for this Bill, I trolled through online records for various countries and there is a shockingly high level of mislabelling. Some studies in Australia showed that well over 50% of lasers are wrongly labelled. That is an issue that I shall come back to later. The point is that someone standing near a control tower and shining a beam at it has to my mind at the least an intention of some sort of mischief, and really has no sure knowledge how dangerous the laser that they are holding is likely to be. I urge the Minister to think on that.
Having said that, I welcome the wide consultation that she is undertaking in relation to these amendments. In view of that, I shall certainly not press them. I beg leave to withdraw Amendment 2.
Lord Craig of Radley
Lord Craig of Radley
My Lords, I suggested at Second Reading that a horse-drawn vehicle or carriage should be included for completeness. In her reply to that debate, the noble Baroness merely stated that horse-drawn carriages would not be covered by this Bill as,
“We have not seen any evidence of a problem”.—[Official Report, 9/1/18; col. 176.]
In her letter of 15 January, the noble Baroness did not further refer to my raising this omission at Second Reading, but I feel the list of vehicles is incomplete without it. While no such attack may have yet taken place, that alone is no reason not to include it. I gave the example of the coachman driving the state coach with Her Majesty on board. There are many more uses of horse-drawn carriages or vehicles which also deserve consideration so that we give the driver protection.
I hope that, on reflection, the Minister will agree that a horse-drawn vehicle has as much of a place in the Bill as all the other road vehicles listed, including even pedal cycles, and they should also be added to Clause 1(7) at line 11 on page 2. I am not proposing that horse riders should also be included, though I do wonder about the risk of an attack on huntsmen by hunt saboteurs. Such an offence may already be covered by other legislation. I beg to move.
Lord Tunnicliffe
My Lords, I do not have much to say, but I thought I had to say something. I was quite surprised that the Government had decided to define “vehicle” in the Bill. I believe there is a good working definition of the word in law, which would have included horse-drawn vehicles. I had a little chuckle when I came to submarines, because I have some problem envisaging how you could dazzle one, but I suppose it could be possible. I say put the horses in as well.
Baroness Sugg
My Lords, I greatly appreciate the noble and gallant Lord’s intention to ensure that the Bill is as strong and all-encompassing as possible. The reason horse-drawn vehicles are not covered in the Bill is that it is designed to legislate in areas where we have already seen a real danger to public safety, and to date we have not seen evidence that laser incidents are a problem for that particular mode of transport.
The department works closely with organisations such as the British Horse Society to improve road safety, and I am not aware of this issue being raised as a concern or any reported laser incidents involving horse-drawn vehicles. Of course, anyone who did cause injury by shining a laser at the person in control of a horse-drawn vehicle could be prosecuted for offences against the person such as actual or grievous bodily harm.
The noble and gallant Lord raised an interesting point about someone attempting to dazzle or distract the driver of the state coach with the monarch on board. This is, of course, a matter that we take very seriously and as a result have discussed it with the head of the Metropolitan Police’s royalty and specialist protection command, who has also consulted with Her Majesty’s Household, specifically those individuals with responsibility for Her Majesty’s horses. The police have assessed that the likelihood of such an attack is low and, in terms of the impact of such an attack, Her Majesty’s horses are trained to be comfortable with a number of surprising events. These would include sudden loud noises, smoke and light flashes and they are often blinkered when drawing a carriage. The relative speeds are very low and the carriage drivers are, of course, highly trained. Having reviewed this issue the police have advised me that, as both the likelihood and impact of such an incident are considered low, this is not an area that requires legislation.
As I have said previously, when creating criminal offences it is important that this is done proportionately. Based on the evidence of risk to transport safety seen to date, particularly the advice from the police, the Government do not believe that including horse-drawn vehicles in this offence would be proportionate. However, I have listened to the points made by the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig, and the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, and will take them away and consider this further.
Lord Tunnicliffe
Further to that argument, how many incidents of dazzled submarines does the Minister have on record?
Baroness Sugg
The noble Lord makes a valid point. I do not believe there are any such instances, but if there are I will certainly write to him with that information. That is a very good point. As I say, I will take it back and consider it. We should return to this at a later stage. With that, I ask the noble and gallant Lord to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Craig of Radley
My Lords, I thank those who have spoken in this very short debate. I listened, obviously, to what the Minister had to say. I am still a little uneasy about the argument that, because this has not happened, therefore we do not need to worry about it. Pedal cyclists are already covered by the Bill. I wonder how many attacks on pedal cyclists have taken place to justify including them in the Bill. Having said that, I again thank everybody who has spoken and the Minister, and beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Craig of Radley
Lord Craig of Radley
The restriction in the case of aircraft to just “any pilot” at page 2, line 14 of the Bill is not comprehensive enough. It does not specifically include other members on an aircraft’s flight deck, in a rear cockpit, or in the cabin of a helicopter, who may not be pilots but have key roles in monitoring the control of the aircraft. Take the example of a two-seater fighter fast jet aircraft with a pilot in the front seat and a navigator in the rear, the latter also monitoring height and speed. A laser attack on the latter reported to the pilot could prove to be very distracting at a critical point—say on final approach to a landing. Or consider a search and rescue helicopter having to manoeuvre in a very constricted space surrounded by trees or buildings. The pilot is totally reliant on the winchman in the rear cabin of the helicopter for moment-to-moment guidance on to a tight landing spot or in holding a safe hover close to obstructions or even a cliff face.
More generally, the likelihood is that whoever was actually lasered in the crew, all, including the pilot in charge, would be concerned and distracted, maybe at a demanding moment in their flight. However, the defence might argue that the culprit with the laser did not shine it at the front cockpit, or where the pilot was sitting in a larger aircraft. Surely, the Minister does not think that the person misusing a laser against an aircraft should not be charged if it were not directed directly at the actual pilot in command but only at non-pilot crew members who are of critical importance to the safe operation of the aircraft.
The Bill includes captain, navigator and pilot in the case of vessels, but the vessel’s velocity or speed will be a matter of a few knots compared with that, say, of aircraft flying at speeds of 150 or 200 knots and perhaps more. It seems incongruous for the Bill to identify for protection a number of specified individuals in charge of a relatively slow-moving vessel compared with just the pilot alone for an aircraft on final approach to landing, which may be flying at, 10, 20, even 30 times the speed of such a vessel. The risks of a calamity occurring rapidly in the latter case are obviously very much greater. Crew teamwork is essential for both aircraft and helicopter operations.
My amendment seeks to overcome any possible defence that the attack had not been directed specifically at the pilot in charge. If the noble Baroness is intent on retaining the reference to pilot rather than my suggested word “individual”, she might like to consider for Report the alternative of adding “or other flight crew member” after “pilot” in line 14 of page 2. I beg to move.
Baroness Sugg
My Lords, I am again very grateful for the experience and expertise of the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig of Radley, in this area. Once again, he has raised a salient point through this amendment.
In the Bill we have sought to capture those persons who are in control of the vehicle, and, in the case of aircraft, we have said that this will be pilots. The Bill specifically refers to pilots “monitoring the controlling” of aircraft to capture co-pilots, who defence lawyers could argue are not controlling the aircraft but who none the less should be covered by the offence because of the important role they play in the safe flying of aircraft. In some cases, members of the flight crew may have a safety-critical role and control of the aircraft but would not be classified as pilots. As I have said, the intention of the Bill is to cover all persons who have control of the vehicle.
I understand there are a number of instances where the non-pilot members of the flight crew could have some control of the vehicle, such as flight engineers or, as the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig, highlighted, winch operators on search and rescue helicopters. If these members of the flight crew were dazzled or distracted by a laser beam, it is highly likely that the pilot would be too. I understand that the current wording in the Bill could cause some ambiguity and a possible loophole, so I will ask the Bill team to look carefully at ways in which this can be clarified.
I thank the noble and gallant Lord for raising this issue. I hope that he is assured that it is something we will look at carefully and that he will agree to withdraw his amendment at this stage.
Lord Craig of Radley
Obviously, I am grateful to the Minister. I thank her very much indeed and look forward to the further work she will produce on that. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Craig of Radley
““journey” includes all stages of a journey, whether the vehicle is stationary or in motion, beginning when the person with control of the vehicle occupies it and ending when the person with control of the vehicle no longer occupies it;”
Lord Craig of Radley
My Lords, it is me again with Amendment 13, in my name and in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Monks, to whom I am most grateful. Like several other noble Lords at Second Reading I felt that there was a need to clarify the meaning of the word “journey” in the Bill. In her letter of 15 January, the Minister set out her interpretation of “journey” but wrote that she had asked her officials to,
“look at ways in which we can ensure that it is interpreted as intended”.
I await her contribution when replying. Meanwhile, this amendment is one attempt. I am grateful for the support of the noble Lord, Lord Monks.
At Second Reading, the Minister said that this point had come up in earlier legislation, so I feel that, for the avoidance of doubt and any possible loophole in the coverage of the Bill, some definition should be included in it. Even this definition does not fully deal with the point made at Second Reading by the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley of Knighton, who said that the dictionary definition of “journey” means a move from one place to another, from A to B. However, were it to be defined for the purposes of the Bill to cover the time from occupation of the vehicle until leaving it, the fact it departed from A and returned to A at the end of the journey might be sufficiently well covered. I beg to move.
Lord Trefgarne (Con)
My Lords, I have some sympathy with the noble and gallant Lord on this matter. For example, it is very likely that training flights, which are of course an important part of aviation, most often begin and end at the same aerodrome. I am slightly unpersuaded, as is the noble and gallant Lord, that they are covered by the Bill, and I hope that the Minister can reassure me.
Lord Tunnicliffe
My Lords, I also hope that the Minister will take this away. One worrying point is somewhere deep in various bits of aviation law: a flight is defined as when the wheels of an aircraft first turn. We are envisaging a possible situation where a laser is used immediately before the wheels turn, and the aircraft could then end up in a dangerous situation. The Government therefore have to look at this concern in some depth, and I hope that they will bring something back to us on Report.
Baroness Sugg
My Lords, the Government’s intention in the Bill is to cover both when a vehicle is in motion and when it is stationary if the vehicle is about to travel. There would be a safety risk in both cases if the person in control were to be dazzled or distracted.
A journey is intended to start when the vehicle is ready to commence travel. It includes taxiing in the case of aircraft, and for all vehicles will cover any temporary stops along the way, such as stops at a train station, bus stop or traffic lights, or when waiting to take off. It is also intended to capture journeys of any length and to include a journey that returns to the same place at which it began.
I appreciate the points that have been made and what the amendment is aiming to clarify. It is our intention that if the aircraft is about to travel or has not finished shutting down after coming to a stop, this should be covered, as there could still be a risk to transport safety. The Government believe that saying that all periods should be covered, including when a person occupies the vehicle, potentially goes too wide, as that person could be in the vehicle for a long time before the journey commenced or after it finished, when there would not be a risk to transport safety.
At Second Reading the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley of Knighton, highlighted the definition of “journey”, which can be found in the international aviation treaty—the Tokyo Convention. It states that an aircraft is in flight from the moment when all its external doors are closed following embarkation until the moment when any such door is opened for disembarkation. We intend the Bill to cover that definition, but I accept the questions raised in relation to the current wording and will ask the drafters to look at this matter carefully.
A point was made about journeys—including training flights, which were mentioned by my noble friend Lord Trefgarne—which start in one place and return to that same place. It is absolutely our intention that these types of journeys will be covered by the Bill but, again, I will look at the options for making sure that that is clearer.
I hope that I have been able to clarify our intention when the word “journey” is used but, as I said, we will look at this further to ensure that there is no ambiguity in the interpretation. On that basis, I hope that the noble and gallant Lord will withdraw his amendment at this stage.
Lord Craig of Radley
I thank the noble Baroness and others who have spoken in this short debate. Of course, I am very happy to wait until Report to see what she comes up with. Meanwhile, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
Lord Monks
“Parental responsibility
A person commits an offence if—(a) the person knowingly or recklessly permits a child or young person in the person’s care to shine or direct a laser beam towards a vehicle which is on a journey, and(b) the laser beam dazzles or distracts, or is likely to dazzle or distract, a person with control of the vehicle.”
