Civil Aviation (Consumer Protection and Regulatory Reform) Bill [HL]
Thursday 14th May 2026
(2 months, 2 weeks ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Civil Aviation (Consumer Protection and Regulatory Reform) Bill [HL] 2026-27 Read Hansard Text
Civil Aviation (Consumer Protection and Regulatory Reform) Bill [HL]
Tuesday 2nd June 2026
(1 month, 4 weeks ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Civil Aviation (Consumer Protection and Regulatory Reform) Bill [HL] 2026-27 Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill
That the Bill be now read a second time.
The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill) (Lab)
My Lords, civil aviation is a cornerstone of our national prosperity, supporting jobs,investment and connectivity across the United Kingdom. In 2025 alone, UK airports handled 2.1 million commercial flights and nearly 300 million passengers. This highlights both the scale of the sector and the need for effective regulation. The Bill before your Lordships’ House will reinforce consumer protections, support economic growth and aviation infrastructure, and enable improved safety standards. In doing so, it will help ensure that the UK remains an attractive and competitive aviation hub for years to come.
I am sure that noble Lords will wish to consider the case for this Bill. The sector has changed profoundly in recent years. Rapid technological advances, new aircraft capabilities and the emergence of new airspace users, such as drones, have created complexity for which the current framework was not designed. At the same time, the UK has lost certain powers to update regulation following EU exit. The sector has also faced external shocks,such as the recent instability in the Middle East and the unprecedented disruption of the Covid-19 pandemic. To manage this, we need a framework flexible enough to respond to volatility, embrace innovation and prioritise passengers. That is the purpose of this Bill.
The Bill takes an important step to strengthen consumer protection for passengers. Although the sector serves millions well, when things go wrong some may face uncertainty and delay in securing redress. The Bill introduces a power to strengthen air passenger rights through secondary legislation, ensuring that they keep pace with case law, international standards and a changing landscape. This will allow the Government to tackle the issues that matter most to passengers: delays and cancellations, baggage loss or damage, injury or death, protections for disabled and less mobile passengers, and redress mechanisms for individuals.
I am acutely aware of the difficulties that disabled passengers can encounter when flying, including poor and inappropriate service, long waiting times, and damaged and lost mobility aids. I have heard concerns expressed by noble Lords from all sides of the House on challenges that they have faced themselves or when travelling with family and friends. The noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, led my department’s Aviation Accessibility Task and Finish Group to identify ways to improve without legislation the travel experience of disabled air passengers, but this Bill will provide the Government with the powers to strengthen legal protections where necessary to ensure that the system works for all passengers, including those who require assistance.
Crucially, the Bill strengthens enforcement. Unlike other regulators, the Civil Aviation Authority currently relies on court action to protect consumer rights. This is slow and resource intensive. The Bill will give the CAA direct consumer enforcement powers, aligning it with the Competition and Markets Authority. That will allow earlier and more effective intervention, quicker redress and greater passenger confidence.
The Bill supports the modernisation of UK airspace. The UK has some of the busiest and most complex airspace in the world, yet much of its design dates back to the 1950s. Modernisation is therefore essential to maintain and improve safety, reliability and efficiency, as well as to reduce emissions and noise for communities. Without it, it is estimated that, by 2040, as many as one in five flights could face significant disruption. The Government have established the UK Airspace Design Service to deliver the most complex airspace changes, beginning with London. The Bill complements that work by strengthening the Secretary of State’s existing powers of direction, enabling her, where necessary, to direct those involved in airspace change to implement approved designs. This provides a more robust power of last resort, ensuring that modernisation can proceed effectively.
The Bill broadens who may be charged for the provision of air traffic and air navigation services. This will ensure that the cost of providing better air services, including funding the UK Airspace Design Service, can continue to be recovered fairly, as new types of airspace service users emerge.
On slot reform, the Bill enables a more agile and resilient approach to airport slot regulation, a framework that has remained largely unchanged since the early 1990s. Effective slot allocation is essential, not only in times of disruption but to maintain capacity, connectivity and competitiveness. The Government must be able to respond swiftly and proportionately when demand changes or operational pressures arise. The Bill therefore introduces a delegated power to amend slot regulations when needed, replacing powers lost after EU exit.
Recent experience has shown why that matters. The pandemic demonstrated how quickly aviation operations can be disrupted, and more recent instability in the Middle East has reinforced how quickly external events can impact aviation, resulting in the need for an urgent statutory instrument to be brought before this House in the next few days using powers that will no longer be available after 23 June. The Bill therefore provides a much-needed mechanism for updating slot rules when circumstances require it in the future.
Finally, the Bill strengthens the aviation safety framework. The UK has an excellent record on aviation safety and these measures will help ensure that it is maintained. However, since EU exit, all changes to safety regulations—mostly highly technical and routine updates—must be delivered through statutory instruments. This process is time-consuming, resource intensive and duplicative; it is unsuitable for an international and fast-moving sector such as aviation, where global safety standards evolve continuously.
As a result, the UK is falling behind on its international obligations, which could impact the safety of the sector. The Bill aims to make safety rule-making faster and more efficient, by delegating technical aviation safety and operational standards to the Civil Aviation Authority. This will create a more responsive and agile framework, helping to ensure that safety requirements keep pace with international standards and the changing landscape.
We recognise that noble Lords, and Members in the other place, will want to ensure appropriate ministerial and parliamentary oversight of this delegation. The Bill includes strong measures precisely to ensure this. The Secretary of State will set objectives and priorities for the Civil Aviation Authority, which will be laid before Parliament, including a forward look at rule-making tasks. The Secretary of State will be able to direct or even override, if necessary, the CAA’s exercise of its rule-making functions using her existing powers.
The Bill also includes binding requirements on the Civil Aviation Authority to consult and notify affected parties, including Ministers, and a duty to report to Parliament on the exercise of this delegated power. This approach gives Parliament a more holistic forward and backward view on aviation safety rule-making, compared with the fragmented and piecemeal view it has in the current system. It also enables much-needed consolidation of the existing, fragmented sources of law, which would otherwise be impractical. This will make compliance for industry simpler and enhance safety.
Alongside this, the Bill addresses an important gap in enforcement. It restores powers, lost after the EU exit, to amend and create aviation safety-related criminal offences where necessary. Without this, some safety rules cannot be fully enforced, making them harder to update and less effective in practice. Taken together, these measures will support a clearer, more effective regulatory framework by preserving the UK’s high safety standards, aligning better with international practice and sustaining public confidence in the safety of our aviation system.
In closing, I know many noble Lords will be interested in how the Bill interacts with the Government’s support for a third runway at Heathrow. I should be clear: the Bill is designed to support the entire aviation sector, regardless of any decisions on expansion. Those with a particular interest in Heathrow will have an opportunity to scrutinise proposed changes to the airports national policy statement later this year.
Before I conclude, I should note that this Bill is an important waypoint, not the end of the runway, for aviation reform—sorry. Following Royal Assent, further regulations will set out the detail for industry and allow for further scrutiny by your Lordships and Members in the other place. The Bill’ application is UK-wide, as aviation is a reserved matter, but some of its clauses touch on transferred matters in Northern Ireland. The Government are therefore seeking a legislative consent Motion from the Northern Ireland Assembly.
This Bill is a measured and practical piece of legislation. It updates the legislative framework governing civil aviation in a way that is proportionate, targeted and grounded in the needs of a modern sector, while remaining consistent with the high standards this House would rightly expect. I hope noble Lords will recognise the value of these reforms and feel able to support the Bill’s passage today. I beg to move.
Lord Harper (Con)
My Lords, before I start my remarks, I draw attention to my declaration in the register of interests as the non-executive chair of RVL Aviation.
The Minister will, I hope, be pleased to know that I, for one, broadly support the Bill, although there are some areas where I have some questions and concerns. Where I agree with him—he set this out clearly in his letter to Peers—is on the importance of the sector: how important civil aviation is for the UK, particularly given our global interests and the number of jobs it supports in the economy, and indeed its importance for economic growth. I completely agree with that. He also set out in that letter the fact that there is an awful lot of change and that we are global leaders in some of the development of new technologies, and therefore some of the regulation around those technologies. I know that, when I was leading the department, we gave clear direction to the CAA about engaging with industry to make sure that we could lead the world in developing some of that regulation.
Let me go through a number of areas of the Bill and set out where I agree and where I have some questions for the Minister. On airspace modernisation, I strongly support what the Government are trying to do. It was an area I was involved with when I was Secretary of State. It has a lot of benefits in terms of improving efficiency for airlines, reducing costs, reducing carbon emissions and making use of very congested airspace, particularly in the London area, more efficiently. But I am struggling with exactly what benefit the power in the Bill will generate in practice.
In the ECHR memorandum, the department made it clear that it was a last-resort measure. No directions have been made. They have been threatened on some occasions. It went out of its way in that memorandum to emphasise how limited a power it would be. In the Explanatory Notes to the Bill, it said that the use of the clause might be helpful, particularly in delivering airspace modernisation particularly over London. It would be helpful, when the Minister winds up, if he could set out a specific example of where the new statutory power for the Secretary of State would have a practical benefit in delivering airspace modernisation.
The only other thing I want to flag—I do not think this is a genuine concern, but it would be helpful for the Minister to put people’s minds at rest—is that, when there are changes to airspace in terms of flight paths going to airports, there are, of course, perfectly reasonable concerns raised by residents who live near those airports. I wanted to have the Minister’s confirmation that the Secretary of State having this power to direct change will not change any of the existing rights for people to be consulted and have the opportunity to set out their concerns. I accept that it may be perfectly reasonable, in some cases, for decisions to be taken that some residents will not like because they are in the interests of the country, but there should be a proper process and I want to check that nothing in the Bill will change that process and weaken the rights of individuals.
On the ability of the Government to legislate using secondary legislation for consumer powers, I want to get a sense of the government’s thinking and test one of the specific things in the impact assessment. It is worth saying that, generally speaking, the aviation sector—there is one exception, which I will draw on in a minute, and the Minister referred to it—has very high levels of customer satisfaction. I think in the latest CAA consumer survey, it had something like an 88% satisfaction level, which is an all-time high. So, generally, there is not a problem to fix. But the Minister rightly drew attention to a very specific issue, which I suspect at least two noble Lords this afternoon will touch on: how the industry deals with disabled passengers and those who need extra support.
This is one of the questions I have about the CAA’s enforcement powers. There is already legislation in the Equality Act that was carried forward from the Disability Discrimination Act about the steps that all businesses, including airlines, have to take: all the reasonable adjustments they have to make to deliver services for disabled passengers. My question is about the enforcement powers that the Minister is planning to give to the CAA. Will that mean that the CAA can use the legislative powers in the Equality Act to insist that airlines make those reasonable adjustments? Is it able to use that legislation and enforce the rights that already exist? They are not new legal obligations, but I think many people feel that airlines do not deliver on those to the extent that we would expect. Is that part of the enforcement suite that the Government are thinking of? If there are existing laws that are not being properly enforced, my preference would be to properly enforce existing laws, not invent new laws, which may themselves not be properly enforced.
One of the issues I have with the Government taking powers to legislate with secondary legislation is that, although this is not true of every individual company, the aviation sector generally is a relatively low-margin business. Every time you legislate to improve consumer rights it comes at a cost, and you have to balance the rights that you are delivering—the consumer experience—against the cost that you are putting on an industry that, overall, does not make a huge margin. There is clearly a high bar if you make those changes with primary legislation, but there is a lower bar if you make them with secondary legislation. I just want to test whether the Government have any specific plans in mind at this stage that they might use secondary legislation for.
I raise this because, if you look at the impact assessment—it is a very hefty tome; a lot of hefty tomes have been published this week—page 3 says specifically:
“The EU is currently considering updates to Regulation 261, which governs passenger rights during flight disruptions”.
It also says that, if the Government do not have
“the power to amend legislation, the UK cannot promptly mirror or respond to these changes”.
I think that illustrates a mindset that is not helpful.
If the Government think that there are gaps in consumer protection legislation for British passengers, then they should make those changes because they are the right thing to do in themselves, and make the argument for them. The Government should not blindly follow and respond to things that the EU is doing. If the EU is doing things that are sensible, and that we think are sensible, we absolutely should do them, but we should do them anyway. If the EU does things that are not sensible, I see absolutely no reason why we should follow it. The whole point about leaving the European Union was that we could make decisions for ourselves. If we think things are sensible, we should do them, and we should not worry about whether the EU is doing them; if they are not sensible, we should not do them. I am afraid that the impact assessment betrays the fact that the Government, if they get these secondary legislative powers, will just mirror exactly what the EU is doing, whether or not it is sensible. I hope the Minister can put my mind at rest on that.
On airport slots, the Minister is right: the Government’s current ability to use the power of secondary legislation to amend them expires later this month. We have already seen some examples, both during the pandemic and more recently, where both the last Government and this one had to make very sensible and necessary changes, and this power is a very sensible one to have. The question is the extent to which those powers can be used for wider slot reform. Slots are a very significant economic interest for the sector as a whole; making dramatic changes would be very expensive and should be done only via primary legislation.
We consulted on slot reform when I was in the department. The department has not yet responded to that consultation. It would be helpful if the Government could set out where they have got to on that, when they plan on responding to the consultation on slot reform and, if they were to do any significant slot reform, what they think they would need to do in terms of consultation and engaging with the industry, and whether these powers would be the appropriate ones to use in those circumstances.