Lord Monks
My Lords, I tabled this amendment because we know from the evidence that we have been able to discern in this area that many of the perpetrators of the misuse of laser pointers are children and young people. They have seen “Star Wars” and lots of other sci-fi blockbusters; they have played computer games where lasers of one form or another are the weapons of choice of many of the protagonists; and they are fascinated by the power of the new technology. Items such as these, although still quite pricey, come to hand relatively easily and are getting cheaper and are more readily available.
Picking on vehicle drivers, especially pilots, seems to be the fashion at the moment. With this amendment, I seek to stress the responsibility of parents and other adults who buy laser pointers as presents for their children, and to send a message that it is not acceptable to then allow them to proceed unsupervised around the neighbourhood. Lasers are very dangerous for children to have and very dangerous to pilots and other vehicle drivers, such as train drivers.
I raise this issue in the context of the Bill to send a firm message to adults that they have responsibilities. I know that the question of the extent to which children or their parents are responsible for things is a tangled area, but it seems to me that I have the balance about right. The amendment proposes to set out that parents have responsibilities in this area and that they cannot wash their hands of incidents involving children for whom they are responsible.
Baroness Randerson
My Lords, I was pleased to add my name in support of the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Monks. As he said, the age profile of offenders tends to be quite young and the amendment reflects the fact that young people are often unaware of the danger and gravity of what they are doing. I made the point earlier today that the fact that lasers are often mislabelled emphasises that it is difficult for people to know the strength of the laser they are using.
The Minister wrote to me in response to points I raised at Second Reading and pointed out that lasers are often bought by young people and children on holiday abroad, and that this is frequently the way in which they come into the country. This emphasises the importance of the underlying points the amendment seeks to make—the issue of parental responsibility and the importance of educating parents in the dangers of lasers. In that way we will educate generations of young children.
Lord Tunnicliffe
While I have some sympathy with the general direction of the amendment, it touches on a massive subject—the extent to which parents are responsible for the criminal activities of their children. I worry about such a difficult concept being part of this Bill. If there is a problem here, I hope the Government will take this issue away, look at the generality of the relationship between parents and the criminal behaviour of their children and solve it in a wider context than this Bill. I await further discussion on Report before we take a final view.
Baroness Sugg
My Lords, parents are not held directly responsible for the criminal acts of their children and I am not aware of any circumstances in our criminal law in which an adult who knowingly or recklessly permits a child or young person to commit an offence is itself an offence.
Punishments such as the local child curfew or a child safety order can be given to children under the age of criminal responsibility who break the law. The order means that a child can be placed under the supervision of a social worker or a youth offending team worker to ensure that the child receives protection and support and is prevented from repeating the offence. Children between 10 and 17 can be arrested and taken to court if they commit a crime, although they are treated differently from adults.
Parents and guardians can be held responsible if their child repeatedly gets into trouble or if the parent does not take reasonable steps to control their behaviour. They could be asked to attend a parenting programme, sign a parenting contract or be given a parenting order by a court. A breach of a parenting order is a criminal offence and can result in a fine of up to £1,000 or community service.
On education, the Government are working on a programme of education which will include a specific programme for schools to target young people and to educate them on the dangers of lasers.
The Government’s view is that the current youth justice system is sufficient to deal with this issue and it would not be appropriate to make an exception to the usual practice. I hope the noble Lord will withdraw his amendment.
Lord Monks
My Lords, I draw attention to the term,
“the person knowingly or recklessly permits a child or young person”.
That is a high hurdle. It is not visiting the sins of the child on the parents but specifying the faults committed by the person who provides the laser. However, in the circumstances, I am certainly prepared to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Randerson
“Report on laser misuse following the passing of this Act
(1) The Secretary of State must carry out an assessment of the misuse of lasers with regard to vehicles in the year following this Act coming into force.(2) This assessment must make reference to the following—(a) whether the number of instances of a person shining or directing a laser beam at a vehicle has significantly decreased in the year following this Act coming into force; and(b) what steps could be taken to further reduce the danger that the misuse of lasers poses to vehicles.(3) The Secretary of State must lay a report of the assessment under this section before both Houses of Parliament one year after this Act comes into force.”
Baroness Randerson
My Lords, this Bill is remarkably narrow in its scope—very much more so than its predecessor, the Vehicle Technology and Aviation Bill, which fell at the time of the general election. I regard this as a great pity as the Government are missing an opportunity to take a comprehensive look at this issue. Instead, they are making two discrete stabs in the right direction, here in this Bill and in their proposals in the Trade Bill, to limit the sale of the most powerful lasers. This amendment is designed to highlight the opportunity that the Government have missed to take a number of additional steps to reduce the danger that lasers pose not only to vehicle users but to the wider safety of the general public.
At Second Reading a number of possible measures were suggested by noble Lords, including restricting the sale of lasers, introducing a licensing system, classing lasers as offensive weapons in certain circumstances as we do with knives, and imposing penalties for mislabelling. All of these would make it harder for individuals to acquire, knowingly or unknowingly, potentially dangerous lasers. I thank the Minister for her letter explaining why she believes that licensing, for example, would not work. She states specifically:
“When licensing systems were established in New Zealand and Australia the evidence gathered showed that licensing regime has not reduced laser attacks”.
I find that rather surprising because the statistics for Australia show that the number of laser incidents between 2013 and 2015 actually fell from 667 to 502. That is not an amazing reduction, but the Minister herself said in her speech at Second Reading that in the UK in 2008 there were only 200 incidents while in 2017 there were 1,200. That is a vast increase in the number of incidents in Britain while they are being contained and even trimmed a little in Australia. At a time when lasers are becoming increasingly available and increasingly powerful, I would argue that controlling the growth in the number of incidents is in itself a sign of success.
Australia has the most stringent control system in the world and it illustrates how complex the problem is and how multifaceted the Government’s response needs to be. Disappointingly, if I may use a rather inappropriate metaphor, there seems to be only one arrow in the Government’s quiver in this Bill. The Australian experience shows that labelling requirements are flouted very frequently. I have already mentioned one study which showed that more than 50% of the lasers labelled as 1 milliwatt or less were in fact more powerful. In one case, the laser was 127 times more powerful. Increasing the likelihood of examination and detection as these lasers are imported into the country is therefore very important indeed.
At Second Reading I questioned the Minister about the support being planned for local authority ports and border teams as well as trading standards officers, to enable them to detect mislabelled lasers. The Minister responded to this in her letter to me and referred to government co-ordination but made absolutely no reference to the extra money or resources which are so badly needed by these hard-pressed teams. We also discussed advertising. The Minister pointed out in her letter that in the UK there is little in the way of actual advertising for lasers, but I would urge her to consider another sort of advertising; that is, the need for the Government themselves to issue public information advertisements, probably aimed primarily at parents, to raise awareness of the danger of lasers. I am disappointed that the Government yet again seem to be relying on the market to rule and ignoring the need for a comprehensive package of measures.
I tried to draft several amendments to tackle the issues I have raised. They were all ruled to be out of scope because the Bill is very narrow. I have fallen back, unashamedly, on the need for the Government to report on the effectiveness of the measures in the Bill within a year of it passing to force the Government to take a more comprehensive look if the measures in the Bill do not prove effective in creating a considerable reduction in the incidence of laser attacks. I beg to move.
Lord Trefgarne
My Lords, I am slightly surprised that the noble Baroness got this one past the clerks. Be that as it may, the advice of the clerks is the advice of the clerks and that is that. She did get it past them, but this sort of thing seems outside the scope of the Bill and the Long Title as I read it. I hope that she will not press it.
Lord Tunnicliffe
My Lords, we broadly support the amendment. We will congratulate ourselves after Report and Third Reading, having used very little parliamentary time, on having a narrow Bill that addresses a particular problem, but the real issue is enforcement. Will this law be effectively enforced? We have a crisis in policing in this country. There are some 20,000 fewer officers than in 2010. One has no idea where in the police’s priorities this particular piece of law will fall.
The beauty of having a report after a year is that it will have to include information about how enforcement has gone. That can do nothing but good. There is a general rule of management that what gets measured gets done. The fact that police forces would know that Parliament will be looking at the result of this law and the extent to which it has been enforced would be an important incentive to make it work.
Baroness Sugg
My Lords, the Government keep safety across all modes of transport under constant review and, along with industry, are always looking at ways in which we can mitigate risks to safety. The risk posed by the misuse of lasers is no exception. I assure the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, that we will continue to work with the police, regulators and other stakeholders, including the UK Laser Working Group, to monitor the number of instances of a person shining or directing a laser beam at a vehicle and look at what other steps can be taken, including raising public awareness and using evolving technology, to mitigate the impact that a laser attack has on a person in control of vehicles.
In addition to what we are proposing in the Bill, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy has announced new measures to tackle the sale of unsafe laser pointers, which I hope will reduce the number of instances of laser misuse on transport. Much of this will be a matter for the newly created Office for Product Safety and Standards to consider. Announced on Sunday, it will be a national body to further enhance the UK’s product safety system and provide support at a local level. I have already mentioned the education programme. We believe that the very introduction of the Bill will raise awareness of the dangers that lasers pose. The noble Baroness points out that the Bill’s scope is very narrow. That is indeed the case. As I said, BEIS has recently published its response to its call for evidence. The new Office for Product Safety and Standards should help.
We will follow the usual post-legislative scrutiny guidance and submit a memorandum, published as a Command Paper, to the House of Commons Transport Select Committee within five years after Royal Assent. The memorandum will include a preliminary assessment of how the Act has worked in practice. The one year that the noble Baroness proposes in her amendment may not be enough time to properly assess the full impact of a new criminal offence and the other measures I have mentioned. As I said, we will of course be keeping this under constant review. I hope that my reassurances will satisfy the noble Baroness and that she will withdraw her amendment.
Baroness Randerson
I thank the Minister for that. For the sake of clarity for the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, I thought I had indicated—possibly it is because I am trying to use as few words as possible today—that I understand entirely why my proposed amendments were ruled out of order. It is because the Bill is very narrowly drafted. However, I did discuss the issue in order to see whether it is possible to have this discussion in some other way. I was reassured to hear that the Minister is consulting widely on the issues associated with the Bill, as well as by the creation of the Office for Product Safety and Standards and the five-year review. I am satisfied that she has taken on board and will continue to take on board the issues I have raised and with that I am content to withdraw my amendment.
Laser Misuse (Vehicles) Bill [HL]
Tuesday 27th February 2018
(6 years, 10 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Laser Misuse (Vehicles) Act 2018 Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 75-R-I Marshalled list for Report (PDF, 72KB) - (23 Feb 2018)
Baroness Sugg
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Transport (Baroness Sugg) (Con)
My Lords, I rise to move Amendment 1 and speak to Amendment 3, which is grouped with it. Amendment 1 would replace “on a journey” with “moving or ready to move”. At Second Reading and in Committee, the definition of “on a journey” was the topic of extensive discussion and I am grateful to the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig, and the noble Lords, Lord Trefgarne, Lord Balfe and Lord Rosser, who contributed to those discussions and made such helpful suggestions.
Our intention in the Bill has always been to capture when a vehicle is in motion and also when it is stationary but about to travel, as there is still a safety risk if the person in control were to be dazzled or distracted at this stage. This includes journeys of any length and journeys that begin and end in the same place, such as training flights. It also includes taxiing in the case of aircraft, as well as temporary stops, such as at a train stations, bus stops, traffic lights or when waiting to take off. To clarify this, the Government have laid the amendment to remove the references to “journey” and refer instead to when a vehicle is “moving or ready to move”. This wording is wider than “journey” and removes the ambiguity of what actually constitutes a “journey”.
To strengthen this further we have, in Amendment 3, defined that when a mechanically propelled vehicle’s engine or motor is running, it should be treated as being ready to move. It is important that we include all safety-critical points, for example when an aircraft is at a stand, as this could have safety implications for persons on the ground in the immediate vicinity. The amendment does not change the policy intention of the Bill but does provide greater clarity, which I hope noble Lords will welcome. I beg to move.
Lord Berkeley (Lab)
My Lords, the noble Baroness and the Government have made some good changes to the Bill, but I have one or two questions, which I am sure she will be able to answer. They relate to the definition of a “vehicle”. The word “vehicle” appears in Clause 1(1)(a)—“on a journey”, as the noble Baroness said—and subsection (2). She is then introducing—on page 2, line 9, through Amendment 3—“a mechanically propelled vehicle”, which seems to substitute the wording of subsection (6), which includes an,
“aircraft, motor vehicle, pedal cycle, train, vessel, hovercraft or submarine”.
I am glad she has got rid of some of those because that could be quite difficult.
However, she goes on to say in the interpretation—I know it is not in this group but I might as well mention it now—that Clause 7 defines an aircraft, but a “vehicle” also includes an aircraft. Presumably you can get done both ways, in either Clause 1 or Clause 2 or something. Perhaps she could explain whether these definitions include trains or bicycles, I just wonder whether a little bit of tidying up might be a good idea before the Bill reaches the statute book.
Lord Craig of Radley (CB)
My Lords, noble Lords may recall that I moved some amendments to this important Bill, which of course has my full support. One of them dealt with the phrase “on a journey”. As is evident from the amendment, and others in the noble Baroness’s name, possible weaknesses in the original wording—that is, a risk of loopholes in the intended coverage of the Bill—have all now been addressed. I support the amendment and I am very grateful for the noble Baroness’s receptive consideration of the points made in Committee.
Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)
My Lords, we, too, welcome these two amendments. Put simply, I agree with my noble friend about further tidying up. If the noble Baroness wants to come forward on Third Reading with any tidying up, we would be grateful for it—but we are very pleased that the spirit of the debate has been taken on board.
Baroness Sugg
On the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, perhaps we could wait to discuss the definition of “vehicle” until the fourth group, as Amendment 5 refers to exactly that. The amendments in this group clarify what we intend the Bill to cover and ensure that all safety-critical points are included. On that basis, I beg to move.
Lord Tunnicliffe
Lord Tunnicliffe
My Lords, while I am not going to get carried away and divide the House on this issue, I will press it just once more. In my view, Clause 1(1) and (2) in fact describes two crimes. Clause 1(1)(a) says,
“the person shines or directs a laser beam towards a vehicle which is on a journey”,
which is great,
“and … the laser beam dazzles or distracts”.
That is a straightforward crime because I have stopped before the word “or”, so it is not a problem. Then there is a second offence, where,
“the person shines or directs a laser beam towards a vehicle which is on a journey, and … the laser beam … is likely to dazzle or distract … a person with control of the vehicle”.
In my view, it will be incredibly difficult to prove this second crime of being likely to dazzle or distract. That is why I would like paragraph (b) deleted so that it would simply be a matter of proving that a person had shone or directed a laser beam towards a vehicle that was on a journey. That is my reason for pressing the amendment again.
Baroness Randerson (LD)
The noble Lord has my support in wanting to push this issue a bit further. I recall raising in Committee the issue that it would be difficult to imagine why people would be walking around carrying a laser and pointing it at either objects on the road or planes in the air unless they were intent on doing some mischief.
It is also possible that people would find it very difficult, as the noble Lord has said, to prove the intent that is in the Government’s proposed legislation. I understand where the Minister is coming from on this—the Government do not want to criminalise people simply for walking around with a laser pen in their pocket—although I go back to the point, which I believe I made at Second Reading, that we have a situation with knives where we all own them and use them on a daily basis but it is an offence to be carrying a knife in certain situations. So we have managed to sort out the law in such a way that it is possible to distinguish between people who happen to have a knife in their rucksack because they were cutting up their apple for lunch and people who are carrying a knife with the intent to use it as a weapon. I say to the Government that it is probably worth while going back and looking again at applying that approach to the carrying of laser pens and lasers in general.
Lord Berkeley
My noble friend has made a very good point, as has the noble Baroness. It is a question of what evidence would be needed to secure a conviction for the intention to dazzle. It seems to me that, taking the noble Baroness’s example of having a knife in one’s pocket, evidence that a laser is switched on is not hard to find. Evidence of intent to dazzle is very difficult. I hope that she can give some examples of the type of evidence that would be likely to be accepted in order to secure a conviction. If she cannot do so after she has had time to consider the matter, it may be that my noble friend’s amendment is the right one, and the paragraph should be thereby deleted.
Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)
I used to prosecute some years ago. I take the noble Baroness’s example regarding the carrying of knives. There was of course a real scourge of young people carrying knives in the street, but it would have been extremely difficult to secure convictions of people roaming the streets in Glasgow, where I prosecuted, on the basis of what was likely to happen. That is why the safer course was followed of defining knives of a particular size, those exceeding six inches or whatever it was. Anyone who was carrying one was guilty of a crime. There should be some way in which to achieve certainty. One has to remember that north and south of the border the standard of proof in criminal cases is high—proof beyond reasonable doubt. It is that aspect that makes the issue so difficult. If one was dealing with a civil test, the balance of probability, then likelihood would be fine. That comes up from time to time in various other situations, but it is the criminal standard of proof that makes the point important.
Baroness Sugg
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, and I have discussed this matter and I have written to him on the subject. I have also discussed this at length with colleagues in the Ministry of Justice, and I will attempt to set out the reasoning behind why we are resisting the amendment.
The Government believe that removing the requirement to dazzle or distract would widen the offence more than is appropriate, thereby criminalising behaviour that would not cause harm. It is government policy and part of the better regulation agenda not to criminalise behaviour unless it is absolutely necessary, which includes focusing any offence on the behaviour it seeks to address. Criminal law ought not to be more extensive in scope than is necessary to achieve its purpose. In creating criminal law, a balance has to be drawn between protecting society and individual rights, and an act generally should not be condemned as criminal where there is no risk of a harmful effect on the public or society.
The offence in this Bill has already been widened from the original contained in the Vehicle Technology and Aviation Bill because it now covers when pointing a laser at a vehicle is,
“likely to dazzle or distract”.
This means that the prosecution will not necessarily need to prove that the laser dazzled or distracted if it presented a clear risk and potential to do so. Evidence of that could come either from the person whom the laser is attempting to dazzle or distract, or from eyewitnesses.
Furthermore, this will be a strict liability offence. Such an offence requires no proof of intention or knowledge of wrongdoing and therefore should be kept within appropriate bounds. There is no need to prove intent to harm, or to dazzle or distract. When the police try and prosecute more serious cases under the offence of endangering an aircraft, they are required to prove recklessness or negligence, which can make prosecutions difficult. Under the new offence, it will no longer be necessary to prove that the accused was reckless or negligent. It is therefore the Government’s opinion that the offence as it is now drafted will make it easier to prosecute without going further and criminalising behaviour that does not present a risk to the public.
I hope that that explains the reasoning for resisting the amendment and satisfies the noble Lord. However, I have heard the arguments and would be interested as to whether he would like us to consider the matter further.
Lord Tunnicliffe
I thank the noble Baroness for setting out the arguments. As a non-lawyer, I remain underwhelmed and hope that she will look at this debate and once again consider coming back at Third Reading with some change to allay the fears that have been expressed in the debate. However, it would not be appropriate to press the matter further at this time, and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Sugg
“( ) A mechanically propelled vehicle which is not moving or ready to move but whose engine or motor is running is to be treated for the purposes of subsection (1)(a) as ready to move.”
Lord Craig of Radley
Lord Craig of Radley
My Lords, as I mentioned, this, like previous amendments that I tabled in Committee, aims to plug any possible legal loopholes in the Bill. This amendment improves on my attempt in Committee. It is vital that both the pilot of an aircraft and other flight deck or crew members whose contribution to the control responsibilities of the pilot are critical to the safe operation of that aircraft are fully covered in the Bill. This form of words achieves that additional coverage. I am grateful for the discussion I had with the noble Baroness and for her Bill team’s helpful guidance on precise wording, so I look forward to her agreement to the amendment, which I beg to move.
Baroness Randerson
I certainly support the principle behind the amendment, but I am aware that the Government are keen to keep the Bill as simple as possible, and I hope that the Minister will be able to persuade us that it is already covered in other ways. It is essential that co-pilots are also covered. Attempts have been made in government amendments to broaden the Bill—for example, to include towers at airports. That is welcome, but it is important that we ensure that the co-pilot—the person sitting alongside the pilot —is covered, because if the pilot is dazzled, undoubtedly anyone sitting next to them will be as well.
Lord Tunnicliffe
My Lords, we support the amendment and hope the Minister will consider it. First, I can see no harm in it and no perversity that might come out of it. It is always dangerous in high-tech industries to be too constraining in one’s language. For all we know, the illustrious title of pilot, which both the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig, and I enjoyed at one point in our lives, may fade away as the operation of aircraft becomes more automated. This catch-all amendment would improve the Bill just that little bit.
Baroness Sugg
I am very grateful to the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig, for tabling the amendment. As I said, it has always been our intention to cover all persons in control of a vehicle, and it is of course important to include all members of the flight crew who are in control of the aircraft or have a safety-critical role in monitoring its control. I hope that my acceptance of the amendment reassures the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, that a co-pilot will indeed be covered. I reiterate my thanks to the noble and gallant Lord for lending his expertise to this and other areas of the Bill. I fully agree that the amendment strengthens the legislation, and the Government support it.
Baroness Sugg
Baroness Sugg
My Lords, in moving Amendment 5, I shall speak to Amendments 7 to 12, which are grouped with it. Amendments 5 and 7 relate to which vehicles are covered by the offence. During earlier stages of the Bill, it was highlighted that, although the Bill in its current form lists most type of vehicle, including submarines, the list is not comprehensive. We have therefore taken a more complete approach through the amendments. We are removing the list of vehicles covered and have provided a broad definition to cover all vehicles. Amendment 7 defines a vehicle as,
“any vehicle which is used for travel by land, water or air”.
Therefore trains, and indeed submarines, will be covered.
Inserting this broader definition simplifies the Bill and removes any ambiguity about which vehicles are included in the offence and which are not. It sends a clear message to the public that it is unacceptable to shine a laser towards any vehicle. Furthermore, I am pleased to confirm to the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig, following his contribution to previous stages of the Bill, that this broad definition means that horse-drawn vehicles are now also covered by the offence.
In making this change, some types of vehicles now considered devolved in Scotland are now captured by the Bill, and I am grateful to the Scottish Government for agreeing to bring forward a Legislative Consent Motion in the Scottish Parliament to cover those aspects. This definition of a vehicle will be contained in a new interpretation clause. The clause will include other definitions that were part of the Bill as introduced, such as aircraft and vessel. I hope that clarifies things somewhat for the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley. The definitions of aircraft and vessel relate to subsections (8) and (9) on who is in control of the vehicle, so they do not change the definition of a vehicle for the purposes of the offence.
Amendment 7 also introduces the definition of the term “laser beam” as,
“a beam of coherent light produced by a device of any kind’.
The amendment addresses concerns from noble Lords during earlier stages of the Bill over potential loopholes. The definition includes laser guns and pulse and burst lasers, which emit laser beams of short duration. We have drafted this in consultation with a range of experts in this field at University College London and Newcastle University, as well as the Department for Transport’s chief scientific adviser, and I am grateful to them for lending us their expertise on this matter. These experts agree that this definition uniquely identifies the concept of a laser beam and leaves no room for ambiguity. I hope noble Lords will be content with this amendment.
The other amendments in this group are technical amendments required to reflect the other amendments we have tabled. They relate to commencement and bring the Bill into line with normal practice on commencing technical provisions. The Long Title of the Bill, which we discussed earlier, has also been changed to reflect the amendments tabled. The previous Long Title comprehensively stated the content of the Bill, so the words “for connected purposes” were not included. As we are proposing that the Bill now includes an offence of shining a laser beam at a person providing air traffic services, which we will come to, that is no longer the case, so the words “for connected purposes” have been added. I beg to move.
Lord Craig of Radley
I very much welcome this approach, and the tidying up of the original interpretations in Clause 1(10). It has sensibly removed references to submarines and pedal cycles, neither of whose operators seem particularly at great risk from a laser beam. It will cover the coachmen of horse-drawn vehicles, which provoked some examples of misinformed or imprecise reporting following the Committee stage. I wish to record that for horse-drawn vehicles, as for all other types of vehicle, the person responsible for controlling the vehicle—in this case, the coachman—is who I had in mind. I am grateful to the noble Baroness for her positive consideration in arranging for these improvements to the Bill.
Lord Berkeley
I am grateful to the Minister for that explanation. I just want to clarify something I said earlier, because if I do not, the lawyers will start nitpicking at vast expense. Presumably “vehicle” in Amendment 7 includes trains—I think it should. Does it include bicycles, and people on bicycles? The controller of the vehicle is the person at whom the laser may be directed. Then we have things called segways, scooters and single-wheel segways. If they are all vehicles, that is fine by me, but I hope people will not start nitpicking and say, “Well, it’s not this, it’s the other”. I hope the definition is comprehensive.