Briefly, I have two more points. As many will know, the CAA is a gold standard industry regulator that is respected around the world for having very high standards for aviation regulation. It also regulates our space launch capability. I am very comfortable with the CAA continuing to play that role as a regulator. The bit I am less comfortable about is whether it should be setting the rules as well as enforcing them. There is nothing wrong with the current system where Ministers set those rules. Part of the problem is that, in the past, those rules were set by the European Union. Ironically, when the European Union was doing it, Ministers were engaged in the Council of Ministers in setting some of those rules, but we in Parliament also had a number of scrutiny mechanisms where both Houses of Parliament could look at those rules in detail.
What is not clear—at least, it was not clear to me from the Bill or the Explanatory Notes—is this: if the CAA makes regulations, what is the role of this House and the House of Commons in scrutinising those regulations? Personally, my starting position is that I would prefer that the regulations were made by Ministers, who are accountable to both Houses of Parliament, and that then the CAA gets on and enforces those regulations. Of course, Ministers will be informed by the CAA’s expertise in drafting the regulations, but I think Ministers should be responsible for setting the rules and the CAA should then be responsible for enforcing them and putting them into practice. That is the bit of the Bill about which I am less comfortable.
Finally, the Minister mentioned Heathrow. He will be well aware that—as the CAA has, in effect, conceded—the existing economic model for regulating Heathrow is not fit for purpose. He will be aware that it is consulting, in its document CAP3251, on a range of options for the future of the economic regulatory model for Heathrow. That consultation closes on 15 June. There are a range of options in that consultation, but does the CAA have the power to implement all the options in that document, including, for example, the ability to have competition between different terminals at Heathrow? If it does have the power to do that, that is great. If it does not currently have the power to do that, is the Minister open to using this legislation to make sure that the CAA does have that power, so that when it has concluded the consultation and reached a decision—and when Ministers have reached a decision about how Heathrow’s economic model is regulated—it will have the ability to deliver it?
So, I have a few questions and concerns, but overall the Bill helps to strengthen the aviation sector. It is an important one for the United Kingdom, and I look forward to listening to the Minister’s detailed answers when he winds up the debate.
Earl Russell (LD)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill, for introducing the Bill and for the briefings that he and his team have kindly provided to Members of the House. We approach this Bill with an open mind and with a clear desire for greater clarity and certainty. Its relatively short length masks the complexity of the systems it seeks to update and reform, as well as the significance of the mechanisms chosen to implement those changes.
On the face of it, the Bill seeks to strengthen consumer protections, support economic growth and infrastructure, and modernise and enhance aviation safety. Of course, those are all laudable aims. However, the policy space that the Bill occupies is both crowded and contested, and the interaction between its different elements requires great scrutiny. Airspace modernisation is long overdue, but it may also facilitate increased capacity and, potentially, airport expansion. Likewise, the stronger consumer protections are clearly needed, but we must be confident that the measures proposed will work as intended in practice.
The Bill provides a framework rather than a finished product. It establishes significant delegated powers and relies heavily on secondary legislation, placing key decisions one step removed from parliamentary scrutiny. For these reasons, we will seek further clarity and assurances across three principal areas: first, the relationship between airspace modernisation, airport expansion and our environmental commitments; secondly, the delivery of improved and effective consumer protections; and, thirdly, the scope and use of delegated powers within the Bill.
I turn first to airspace modernisation and slot allocation. The aviation sector remains a vital and growing part of the UK economy. It supports jobs, enables trade and logistics, connects us to global markets and underpins both inbound tourism and outbound travel. According to the latest Civil Aviation Authority data, more than 61 million passengers travelled through UK airports in the first quarter of this year alone— a record high driven by short-haul European flights. Many of those journeys could and should be taken by rail, which is far better in terms of our carbon outputs. Yet this growth also presents a clear challenge.
The Climate Change Committee’s 2025 progress report to Parliament makes it clear that, while overall UK emissions are declining, aviation now contributes a greater share of total emissions than the electricity supply sector. It also warns that continued growth in aviation emissions could place our future climate targets at risk. While we are clear in our opposition to further airport expansion in the south-east, the Government have publicly indicated support for expansion, including a third runway at Heathrow. That policy context inevitably shapes how this Bill is read and understood.
Aviation remains one of the most difficult sectors in which to reduce emissions. While emerging technologies, including sustainable aviation fuels, are welcome and necessary, they have inherent limitations and they are emerging technologies. The Climate Change Committee has been equally clear that, should technology progress fall short, the Government may need to consider demand management measures to remain on track to net zero. Against this backdrop, I welcome the Minister’s clear statement that this Bill is not intended to enable airport expansion, either directly or indirectly, and we are grateful for that.
On these Benches, we recognise the need to modernise our airspace. The UK has some of the most congested skies in the world, and our airspace management systems have not been fundamentally updated since the 1950s. They remain structured largely around ground-based navigation systems that are increasingly outdated. Modernisation, if done well, offers real benefits, improved efficiency, enhanced passenger safety, reduced noise for affected communities and lower emissions through more direct and optimised flight paths. We therefore support this complex but necessary work, including the proposal to establish a UK airspace design service to oversee its delivery.
However, while we understand the Government’s desire for powers to direct this work, including in relation to slot allocation and scheduling, it would be remiss of us not to seek clear assurances about how these powers will be used in practice. In particular, we are concerned to ensure that the powers cannot be used deliberately or inadvertently as a back door to increased airport capacity or expansion, without appropriate scrutiny. In that context, I ask the Minister to reaffirm that decisions taken under these powers will continue to be informed by the independent advice of the Climate Change Committee, and I would also welcome greater clarity on the relationship between airspace modernisation, slot allocation and any future increase in overall capacity or passenger numbers.
At what point does operational reform become, in effect, expansion, and how will Parliament be able to distinguish clearly between the two? Furthermore, what safeguards exist to ensure that, even if the present Government do not intend to use these powers to facilitate expansion, a future Government could not do so without proper oversight? We will seek to work constructively with Ministers to establish appropriate guardrails, including stronger requirements for monitoring, reporting and transparency in relation to the airports national policy statement, the environmental impacts and the effect on our local communities of noise.
I turn briefly to consumer rights. We agree that the current system is not functioning as it should. We also recognise that many of these powers are coming to an end and need to be reformed. From delays and cancellations to lost luggage and overbookings, passengers too often experience poor outcomes and inconsistent enforcement. It is essential that passengers can rely on robust protections and that the regulators have the tools needed to ensure swift and ready compliance.
The fact that the Civil Aviation Authority has, in some cases, had to resort to the courts to enforce basic consumer protections points to systemic weaknesses. We therefore broadly welcome the strengthening of the CAA’s powers, bringing them in line with other consumer rights. However, the Bill also provides for potential divergence from retained EU law in this area. At a time when the European Union is updating passenger protections and the Government have indicated a desire for broader alignment in certain areas, we will be seeking clarity that the intention here is one of convergence rather than divergence.
We also strongly support measures to improve the experience of passengers—particularly those with mobility impairments, who continue to face significant and unacceptable barriers when travelling, particularly in relation to their mobility aids. More broadly, however, we consider that the Bill is overly cautious in its approach to consumer rights. It presents a real opportunity to place passengers more firmly at its centre. There are many issues here that need broad reform, from not separating families or travellers from the people they are with to the size of hand luggage and extra charges added to people’s bills. We would like to see a statutory passenger charter in the Bill to ensure that high standards are not only articulated but embedded in practice.
Finally, on delegated powers, we will consider carefully the forthcoming report of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee. Given the breadth and significance of the powers proposed, it is essential that appropriate safeguards, limits and mechanisms for parliamentary oversight are in place. I welcome the Minister’s opening comments on that, but more needs to be done and amendments will be needed in this space.
While we broadly support the aims of this Bill, we will work constructively to ensure that it aligns with our environmental obligations, delivers tangible benefits for our communities and provides meaningful, effective and enduring consumer protections.
Baroness Grey-Thompson (CB)
My Lords, I declare my interest as chair of the Aviation Accessibility Task and Finish Group. In July 2025, we produced an independent report. I thank the team at the Department for Transport, the members of the group and the industry, which was very open about how we can improve travel for disabled people. However, we found that not one airline or airport universally gets it right even most of the time. Our 19 key recommendations were made in the context of no legislative time, but I hope we now have a chance to impact what we do for disabled people.
After much consideration, the task and finish group looked at five themes: training, passenger information and communications, non-visible impairments, mobility aid design and handling, and tailored service and delivery. It became clear that there is a lack of data. It is hard to know how many disabled people fly annually, depending on the definition, but it could be around 1.5% of all passengers. The Library Note on this Bill, which was very helpful, said that the satisfaction rate for disabled people was only 82%. There is also a lack of data on when things go wrong. It is hard to know who to contact or complain to, how to resolve issues and even who has responsibility. Recognising that the industry has many moving parts, this Bill presents a significant opportunity to do something very different for disabled people.
We also know that there has been a significant increase in demand for assistance. We saw many airports and airlines trying to do the right thing, but the nature of the requests can be very variable. We recognise that what probably most people need is not assistance but wayfinding or help with bags. We need to think creatively about how that customer journey is carried out, even looking at airport design or gate allocation.
Through our work, we heard anecdotal evidence that the lanyard scheme has not always been used properly—stag dos arriving at the airport and requesting lanyards is not in the spirit of the scheme. I have seen people using an aisle chair to get on board and then seeming to walk off at the other end. I am conscious that there can be fluctuating conditions, but not having the right assistance puts huge pressure on an already strained system. One size does not fit all. A number of visually impaired people got in touch to tell me that, when they fly, they are continually told that they need to sit in a wheelchair and be pushed through the airport because that is easier for the staff, rather than doing it in a way that works for the disabled person.
A significant number of people wrote to me to say that various influencers have filmed airports, showing ways to cheat the system, which not only encourages people to think about creative ways to get through the airport, but has resulted in an increase in negative comments made towards disabled people who have genuine needs.
What also came through was that there needs to be a more streamlined method of booking assistance. This is very different from the railway industry, where you could potentially catch a later train or a later bus. There is a real challenge in managing expectation, providing assistance in a reasonable time and being clear about sorting things out when mistakes are made.
We also found out that a lot of the information was joined up. On a personal level, I never look at an airport website, but at one point I was a very frequent flier, and I have travelled through most UK airports. The actual challenge of booking assistance is too varied. For some airlines, it relies on the disabled person knowing a very vague assistance code, or when you get to the airport, you are asked all those questions again. It proves that the system is not working as well as it could.
While recognising that we have an issue with international jurisdictions and that we can control only some parts of the journey, I would also like to look at how we could influence more widely. A lot of the emails sent to me were about equipment being broken and, in some cases, destroyed by not being secured properly during the journey. One thing that the Bill will not be able to sort—but I had a huge number of emails about it—is the issues that passengers who travel with allergies face.
Recently, I had a number of emails from people who use colostomy bags or ileostomy bags, about how they are treated. Each person recognised that security is an important issue and that checks need to be done. One person who wrote to me recently, who flies a lot, said that the only way they are able to manage going through security is by taking their colostomy bag off just as they go through security, covering it up with tissues and tape, and then putting it back on when they go through the other side. That just does not feel appropriate at all.
I broadly welcome the increased powers of the CAA, but, like the noble Lord, Lord Harper, I would like to understand what the best route is to actually securing better treatment for disabled people.
Most of the emails I receive are about being left on a plane, or broken or missing equipment. We have all heard of the numerous tales of Frank Gardner when he has been flying. He has had incidents where his wheelchair was incorrectly tagged and staff were unable to locate it. He has had a couple of very high-profile cases. In May 2022, when it had happened numerous times, he said that disabled passengers appeared to be treated as the “lowest priority”. Sophie Morgan, likewise, a very well-known disability rights campaigner, suffered terrible experiences with damage to her chairs. But most disabled people do not have that platform. Athena Stevens’s chair was worth £25,000. It was irreparably damaged while travelling, which left her unable to travel independently. She estimated that the overall impact on her life and business reached £70,000, due to additional care, having to travel differently and lost work, but only limited compensation was made available. Maayan Ziv—a case in Canada—had a chair that was worth $30,000 and was severely damaged. This became widely known, because there was a lack of understanding of what a wheelchair means. It is not just a suitcase. It is not something that is very easy to replace.
I have had many experiences over the years, including one memorable time flying from Geneva through Charles de Gaulle to Birmingham. When it became clear that my chair was not there, I was asked by a member of staff whether had I ever tried to walk and whether I would like to try to walk. No, I cannot walk. The airline then tried to return two sleeping bags to me and argued that that was my lost property, even though they were clearly tagged to a different airport and another name. My day chair was found several weeks later in Dublin, and it came back to me in two pieces. It had literally been cut in half. It was suggested that I might like to try and duct tape it back together, which did not work. I wonder how much the airline industry is spending on repairs and replacements.
Another incident occurred when I was an athlete, flying with my racing chair—I always found it better to travel with my chair unboxed because they could see what it was. I was travelling with a very cheap pair of wheels, which got damaged, and the airline immediately jumped to replacing them and trying to offer me a very expensive pair of wheels. I was able to say that I needed a spoke key and 20 minutes. There needs to be some proper assessment of damage, ensuring that the level of liability is commensurate with the equipment.
We have to recognise that equipment is also changing. More people are using scooters than ever before, especially those with fluctuating conditions—they are much easier to travel with than an electric chair. Many noble Lords will see that I have a battery attachment that I use on my chair to get out and about around London. I have never tried to fly with it. We do have to explore the challenges of flying with much of this equipment, especially the safety issues; I know the ongoing work of the implementation group is looking at this. When a disabled person gets all the way to the gate and then finds that they are not allowed to fly—again, I recognise that there are related safety issues—it causes a significant number of problems.
We therefore need more data on the number of people who fly, what they require, and where things go wrong. Also, on wheelchair and mobility equipment protection, I would be very interested to see whether we could try to accurately report, publicly, the number of wheelchairs and mobility aids that are damaged, delayed or lost each year. We also need to look at how we can improve the enforcement and accessibility failures. In the task and finish group, we talked about specific penalties for repeated accessibility failures. That was not possible at the time, but I think it might be now. We should also look at the complaints process to ensure that it runs quickly and smoothly and is not leaving disabled people in situations where their complaints have timed out through no fault of their own.
I would also be interested in looking at requiring the CAA to publish a wider disability impact assessment before implementing significant new regulations. On airport assistance standards, the quality of assistance is variable across the UK. How can we establish minimum standards for passenger assistance, reasonable waiting times, staff training, communications support, and boarding and disembarkation procedures? It would also be very useful to have an update from the implementation group on the work it has been doing since July last year; that would help all noble Lords in addressing the Bill. Currently, everything is just a bit too ad hoc; it is quite difficult to travel as a disabled person, and we should be able to make that better.
I look forward to working with the Minister and his team to improve the Bill.
Baroness Ramsey of Wall Heath (Lab)
My Lords, tomorrow morning the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, which I have the honour to chair, will be meeting to consider, among other things, the civil aviation Bill. It is not impossible to imagine that the committee will have something to say about the delegated powers proposed in the Bill. My speech today, however, gives me the opportunity to contribute to the policy substance in it, which I am very supportive of. I am delighted to be able to take advantage of this opportunity because it is a Bill which has the potential to make a real difference to people’s lives.
It is a pleasure, and somewhat humbling, to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, with her enormous expertise and of course powerful eloquence, which it has been a great pleasure to hear so many times on disability issues in this Chamber.
Today, I want to talk about my mother, Anne, who sadly died in her 90th year back in 2018, and people like her. Let me explain what I mean. My mother was born into poverty in 1928. There was certainly no prospect of her travelling abroad, let alone by aeroplane, when she was growing up or as a young woman; nor, indeed, was there any such prospect when I was growing up. But things change, and, in her 50s and 60s, she thought that she should try to make up for lost time—and then, why not carry on into her 70s and 80s? Of course, as we get older, travelling gets more complicated, but she loved getting around, whether by bus—on that, my noble friend the Minister will no doubt be pleased to hear that she absolutely loved the P4 bus from Brixton to Lewisham Shopping Centre well into her 80s—by train or by automobile.
To come back to today’s subject, she loved travelling by plane. When she was in her late 70s and wanted to visit the country of her father’s birth, we flew together to Dublin. By now, her legs were not strong enough for her to climb the steps up to the plane from the runway like everybody else, but the airline made perfectly good arrangements for a lift—I am not quite sure what the machinery was called—to take her up to the plane in London and back down again in Dublin. It was happy news. On the back of this success, my mother knew that she would be able to come with me and her brand-new granddaughter on a weekend in Rome, and to visit the Vatican, which had been a lifetime ambition for her. The flight out was fine and the Vatican really came up trumps, with the people who worked there, on seeing her frailty, secretly shepherding her into the “staff only” lifts to get her smoothly from floor to floor.
However, on returning to Gatwick, she was stuck on the plane. There was no lift for a very long time. Travelling is tiring for us all—we get hungry, thirsty and very tired—but being left stranded after everyone else is long gone because you need help getting off the plane and into the terminal building and into a wheelchair just is not good enough. She could not face having to go through that experience again. The only way to guarantee that was simply to stop flying on aeroplanes, so she did, and that was that. But my mother’s energy and drive for travel were undimmed, so we took her, very smoothly, to Brussels and Paris via the Eurostar. As I may have already said, she carried on enjoying the bus trip to Lewisham, but there were no more flights because of the way she was treated that time on our return from Rome and the Vatican.
Noble Lords can imagine how I cheered when, four years ago, the BBC’s security correspondent, Frank Gardner—the noble Baroness referred to him earlier— called out, among other things, the UK’s main airports for the way in which, all too often, they treat wheelchair-bound passengers like him. He did so after being left stranded at Gatwick himself, a few years after my mother. His job meant that he had no choice but to keep flying, and this was his fifth time in four years being stranded and left, as he put it,
“waiting in an empty aircraft long after all the other passengers have been off-loaded”.
He went on to say:
“This is nothing short of discriminatory and Britain’s premier air hubs should be ashamed of the way their disabled passengers have been repeatedly treated as a low priority”.
Hear, hear, as I think we say.
Mr Gardner continued:
“The remedy is simple: invest in enough equipment and staff to do the job, pay them properly, sort out the comms so airports know when to expect a passenger with needs, and get on top of the planning and rostering for the allocation of equipment and the teams that operate it. This isn’t rocket science, it just comes down to better planning and sufficient investment. Disabled passengers are not demanding special VIP treatment, they just expect the same level of service as the rest of society. It really isn’t a big ask!”
Fazilet Hadi, the head of policy at Disability Rights UK, said:
“Huge thanks to Frank Gardner for speaking out about this issue. For every disabled person that tells their story about being left on a plane, there are hundreds more of us that don’t. The level of neglect and disregard of disabled airline passengers is truly appalling. The high number of disabled people experiencing poor service led the Civil Aviation Authority to write to airports, threatening to take action if passenger assistance for disabled airline customers didn’t improve. The situation is obviously not getting better and the Equality Act is being breached on a regular basis”.
Today, on behalf of people from all walks of life—whether they are like my mother, who wanted to follow her dreams; like Frank Gardner, who was flying for work; or anyone else, whatever their circumstances— I wholeheartedly support, as all of us can surely do, legislation that will put an end to the excuses, ensuring that the CAA has the powers that will put this right.
Lord Redwood (Con)
My Lords, I welcome the three main aims of this legislation, which were well set out by the Minister. The Government are right that the aviation industry has been growing reasonably well and could make a bigger contribution to growth and prosperity in our country. The Government are right that safety is a vital priority behind which all parties in this House would unite. They are right to realise that, as technologies change, aeroplanes evolve and our airspace becomes ever more congested, it is necessary for a Government to accept the prime safety responsibility and ask whether the rules and guidance are still correct, and whether the regulatory authorities are doing their job in carrying out their task of enforcing safety.
We all want to see good conditions for passengers. That has to be a balance, because if you go too far in regulating in favour of super service then the price can go up too much. The Government must form a judgment on what is an appropriate minimum level of service quality to require so that no one is left in a bad way. This is particularly true of disabled people, as we have been hearing. However, they have to be careful not to overdo standards, which then prices people out of the market and it becomes a middle-class indulgence.
Where I have more doubts about the Bill is when it comes to the detail. I found the 316-page impact assessment heavy going. I do not know whether other colleagues bothered or whether they did not get to the exciting conclusion at the end—I must have missed the exciting conclusion at the end. It was repetitious, very generalised and very high-level. It was clearly a piece of work done by officials who were given an impossible task. They were meant to work out what regulatory changes are going to be made and ask the usual questions of an impact assessment, on the costs of these regulatory changes and the benefits of carrying them through, as some things you will have to do because they are for safety but, for lots of other things, you will have to make a judgment about the trade-offs. Are the costs too high or are the benefits exciting enough to go for it?
Remarkably, this impact assessment concludes that there will be just a small net loss, as a result of the legislation, of just a few million pounds for a multi-billion-pound industry, and so this is well within the margin of error. When you try to find out why the figures are so small, you find that there are practically no benefits identified because this Bill will ensure that nothing happens for quite a long time. It is arranging the regulatory furniture but it will not change what will apply to airlines and passengers any time soon.
The Bill has delay built into it at every opportunity. We read in the impact assessment that it may take a year for us and the other place to get the legislation through and finally into effect. Then, apparently it will take another year before the Government come up with changes to use the very large powers that this legislation will give to Ministers and to regulators without further reference to Parliament. We are being asked to sign a blank cheque, but Ministers have no idea who they will want to make the cheque or cheques out to, let alone how much there may be on them.
The House needs to understand that this is what I would call officials’ legislation. This is not a burning desire of a Minister who knows his subject very well to make changes which are soon going to make a difference to aviation and to economic growth in this country. This is “good management-type” official legislation, saying that we may need these powers and need to copy a whole load of EU regulations that have already passed—or, more likely, that are going to come out soon—so let us have these powers and make sure that most of these things can be done by a regulatory body without any reference to Parliament or by statutory instrument with minimum debate, and that way we do not need to trouble people about it. When the House proceeds to investigate the legislation, it will want a bit more from the Ministers on how they would use these considerable powers.
I would like more urgency from Ministers. The impact assessment says that nothing is going to happen before three to five years have elapsed, because of the year legislating, the year thinking about how to use the powers, and then the powers coming into effect. In other words—and Labour Peers should think about this—this legislation is basically saying that it cannot make any improvement to aviation or provide any extra growth in the lifetime of this Parliament. That is disappointing.
I am a bit more ambitious than the Government. I find myself saying there are things that could be done now, on a shorter timetable, which could make life better for the aviation sector, its passengers and its users. Take the prime one of growth—that is my main concern. I have always said how much I admire the fact that the Government want to be a growth Government, but I have been critical about how many of the things they do actually achieve the opposite. Here is one thing that is not actually going to achieve the opposite—it is just not going to achieve anything, according to the papers before us—where more could happen.
The Minister says that we will have an opportunity in due course to discuss the expansion of Heathrow. Heathrow is the dominant airport of the UK aviation sector, and the success and growth of Heathrow will be a dominant factor in how well this sector does. Delaying a debate seems a little odd, because surely this should be the prime concern of the Government at the moment. When I look at the plans, I believe the Government have backed the plan that takes the longest and is the dearest. They have gone for the plan where the M25 needs to move, which adds more than £20 billion to the total cost and I suspect will add quite a lot of delay to the whole thing, as well as the actual cost of building the additional runway—whereas there is a rival scheme, at considerably less cost and to a tighter timetable, where the runway would fit on to the existing land extending more eastwards so that we do not have to rebuild the M25.
Maybe the Government are right. I would be interested to hear their case. But we would need reassurances that the M25, during all those difficult works, would not be disrupted. Look at the important transport infrastructure of this country. The M25 is one of the dominant and most important pieces of infrastructure that we have put in, saving all those journeys through London and allowing so much commerce and passenger traffic to flow around the city relatively quickly on a good day. We do not really need a big disruption of that.
As someone who some years ago had as my main business career offering financial advice to Governments around the world, I had to fly quite a lot, rather more than I wanted to in those days. To me, as a travelling businessman earning revenue for my firm and for the country as a whole in selling overseas services, what mattered was timeliness and accessibility. I was interested in total journey time from my house to the office I was going to advise. Quite often there was disproportionate time, trouble and delay in getting from my house, some 35 miles from the airport, to Heathrow to get on the plane, which might even have been on time. Ministers looking at growth of airports and accessibility to airports have to consider surface transportation. There have been improvements in recent years to get better rail access to Heathrow. It took a very long time for those of us who wanted that to break through with the authorities to get it to happen. That now has happened with both an extensive Tube option and a link to the old Great Western main line. But we need to make sure that road access also works for those who wish to use the airport.
It would be useful if the Minister could give us an update on Gatwick, the second very large airport in the London area. There was a plan to have a much cheaper and faster progress to many more passenger movements, with the idea of having a constant-use second runway. That requires shifting the existing relief runway a little, so there is quite a bill of cost. That was meant to be coming along before the end of this decade, and it would be very interesting to hear an update on whether it is going to happen.
The relevance to this Bill is that, of course, as those airport expansions happen, many more slots will become available. We owe it to those who are thinking of venturing very large sums of money to expand Gatwick and Heathrow to let them know what the rules of the game will be when they come to place those slots, and to look to see how they are going to remunerate the large sum of money in the case of Gatwick and the absolutely colossal sum of money in the case of Heathrow, even in the original budgets. Heathrow has all that additional risk from complexity, which could result in needing to remunerate even more capital than is currently envisaged.
While I welcome the three main aims of the Government and think that this legislation could be improved by telling us in detail how they can do things that will improve all those, we need more on the environmental impact on surrounding communities living close to airports. I speak as someone who used to represent a constituency that was some 35 miles or so out of London to the west, where there were problems with Heathrow noise. There are solutions that could be woven into this legislation or general government policy. A new generation of planes should be considerably less noisy. It is possible to construct flight paths that are less intrusive, and it is certainly possible to increase the angle of ascent and descent, which reduces the magnitude of the area affected by the noise nuisance. The more that can be done to encourage quieter aviation, the better. There are also other environmental issues relating to surface transport; I gently sketched them in relation to Heathrow and the M25, but there are similar issues for other airports.