Baroness Randerson
My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for her amendments. They demonstrate that she has approached this Bill with very much an open mind. Because of the Bill’s technical nature, some experts in the House were able to add some very useful amendments, the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig, being an example. But it perhaps gives us pause for thought that the Bill, which has been pretty narrowly drafted—fortunately the noble Baroness has tabled amendments to broaden it significantly—still needed quite a lot of amendment. Although this is an issue that the Government have been considering for many months, there were still technical issues that needed to be addressed. That does not suggest that the proposals had been consulted on sufficiently. However, in relation to the Minister’s approach, I am very grateful to her for her assistance.
Lord Tunnicliffe
My Lords, we have examined this group of amendments and believe they have significantly improved the Bill. I thank the Minister for bringing them forward.
Baroness Sugg
I thank all noble Lords for their contributions on this group. All the vehicles mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, would be covered under the definition of a vehicle as,
“any vehicle which is used for travel by land, water or air”.
We have brought forward this amendment so that the definition does cover things comprehensively, not just a limited list.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, said, the Bill has changed during its progress through the House. It is an excellent example of the improvement that this House can bring to a Bill. I thank all noble Lords for their contributions to that improvement.
Baroness Sugg
“Offences relating to air traffic services
(1) A person commits an offence if—(a) the person shines or directs a laser beam—(i) towards an air traffic facility, or(ii) towards a person providing air traffic services, and(b) the laser beam dazzles or distracts, or is likely to dazzle or distract, a person providing air traffic services.(2) It is a defence to show—(a) that the person had a reasonable excuse for shining or directing the laser beam towards the facility or person, or(b) that the person—(i) did not intend to shine or direct the laser beam towards the facility or person, and(ii) exercised all due diligence and took all reasonable precautions to avoid doing so.(3) A person is taken to have shown a fact mentioned in subsection (2) if—(a) sufficient evidence is adduced to raise an issue with respect to it, and(b) the contrary is not proved beyond reasonable doubt.(4) A person who commits an offence under this section is liable—(a) on summary conviction in England and Wales, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 12 months, to a fine or to both;(b) on summary conviction in Scotland, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 12 months, to a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum or to both;(c) on summary conviction in Northern Ireland, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months, to a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum or to both;(d) on conviction on indictment, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years, to a fine or to both.(5) In relation to an offence committed before the coming into force of section 154(1) of the Criminal Justice Act 2003, the reference in subsection (4)(a) to 12 months is to be read as a reference to six months.(6) In this section—“air traffic facility” means any building, structure, vehicle or other place from which air traffic services are provided;“air traffic services” has the meaning given by section 98(1) of the Transport Act 2000.”
Baroness Sugg
My Lords, Amendment 6 creates a new offence of shining or directing a laser towards air traffic control which dazzles or distracts, or is likely to dazzle or distract, a person providing air traffic services. The inclusion of air traffic control in the Bill has seen cross-party support, including from the noble Lords, Lord Tunnicliffe and Lord Monks, and the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, who tabled amendments on this subject in Committee. We have listened to these concerns.
Air traffic control personnel have an important responsibility in controlling and monitoring the movement of aircraft. I agree that a laser attack on a person carrying out these duties presents clear safety concerns and could endanger aircraft. The Bill was originally drafted to deal with the safety risks faced when a laser distracts or dazzles the person in control of a vehicle, but including air traffic control fits with the underlying principle of the Bill and goes further to protect the travelling public.
Before tabling this amendment, we consulted a range of stakeholders including BALPA, NATS and the UK Laser Working Group. They are all supportive of this new clause. We are treating shining a laser beam at air traffic control in the same way as shining a laser beam towards vehicles, with the same defences and punishments. There is a clear case for this amendment in the interest of public safety, and I am grateful to noble Lords for highlighting this and so improving the Bill. I beg to move.
Lord Tunnicliffe
We welcome this amendment. We moved into interesting territory in Committee and, sadly, the Government may come back at some point to address the whole issue of the laser as a weapon. However, they have chosen the right point in that progression and we support the amendment.
Lord Balfe (Con)
My Lords, I draw attention to my entry in the register. The Bill is a good example of a common endeavour in this House. Because they are passionate about aviation safety, all sides of the House wish to have a successful Bill. I thank the Minister for listening to all the groups that have responded, particularly BALPA, of which I serve as vice-president. We are extremely grateful to the Minister for the efficient and open way in which she has handled this matter. I place that on record as we come to the end of this stage.
Baroness Sugg
My Lords, I welcome the support for the creation of this new offence, which strengthens the Bill. I am grateful to noble Lords for their contributions in favour of the proposal. Thanks to this, and the other improvements suggested by noble Lords and discussed today, the Bill leaves your Lordships’ House as a better piece of legislation than it was when it arrived.
Baroness Sugg
“Interpretation
In this Act—“aircraft” means any vehicle used for travel by air;“laser beam” means a beam of coherent light produced by a device of any kind;“vehicle” means any vehicle which is used for travel by land, water or air;“vessel” has the meaning given by section 255(1) of the Merchant Shipping Act 1995.”
Baroness Sugg
“( ) This section and section (Interpretation) come into force on the day on which this Act is passed.”
“( ) Section (Offences relating to air traffic services) comes into force at the end of the period of two months beginning with the day on which this Act is passed.”
Baroness Sugg
Laser Misuse (Vehicles) Bill [HL]
Tuesday 6th March 2018
(6 years, 9 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Laser Misuse (Vehicles) Act 2018 Read Hansard Text Amendment Paper: HL Bill 75-R-I Marshalled list for Report (PDF, 72KB) - (23 Feb 2018)
Laser Misuse (Vehicles) Bill [Lords]
Wednesday 18th April 2018
(6 years, 8 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Laser Misuse (Vehicles) Act 2018 Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 75-R-I Marshalled list for Report (PDF, 72KB) - (23 Feb 2018)
The Secretary of State for Transport (Chris Grayling)
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
We can be proud of the safety culture across our transport sector in recent years, but we cannot be complacent and we want to maintain and improve safety standards. That is why we have to look at new areas where legislation is needed, and one of them is strengthening the rules against the minority of thoroughly irresponsible people who shine lasers at aircraft. At the same time, we will make it an offence to shine a laser at cars, trains, ships and air traffic control for the first time.
Sir Greg Knight (East Yorkshire) (Con)
Will not the Bill throw into doubt the long-established police practice of an officer on foot jumping into the highway and waving a torch at a motorist in order to stop a vehicle? Would that not be an offence under the Bill because a strict liability offence is proposed, as I understand it, or does my right hon. Friend expect the police to have to pray for salvation and to rely on clause 1(2) to argue that they have a defence?
Chris Grayling
I thank my right hon. Friend for raising that point, which may have been a request to join the Committee and argue about it in great detail. I argue that any potential law and order intervention would judge there to be a key difference between a torch and the modern laser pen that is causing such issues and on which, particularly in relation to aircraft, we need the law to be substantially strengthened.
Sir Greg Knight
I am sorry to labour the point, and I am most grateful to my right hon. Friend for giving way. That is what I initially thought would be the answer, but if we look at the Bill, we can see that a laser beam is defined in clause 3 as
“a beam of coherent light produced by a device of any kind”—
in other words, a torch.
Chris Grayling
I am not a physicist, but I think the key word is “coherent”, in that a beam is coherent if it focuses the light in a way that represents a danger to the public. As I have said, I encourage my right hon. Friend to join the Bill Committee—this may be one of the issues that are well worth debating—and I have no doubt that my colleagues on the Treasury Bench will be delighted to offer him such an opportunity. It is a serious point, however, and we will double-check.
I am very grateful to the other place, which has done a detailed job of scrutiny. Amendments made there have removed ambiguity and extended the provisions beyond vehicles to include air traffic control facilities. I thank my noble Friend Baroness Sugg and those in the Lords who took part in debates on the Bill, and the external stakeholders, particularly the UK Laser Working Group, that have made an important contribution to shaping the legislation.
It is important to say that there are legitimate uses for lasers. They are used as alignment aids in the construction industry, by lecturers in classrooms and by astronomers in the course of their work. We intend to legislate not against the use of laser pointers at all, but instead against their illegitimate use. They can dazzle, distract or blind those in charge of a vehicle, with serious and even fatal consequences. We know that, in aviation, such incidents take place during take-off or landing, or when aircraft such as police helicopters are carrying out civil safety duties.
Back in 2003, 15 years ago, there had never been a reported case of a laser being shone at an aircraft. The following year there were six cases, and by 2008 there were 200. There are now 1,000 a year, as indeed there were last year. Thankfully no aircraft, train or road vehicle in this country has had an accident as a result of these dangerous and senseless acts, but it is all too easy to imagine the potential consequences—for instance, a pilot being blinded by a laser when trying to land a passenger jet, or a train driver being dazzled from a bridge and missing a signal as a result.
It is already an offence, under the Air Navigation Order 2016, to shine a light at an aircraft to dazzle or distract a pilot. However, the maximum penalty is a £2,500 fine, and we do not think the fact that this is a summary offence gives the police adequate powers to investigate and pursue it effectively. Offenders can also be prosecuted, under another air navigation order, for the offence of endangering an aircraft. That carries a maximum prison sentence of five years and a £5,000 fine, but it involves legal complications. It is sometimes difficult to prove the endangerment of an aircraft.
The Bill will simplify the position. It is a straightforward measure, which will make it an offence for a person to shine or direct a laser beam towards a vehicle if it dazzles or distracts, or if the action is likely to dazzle or distract a person in control of a vehicle. It will extend to all transport modes, will give the police the powers they need to investigate, and will provide penalties that reflect the seriousness of the offence. This will be an either-way offence, which means that it can be dealt with in the magistrates courts or, as an indictable offence, in the Crown court. It gives the police powers, under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, to enter a property for the purposes of arrest and to search a property after an arrest. Those powers are not currently available to the authorities in respect of existing aviation offences. The maximum fine will be unlimited, and the maximum prison sentence will be five years. The Bill will extend to the whole United Kingdom. We have been working with the devolved Administrations, who are very supportive, and I am grateful to them for their co-operation.
As I said at the start of my speech, the Bill has already faced scrutiny in the other place, where it received strong cross-party support. It reaches us in much better shape as a result. One of the positive additions in the other place was the extension of the provisions to air traffic control, which has a key role in our aviation sector. It is right and proper for those who attempt to shine one of these devices at an air traffic control point to be treated in the same way. That is a constructive example of the way in which debate on such Bills can improve them.
The Bill has received widespread support from both the authorities and the transport industry. The British Airline Pilots Association has welcomed its reintroduction—it was, of course, debated before the general election, but had to be set aside because there was not enough time to proceed—saying that it is good news for transport safety. It has also been welcomed by airlines and airports, the National Police Chiefs Council, the National Police Air Service, the Military Aviation Authority, the Maritime and Coastguard Agency, the Rail Delivery Group, Public Health England and the Royal College of Ophthalmologists. That is a pretty good list of supporters.
Everyone agrees that we need to do something about this problem, and everyone agrees that the actions of the small number of individuals who behave in this way are utterly unacceptable. We must give our police the powers to deal with them in the toughest appropriate manner. I hope and believe that today, in the House, we can give our support to a measure that I believe is absolutely necessary for public safety, and whose time has come.
Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Lab)
Labour fully supports the Bill. Our concerns about it were addressed as it made its way through the other place. However, this is not the first occasion on which I have had a strong sense of déjà vu when discussing legislation introduced during the current Session. The issues dealt with in this Bill, along with those in another two Bills that have been presented since June last year, were first put before the House more than a year ago as part of the Vehicle Technology and Aviation Bill. The Prime Minister’s gamble in calling a snap election not only demolished her majority in this place, but had the knock-on effect of disrupting much of the business of Parliament. A host of important Bills, including the Vehicle Technology and Aviation Bill, were dropped ahead of the election.
Having expended a great deal of parliamentary time and effort debating issues like those contained in this Bill, we were surprised to note that there was no reference to the Vehicle Technology and Aviation Bill in the Queen’s Speech. Instead, the Government decided to take up even more parliamentary time by fragmenting the previously proposed legislation, splitting it between what became the Air Travel Organisers’ Licensing Act 2017 and the Automated and Electric Vehicles Bill. In fact, the Queen’s Speech made no mention of laser misuse, and it was only after Labour raised the issue with the Government during the debate on the Air Travel Organisers’ Licensing Bill that they introduced this Bill.