My final point is that while, if you are interested in UK economic growth, of necessity you clearly concentrate on how you develop Heathrow and Gatwick—the giant two—regional airports well outside London can also be extremely important to economic prosperity and commerce. I would welcome more thoughts on how they can promote themselves with a good network of routes that do not require interchanging in London—or in Schiphol, as happens so often at the moment for people flying from northern and western airports. I urge the Government to look again at why this is all taking so long, why there is no sense of urgency and why there is not a much clearer refrain in this that we can go for growth here. One of the great triumphs of the UK economy over the last decade has been the big, successful surge in the export of services. Above all, services need really good aviation links, in the way I briefly described from past personal anecdote. I urge the Minister to see himself as a growth champion and to say to his colleagues in government that we can do better than this.
Baroness Antrobus (Lab)
My Lords, I wish to speak specifically to the measures in the Bill to support airspace modernisation and aimed at delegating aviation safety and operations rule-making to the CAA. I thank the Department for Transport staff who took the time to brief me ahead of today’s debate.
I trained to fly while in the Royal Air Force in the early 1990s. For full disclosure, I failed at the end of tactical weapons training, so although I have several hundred hours of flying under my belt, my latter career in the RAF, until I left 15 years later, was as a flight operations officer—still, perhaps even more so, intimately involved in the business of aviation and airspace.
It was such a long time ago that we navigated by map and compass, even in a fast jet at 500 mph. We had no GPS; we corrected for wind based on the much less advanced weather forecasts of the day and some dead reckoning. We set our watches each morning with a hack at the morning met brief based on the speaking clock—I think most Members are just about old enough to remember that. Come to that, our recce briefs on Russian military equipment, for that was still our focus then, were delivered via slides in a rotary carousel projector—again, I think Members might remember those. Our cockpits had more in common with the 1950s than with the glass cockpits and flight decks of today.
Today’s modern aircraft, both civilian and military, are in a different world entirely. They could just about fly themselves, except most people are not yet ready and want a pilot in charge of their commercial flight to the Mediterranean for some summer sun. Although passenger-carrying planes are likely to remain crewed for a while yet, the potential and the technology to move freight around in the skies above our heads in uncrewed aircraft are advancing all the time.
Right now, Amazon is trialling drone delivery in Darlington—delivering packages under 5 pounds in weight within a 7.5-mile radius of its distribution centre. The Civil Aviation Authority is working to safely integrate drones flying beyond visual line of sight in UK airspace through this type of trial. It has also authorised air operations to deliver blood and the trial of uncrewed police helicopters. We already have a military uncrewed aircraft, the MQ-9B Protector, flying in UK airspace from RAF Waddington in Lincolnshire.
Imagine a time when freight can move not above our garden roofs and fences in small drones but at much higher altitudes, taking lorries off our roads and into the skies. I want that time to come sooner rather than later—and, of course, safely. But, unlike the enormous leaps in technological capability since I first pulled on a flying suit, UK airspace remains largely unchanged—in fact, as some noble Lords have said, since the 1950s. This is unsustainable and not good for our economy, the environment or the aviation industry, both civil and military. Commercial flights alone have increased twelvefold since then.
So I welcome the new powers to enact change to update our airspace. There is so much potential in new and emerging technologies, such as uncrewed aircraft, but the UK has to be able to move with—even ahead of—the times to make the most of the amazing opportunities for growth and ensure that we are competitive in this industry.
The 2023 airspace modernisation strategy talked of a core principle; that is,
“the safe integration of all users”.
That is ambitious and I welcome the Bill in supporting that ambition. I also welcome its intention to give the CAA greater flexibility in determining who pays for air traffic and air navigation services. At the moment, airlines and aircraft operators do, but the scope to extend that is only fair in this changing environment.
I also support the delegation of certain operational rule-making to the CAA to ensure a more responsive process. Currently, the legislative framework for aviation safety rules is, as the Government have stated, extensive, complex and cumbersome. Obviously, this change should always have aviation safety at its heart.
I welcome the contributions of fellow noble Lords on other parts of the Bill on which they are infinitely better qualified to contribute. I will not trespass on their territory but listen with interest to their valuable and informative perspectives.
Finally, in returning to where I started, with military aviation, it is imperative that we remember that this civil aviation Bill is not just about civil aviation. Military capability relies on airspace, air traffic services and the CAA. Military aircraft need to train and exercise; defence industry needs to experiment with and assure new capabilities. These are all vital activities in the defence of this nation that need airspace to operate and succeed.
Also, some of our defence air capabilities are military owned but civil registered, such as the Envoy command support air transport aircraft and the Voyager air-to-air refuelling and passenger aircraft. When we proceed to debate this civil aviation Bill, we must remember that we are also discussing military aircraft capability and development and, with that, the defence and security of the UK.
Does my noble friend the Minister agree that airspace is a resource? It is part of our critical national infrastructure, even if it is invisible to most of us who are not airspace nerds, and it is vital that we update it to meet the needs of today and tomorrow.
Lord Davies of Gower (Con)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Antrobus. I begin by declaring my membership of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Aviation, and indeed as an aviator who contributes greatly every year to the CAA. Let me say at the outset that I broadly support the objectives of the Bill. The Minister referred to the essentials of the Bill in his opening speech. They were the subject of the communication of 20 April 2026 from the DfT to the chair of the CAA outlining the DfT’s expectations and priorities for the next period. They include: growth and innovation; the economic regulation of aviation; airspace modernisation; the decarbonisation of aviation; modernising the CAA’s focus on aviation’s passenger and freight customers, so as to put the consumer first; and efficiency, effectiveness and resilience. I will return to those in a while.
First, I want to identify a glaring omission in the Bill. It is conspicuous by its absence. No reference whatever has been made in the DfT’s priorities to general aviation. There is not one mention in the whole of the Bill to what is, for many in the industry, the front door to their career, whether they be air crew or ground crew. Why should we be concerned that there is no mention of general aviation in the Bill? It is a section of the industry that contributes £4 billion to the UK’s economy and supports some 40,000 jobs. This may be seen as a small slice of UK aviation’s £50 billion to £100 billion GDP footprint, but it underpins things such as pilot training, emergency services and business connectivity.
Since 2018, general aviation has faced pressures from lower disposable incomes, rising costs and economic uncertainty, and this has reduced activity across recreational flying, training and private ownership. Since Covid, GA activity has failed to recover. The CAA’s data reveals a 40% reduction in all GA activities. I understand that the CAA issued only some 1,300 private pilot licences last year. I would expect the DfT to be extremely concerned, instead of which I understand that the department has disbanded its GA section. Perhaps the Minister could confirm and comment on that. As GA supports jobs, skills and pilot training pathways, proportionate regulation and avoiding unnecessary burdens are important to maintaining confidence and investment. Given the circumstances that GA finds itself in, I am extremely concerned that the Government’s enhanced consumer protection measures do not create unintended burdens for smaller airports, aerodromes and GA operators. What assurances can the Minister give in relation to that?
The Minister may well be wondering why there should be concern. Put simply, air crew, such as pilots, do not magically appear fresh out of an easyJet- or British Airways-trained box. They are the result of people starting at the very bottom of the ladder, through gliding, progressing through the private pilot’s licence, many add-on qualifications, instrument ratings and the mountain of exams needed to gain a commercial pilot’s licence—the so-called improver route. All this is achieved at grass-roots level by small flying clubs and schools and small grass airfields at enormous cost to the individual and risk to small businesses with the fluctuating cost of fuel and newly imposed employment taxes.
In terms of airspace, while I accept that the basic design has not changed in 70 years, despite technological advantages—I note that the Government’s policy paper is keen to single out the safe integration of drones, which is to be welcomed, as lower airspace is where congestion, particularly with general aviation, occurs and will continue to do so—I ask: what safeguards are in place to ensure that airspace reform decisions remain transparent and evidence-based and fairly balance commercial, environmental and wider aviation user interests?
The Government seek to expand the CAA’s enforcement powers. What mechanisms will ensure accountability, proportionality and appropriate parliamentary oversight of those powers? I am keen to learn from the Minister how the DfT proposes to safeguard these changes for non-airline operators.
This debate would not be complete without mention of the European geostationary navigation overlay service, commonly known and referred to as EGNOS, the satellite-based augmentation system that improves the precision and integrity of global positioning systems; in particular, the EGNOS Safety of Life Service— note “safety of life”—which is used in safety-critical applications, such as in the aviation sector. Back in June 2022, the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Aviation asked Oxera, the Oxford-based economics and finance consultancy, to assess the business case for a temporary reinstatement of EGNOS. It pointed out that
“prior to leaving the EU, the UK civil aviation sector invested heavily into satellite-based approaches because of the significant safety and reliability advantages that satellite-based approaches offer compared to traditional approaches (i.e. non-precision navigational aids) … Despite these investments, the UK is currently the only state in the G20 without useable access to a precise satellite-based navigation system, whereas other countries are increasingly moving towards relying on precision satellite-based approaches”.
What does this mean in reality? It has really serious consequences. It means that remote areas of the United Kingdom that rely on small regional airlines, such as Loganair in Scotland, are unable to operate in inclement weather conditions. I note that the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, who was due to participate in this debate, has been stranded for a number of days on the Isles of Scilly, which are fog-bound. As a result of our non-participation in EGNOS, the likelihood of aircraft operating into the islands in such conditions is remote.
In relation to air crew training, in addition to the lack of instrument approach training slots, the whole UK professional flight training industry cannot deliver for UK-based students the full range of performance-based navigation training, which is reliant on satellite-based signals. Worse still, all these GPS-supported approaches are only 2D lateral non-precision; 3D precision requires the EGNOS Safety of Life Service to enable the airport to provide this. So training aircraft cross the channel to places such as Jersey and other European countries where a full suite of approaches are available, as they still benefit from the EGNOS signal in space. This is a major revenue and talent loss to the UK GA sector. Similarly, air traffic control offices cannot do more than train in simulation for 3D approaches.
Lastly, the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Air Ambulances, of which I am a member, is pushing government hard across a range of topics. As we speak, there is a reception to launch a report on the case for safeguarded 24/7 on-site hospital helipads. A big part of its lobbying is on the lack of helimed point-in-space procedures for hospitals, which are EGNOS reliant. The loss of EGNOS access weakens aviation safety and NHS trauma care goals. Without reinstatement, increasing air ambulance mission cancellations put these strategies—and patient outcomes—at risk. Perhaps the Minister can tell us what the Government have in mind in relation to EGNOS.
I will end here but implore the Minister to again consider reinstating EGNOS membership as a matter of urgency. Above all, I implore the Government to give due consideration to general aviation when prioritising their goals and directions to the CAA. At present, I fear they clearly are not doing so.
Baroness Dacres of Lewisham (Lab)
My Lords, this Bill recognises a simple reality: aviation has changed significantly over recent decades, as many noble Lords have mentioned, and our regulatory framework must continue to evolve alongside it.
The United Kingdom depends on a modern, efficient and well-regulated aviation sector. Aviation is about more than aircraft and airports. It is about connecting people to jobs, businesses to markets and communities to opportunities. It supports trade, tourism, investment and economic growth. It also plays a vital role in connecting the nations and regions of the United Kingdom, helping to bring people, businesses and communities together while connecting every part of our country to the wider world.
For that reason, I welcome this Bill and its focus on regulatory reform and modernisation. In a sector characterised by international competition and rapid technological change, standing still is not an option. Good regulation should not be seen as a barrier to growth. On the contrary, effective regulation provides the clarity, confidence and stability that enable industries to invest and innovate. A clear and modern framework allows operators to plan for the future while ensuring that consumers and travellers remain properly protected.
For many people, air travel is associated with some of life’s most treasured and important moments. It may be that long-awaited family getaway, an opportunity to spend time with loved ones, an important business trip or a chance to pursue new opportunities. When things go wrong, whether through delays, cancellations or poor communication, the impact can be both significant and deeply disappointing.
That is why the framework that governs the aviation sector matters. Passengers rightly expect services that are safe, reliable and responsive. Businesses require clarity in order to invest and grow. Regulators must be able to respond to changes. The challenge for this Bill is to strike the right balance between those objectives.
Modernisation should not be viewed simply as a technical exercise. Whether we are discussing airspace reform, airport slot allocation or regulatory frameworks, the objective must be to create a system that is more efficient, more accountable and better able to support growth while improving the experience of passengers. Transport connectivity is not an end in itself. It is what enables people to access jobs, education, investment and opportunity.
Aviation also plays an important role in supporting the connectivity access that the nations and regions of the United Kingdom depend on. For many communities, air travel is not simply a convenience but an important link to employment, business opportunities, public services and family networks.
While much attention is often given to international aviation, we should not overlook the importance of domestic connectivity. Aviation helps to strengthen economic and social ties across our country and supports the movement of people, skills and investment between regions. As we consider the future of the sector, it is important that those wider connectivity benefits should be recognised.
I particularly welcome the provisions relating to airspace modernisation and the future role of the Civil Aviation Authority. As has been mentioned, much of our airspace infrastructure was designed in a very different era. These reforms present an opportunity to make better use of technology, reduce unnecessary delays, improve resilience and make more efficient use of increasingly constrained airspace. They will also help to ensure that the United Kingdom is equipped to integrate emergent aviation technologies safely and effectively, maintaining our position at the forefront of a rapidly evolving sector.
The pace of technological change in aviation is accelerating, as many noble Lords have mentioned. New technologies offer opportunities to improve efficiency, resilience and safety, but they also challenge regulators to ensure that the rules evolve alongside innovation.
The United Kingdom has a proud history of aviation leadership. If we are to maintain this position, our regulatory framework must be capable of responding to change at a pace that reflects developments within the sector while maintaining the confidence of passengers and operators alike.
Equally, ensuring that airport slots are allocated and managed effectively can help to maximise capacity, improve connectivity and make the best use of existing infrastructure, supporting economic activity across the country and placing us in a stronger position to consider any future airport expansion that may be required to ensure that the United Kingdom remains internationally competitive. Of course, modern infrastructure and modern aviation systems also require modern regulation. The provisions relating to the Civil Aviation Authority are central to achieving that objective.
Aviation is a rapidly evolving sector, shaped by new technologies, changing passenger expectations and emerging operational challenges. A regulator that is able to respond more quickly and effectively to those changes is better placed to support innovation, maintain high standards and protect consumers. We cannot keep coming back to primary legislation to make changes as and when things evolve. That simply is not quick or responsive enough; it is just not agile.
Greater rule-making powers have the potential to create this more agile and responsive regulatory framework, reducing, as I said, the need for primary legislation. It can give industry greater certainty, enable faster adoption of new technologies and ensure regulation keeps pace with development in aviation rather than lagging behind it. Regulation that arrives years after innovation risks holding back progress rather than supporting it. It is important that future regulation remains proportionate to support innovation and competitiveness and avoids imposing unnecessary burdens while continuing to maintain the high standards that UK aviation is renowned for.
There is also an important competitive dimension. Aviation operates in a global marketplace. The United Kingdom benefits when it is seen as an attractive place to invest, innovate and do business. A regulatory framework that can respond efficiently to change will help ensure that our aviation sector remains internationally competitive, supporting growth, investment and jobs while maintaining the high standards of safety and consumer protection which, as I have said, the UK is known for.
This is, in many respects, an enabling Bill. Its long-term impact will depend not only on the powers it creates but on how those powers are exercised in the years ahead. Effective regulation also requires public confidence. As the Bill progresses, I would welcome further clarification from the Minister on how accountability and parliamentary oversight will operate alongside any expanded regulatory powers granted to the Civil Aviation Authority. It is important that greater flexibility for the regulator is matched by appropriate transparency and scrutiny so that confidence is maintained for Parliament, industry and the travelling public.
I would like to touch briefly on accessibility. When we discuss accessibility, we rightly think about physical access and support for passengers with impaired mobility, but we should also recognise the experience of neurodivergent passengers and those who may face sensory, cognitive and digital barriers. For many passengers with sensory, cognitive or neurodivergent needs, airports and air travel can present unique challenges—busy terminals, rapidly changing information, unfamiliar environments and sensory overload can create barriers that are often overlooked.
A truly accessible aviation system should enable people to travel independently while having the confidence that support will be available when needed. Independence and support should not be seen as competing concepts—a modern transport system should provide both. For many passengers, accessible travel is not simply about completing a journey; it is about accessing employment, education, family connections and wider opportunities. It is also about dignity, confidence and independence. The ability to travel without unnecessary barriers can have a profound impact on an individual’s quality of life. For some, it can mean accessing employment; for others, it can mean pursuing education, maintaining those family relationships or simply seeing a part of the world they want to experience and learn more about.
As we consider further regulations and guidance, I hope that accessibility continues to be viewed through this broader lens. The objective should not be merely to remove obstacles when they arise but to design inclusive systems and services from the outset. That approach benefits everyone. Clear information, intuitive systems and well-designed services improve the passenger experience for all travellers, not only those who require additional support. As we update and improve our aviation system, we should remember that progress is not solely about technology; it is about people. A truly modern aviation sector is one that works for all passengers, including those with physical disabilities, sensory needs and neurodivergent conditions, and ensures that advances in efficiency are matched by advances in accessibility.
I have been encouraged by the work already taking place across parts of the aviation sector to improve awareness and support. As the Bill progresses, I hope these will be opportunities to explore how best practice can be encouraged and embedded across the sector. Through my work in local government and transport leadership across London, I have seen first-hand that successful transport systems are those that earn public trust, adapt to change and work for everyone who relies on them. This Bill provides an important opportunity to create a regulatory framework that supports innovation, growth and international competitiveness while ensuring that passengers remain at the centre of aviation policy.
If we get this balance right, we will not only strengthen consumer confidence but help to ensure that the United Kingdom remains a leading aviation nation in an increasingly competitive world with a sector that is innovative, accessible and fit for the future. For those reasons, I welcome this Bill and look forward to further scrutiny as it progresses through this House.
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
My Lords, surprisingly perhaps, I welcome the Government’s attempt to strengthen airline passengers’ rights, especially with the worries about aviation fuel due to Israel and Trump launching a disastrous and illegal war on Iran. I am happy to support the Civil Aviation Authority being given additional enforcement powers to ensure that airlines comply with consumer laws. However, I am not so keen on legislation that makes it easier to expand airports, especially if that increases noise and pollution for people living in the immediate area or along the flight path. It is extremely bad for human health and well-being.
As a Green, I am well aware that a lot of what I say in your Lordships’ House is not supported by anyone around me and that my views on the environment, climate change and the disastrous path we are taking as humans are at best contentious and, at worst, regarded as plain wrong. I am just staggered by the lack of ecological awareness among Members of your Lordships’ House. It defeats me that noble Lords cannot understand the science, cannot see what is in front of them, and still support things such as airport expansion when we know it is bad for the planet—I exclude the noble Earl, Lord Russell, from this, obviously, and some of his colleagues. Luckily, there are people outside—many scientists and people who know what they are talking about better than I do—who can say that we are headed for disastrous circumstances if we do not take climate change seriously.
This whole Bill is just ludicrous in terms of the future of people and planet. I have mostly lost hope that this Government care about people and planet. They have lost all claim to be a green Government, with their attacks on nature in Britain and their decisions to expand aviation. The go-ahead for the expansion of London City Airport, Luton, Gatwick and Stansted means an extra 51 million passengers per annum. If the Government add Heathrow to that total, it is an extra 65 million. The Minister in his opening remarks said that aviation is a “cornerstone” of our economy, or some such. I would say it is a cornerstone of climate collapse. If we cannot see that, I would be happy to have one-to-one sessions with any Peer who would like to discuss this further, because, quite honestly, I am in despair at the lack of awareness about what our future could be.
As I said, luckily there are people outside. For example, Professor Bill Rutherford of Imperial College London said:
“The only way you can make aviation any more sustainable is to do less of it”.
All those extra flights result in either extra emissions or extra farmland taken up growing jet fuel, and that means rising food prices and more public subsidy.
The Sustainable Aviation Fuel Bill was appallingly named: there is no such thing as sustainable aviation fuel. That was infuriating as well. It is just greenwash that will leave future Governments needing to do the hard work of behaviour change to achieve net-zero targets. Actually, I am not a supporter of net zero. It is a ridiculous aim; we should be going for less than zero and cutting back completely. Net zero is unrealistic. It is real zero that we need, and less. The climate crisis is accelerating and this Bill would have been a chance to do something about that. Rather than promoting aviation, we need to cut back.
The first step towards stopping more flights leading to accelerating climate change is to deal with private jets. The rich are paying a lot of money for the privilege of wrecking our planet and the Government need to tell them that it is no longer acceptable. Being rich does not excuse you from your responsibilities as global citizens. Flying off for the weekend, perhaps every weekend, has consequences. The ice is melting, the seas are rising, flash floods and storms are becoming more powerful, and heatwaves and droughts are going to hit farming very hard. Our food supplies will be under threat. Change is happening now, not decades in the future. That means we have to act now as well, so private jets should be the first thing that the Government target to cut back on, and this Bill is the obvious opportunity to do that.
Next to the frequent flyers, the Government should be raising the aviation tax on people who take two or more flights a year. Frequent flying is something that well-off people do; we can discourage them by reflecting the true environmental cost in the amount that frequent flyers pay. Business flights have already changed since Covid made us shift towards online working and that trend must be given another shove.
Finally, we are experiencing another record-breaking year for temperatures in this country and across the globe. The next decade will see yet more record-breaking years, as will the decade after that. The decisions being made by this Government on aviation will add to the disaster that the younger generation will have to live and struggle with. I ask noble Lords to stop and rethink. I do not mean just the Government; I mean every single Member of this House who has supported the whole idea of aviation. Stop and think about what you are doing for the future—for your children and grandchildren. You are destroying their future.
Baroness Foster of Oxton (Con)
My Lords, first, I will try to cheer you all up a bit, because that is not what was reflected by our previous speaker. I declare my interest as an adviser for the Drone Delivery Group. I am also a vice-chairman of the All-Party Group for the Future of Aviation, Travel and Aerospace.
As a further interest, I spent the first 25 years of my working life at British Airways as a young stewardess. For the following 15 years, I was in the European Parliament and dealt with all the primary legislation that covered the civil aviation area and other forms of transport. The former RAF Baroness has left, but I recall that she mentioned what it was like in the RAF all those years ago. For those of your Lordships who are pilots and understand airspace, when I started flying I was on a Hawker Siddeley. Most airfields did not have an ILS—an instrument landing system—yet we have those most advanced aircraft that could land in virtually nil visibility. So technology has certainly moved on apace in the last 50 years.
I say that because we have one of the best and most exciting industries that we have ever created, when we go back historically into civil aviation, certainly post the Second World War. We also have some of the best brains and the best scientists, who are inventing the technologies in the aerospace sector that make aviation as safe, clean and green as it is today.
Given my time as a Member of the European Parliament, I am going to come on to the three key areas that are mainly in the Bill. I thank the Minister for his comprehensive introduction and, like most colleagues, obviously I have read through what it says. Regarding our leaving the European Union, I was involved in the legislation for the European Aviation Safety Agency 20 years ago. It was actually developed for the certification of the A380 aircraft, because obviously we cross-border manufactured. That was the reason the agency was set up, but then its scope expanded over the years, so the agency had competence for many other areas. Of course, that took away the competences that the CAA had had. When I originally joined the airline industry, every nation had its civil aviation authority and there was no sort of European central body.
However, we also comply with the Montreal and Chicago conventions, ICAO and IATA. This is not just about legislation being made here, and the Government need to take account of that, as did the European Commission at the time. It is fine to say, “Well, we will make rules and regulations about x, y and z to do with civil aviation”. But primarily we are signed up to, and must comply with, international obligations, which obviously affect the entire aviation industry worldwide.
Clearly, we are now putting back competences to the Civil Aviation Authority which it has not dealt with for many years, and it needs to make sure it has the resources and everything else to do it properly. I have every confidence in our Civil Aviation Authority; it is one of the best civil aviation authorities in the world, along with our accident investigation bureau in this sector. The independence that our agencies have is key. Therefore, we do not get overwhelmed by political interference in areas where the experts need to be making a lot of the decisions.
I will touch on the three primary areas in this Bill. The first is airspace. We know that, with the increase in traffic over the years, the pressure on airspace has obviously grown terrifically. I was one of the rapporteurs for the single European sky regulations in the European Parliament, over 20 years ago. We were looking at functional airspace blocks and at ensuring that, right across Europe, it was smooth. Eurocontrol had obviously taken a huge role in traffic management, so it started to improve it hugely. Nevertheless, we still have bottlenecks around Europe which will affect us in the United Kingdom, but at the time the United Kingdom was known for having one of the best systems. We mixed the civil with the military to ensure that, when we were not using military airspace, civil aviation could use it. That was very unlike France and some other countries, which insisted on keeping these corridors, and therefore we had a backlog all the time.
In terms of capacity in the airspace sector, we know that when vertical separation was reduced over 20 years ago down to 1,000 feet, obviously because of the introduction of anti-collision devices et cetera, it was key to trying to get more capacity into European airspace. But, as we know, the industry has grown further, so it is quite right that we are looking at how to make this better. I think the CAA, NATS and the providers have done a terrific job with all the steps that they have taken—not with the vertical separation, obviously, but when they look at trying to ensure that we can cut times down for landing and take-off. I accept, however, that more technology needs to be brought in to make it even more efficient. I would like the Minister to tell us—maybe not today—what exactly the Government are looking to do. We have a lot of what they would like to do, but I would like to know precisely what they think will make this more efficient: I have not read that.
Moving on to slots, I was also rapporteur on slots in around 2004-05, and for the slots revision, which was about 10 years later. Slots are not a simple thing; I think I still have got the scars on my back. People think that, generally, the captain says, “Here’s the slot and we’re going to push back”, and sometimes you have missed it because the baggage is not on, or something—but of course it is not like that. These slots are traded twice a year through IATA and it is quite a complex business.
In addition to slot-airports—Heathrow and Gatwick, and do not forget the other airlines coming in—the value of the company depends on which slots they hold. When we were looking at slot revision back in 2004-05, the European Commission wanted primary trading. That would not have worked. It also had an idea that maybe it should be the one to allocate slots, but that was certainly not going to work. After much debate, it was recognised that one of the key issues is to make sure there is slot fairness, apart from grandfather rights and new entrant rules, which were brought in. Obviously, there is what happens when we have issues like the Middle East and other conflicts—the “use it or lose it” rules, which we have mentioned in discussing statutory instruments—and there are ways to get round this sort of thing. Notwithstanding that, people need to tread very carefully when they are looking at some sort of slot changes or changing the rules. This is just not a simple, “Oh well, let’s have this”, or “somebody in the Department for Transport thinks we should do X, Y and Z”. It will be at your peril if somebody starts to try and does the wrong thing, because it affects third-country carriers coming in.