While Labour Members are happy to see these measures finally making their way into law, it is disappointing to note that 50% of the Government’s transport programme during the current Parliament has consisted of clauses taken from the Vehicle Technology and Aviation Bill, which should already have passed into law. Moreover, having introduced three separate Bills, the Government have yet to include a number of clauses from the Vehicle Technology and Aviation Bill that should be on the statute books by now. There has been no legislation on diversionary driving courses, and the clauses relating to air traffic services appear to have been axed as well.
All those facts only go to show that this minority Government are utterly out of ideas and cannot competently deliver those that they attempt to recycle. It is astonishing that they are willing to take up so many hours of Parliament’s time with business that should have been dealt with a year ago, when such a vast number of pressing transport issues require our immediate attention. For example, we have heard nothing from them about what action they will take to address the crisis in local bus services, the collapsing rail franchising system, the huge disparities in regional transport investment, or the air pollution that is causing 50,000 premature deaths each year. This Bill could have given them an opportunity to legislate on drones. There were 70 reported near misses with aircraft in 2016, and the number is rising year on year, but they simply have not addressed the problem at the required pace.
While it is disappointing to see the Government drag their feet on important problems relating to the transport sector, it is nevertheless a good thing that they are listening to the Labour party and legislating on laser misuse. Worryingly, we have seen a sharp rise in the misuse of lasers in recent years. According to figures released by the Civil Aviation Authority, between 2009 and 2016 there was a 70% increase in the number of incidents in which a laser was shone at an aircraft in the UK. The British Transport Police reported 578 laser incidents between April 2011 and November 2017, an average of 96 each year.
It is currently an offence only to direct or shine any light at any aircraft in flight so as to dazzle or distract the pilot of the aircraft, with a maximum penalty fine of £2,500. A suspect can be imprisoned for up to five years under the Aviation Security Act 1982 if intent to damage or endanger the safety of aircraft can be proved. The Bill will extend the offence to other vehicles, remove the cap on the amount that offenders can be fined and make it easier to prosecute offenders by removing the need to prove an intention to endanger a vehicle.
The Government have taken on board the points raised by my Labour colleagues in the other place about the definition of “laser beam” and the types of vehicles covered in the Bill, as well including a new clause making it an offence to shine a laser directly towards an air traffic control tower. The Opposition would like to put on record our gratitude for the work of our colleagues in the other place, particularly Lord Tunnicliffe, to make those significant improvements to the Bill. It is with pleasure that Labour can take responsibility for a piece of legislation that the Conservatives omitted from their programme for government and only introduced after heeding our calls. Indeed, when they did so, the work of Opposition spokespeople in the other place was required to get it into its current shape. If we were in government, we would have passed this legislation into law a year ago, and we would now be getting on with the business of implementing our policies to save local bus services, fix our railways, equalise the disparities in regional transport investment and address the air pollution crisis.
All the Conservative party has to offer are recycled bits of legislation and sticking plasters for an ailing transport system that is in need of major medical assistance. While I reiterate Labour’s full support for the Bill, the transport needs of the nation are many and varied, and, sadly, the totality of the Government’s legislative programme is utterly deficient in addressing them.
Mr John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)
The shadow Secretary of State was untypically churlish, and I can only attribute that to the fact that since I left the Front Bench he has become more bombastic—I think he is missing me. He is well aware— indeed, in his final remarks he acknowledged this—that this is a Bill that any decent Government would introduce. As he said, it was the subject of considerable discussion when that earlier piece of proposed legislation was introduced and there has been a broad measure of support across the House about the need for such a measure.
The use of lasers for malevolent purposes has grown, as the hon. Member for Middlesbrough (Andy McDonald) described. These devices were virtually unknown until the early 2000s; in 2003, fewer than half a dozen cases were reported. As he said, however, by last year over 1,000 cases were reported in various ways and forms. The need for legislation is proven simply on the basis that we know that these things can be used by those with malevolent intent to do damage and that they may well get access to a device that can be bought for as little as £1 on the internet and then go about their vile business.
The bringing down of a plane is obviously one of the principal fears, but, as the Bill now recognises, there are others, too—other transport modes are vulnerable. Someone with one of these laser pens could direct it into the face of a driver of a heavy goods vehicle or at a train driver from a bridge, so it is right that the Bill addresses all the risks associated with the misuse of these devices.
As has been said, the Bill encourages the identification of such malevolence, introduces tougher penalties and makes it easier for prosecutions to take place. There is an argument for extending the powers of the police still further by extending stop-and-search to, for example, people loitering on the edge of an airport or at a railway station with the clear intention of doing harm. Perhaps the Minister will deal with that when she sums up the debate.
Burke said:
“Early and provident fear is the mother of safety.”
It is right that we should be cautious and fearful, but it is also right that we should be prepared, ready to deal with any threat to public safety. These pens can present such a threat; we know that from what all the authorities report to us. The Bill is pertinent, prescient and it deserves the support of the whole House. I was proud to be—
Sir Greg Knight
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for giving way and join him in praising the Government for introducing this measure, but will he include himself in the congratulations, as he was an excellent Transport Minister and had a large part to play in this matter coming before us before, but unfortunately, because of the election, the Bill did not proceed into law?
Mr Hayes
My right hon. Friend is very generous and, of course, absolutely right in all that he just said, and I was just waiting for him to say it; I acknowledge that praise and thank him sincerely for what he said. Yes, I was involved in the outset of this. The shadow Secretary of State and I rubbed along very well together when I was on the Front Bench—and we did some good work together, too—but I think it is a bit rich to say that we would not have thought of this if it was not for the Opposition. We had been discussing and planning this, considering it and plotting the right way forward, for a considerable time, and I have absolute faith in the Secretary of State and my successor as Minister to take this matter forward with the same kind of diligence and concentrated effort that my right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire (Sir Greg Knight) very generously attributed to me.
Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)
It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr Hayes), and I join in the compliments to him: he certainly did have responsibility for the Vehicle Technology and Aviation Bill before June 2017 and also brought forward the Automated and Electric Vehicles Bill after the last general election. He is renowned for working in a cohesive and friendly and collegiate manner, and I pay tribute to him for that.
This Bill is welcome and I am sure it will have the support of the whole House, but its progress sums up this UK Government. As we have heard, the Bill was part of the previous Vehicle Technology and Aviation Bill, which fell because of the Government’s desperate general election strategy, so despite this new Bill supposedly being safety-critical, it is in fact the fourth Bill to be brought forward to cover the four main sections of VTAB. The timing therefore makes no sense.
We should also consider that today’s Chamber business was originally a Committee of the whole House sitting, to debate the Bill’s only two substantive clauses and the two clauses for definitions and extent to complete it. The whole House was supposed to discuss this four-clause Bill, yet following the Government’s taking action in Syria without a parliamentary vote, they refused to bring forward a substantive motion on Syria that the whole House could debate. That sums up the UK Government; it shows how they are padding out Government time, as the shadow Secretary of State said.
I served on the VTAB Committee and heard first hand from the British Airline Pilots Association—BALPA—about the incidents and risks associated with the shining of laser pens at pilots. We also heard about the need to consider air traffic control centres, because of the dangers of their staff being blinded, so it was very surprising that it was not until Report stage of this Bill that the Government included a clause to cover this aspect.
Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)
Was my hon. Friend as shocked as I was that it took the Government so long to react to BALPA’s warnings, particularly in respect of air traffic control centres?
Alan Brown
I absolutely agree, and my hon. Friend makes the point well. He, too, served on the VTAB Committee and heard that evidence first hand. The shadow Secretary of State took credit for the Labour party for pushing on that issue, but I point out that I challenged the Transport Secretary on it in relation to the Air Travel Organisers’ Licensing Act 2017. We all knew how safety-critical and important the issue was and it beggars belief that we are still only at this stage.
Figures from the Civil Aviation Authority show that more than 11,000 incidents have been reported at airports over an eight-year period. That is clearly unacceptable, and although there has been a downward trend, some 1,258 incidents were reported in 2016, so the frequency of such incidents is still much too high. Following a survey that BALPA undertook of its members, it stated:
“half of our pilots reported having experienced a laser attack in the last 12 months. 15% said they had experienced three or more”.
That illustrates the extent of the problem. It is not surprising, given its size, that Heathrow has been the most targeted airport. Sadly, however, Glasgow airport has been the next most targeted airport. In 2016, the number of incidents there doubled to 83, compared with 151 attacks at Heathrow. Glasgow has one fifth the number of flights of Heathrow, but more than half the number of attacks. So, on one level, the scale of the problem is much greater in Glasgow.
I support the fact that the Scottish National party and the Scottish Government are taking seriously any actions that could endanger aircraft and their crew and passengers, and the Scottish Government are strongly supporting the Civil Aviation Authority’s efforts to publicise the dangers, as well as the efforts of Police Scotland and the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service to deal with those who maliciously direct lasers at aircraft and to ensure that they are prosecuted. As we heard from the VTAB Committee, the existing legislation is not robust enough in terms of the need to prove intent to endanger aircraft. I am therefore more than happy to lend my support to this Bill if it will help to provide the stick to impose penalties on those who undertake such attacks.
BALPA has provided further information on the risks from the attacks. For pilots, the major concerns surrounding a laser illumination are those of startle and distraction, but they might also suffer flash blindness, after-image and glare. BALPA advises that there are four progressive stages of seriousness: distraction, disruption, disorientation and even incapacitation. Bearing in mind the most serious effects, when there is a two-man crew, it might be possible to hand over control of the aircraft to the second pilot, but even that procedure would involve risk during take-off and landing, and of course, only a two-pilot aircraft would have that luxury. Single-man aircraft, particularly helicopters, have no such luxury. If those pilots are attacked, it is a matter of the utmost seriousness. In London, in particular, police helicopters are—let us not be kidded—a target for those with malicious intent. There were even 10 laser incidents involving air ambulances in 2016. The catastrophic consequences for an aircraft are pretty obvious, so it is a minor miracle, given that there have been 11,000 incidents, that there has not been a more serious outcome following what are to all intents and purposes laser attacks.
It is welcome that the Bill covers all vehicles. The British Transport police have confirmed an average of 100 attacks a year on trains, and anyone really wanting to cause mischief will always have easy access to the road network, where they can target any random driver on the roads. It is therefore welcome that the Bill picks up on road users as well. As I have said, this is a short Bill. As I intimated earlier, it is welcome that the Government have added clause 2, which relates to air traffic control. However, as the shadow Minister said, we also need to consider drones and the increasing danger that they present to aircraft when people use them around airports. We know that they are becoming cheaper and more accessible to people of all ages, and we really need to look at this.
We also need to look at controlling the sale of laser pens if we are going to reduce the incidence of their malicious use. Public Health England recommends that unqualified and untrained members of the public should not have access to lasers in excess of 1 mW without good reason. Despite this, it is easy to purchase hand-held lasers in excess of 4,000 times that capacity. I therefore support the fact that, following a call for evidence, the response from the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy confirms that the Government will take action to improve the frequency and resourcing of enforcement activities at ports and borders with the aim of improving the safety of the market for laser pointers and increasing enforcement activities against their imports. It would be good if the Minister advised us on the timescale for this welcome additional action.
Once the Bill is introduced, the Government will have to advise us on how they will review the effectiveness of these measures and how they will consider what additional steps might be required if these measures alone are insufficient to cut down on the incidence of laser attacks. The Bill is welcome, but I ask the UK Government to consider these other measures relating to the dangers to aircraft in particular. I look forward to at last getting the Bill through and moving forward.
Mr Robert Goodwill (Scarborough and Whitby) (Con)
I am always surprised by how many people are afraid of flying, given that travelling in a plane is one of the safest things anyone can do. Travelling by car, for example, is 100 times as risky per mile as travelling in an aircraft, and travelling by motorcycle is 3,000 times as likely to kill us. The journey to the airport is likely to be the most dangerous part of someone’s holiday. I was pleased to be able to join BALPA in welcoming the fact that 2017 was the safest year in history for commercial aviation. That did not happen by accident. A number of factors are involved, and the attention to detail has been important. There has always been an underlying culture of safety in the aviation industry, starting with the manufacture and maintenance of aircraft at the excellent companies we have in the UK such as Rolls-Royce, and including the training and professionalism of the crew, both on the flight deck and in the cabin, and the work done by air traffic control. I would particularly like to recognise the work that NATS has done in keeping our skies safe. Indeed, we need to see more innovation in the way our airspace is designed and optimised.