The next area I would like to touch on is passenger rights. The noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, and others have raised this. I will touch on the “passengers with reduced mobility” regulation. Before the regulation was changed, the airlines had taken responsibility for their disabled passengers and passengers who need assistance. It was the European Commission which determined 20 years ago that it should not be the airlines that do this—not that the airlines may want to do it now—and that it should move to the airports.
The disadvantage of that was that, when an airline offered a service, everything that happened on that journey came back to the airline, so it took responsibility. I was crew. I sat with people while they waited for their wheelchair, or tried to check that the wheelchair was not damaged if it was in the hold. I have seen it first-hand. There is no excuse for people being left on aircraft on their own, waiting for somebody to take them off. There is little excuse for wheelchairs being damaged when they are hold loaded. The decision at the time was to take this responsibility away from the airlines and give it to the airports. This is where you lose that connection. How could you reverse that? I have no idea, because I doubt whether the airlines would want to take back that responsibility. It is just a thought as to how things were done and what has slipped since. There is no easy solution to this, but it is about what is called good customer service.
This brings me to general passenger rights: the old regulation 261, which was about cancellations and delays. I have to say—some people may disagree with me—that I lived and breathed 261 over those years, and certainly, colleagues in the European Parliament did. We got a very good deal for airline passengers. The legislation was robust. It was the first legislation that made airlines actually look after their passengers if flights were cancelled or delayed. It put the onus on them to really cough up and make sure they were doing their job. Most of the time they did a good job, but unfortunately a number of airlines were not particularly interested. That, hopefully, has improved hugely. There has to be a balance between the responsibility being on the airline and, for example, if there is compensation, the level at which it is set. We got to €200, €400 and €600 on short, medium and long haul flights. A balance has to be struck, but I do not think it is impossible. The legislation that is in place is good. We even moved from force majeure to exclude external events, to certain things being brought back in, whereby a passenger could claim compensation or at least ensure that they were being looked after.
It is good that the passenger is at the heart of this; it is right that they should be at the heart of this industry. As I said, we run a great industry. There is no reason for people to be treated badly. I have been at the forefront, when you are at 35,000 feet and you are going to be diverted because there is a thunderstorm, for example. This is where professionalism, reassurance and training of staff, including ground staff, has to come in, to ensure that the passengers are the priority; they are the ones that need to be looked after. Even in the direst circumstances, the public generally are fabulous. They know that they are in your hands. They will be very forgiving if they know that somebody is doing their very best in a professional way.
On a slightly critical note, the Secretary of State appears to run right through this legislation. The Secretary of State decides this, the Secretary of State is going to decide that—and, of course, the Secretary of State is answerable to all these things. But he or she will be responsible for the rulemaking. Then, the question is: who will advise the Secretary of State on this new rule? Will the Secretary of State be talking to the CAA? Will they be talking to people in the Department for Transport? It looks a little ambiguous, so there needs to be some clarity.
Finally, there also needs to be some clarity on the issues themselves, such as airspace and slots. We are being told what is wrong and what the Government would quite like to do, but I would like examples of things that have really gone wrong and what precisely the Government are thinking of putting in this legislation. There are questions to be answered, but I would like to thank my colleagues and others for referring to general aviation, which is key. I thank the Minister again for coming to the House with the Bill today.
Lord Barber of Ainsdale (Lab)
My Lords, I first declare an interest, as noted in the register, in that I am the current president of BALPA, the British Airline Pilots’ Association. BALPA is strongly supportive of the Bill’s objectives to modernise aviation regulations and to enable airspace reform. The Bill offers an opportunity to create a more responsive and agile framework. In such a safety-critical sector, this flexibility must be matched by clear expectations on effective oversight, better visibility of future workforce needs, and consultation with professional pilots.
First, on the issue of airspace change, modernisation has the potential to deliver more efficient routing and better use of UK airspace, contributing to the long- term sustainability of the sector. My noble friend Lady Antrobus’s references to the drone revolution provided a compelling illustration of the scale of the impending change coming our way. Given its direct impact on flight operations, it is essential that pilots and their representatives are engaged throughout this process, from design through to implementation. I hope the Government will ensure that there is a structured and ongoing consultation with front-line professionals as airspace change proposals are developed, delivered and reviewed once new arrangements become operational.
It should be recognised from the outset that airspace modernisation, alongside possible expansion of major airports such as Heathrow and Gatwick, is likely to lead to significantly increased traffic levels in UK airspace over the coming years, and that any material uplift in both flight movements and passenger numbers could lead to an increase in demand for pilots. This opportunity to build a growing, highly skilled, UK-based workforce needs to be understood and positively planned for if we are to avoid facing critical skills gaps at a moment of real and much-needed opportunity and growth.
Of course, airlines operate in the private sector, but there is a strong case for the Government and the Civil Aviation Authority to monitor, for example, the make- up of the pilot workforce, including the number of commercial airline pilots approaching the mandatory retirement age of 65. They should consider whether the training pipeline is adequate for future demand, which itself is being driven by public policy decisions such as airspace modernisation. The CAA already publishes a range of key aviation statistics. Should it now also be required to provide a more regular analysis of trends within its licence register data to improve the visibility of workforce dynamics and support more informed planning across the sector? Looking at a very different sector, I note that the Nursing and Midwifery Council publishes regular such assessments of the workforce on which it holds data. Could we not do that in this sector?
On the wider role of the CAA, Clause 8 transfers responsibility for setting detailed aviation safety and operational rules from Parliament and Ministers to the CAA. While this may improve regulatory agility, it represents a significant shift in where practical control of the aviation rulebook sits, with reduced opportunities for parliamentary scrutiny. This gives rise to some key questions. How will the Bill ensure meaningful consultation with pilots and other affected groups as rules are reviewed and before rules are created or amended? What mechanisms will allow Parliament to exercise effective oversight of significant or perhaps more novel regulatory changes? How will the CAA be required to provide transparency around decisions, including on the rationale and operational impact of new rules? I hope that we will be able to probe these points in Committee to ensure that the proposed flexibility in rule-making will be balanced with appropriate accountability and expertise to maintain confidence in the UK’s aviation safety framework.
Finally, on the CAA’s role in providing accountability to consumers for the effective enforcement of their rights in aviation, this could be a positive alternative to lengthy, expensive litigation that supports precious few people with legitimate grievances about failures in the sector. But can the Government examine how the CAA will discharge these responsibilities in practice to ensure that it can and will deliver a step change for the better over the current defective arrangements, and address in particular the powerful challenges expressed today by the noble Baronesses, Lady Grey-Thompson and Lady Ramsey, on the difficulties faced by disabled people and others with significant accessibility issues? I look forward to the further stages of this important Bill.
Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to take part in this Second Reading debate. In doing so, I declare my interests as an adviser to the Crown Estate, Endava plc, and Simmons & Simmons LLP, as set out in the register. I congratulate the Minister on the way he introduced the Bill. I know he owns a bus; I do not know whether he has a jet.
Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)
Given that he made an “end of the runway” comment, it is only fair to say that I have always found him incredibly “plane-speaking”.
I would like to talk about inclusion and innovation, largely because the Bill does not talk very much at all about these issues. There is clause after clause on proposed secondary legislation, but secondary legislation as set out in the Bill is permissive; it is not in any sense mandated. While I can understand, and support, the need for flexibility when it comes to provisions for secondary legislation, that goes to prescription and operational detail and the need for flexibility there; it should not be flexible and permissive when it comes to the principles, particularly around inclusion. Does the Minister not agree that there could be a lot more on the principles of inclusion on the face of the Bill?
“Come fly with me, let’s fly, let’s fly away”.
Lovely words from Mr Sinatra, but what if you are a sight-impaired passenger, or a wheelchair user, or somebody with different mobility or cognitive needs? Perhaps not so much. When it comes to the experience of disabled people, flying can often be torturous and anxious-making before even arriving at the airport. It can be an experience that is not uplifting but dire, sometimes discriminatory and often demeaning. Sometimes you are left in the terminal; sometimes, if you get to board, you are left on the aircraft at the end of the flight. When you finally emerge from the aeroplane, you oftentimes find that your wheelchair or essential mobility equipment has been damaged or destroyed. Come fly with me? Not without greater protection and coverage on the face of the Bill, not least for disabled people.
What about older people, who are not mentioned in the Bill? What about younger people: passengers and minors who are travelling unaccompanied? No increased safeguarding provisions for them are set out in the Bill. There is no equality assessment of passenger complaints and actions taken when it comes to disability and mobility issues. When we look at the current draft of the Bill, we see nothing specifically for disabled people, older people or younger people, or anything specific on equality. Does the Minister not agree that having an inclusive-by-design statutory duty on the face of the Bill would be a huge step forward—yes, for disabled passengers, but for all passengers boarding a plane?
I turn to innovation. This is an industry that has come up with some of the greatest innovations and advances in science, engineering and technology across the country and around the world. It is therefore interesting that, when it comes to new and emerging technologies such as AI, blockchain, cyber and quantum, the Bill is again curiously silent. There is nothing on an AI layer for slot allocation and transaction, the issue of passenger redress and, crucially, the issue around airspace itself. What about digital tools for passengers to press their claims, assess their stage and track where they are? They could be empowered through the digital tools that could be put in their hands as a potential consequence of this legislation.
What about data? What about interoperability? Many of the powers in the Bill will potentially dramatically increase the amount of data gathered—commercially sensitive data and data that could easily identify private individuals—yet the Bill is currently silent on that. There is nothing on AI governance, responsible AI or ethical deployment, all of which could be set out at a high level in the Bill without in any sense frustrating the flexibility of the proposed secondary legislation.
To give one example of where AI could positively impact, imagine a system whereby claims under the already mentioned Regulation EC 261/2004 could be assessed automatically by AI and the compensation not only calculated but paid. Similarly, imagine predictive analytics used before disruption has even occurred, looking at data around weather patterns and so on. Imagine what AI could do on slot allocation, using the level of data and analytics already available, if it was brought together with powerful AI tools—and perhaps a blockchain basis for slot allocation and transaction in the first place, to give that immutable record of what is happening in what can sometimes be a somewhat opaque exercise.
If we do not address these technology questions in a framework capacity in the Bill, we will have different approaches to AI and other technologies for consumer redress, passengers tracking their claims, slot allocation and airspace itself. This will differ and be variable, with, crucially, a lack of clarity and consistency. That is completely avoidable if we get it right at this stage.
To conclude, inclusion by design is absolutely essential and currently lacking. Innovation in all its forms is curiously absent from the current draft of the Bill. In many ways, to be only somewhat reductive, we currently have a Bill that in some ways pushes digital by default but is without inclusion by design. If unamended, it will leave exclusion by default and exclusion by design.
Baroness Thornton (Lab)
My Lords, it is a great honour to follow the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, and I agree with very much of what he said.
As will be clear to my noble friend the Minister, some of us have joined this important Second Reading debate as consumers, not as experts on the aviation industry—unlike, for example, my noble friend Lord Tunnicliffe, who will bring his huge knowledge of this sector to bear, I have no doubt, in his contribution; my noble friend Lady Antrobus, whose speech adds to the knowledge and wisdom of this House; and indeed my noble friend Lord Barber.
I very much welcome the part of the Bill that grants direct enforcement of consumer protection legislation to the Civil Aviation Authority. My noble friend the Minister will be aware that, as consumers rather than experts in aviation, we find it a matter of particular satisfaction that the Bill proposes to grant the Civil Aviation Authority these direct enforcement powers over consumer protection legislation, strengthening its existing powers and bringing them into line with those enjoyed by other regulators.
What might this mean in practice? I offer a small but perhaps telling example, drawn from my own experience last Thursday. Noble Lords will recall that it was an exceptionally hot day in the United Kingdom— I can tell them that it was even hotter in Poitiers. As our Ryanair flight landed, I noticed a long queue of passengers standing outside the terminal building, virtually on the tarmac itself, in blazing sunshine, waiting to board the aircraft we were about to leave. I have no idea how long they had been standing there, but, whatever the answer, it was plainly too long. It is not easy to see how such treatment could be justified, unless the overriding priority was to achieve the fastest possible turnaround time, regardless of passenger comfort and, arguably, regardless of considerations of health and safety. I did indeed feel herded at Stansted, but at least my brain did not get fried.
I readily acknowledge that standards of courtesy and general customer service in the budget airline sector have improved significantly over recent years. Until a few years ago, the Ryanair chief executive, Michael O’Leary, was famous for not caring about the brusque and sometimes rude way that his staff treated passengers. But then, famously, speaking at the Paris Air Forum in June 2016, he said:
“If I’d only known that being nice to customers was … so good for my business I would have done it years ago”.
To give credit where credit is due, the staff are indeed very charming, by and large. Nevertheless, much more still needs to be done if consumers are to be treated with the degree of dignity and consideration that they are entitled to expect when buying any product or service.
People understandably choose budget airlines because the fares are low, but they also do so because those airlines frequently serve destinations that few other carriers are willing to fly to at all or at scale. In many places, that gives them what is, in effect, a near-monopoly position. Where that occurs, robust consumer protection becomes all the more important. We may not be able to insist upon better standards in France, but we can and should insist upon them here in the United Kingdom.
It is worth saying—this partly follows the noble Lord, Lord Holmes—that, if you are not tech savvy, do not have a printer available to you or do not know how to use online ticketing, you will be fined. Does the Bill address the issue as one of equality and reasonable adjustments for ability, disability and age? Will this be considered in the new consumer rights that the Bill espouses?
Most passenger rights originate, of course, from European legislation, and this Bill seeks to update it. As my noble friend the Minister said, the Bill is needed, and its three primary objectives are to promote economic growth and infrastructure development, strengthen consumer rights and protections, and enable improved aviation safety. The Bill modernises the regulatory framework for aviation and ensures that it can keep pace with technological change and the evolving consumer landscape, ensuring that the sector remains resilient to disruption and aligned with international standards. It introduces a delegated enabling power for the Secretary of State to amend existing passenger rights regulations and introduce new regulations where necessary. It addresses airspace modernisation, about which I knew absolutely nothing—although, since the contribution of my noble friend Lady Andrews, I feel I know a little more than I did before this debate.
The Bill delegates responsibility for certain aviation safety and operational rule-making to the CAA, enabling highly technical rules to be developed and updated more efficiently and creating a more responsible and agile regulatory framework. It restores powers lost after EU exit to amend and create aviation safety-related criminal offences in assimilated law. In other words, it is an important Bill in all those areas. I welcome it and look forward to being involved in its passage through your Lordships’ House.
Lord Kirkhope of Harrogate (Con)
My Lords, I declare several interests in aviation, the first of which is as quite a long-term private pilot—but not, I am afraid, one now flying in the 21st-century glass cockpits referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Antrobus; I have to rely on 20th-century cockpits for my flying. I am the honorary vice-president of the British Airline Pilots Association, and I involve myself with the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Aviation. I am also a former director of Newcastle International Airport. My interest in aviation goes back a long way and is still very current.
In general, I welcome the Bill. It presents a considerable opportunity to modernise our aviation legislative frame- work and could help to position the United Kingdom as one of the world’s leading aviation markets, particularly in the light of the recently published aviation competitiveness index, which ranks the UK, disappointingly, only sixth out of the eight aviation markets it assessed.
I say so with one substantial qualification, which I imagine the Minister anticipates. Almost in its entirety, this Bill is an enabling measure; it creates no new passenger rights and reforms no single rule; it confers powers on the Secretary of State and the authorities to do those things later by regulation. In relation to other legislation, I have raised my concerns that so much is left for later decisions, often implemented without the full scrutiny that they might deserve at the time. It therefore remains to be seen how Ministers will utilise the new powers contained in this Bill to enable meaningful reform and improve aviation regulation for the benefit of consumers and airlines alike, because that is surely what we all desire.
To take the consumer provisions first, the inherited framework referred to before, Regulation UK 261, was drafted for a different era, and it now imposes liabilities on carriers well beyond anything its authors intended, covering passenger rights when flights are delayed and cancelled and when there is a denial of boarding. This regulation followed our leaving the EU so, although in general it follows the same matters as the similar EU regulation, it is enforced by our authorities, so we have the possibility of both EU and UK regimes applying to flights between the UK and Europe. In the Government’s discussions with their European counterparts, we could certainly benefit by trying to ensure some alignment at least in this international marketplace. The European Union, which wrote the original form of the regulation, has itself concluded that the thresholds no longer work, and its Council agreed last summer to lengthen the qualifying delay to four hours on short-haul flights and six hours on long-haul flights. The power in Clause 1 is an opportunity to bring clarity, not least to the vexed question of what amounts to so-called extraordinary circumstance, which sustains a small industry of litigation and serves passengers and airlines alike very poorly.
On the enforcement powers in Clause 2, I urge greater caution, for, by the authority’s own survey, passenger satisfaction stands at its highest recorded level. Powers of direct penalty should be reserved for genuine and systemic harm and exercised with proper process, and I shall be grateful to know what safeguards the Government intend to avoid misunderstandings and unnecessary rigidity.
I come now to the part of the Bill closest to my own concerns as a pilot, on airspace. Ours is the most congested in the world. NATS handles a quarter of Europe’s traffic and barely a 10th of its airspace, yet the basic design has scarcely altered since the 1950s, when the country saw some 200,000 flights a year, against more than 2.5 million now. In 2019, I was asked by the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Aviation to undertake an inquiry into lower airspace, particularly because of the pressures on general aviation, and we came up with a number of proposals for change. We concluded, inter alia, that the methodology in which airspace design changes occur was antiquated and in need of radical reform, and called for the scrapping of legislation governing lower airspace design. I wonder if this legislation is at last going to encompass our findings. Could the Minister perhaps confirm it?
Modernisation is now very overdue, and the powers in Clause 4 to see airspace change actually implemented are sensible and necessary, but the new design service, the so-called single guiding mind, was promised to be operational by the end of last year—and I must ask, where is it? An assurance on a revised timetable would be helpful. I ask too that the smaller users of our skies, the gliders and the light aircraft, previously referred to by several speakers, including my noble friend Lord Davies, are not again quietly squeezed out, for they have as good a claim to the air as any airliner.
If we are to grow the aviation industry, with developments such as the third runway at Heathrow and capacity growth at many regional airports, we shall need to deal with the shortage of pilots to fly our aircraft. I am not persuaded that that supply can safely be left to the market alone, and I would ask whether the Government or the CAA might take an informed interest in the health of that workforce and encourage more to train for this role. The smaller private training schools need encouragement, not impediment. Of course, at the heart of this legislation will be full and ongoing consultation with professional pilots and their representative organisations to ensure that we adequately respond to the needs of the industry with a more flexible and dynamic system of training and recruitment.
Finally, I want to make a couple of points relating to NATS. First, may I press the Minister to clarify the proposals on charging for air traffic and navigation services? Those responsible to pay for those services, according to the Bill, is to change from
“owners and operators of aircraft”
to, simply, “persons”. General aviation is not, wisely, affected too much by the present arrangements, which apply largely to the airlines, and I would argue that the burden of such charges should remain as at present. Is this change more, perhaps, because of technological developments such as drone delivery systems? The Minister is nodding his head. Perhaps he could confirm that in his wind-up.
We need to protect general aviation for the future, but my second question relates to liability. When the air traffic control system failed in the summer of 2023, some 2,000 flights were cancelled and over 700,000 passengers disrupted, at a cost that the regulator has put at up to £100 million. The airlines met that bill in its totality. NATS, which we know is a profitable company that was at the very heart of the failures, paid absolutely nothing. The most that could be done was to embark on the clear complications of fining it, but with much lesser redress available. When a carrier causes the delay, it has to pay— without argument, it has to pay. When the monopoly air navigation provider causes it—guess what—the carrier pays again. That surely cannot be right, and I hope that the Minister will say whether this Bill, with all its new powers, might finally correct that imbalance.
I welcome this Bill, and I shall engage constructively as it proceeds, but I return to where I began. This Bill could do a great deal of good. It could also, I am afraid, give great disappointment. I think we all want the former outcome, not the latter, so the Government must be held closely to account.
Baroness Gill (Lab)
My Lords, imagine the scene: it is 1 am on a freezing Tuesday. A young mother is sitting on the airport floor trying to comfort a crying toddler. Her flight was cancelled four hours ago. The terminal departure boards are completely blank; the airline staff have packed up their desks and vanished; and the automated customer phone lines are dead. For that family and for thousands of travellers, especially those with disabilities, every single week the miracle of modern flight collapses into a nightmare of absolute haplessness.
We are not talking about rare or isolated mishaps. Independent adjudicators handle over 43,000 formal passenger complaints in a single year. Millions of pounds have to be legally forced out of airlines after they initially reject legitimate customer claims. Shockingly, the Civil Aviation Authority’s own research reveals that, when major flight disruptions strike, only one in 10 passengers feels fully informed of their actual legal rights. That is the grim reality of the British airport floor today, which is why this Bill is not just necessary; it is an urgent economic and moral imperative.
This legislation delivers three undeniable victories for ordinary travellers. First, there is accountability: repeat corporate offenders can no longer break consumer law with impunity. Then there is transparency: passengers will receive honest, real-time, frequent communication during a crisis. Finally, there is oversight: the heavy burden of proof shifts away from individual consumer and on to proactive regulatory enforcement.
Having said that, aviation is one of the ultimate success stories of modern Britain. Our airports handle more than 300 million passengers’ journeys annually. For the vast majority of us, though, air travel is not a luxury but an absolute necessity in modern life. For me, this industry is not just a sector on a spreadsheet; it is deeply personal. My late mother worked for over a quarter of a century for our national flag carrier. Her hard work and the stable, secure employment provided by that airline allowed her to support me through my university years. I saw at first hand how a job in aviation could transform a family’s horizons. In fact, many within her wider circle of friends and our family were able to completely transform their lives thanks to sustainable work in the airline sector around Heathrow. Because of that upbringing, I carry a deep, lifelong degree of loyalty to the industry. Over my career, I have more than repaid that debt.
Years ago, my work commitments meant that I was practically living out of a suitcase. I was working for a North American IT company, tasked with the overwhelming responsibility of working with teams scattered across three-quarters of the globe. This was the dark ages, before the everyday convenience of Zoom, Teams and video conferencing. In those days, virtual collaboration was not an option. If you needed to align a team across continents, you did not just click on a link—you bought a ticket. My friends used to taunt me and say that I was practically living on a plane. I must confess that the lifestyle completely shattered any potential green credentials I could ever hope to claim.
Because I have spent a massive portion of my working life in the air, prioritising our national carriers to repay the generational debt I mentioned, I know the rhythm of our airports like the back of my hand. I have flown through Heathrow, Birmingham, Gatwick and Manchester at every conceivable hour and have seen absolutely the best of this industry. I have watched airline crews and ground staff display heroic professionalism under immense professional and operational pressures.
But, like everyone else, I have also experienced the worst. I know what it feels like to stand in a queue that stretches out of the terminal doors, just like the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, watching a hard-fought and important meeting with the opportunities it would bring, or a family milestone, just vanish with the clouds. I have sat stranded on tarmac for three hours with zero explanation. I have received an automated, emotionless text message cancelling a flight just as I reached the airport. I have spent successive evenings playing digital hide-and-seek with airline chatbots, trying to navigate intentionally difficult complaints systems just to submit a complaint.
My travel history has taught me one undeniable truth: the British public are remarkably resilient and reasonable. Passengers understand that aircraft develop technical faults. They know that safety must always come first. They accept that adverse weather and air traffic restrictions can shatter a schedule. What they do not accept—and what this Parliament must no longer tolerate—is being treated like an inconvenience or worse. They do not accept radio silence, a total lack of accountability or being forced to fight like a corporate lawyer just to claim basic rights that already belong to them. That is why I staunchly support this civil aviation Bill.
Concurrently, we must listen closely to the warnings from the aviation sector. Like many noble Lords, I received a Second Reading briefing from Airlines UK, which made a number of serious claims that this House must evaluate. It points to consumer surveys and argues that passenger satisfaction is at an all-time high. It claims that existing complaints procedures and alternative dispute resolution pathways are already providing substantial avenues for redress. It tells us frankly that there is “no strong case” for additional consumer measures and warns us that broad, turnover-based fining powers will create “regulatory uncertainty”.
With respect, I invite the authors of that briefing to leave the boardroom and stand on a terminal floor, because the data tells a completely different story. How can satisfaction be absolute when, as I said earlier, independent adjudicators are inundated with more than 43,000 formal passenger complaints in a single year? How can the current system be deemed “substantial” when millions of pounds have to be legally dragged out of airlines after they initially reject legitimate customer complaints? Airlines UK argues that the current framework imposes disproportionate liabilities on airlines, but what about the disproportionate burden placed on a lone disabled passenger left stranded without a room, a flight or an explanation? I have been there, like many noble Lords.
On the industry’s fear of new fining powers, I say that there is no uncertainty if you comply with the law. If you communicate honestly, refund promptly and treat the British public with dignity, you will never have to face the sting of these new enforcement powers.
However, let us be fair. The industry note is not entirely without merit. In fact, there are areas where the Government should actively align with our airlines, because consumer protection and industry competitiveness are not mutually exclusive. First, I support the industry’s call to use this Bill to fix the legal definitions surrounding flight disruptions. The current application of what constitutes an “extraordinary circumstance” is a mess of uncertainty. It fuels endless litigation that helps neither the carrier nor the traveller. Therefore, I support the Government using the delegated powers in this Bill to establish a clear, non-exhaustive and modern definition.
Secondly, I support Airlines UK on the urgent matter of airspace modernisation and airport slot reform. Our airlines are completely right to call the current system outdated. Modernising our skies, the invisible motorways of the air, is vital for network resilience, reducing delays and cutting emissions. The temporary powers that allow us to govern these frameworks are set to expire on 23 June. We cannot afford to let our regulatory framework lapse into legal limbo. I echo the industry’s urge to the Minister: we need a clear, revised timetable for the UK airspace delivery service. The Government must ensure full delivery of this programme no later than 2035. If the Government want airlines to deliver for passengers, they must deliver the infrastructure to let them fly efficiently.
While I champion these new powers, I ask the Minister for clarity on how they will be deployed. The industry is rightly concerned about broad powers being used recklessly. How will the Government ensure that these enforcement tools are used proportionately, focusing strictly on systemic market failures rather than penalising airlines for genuine, unavoidable operational disruptions?
Legislation is meaningless if it lives only in the statute book; its value must be felt by the passenger standing at the baggage carousel. No Act of Parliament can banish bad weather and no politician can legislate away a mechanical failure on a jet, but we can and must ensure that, when chaos hits, our citizens are treated with dignity, informed with honesty and supported with speed.