When I first arrived in this House, I became a member of the Transport Committee under the indomitable Gwyneth Dunwoody. We went on a visit to the Civil Aviation Authority, and initially I was concerned to hear about the number of reports of incidents that had been brought to the CAA. It soon became clear, however, that aviation was so safe precisely because of that culture of reporting. For example, on one flight, the pilot and the co-pilot had both eaten the same lunch—I think that they had each had a prawn sandwich—and that had been recorded as a risk. Because of that recording, such mistakes could be addressed. Having that type of culture in the industry is important. Indeed, when I was the Aviation Minister, I joined Dame Deirdre Hutton, the chair of the CAA, on a ramp check to see exactly how diligently the work of checking our aircraft was being done. That culture is now being looked at by the NHS, so that if there is a mistake or a near miss in a hospital, for example, it can be learned from rather than hidden, as has been the problem.
Today, we have been hearing about the new risk—namely, the misuse of lasers, which are now much more widely accessible. Indeed, I was given one a while ago as a free gift by a political party. In 2004, there were six reported incidents, but that figure increased to more than 1,000 in 2010. When I was Aviation Minister, I met the chair of BALPA, Brendan O’Neal, who explained this to me at the same time as I was endeavouring to land a 747 in the simulator at Heathrow airport. He made it clear to me that people were concerned about this problem, because it is difficult to fly one of those things in those circumstances. He explained the danger to the aircraft and to the eyesight of the flight crews. Incidentally, I did not hit the control tower as I was coming in to land, unlike the Chancellor of the Exchequer of the time. BALPA has stated that 55% of pilots reported an attack in the past 12 months, 4% of whom had reported six or more such attacks. I therefore welcome the Bill. The Secretary of State has described how it goes further than the current measures under article 225 of the Air Navigation Order 2016, in that it covers other vehicles, as well as air traffic control and taxiing aircraft, which were not previously covered.
There is a particular problem for police helicopters. Mr Ollie Dismore, the director of operations for the National Police Air Service, was quoted in The Yorkshire Post in 2006 as saying that Leeds-Bradford airport, which is in my region, was the UK’s third worst airport for laser attacks on aircraft. In his 23-year career, Mr Dismore had been targeted well over 20 times himself and cited 108 reports of laser attacks on police helicopters in 2005. In the article, he described the unnerving experience of having the light bounce around the cockpit like a goldfish bowl while he was trying to fly the aircraft and look at the instruments. This is a particular problem at night, when the pilot’s pupils are dilated.
The good news is that technology in helicopters links the on-board camera to the mapping system, and the location of the perpetrator can be pinpointed and recorded. The person can even be photographed. Ground units have a good success rate of seizing the lasers and, depending on the severity of the attack, progressing the cases through the criminal justice system. Police helicopters have also been deployed in that way to tackle attacks on fixed-wing aircraft at locations such as Stansted, Gatwick and Manchester airports.
I am pleased that the measures that fell last year when the election was called will now be put on the statute book, widening the scope of the vehicles protected and toughening the penalties that can be imposed on the criminals who carry out this dangerous, malicious activity.
I want to put on the record the heavy lifting done by my noble friend Baroness Sugg, who started off her career as a staffer at the European Parliament when I was there and has now risen to much greater heights that even I could aspire to. We appreciate the work that has been done and the improvements that the Lords have made to the Bill, and I look forward to the legislation getting on the statute book, so that our skies can continue to be as safe as they are.
Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)
In answer to the point made by the shadow Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Middlesbrough (Andy McDonald), that this measure has been pushed by the Labour Opposition, I say that success has many fathers and failure has none. I refer him to my private Member’s Bill of 2016, on the regulation of sales, ownership and illegal use of laser pens. The Bill was intended to make
“the sale, ownership and use of portable laser emitting devices with output power of more than 1 milliwatt unlawful in certain circumstances; and for connected purposes.”
At that time, having looked at the matter since 2014, I was grateful to the then Lord Chancellor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove), and to my hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Mr Goodwill), whom it is a pleasure to follow today. During that time, he was a Transport Minister and then a Home Office Minister, and I had discussions with him about addressing the misuse of laser pens. More recently, I have had discussions with Business Ministers, because the issue of the misuse of lasers goes across the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, the Department for Transport and the Ministry of Defence. I have therefore spoken to and worked with a raft of Ministers to find a coherent strategy to address the misuse of laser pens.
Rehman Chishti
Before I give way to my right hon. Friend, I want to say that I was also grateful to be able to make representations to him, to which I will refer later.
Mr Hayes
My hon. Friend did indeed make those representations, which helped shape Government thinking. To add to the list of Departments involved in this work, I know that he would not want to miss out the Home Office. The Home Office has been engaged in this matter because, sadly, there is the potential for terrorists to take advantage of these simple devices with catastrophic consequences.
Rehman Chishti
I am most grateful to my right hon. Friend, who is absolutely right. I did make representations to him and had discussions with Home Office Ministers. Lastly, I want to thank the current Secretary of State for Transport for the time he gave me and for fully taking on board my concerns.
I of course welcome what is proposed in the Bill. When certain individuals are recklessly misusing laser pens, we want to ensure that the legislation is clear so that the police and our Crown Prosecution Service can prosecute them, and the previous legislation, the Air Navigation Order 2009, did not provide that clarity. According to the Civil Aviation Authority’s figures, there were 20 recorded incidents in 2005 and 746 in 2009. In 2010, there were 1,500. In 2011, there were 1,912, and in 2012 the number was 1,571. If we compare that with the number of convictions under article 222 of the Air Navigation Order, we see that there were only 26 convictions from 1,500 recorded incidents in 2010. In 2011, when 1,912 incidents were recorded by the CAA, there were 48 convictions. In 2014, the number of convictions was 18, but there were 1,447 incidents. It is quite clear that the legislation to address, deter and bring to account those responsible for the misuse of lasers—those who take part in this reckless activity—did not have the necessary and desired effect.
The Bill, which will make the offence one of strict liability, meaning that the prosecution is not required to show intention, is absolutely right and proper. We need legislation to have the right deterrent effect, so the punishment needs to be commensurate with the seriousness of the office. Previously there was only a financial penalty, which was not the right way forward. Under the new measures, the penalties have been increased to include both financial penalties and a sentence of up to five years, which most certainly is the right way forward.
A body that has not been referred to yet is the parliamentary advisory council for transport safety, which wrote to me on 19 April 2016. Its letter reads:
“On behalf of the Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety (All-Party Parliamentary Group), I am writing with regards to your recent Private Member’s Bill on the use of laser pens.
Between 2009 and 2015, the Civil Aviation Authority recorded seventeen reports of laser pen attacks affecting air traffic control towers in the UK.”
That point is now being addressed in clause 2—clause 1 addresses the need for clarity in legislation by making the offence one of strict liability—and I am grateful that the Secretary of State has taken on board PACTS’s representations about infrastructure. It is a wonderful organisation and does excellent work to make transport safe for everyone.
Colleagues from across the House have referred to BALPA, which is an absolutely superb organisation. It wrote to me on 14 April 2016 and said:
“On behalf of Britain’s 10,000 airline pilots I am pleased to offer BALPA’s support to you in respect of your bill to regulate the sale, ownership and usage of laser pens.”
The letter goes on to make a point that many people out there will be familiar with, which needs to be made again. It states:
“The issue has become especially important in recent months with the attack on a Virgin Atlantic aircraft which resulted in the First Officer feeling unwell and having to return to base.”
We saw the reports in the media at the time. Any one of us could have been travelling on that plane, and we have citizens who use planes on a daily basis to travel between different parts of the world or internally within the United Kingdom.
For a long time, the legislation was not fit to address this menace, and it is right and proper that we see support coming from the Scottish National party, from Labour and from the Conservative party, all working together. At the end of the day, we all have a fundamental duty to protect our citizens. Safety in transport is absolutely vital, and the Bill helps to address that. On that point, I thank BALPA and our pilots for what they do. They are exposed to risks, but they still do a brilliant job. I cannot read out BALPA’s letter in full, but I am more than happy to share it with colleagues.
I am also grateful to London City Airport, which wrote to me on 18 October 2017 in support of the proposals to address the misuse of laser pens and with its own suggestions. One additional point that it raised was as follows:
“Another solution is to create a licensing system where an importer, retailer or consumer must obtain a licence especially for high-powered laser pointers. This will allow the Government to maintain a register of sellers and users. The licence can include a criteria relating to training or insurance, thus improving the users’ awareness of the safe use of laser pointers.”
Although this is not in the Bill, I am pleased that, following my representations to the Minister for Digital and the Creative Industries and other colleagues, in January the Government announced new measures to tackle the sale of unsafe laser pointers. My 2016 private Member’s Bill would have addressed the sale of laser pens over a certain output.
First, I welcome the Government’s announcement in January—no doubt the Minister will comment further on it—that they will strengthen safeguards to stop high-powered lasers entering the country, which is absolutely right and proper. As the hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Alan Brown) said, certain laser pointers of exceptionally high power have no legitimate purpose but are easily accessible in the United Kingdom and on the internet.
Secondly, the Government announced additional support to local authorities, ports and border teams to stop high-powered laser pointers entering the United Kingdom. Thirdly, they announced that they would work with manufacturers and retailers to improve laser pointer labelling. The Government have also looked at better policing of laser pointer sales by working with online sellers such as eBay. The problem is the same as with the purchasing of knives on the internet. We have to regulate the purchasing of laser pointers online.
Finally, the Government announced awareness raising of the risks associated with laser pointers, particularly among children, given that many do not know the dangers. We need to get the legislation right and, linked to that, we need to address the use of certain laser pens.
It would not be fair of me if I were not also to thank Heathrow Airport, which wrote to me on 4 October 2017 in support of my private Member’s Bill. The final paragraph of the letter said:
“We would welcome any improvements to the regulation governing the sale, ownership and use high powered laser pointers, such that only the legitimate sale, ownership and use of such devices is permitted. We would also support any improvements to the Air Navigation Order (2016) which make it easier for the police to enforce the legislation”.
That, to a certain extent, is covered by clause 1.
Finally, I refer back to the representations from London City Airport, and I hope the Minister will take this point forward. When I tried to obtain information on the number of incidents there had been, the difficulty I had in trying to find out the number of convictions under different categories of the Air Navigation Orders is that the Crown Prosecution Service does not keep a record of that. The numbers I gave earlier therefore related to article 222 of the Air Navigation Order 2009. The letter from London City Airport therefore said:
“However, I believe a more informed approach based on better data-sharing between the Metropolitan Police, the Government, CAA and…airports will bring transparency and clarity on the scale of the problem. This will allow the Government to implement solutions accordingly.”
That would ensure that all the different organisations were working together, and it would ensure transparency of the data that was available.
I have been looking at this matter since 2014 and—this is not often mentioned—I would not have been able to get a lot of the data, research and freedom of information requests if not for my brilliant researcher Barry Watts, who no longer works for me after four years in Parliament. He has now gone on to do other things, but the research we have is down to our brilliant researchers. I thank every colleague in Parliament, including some former Ministers who have spoken today, because whenever I met them, they were absolutely brilliant in understanding that very point.
We have talked about issues with regard to airports, aeroplanes, infrastructure and railways, but in 2016 the defence air safety occurrence report recorded 250 laser-related incidents in the UK in the past five years that put our amazing, wonderful military personnel, and their work, in danger. Concerns have been raised across the spectrum, and the Bill is the right way forward, but I also ask the Minister to look at how it works over the coming years. If the Bill needs to be reviewed, and if further measures need to be taken, I ask her to work with the organisations involved to see how things can be further improved.
I thank the Minister and her team for listening and for taking on board the representations that have been made to me.
Royston Smith (Southampton, Itchen) (Con)
I do not propose to speak for quite as long as my hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham and Rainham (Rehman Chishti) but, of course, he has worked very hard on this issue through his private Member’s Bill, so I will whistle through my comments, many of which have been made already.
The Bill rightly covers all modes of transport, but I will confine my comments to aircraft. I spent much of my working life in aircraft engineering. I joined the Royal Air Force before moving to British Airways, where I spent more than 25 years in the industry. My hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Mr Goodwill) talked about people who have an irrational fear of flying and, although I have 25 years in the industry and have flown hundreds of times as an engineer, I am somewhat frightened of flying, too. I have spent far too long thinking about what could go wrong when I am in the air.
Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Ind)
I am most interested in the hon. Gentleman’s concern about flying. I enjoy flying but my wife will not fly, so I do understand. The hon. Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Mr Goodwill) talked about the danger per mile flown. If it were the danger per hour flown, I suspect the figures for motor travel and for flying might be a bit closer.
Royston Smith
The hon. Gentleman might be right. I did some research on the likelihood of having an accident in an aeroplane, which is why I know that my fear is irrational. Taking probability out of it, a person would have to fly every day for 15,000 years to guarantee themselves on accident. I know that, but it does not stop my thinking about it when I hit a bit of turbulence or when I come in to land.
The first commercial flight was more than 100 years ago and, of course, this year we celebrate 100 years of the Royal Air Force. Across the world, aircraft have clocked up millions of flying hours, and lessons are constantly learned to ensure that our aircraft are as safe as possible. The last thing we need is people on the ground making what can sometimes be a dangerous form of travel even more dangerous than it needs to be.
I am not a pilot, but I know that aircraft are at their most vulnerable during take-off and landing, with by far the majority of incidents occurring during final descent and landing, so it will come as no surprise that the majority of fatalities in aircraft also happen at that time.
There is an airport on the edge of my constituency and an approach flightpath over residential areas and a school in my constituency, so this Bill is particularly relevant and important to my constituents. Aviation accidents are extremely rare and, as I have said, a person would have to fly every day for 15,000 years to guarantee themselves a crash, and we need to make sure we keep it that way. A recent report published by Boeing revealed that 48% of incidents that resulted in a fatality happened during take-off or landing. It is therefore imperative that pilots are not subjected to any unnecessary distractions while trying to land an aircraft.
If someone is foolish enough to shine a laser at an aircraft, it will have the most impact when the aircraft is coming in to land, which is the worst possible time for a pilot. I am reasonably sure that most people do not give that a second thought—why would they? Most people are not stupid enough to think it is clever to shine a light at a pilot as they come in to land. But not everyone is sensible, which is why we have to legislate. I know this has been referred to two or three times, but according to the British Airline Pilots Association there are an average of three to four reported laser attacks on aircraft daily. That simply cannot be allowed to continue.
We are talking about someone shining a laser pen at an aircraft, perhaps an Airbus A380, which could carry more than 500 passengers. Let us imagine someone shining a laser pen towards the flight deck just as the aircraft is on its final approach—the results could be catastrophic. Laser illuminations can startle and distract, and in some circumstances may result in temporary vision interference, including flash blindness, after-image exposure and glare. I do not want to labour these points, as they have already been made, but according to the Civil Aviation Authority there has been a 70% increase in laser incidents since 2009. BAPLA surveyed its members in September 2017 and reported that 50% of pilots had experienced a laser attack in the previous 12 months, with 15% having experienced three or more.
Public Health England recommends that unqualified and untrained members of the public should not have access to lasers in excess of 1 milliwatt. However, it is easy to purchase lasers far in excess of that; a basic internet search showed that I could purchase a 200 milliwatt laser for as little as £30. The existing regulation, under the Air Navigation Order, states that a person must not “recklessly or negligently” endanger an aircraft. Evidencing and proving the endangerment of an aircraft is a difficult task for police officers, so the Bill is to be welcomed, because it will now make it an offence to “direct or shine” a laser beam that dazzles or distracts a driver, pilot or otherwise when a vehicle is “moving” or “ready to move”.
My only criticism is that this does not go far enough. Someone cannot endanger hundreds of lives on an aircraft, and potentially hundreds more on the ground, by accident. There are no mitigating circumstances. It is not a misunderstanding; this crime is premeditated, and perpetrators should be treated like the criminals they are. We know it will be difficult to catch someone in the act of endangering a vehicle, but in the event that we do and they are found guilty they will now face a maximum jail sentence of five years, an unlimited fine or both. That is to be welcomed. It is a step in the right direction. I do not think it goes far enough, but I am otherwise content with this Bill.
Sir Paul Beresford (Mole Valley) (Con)
I am delighted to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen (Royston Smith). I can offer him the name of an extremely competent hypnotherapist who will help him through his flight problems, if he would like. With a special word, she will keep her fee to about half the normal one.
I support the Bill for all the positive reasons that everyone has given, but I have an additional personal reason for doing so. About two summers back, I was undertaking a parliamentary police course with the Met police. Late on one pleasant summer evening, I was a passenger in a Met police helicopter flying over Kingston, close to the Heathrow flight path. All of a sudden, the pilot shouted, “Duck, laser beam!” He swung the helicopter round through 90° so that the light could not come into the cabin, but before that had happened, unfortunately, the light had hit my left eye. The point has been made that this dazzles, but it does more than that—it damaged my eye.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Mr Goodwill) pointed out, these police helicopters have fantastic cameras. The film is put up on to a screen which, in effect, has the “A-Z” on it. We hovered around and guided two police cars, which were carrying four police officers. Two of them went in the front door of this individual’s property and two went over the fence at the back. They collected the gentleman with his laser beam—I am exaggerating when I call him a “gentleman”. It was just like the movies.
As this individual was collected by the police, another voice broke in over the air traffic radio. It was the voice of a pilot on an incoming Virgin jumbo jet, which presumably had hundreds of passengers on board. He said, “I have broken in to say thank you. It happens to us as we come into Heathrow time after time after time, and they don’t get caught.”
The following day, I attended a clinic at the Moorfields Eye Hospital, where I was informed that my eye had been damaged, but that it would heal. As I have said, these lasers do not just dazzle; they do damage to the eyes. Wherever someone is, if they are hit by one of these lights, they get their eye damaged.
I found it astonishing that anyone would be stupid enough to deliberately risk damaging another person’s eye, let alone that of a pilot in a plane or helicopter flying over a tightly built-up area such as Kingston. Additionally, I am amazed to find that police helicopters are targeted. I would have thought that people would have to be remarkably stupid to do that, particularly knowing that these cameras are there; the word “Police” is written right along the helicopter and this person must have seen it. So stupidity reigned, and that resulted in this person being collected.
Beyond that is a point that has been made several times: I am staggered that anybody would want to damage the eyesight of a pilot of a passenger plane running into Heathrow, as this Virgin plane was. As I said, there will have been hundreds of people on that plane, and if that idiot had targeted the pilots, he could have damaged the landing of that aircraft, with the potential loss of hundreds of lives.
I was not told the name of the individual, because I would have liked to have paid him a visit. On seeing the film—my hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby mentioned this—he pleaded guilty, but the fine was not effective enough. The Bill will help to address that, so I have my own special reason for supporting it. [Interruption.]
Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)
Will there be more speeches with such impact as the one we have just heard?
Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)
I join colleagues in congratulating hon. Members from both sides of the House who have made knowledgeable contributions in this interesting debate. In particular, I thank the hon. Member for Mole Valley (Sir Paul Beresford) for his deeply personal, moving and thoughtful contribution.
As my hon. Friend the shadow Secretary of State alluded to earlier, Labour supports this uncontroversial Bill. We agree that the growing misuse of lasers is a problem that needs to be dealt with swiftly. Owing to the sheer number of laser attacks on aircraft and other vehicles in recent years, along with the growing power of laser pointers, we support legislative steps to make it a strict liability offence to shine a laser into the eyes of pilots and drivers when in control of vehicles. It is important to place on record the fact that although attacks on aircraft are by far the most common form of laser attack, incidents on railways and on shipping vessels have been reported.
I would also reaffirm our thanks to Labour colleagues in the other place who worked hard on this Bill by tightening up its language and definitions, as well as by gaining clarifications and important concessions from Ministers. There was a heated debate among Members of the other place about whether horse-drawn carriages and submarines should have been covered by the Bill—we thank them for that. Some of our learned Labour colleagues in the other place were more than qualified to speak about this topic, as one is a former airline pilot and another the president of the British Airline Pilots Association. I pay particular tribute to them for their work on this issue, and we thank the Government for the technical amendments that they tabled in response to the concessions that we won.
I reiterate the point that our colleagues in the other place made about enforcement. We have over 21,000 fewer police officers compared with in 2010. We will raise further questions in Committee about whether the law will be enforced effectively by what I must say are already stretched police forces.
We support the Bill because of the concessions won by Labour peers in the House of Lords. We welcome steps to combat the growing problem of laser misuse and to protect the safety of pilots, drivers and passengers. We look forward to our deliberations in Committee.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
I am grateful for the opportunity to respond to this debate. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State set out, the Bill is an aspect of the Government’s important role of improving safety throughout the transport network. The Bill may be short, but I am sure we all agree that it is important.
Let me address the points raised by Members. First, I recognise all the work to prepare the Bill and get it to this stage that was undertaken under my right hon. Friend and mentor the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr Hayes) when he was a Minister in the Department. He made a valid point about police stop-and-search powers. It is worth noting that the police already have the power to stop and search for laser pointers if they have reasonable grounds to suspect that the pointer is intended to be used to cause injury, because the pointer will meet the definition of an offensive weapon in such circumstances. That covers the more serious instances of laser pointer misuse.
The Government are clear that, when used correctly, the power of stop-and-search is vital in the fight against crime. However, when it is misused, stop-and-search can be counterproductive. The Home Office is conducting a review on achieving greater transparency, community involvement and police accountability in the use of stop-and-search. While that work takes place, it would not be appropriate to consult on extending the power of stop-and-search to cover lasers.
Mr John Hayes
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for her generous remarks. I take her point, and I of course understand why she made it, but perhaps she might make gentle overtures to the Home Office such that it might take this matter into account as part of that wider consideration of stop-and-search. It would be right to do that, given the broad agreement among those in the Chamber during this short debate.
Ms Ghani
There is no way that I could stand at the Dispatch Box and contradict my right hon. Friend, given that he spent many months preparing the Bill. No doubt his representations will be noted by the Home Office, and I will raise them with colleagues there personally.
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Mr Goodwill) for his contribution. I was a little nervous when I heard about his piloting skills; I am glad to see him safe and sound in the Chamber. He made valid points about the danger to pilots, air traffic controllers and taxiing aircrafts. He also recognised the work done by the CAA, which provides extra support and guidance for pilots in respect of eye health when they are subject to such attacks.
On the points made by the hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Alan Brown) and my hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham and Rainham (Rehman Chishti), the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy has responded following its call for evidence on the market for laser pointers. The Government have committed to take action to improve the frequency and resourcing of enforcement activities at ports and borders, with the aim of improving the safety of the market for laser pointers and increasing enforcement activities against the import of dangerous high-powered laser pointers. We have also committed to provide additional support for enforcement activities around the import of high-powered laser pointers. A grant of around £100,000 is available to local authorities so that they can increase checks and tests.
Alan Brown
I appreciate that the Minister has tried to give us a bit more clarity, but the key questions are about the timescales for the provision of additional resources, and about what additional resources will be provided at which ports throughout the United Kingdom.
Ms Ghani
The additional resources will be provided not only by my Department, in the form of the £100,000 for local authorities, but by BEIS and border control agencies. Getting the Bill through Parliament is one step towards implementing the restrictions and deterring people from the dangerous use of laser pens. That in itself will raise awareness of the crime and how dangerous it is to point laser pens at different types of transport.
I now move on to the contribution made by my hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham and Rainham, who has spent many years raising this issue, including through a private Member’s Bill. He has met many Ministers across many Departments and is a true champion of his constituency. He raised the valid point of how we collect accurate data about the number of offences that are committed across the many modes of transport. He is right to note that the Crown Prosecution Service does not keep full records of laser-related offences, and I will take that point up with my colleagues at the Ministry of Justice. I hope that he will be patient while yet another Minister tries to address one of his passionate interests by getting a Bill through Parliament.
My hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen (Royston Smith) has huge experience of this matter, which he was able to convey to Members today. He is a strong champion not only for his constituency, but for pilots across this country. He raised valid points about the safety of pilots and on the maximum sentence of five years. Five years represents the maximum prison term and that would be imposed only in the most serious cases. With such offences, it is important that we have an effective deterrent, and the penalty is in line with those for similar existing offences, such as endangering an aircraft, which also carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison under the Air Navigation Order 2016.
The safety and security of the travelling public will always be a priority for the Government. Given that more than 1,000 attacks on aircraft are reported each year, in addition to those on other modes of transport, we have a duty to act. The new offences will act as a deterrent to prevent these dangerous incidents from happening in the first place, but if they do occur, our proposals will help the police to bring offenders to justice.
We have had a good debate, and I am pleased that there is cross-party support for the Bill. Again, I acknowledge the work undertaken by my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings. I acknowledge, too, all the work that my hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby did as Aviation Minister. Of course, I also recognise the work of my noble Friend Baroness Sugg in successfully steering the Bill through the other place and of the UK laser working group. I am grateful to everybody who has been involved in the debate, and I hope that I have dealt with the points that have been raised. I commend the Bill to the House and look forward to discussing it further at its later stages.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill accordingly read a Second time.
Laser Misuse (Vehicles) Bill [Lords] (Programme)
Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 83A(7)),
That the following provisions shall apply to the Laser Misuse (Vehicles) Bill [Lords]:
Committal
1. The Bill shall be committed to a Committee of the whole House.
Proceedings in Committee of the whole House, on Consideration and up to and including Third Reading
2. Proceedings in Committee of the whole House, any proceedings on Consideration and any proceedings in legislative grand committee shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion two hours after the commencement of proceedings in Committee of the whole House.
3. Proceedings on Third Reading shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion three hours after the commencement of proceedings in Committee of the whole House.
Programming committee
4. Standing Order No. 83B (Programming committees) shall not apply to proceedings in Committee of the whole House, to any proceedings on Consideration or to other proceedings up to and including Third Reading.
Other proceedings
5. Any other proceedings on the Bill may be programmed.—(Paul Maynard.)
Question agreed to.
Chuka Umunna (Streatham) (Lab)
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. The individual referred to as Albert Thompson at today’s Prime Minister’s questions is my constituent. I should say that that is not his actual name, because he does not want his real name to be used publicly. In the earlier exchanges, the Prime Minister said that Mr Thompson will be receiving the NHS treatment he needs. That is incorrect. He needs radiotherapy treatment, but he has not received his treatment. If any plans have been made for him to get this treatment, he certainly has not been informed of them. That is a fact and to say otherwise is wrong. He is making a fresh application for indefinite leave to remain. The Prime Minister needs to commit to that application being processed immediately and, at the very least, to him getting indefinite leave to remain so that he can get this treatment, which the Royal Marsden Hospital is not prepared to give him unless he can pay up front or prove his right to residency.
I am sure that the Prime Minister will not want to have misled the House and will want to come here to correct the record. There have also been attempts to lay part of the blame for this particular situation at the door of previous Home Secretaries and the current Home Secretary, but much of this flows from the decisions made by the Prime Minister during her time as Home Secretary. I will be grateful if you, Madam Deputy Speaker, can advise on how I can pursue this with the Prime Minister.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)
The hon. Gentleman will appreciate that, while I understand that he wishes to put these facts on the record and that, if the record requires to be corrected, he wishes to draw that fact to the attention of the Treasury Bench, this is not a point of order for me. What Ministers, or indeed any other Member of this House, say in the Chamber is a matter for the Minister or the Member. Having said that, if the facts to which the Prime Minister alluded today turn out not to be correct, I am quite sure that steps will be taken to correct them. The hon. Gentleman asks for my advice about how he might draw this matter to the attention of the appropriate Ministers; he has done so. Although I can do nothing about it, he has achieved his aim.
Laser Misuse (Vehicles) Bill [Lords]
Monday 30th April 2018
(6 years, 8 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Laser Misuse (Vehicles) Act 2018 Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 75-R-I Marshalled list for Report (PDF, 72KB) - (23 Feb 2018)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Third time.
I would like to express my appreciation to right hon. and hon. Members and noble Lords in the other place for their thoughtful and constructive contributions during the passage of the Bill, including the positive engagement and support of the Opposition. I am indebted to my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr Hayes) for his work in bringing forward the Bill when he was a Minister at the Department for Transport and my hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Mr Goodwill) for his insightful contributions based on his experience as Aviation Minister.
As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said on Second Reading, we can be proud of the safety culture across our transport sector in recent years, but we cannot be complacent. Safety and security must be our top priority. That is why we introduced the Bill: to strengthen the rules against those who shine lasers at aircraft while also making it an offence to shine a laser at cars, trains and ships for the first time.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I welcome provision for a jail sentence of five years, which will give peace of mind to bus drivers, train drivers, vehicle drivers and aviation pilots, but can the Minister confirm that the Bill will apply to Northern Ireland?
Ms Ghani
Five years is indeed the maximum sentence and the maximum fine is unlimited. The Bill extends to the entire UK and will come into force in England, Wales and Scotland at the end of the period of two months beginning with the day on which the Bill is passed. In Northern Ireland, aviation and shipping are reserved, and the provisions relating to those will come into force at the same time as in the rest of the UK.
The Bill is now in a better shape than when it was introduced. In particular, the creation of an offence for shining a laser at air traffic control has received widespread endorsement and is one that the Government are happy to support. The Bill has been a great example of the important role Parliament has in strengthening legislation. I also thank those outside the Chamber who have lent their expertise to this important Bill. The UK Laser Working Group, chaired by Air Commodore Dai Whittingham, the Civil Aviation Authority, NATS, the Maritime and Coastguard Agency, the trade union the British Airline Pilots Association, the national police air service and many others have provided invaluable advice on some very technical issues.
Our work in this area does not stop once the Bill is passed. The Bill specifically covers the risk posed by shining a laser at a person in control of a vehicle, but, as we discussed on Second Reading, the Government have also announced new measures to tackle the sale of unsafe laser pointers. More than 150 incidents of eye injuries involving laser pointers have been reported since 2013, the vast majority of them involving children. In many of these cases, neither the children nor their parents have known the danger involved. The Government will work to raise awareness of the risks associated with laser pointers, including among schoolchildren.
In addition, the Government have pledged extra support to local authority ports and border teams to stop high-powered laser pointers entering the UK. On this, I would like to correct the record of what I said on Second Reading. This additional funding will in fact come from the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, not the Department for Transport. I would not want to be seen as taking credit for another Department’s work, but it is an example of Departments working closely together with a shared purpose.
The hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Alan Brown) previously asked about timeframes. BEIS has already held an initial meeting with National Trading Standards to begin planning a joint project supporting local authorities. The planning will also include working with colleagues in the devolved Administrations. The Civil Aviation Authority will continue to provide advice and guidance for victims of laser attacks, and we will continue to monitor the issue, working with industry, the regulator and cross-Government colleagues to establish whether further steps need to be taken to tackle this unacceptable behaviour.
It has been clear throughout the passage of the Bill that the issue with which it deals is not politically charged or partisan. Parliament is acting collectively in the interests of the travelling public and those who work in our transport sector, and this Bill is for them.
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
The Bill has been much improved by the persistence of our Labour colleagues in the other place.
I am sure that the whole House would want to join me in sending condolences to my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull East (Karl Turner). He had been leading for the Opposition on the Bill, but he has just lost his father, the distinguished Hull city councillor Ken Turner. Our thoughts and prayers are with him and his family today.
As no amendments were tabled, I shall highlight a few points in the Bill itself. It is a short Bill, consisting of two substantive and two procedural clauses. Clause 1 makes it an offence to direct or shine a laser beam towards a vehicle or a person in charge of a vehicle in such a way as to dazzle or distract the person driving, piloting, navigating or otherwise in control of the vehicle when it is moving or is ready to move. It results from an amendment tabled by Labour colleagues in the other place. There may be mitigating circumstances if it can be proved that the use of the laser was necessary in, for example, a rescue mission to attract attention of a pilot, or that the offence was committed by accident if the laser was being used professionally and all precautions had initially been taken to prevent an incident from occurring. The penalty will be imprisonment, an unlimited fine, or both. Advancing the deterrent sends a clear message that laser misuse will not be tolerated. It has also been clarified that a laser beam could be a pulsed or continuous light, and it is defined in clause 3. The definition of the modes of transport to which the Bill will apply has been extended, thanks to the work of my Labour colleagues in the other place.
The Bill is an important piece of health and safety legislation to safeguard those who operate modes of transport from the effect of laser misuse. Lasers are being used to shine lights into the eyes of drivers, causing, according to the British Airline Pilots Association, four progressive stages of seriousness—distraction, disruption, disorientation and even incapacitation—which may have a sustained impact and could result in fatal consequences for the driver, passengers, the public, or a combination of those people.
The issue of laser misuse was first drawn to the attention of authorities by the aviation industry, but the Bill also covers drivers or navigators in charge of helicopters. A number of incidents have been cited, not least by police helicopter pilots. There have also been incidents involving planes, trains, ships, hovercrafts, submarines and road vehicles. The Bill’s provisions extend to bicycles, motor scooters and horse-drawn carriages, as well as air traffic control.
Labour recognised the need for legislation that would build on the Air Navigation Order 2016, and along with the aviation industry and other transport operators, our Front Benchers have welcomed the Bill. It was our suggestion that such legislation could be introduced in the Vehicle Technology and Aviation Bill. We recognised the insufficient penalties resulting from the 2016 order and the very small number of prosecutions. The Bill will act as a far greater deterrent to laser misuse throughout the transport system. At this point I should mention the collaborative and cross-party work that has been done in both Houses—not least by the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr Hayes), who is not present this evening.
The other place amended the Bill to ensure that it was comprehensive in addressing the misuse of lasers, and in particular I thank Lord Tunnicliffe of Bracknell for his contribution. We are also indebted to the UK Laser Working Group, whose expertise has informed this Bill at all stages.
The Bill, while recognising the legitimate use of lasers, will ensure that those in charge of a vehicle are not put at risk, thus putting other transport users at risk, too. In the last year, there have been more than 1,000 cases, a sharp rise over a very short period of time. While that has not led to any accidents to date, in safety-critical industries we will not allow such risks to propagate, which is why we are supporting the Bill on Third Reading today.
The BALPA membership survey stated that half its pilots reported having experienced a laser attack in the last 12 months—55% of pilots, I believe—and that 15% had experienced three or more laser attacks. It is therefore heartening that external stakeholders also support the Bill, and I thank BALPA for its work in this area and all those working in transport who have advocated such legislation.
I can testify to the intensity of light from lasers, as some young people in my constituency shone a laser at me when I was out on an estate last summer. Momentarily blinded, I sought to look away, but that brief experience brought home the dangers of such laser devices, and permanent eye damage can occur if there is exposure to such light.
May I take this opportunity to thank the Clerks for their assistance through the passage of the Bill, my hon. Friends in this place and colleagues in the other place for their participation in the various stages of the Bill, and external stakeholders who have worked with us to ensure that it receives a smooth passage through its final stages?
Clearly, we are disappointed that the Prime Minister called a general election before we had the opportunity to enact the Vehicle Technology and Aviation Bill, but, a year later, I am glad that we have been able to complete the Bill’s passage in this place today. It just goes to show what can be achieved when all parties remain laser-focused on acting in the best interests of the public.
I trust that the public will recognise the importance of the Bill and that this risk across the transport sector will be deterred. There is clearly still a debate to be had about the ownership and use of laser beams, as Public Health England advises, but that will be for another Bill on another day.
I close by thanking all those who work across the transport sector for the application of their skills in keeping the public safe and ensuring that the UK has the highest of standards in transport safety.
Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)
As this is a Third Reading debate and there were no amendments on Report, and given that we will support the Bill, I will not speak for long. I do, however, want to put on record my condolences to the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull East (Karl Turner).
The Minister and shadow Minister both commended the work done in the other place in getting this Bill through. It has only two substantive clauses, however, so I am not sure it merits our having 800 unelected peers in the other place—which is not to say that the Bill does not have its merits.
The Civil Aviation Authority records that more than 11,000 laser pen incidents were reported at airports over an eight-year period and a BALPA survey has confirmed that half its pilots have experienced a laser pen attack in the past 12 months and 15% have experienced at least three attacks or more, which is alarming. Legislation is clearly needed to provide a deterrent, therefore, and this Bill does that. I therefore welcome the Bill, and we should move forward and get it into legislation.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed, without amendment.
Royal Assent
Thursday 10th May 2018
(6 years, 7 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Amendment Paper: HL Bill 97-I Marshalled list for consideration of Commons amendments (PDF, 67KB) - (30 Apr 2018)