At its core, this Bill is about restoring the soul of British aviation. The success of the Bill will not be judged by the speeches we give or the guidance notes we print tomorrow; it will be judged by the travelling public. It will be judged by whether the silence at the gate is replaced by clear communication, whether the agonising delays in payouts disappear and whether basic respect is permanently restored to the passenger experience. If we achieve this, we will not just regulate an industry; we will secure the trust of the nation, restore the dignity of British travellers and ensure that the sky belongs to people who depend on it and not just the corporations that operate within it. I commend the legislation to the House.
Lord Empey (UUP)
My Lords, like many Members, I declare an interest as a member of the General Aviation APPG and as an honorary vice-president of the Union of Pilots, Engineers & Cabin Crew.
I want to talk about slots, but before getting to that point, I will say that much of the Bill gives additional powers to the CAA. Can the Minister tell us what the capacity of the CAA is to deal with the extra powers that are being directed towards it? Is that part of the reason for the long delay between the passage of the legislation and its introduction in practice? It seems to me that a huge extra burden has been placed and, if rules are to be made as well as enforced, new skills will be required by the CAA to carry out that activity.
Much has been said about consumer protection, and many of the causes of the problems at airports are actually caused not by the airlines but by the people who operate the airport services—whether that is luggage or other services that are provided. There is always a gap. It seems to me that, when we get to Committee, we will have to probe to see exactly how that can be looked at to ensure that the best possible service is provided.
One issue that is not in the Bill but concerns the welfare of passengers and people who work in the airlines is cabin air quality. It has been largely glossed over for many years but, if it is not monitored properly, it can affect and have a direct impact on not only the people who work on aircraft and in aircraft but the people who use them.
I listened very carefully to what the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, said. She is not in her place right now. We all have concerns about the environment. It is not confined to one particular party. We all have concerns. She argued that we should take only two flights a year. That is going to put people like me in some difficulty, I have to say. We have to be realistic. Exporting the pollution to another part of the world at our own expense does not improve the environment or climate in general.
The noble Lord, Lord Kirkhope, mentioned NATS: something that has largely been passed by. I ask the Minister: is he satisfied that there is sufficient resilience? In 2014, 2023 and 2025 there were significant failures, and the last one was pretty catastrophic. If you are going to redesign with the help of technology, and perhaps AI, how the motorways in the sky are controlled and monitored, there is a capacity issue there to be resolved.
Obviously, the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, raised the issue of people with mobility issues and other issues. The person who took my seat in the Northern Ireland Assembly—a war veteran who was severely injured in Afghanistan and is a wheelchair user—was left literally on the tarmac, having the indignity of watching his baggage being offloaded from the plane, which moved off the apron and took off while he was still on the tarmac, because the people who were responsible for bringing the equipment to get him on the plane did not show up. So, there are cases that we cannot ignore—but that is just one, and I am just saying that it is something we have to bear in mind.
I would like to bring slots to the Minister’s attention. Some years ago, I twice brought a Bill to this House, and it was passed twice in this House—the Airports (Amendment) Bill. It passed through this House and went down to the other place. As former Members of the other place will know, there was a particular Member down there who specialised in ensuring that a Private Member’s Bill ended up in a not very good place.
At that particular time, the Minister answering was the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon, who is not in his place. What I was trying to achieve was to ensure that regional airports had access to appropriate slots at Heathrow. Of course, it was primarily a European function, and that is what his line was, because the Government of course did not accept the Bill. The fact is it has nothing to do with PSOs and providing subsidies. If you are a regional airport, the reality is that, in this country, access to a main hub airport to get connectivity internationally is essential. For those of us who do not have access to trains and so on, it is even more important.
In circumstances where a slot owner—let us take the IAG as an example—is acquired by people from the Middle East, for instance, who may find greater value in international flights than in domestic flights, they might decide to move in that particular direction and reduce the number of regional flights. The regions would then be at a disadvantage. In those circumstances, is the Minister satisfied that the Bill will provide the necessary powers? Would the Government be prepared to use those powers to guarantee that regional airports will have sufficient access to Heathrow to ensure proper regional connectivity within the United Kingdom? I do not think that that is an unreasonable thing to do, and we will probe it in Committee to see how we can do it. That was the primary purpose of the Bills that I put through this House, which had very strong support, I have to say. I ask the Minister: is that something that we can do?
The noble Baroness, Lady Foster, said that slots are not a simple thing. I understand that; they are very complicated. They are very valuable assets, worth tens of millions of pounds. Therefore, you can imagine a future situation where an operator is not nationally minded and is simply looking the best profit that it can make, which is understandable. But the fact is that there are national, regional and consumer rights for the people of this country, and we have to ensure that there are proper circumstances where they can get access. It has a huge economic effect on the United Kingdom as a whole. We talk about the London area, with the principal airports, and that is understandable, but we do not all live in London; there are one or two of us left outside London. I just draw that to your Lordships’ attention. So, it is important that we have that access and I think that most political parties would have that as a fundamental policy in their manifestos.
We may probe that issue in Committee, but I ask the Minister to take that on board so that we can be satisfied that, if circumstances arise where an operator or an owner of the slots is going to reconfigure their schedules to the disadvantage of the regions, that can be corrected by government action. In the past, Ministers were saying that because of our membership of the EU we could not do this; the question is whether this legislation will permit that to happen. Obviously, that is one of the things we will probe.
I point out that this has nothing to do with subsidising routes. There is a PSO for one or two perfectly justifiable routes, but this is not what I am getting at. Most of these routes do not need subsidies; they are perfectly economically viable in their own right, provided, of course, that there is the appropriate access. It is not a Northern Ireland issue; it applies to Scotland, to the north of England, to other areas and of course to the PSO routes as well, and to Cornwall and Scotland.
Can the Minister in summing up address the issue of slots and satisfy us that the Bill in its current form will have sufficient powers? If not, we will look at amendments to bring the necessary certainty that this will be addressed.
Baroness Griffin of Princethorpe (Lab)
My Lords, I concur with the statements of the noble Baronesses, Lady Grey-Thompson and Lady Ramsey, and the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, re access. Does my noble friend the Minister agree with me that disabled air passengers and air passengers with conditions which restrict their mobility should be enabled to travel independently if they so wish? Currently, it is total assisted travel—having to arrive early at airports, not being able to use lounges to work—or absolutely nothing. I have personal experience of being left in what can only be described as holding pens in airports, once being given colouring pencils when I was on my way to Strasbourg to declare an EU-wide climate emergency. I wish, however, to thank OCS assistance staff in the UK, who are kind and resilient.
Disabled passengers deserve equality of dignity. Will the consumer protection powers in the Bill significantly apply to airports and the rights of disabled passengers when flying? Time and again, when coming from the European Parliament to Manchester Airport, I was met with broken-down lifts and escalators, with no advance warning, leaving me stranded. Can my noble friend say whether there is scope for secondary legislation relating to both airlines and airports?
This is not widely known, but I discovered it: most airline staff will not assist with placing hand luggage in overhead compartments on planes, resulting in disabled passengers having to check in even hand luggage in advance or depend on the kindness of strangers. This is stressful and unequal. What measures are there to ensure better protections for air passenger rights, including those of vulnerable groups such as disabled passengers?
I also have a Michael O’Leary story—and this is true. The noble Baroness, Lady Foster, and I served on the transport committee in the European Parliament. Michael O’Leary asked for a meeting with the then chair, Brian Simpson. Brian, with his colleagues and his civil servants, asked Michael O’Leary and his staff if they would like a coffee, to which the response came back, “Yes”. Bearing in mind that this was over a decade ago, the chair of the EP transport committee then said, “That will be €3, please”.
What are the powers to amend or create air passenger rights regulations? Will the needs of deaf, blind and visually impaired passengers who wish to travel independently be met? What provision is there for disabled passengers to escalate complaints when needed? Too many disabled passengers are left on planes—the BBC’s Frank Gardner is a case in point, as noble Baronesses have already said. People disembark to find their electric wheelchairs damaged; how will the Bill improve this? Will it give powers to issue direct penalties when an airline or an airport breaches its legal obligations to disabled and less mobile passengers?
The most recent Civil Aviation Authority consumer survey illustrates that, while passenger satisfaction has improved overall, disabled passengers, people who struggle with digital services, and those under financial pressure report lower levels of satisfaction. The most common reasons for dissatisfaction include overcrowding and problems with accessibility. Assistance is required by passengers with pan-impairments, including visible, non-visible, physical and non-physical challenges, neurodivergence and health conditions.
The CAA has taken court action in only one case relating to air passenger rights. That took nearly four years to reach a final judgment, leaving passengers out of pocket and without recourse throughout that period. Can my noble friend the Minister say how this Bill, which I warmly welcome, will improve this?
Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)
My Lords, I have been a Back-Bencher for two years, and in that period I have rather assumed that I bored enough people during the previous 14 years, so I have not been making too many speeches. I have a Select Committee and I do my duty there, and most important of all, I vote as my Whip instructs me. However, it was put to me when this Bill came up that, given my background, I had better participate, so the real reason I am speaking now is, frankly, just to say that I am going to participate.
I will give just a little information on my background. I spent 22 years in civil aviation. I spent about eight years as a pilot—not a captain, I am afraid, but a mere co-pilot; status matters in that industry. I spent 16 years as a manager, and very early on in my career I spent three years as a pilot shop steward. Since I spent the rest of my career in one management role or another, it was fascinating to listen to managers talking about strikes, and to recognise that they did not have the faintest idea how trade unions work and the emotions involved in making decisions. But enough of that. That was a fun career.
I have read the Bill and the notes from cover to cover, and frankly, I think it is a pretty good Bill. Generally speaking, I will be supporting it, and perhaps in places defending it. I received a briefing from my old trade union, BALPA, and three points stood out which I intend to explore. Unfortunately, however, the noble Lord, Lord Barber, got the same briefing, so I do not have a lot of original things to say. I will also make a point or two about some of the issues the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, raised in the debate on the King’s Speech.
Flying is relatively straightforward. I am not talking about the disastrous sort of dangerous flying that the noble Baroness, Lady Antrobus—I think it was her; I am not good with names—does. I admire her doing it and am deeply jealous, but, in civil aviation, the flying of the aeroplane is pretty straightforward. This does not mean that it is not fun. Racing down a runway at 200 mph and gently pulling back the control column, persuading 320 tonnes of aeroplane to follow you into the air, has a rather special excitement about it that is matched only by getting the damn thing back on the ground eight hours later.
One thing that has not come up in this debate is that flying is dangerous. It is very dangerous, for a series of reasons. Perhaps the single most significant one is that you do not have little accidents in aviation. When they happen, they are very significant. We have not had any in the UK for several years, but, in the rest of the world, things have not been going well. Aeroplanes have been crashing.
It is important to understand why flying is dangerous. It is not about getting the aeroplane into the air or getting it back on to the ground in those final few feet; it is about all the other things that get in the way. One of the most important hazards is the weather. Way back, I was a private pilot. That is great fun but, if the weather is bad, the key skill of a private pilot is deciding not to fly. In civil aviation, you want to fly right up to the edge of what is possible. You want to fly when there are thunderstorms, when there is fog and when there are gale force winds. But there are other aircraft, and those aircraft have lots of people in them. You have to not fly into them.
Then there are technical problems. It is no good saying, “They’re all right now”. They are all right only because of the considerable efforts that regulators and airlines put into assuring that those technical problems do not become disastrous. There are also communications problems. London has been mentioned. One of the privileges of London is that it is an international centre, but this means that communications are not always that straightforward—and when they go wrong, they can go very wrong.
Lurking in the background is the terrain, especially when you cannot see it at night or when it is covered in fog, in snow and so on. That is the challenge. That is what makes airline operations important, and that is where the pilot comes in. The pilot is in the business of flying these wonderful, modern aeroplanes and coping with all these hazards, which, as we have seen in recent years, all crop up sooner or later.
As my noble friend Lord Barber said, in essence, the three areas that BALPA brought out were: pilot involvement in airspace design; the CAA rules; and the issue of pilot numbers. The first two—airspace design and the pilot rules—must involve pilots and other critical workers, but especially pilots because, without being there, it is almost impossible to appreciate not only each problem individually but how they crowd together. Accidents happen usually—almost exclusively, I would say—when two or three of the issues come together; then a lot of people die. So it is crucial that workers, particularly pilots, are involved in a consultative fashion in airspace design and in the whole issue of the rules so that the redesigned airspace and the rules are workable and acceptable.
BALPA also raised the issue of the pilot workforce, which has been pretty chaotic ever since the Second World War. Broadly speaking, in the early part of that period, the Royal Air Force produced pilots. For many years, the Royal Air Force was a pilot-rich environment. Of course, there are fewer and fewer pilots in the Royal Air Force now, but there are more and more technologies. We are talking about fighter aeroplanes and jet fighters, which carry a swarm of drones with them. Twenty years ago, they tried to carry a swarm of aeroplanes with them, but no longer. It is about single people, and fewer pilots are being produced. When BEA and BOAC had a monopoly, they saw that coming. It was their job to create pilots, and they did so. I was a product of that creation. It all happened in a place called Hamble, and then in larger places.
Then came the issue of who should pay. I was lucky in my university career. We had to pay a mere £1,000. In retrospect, that does not sound like a large amount of money but, if you apply inflation, it is around £27,000. More recently, though, individuals have had to pay. The real cost of achieving the qualification that will make a pilot employable by an airline is £115,000-plus, and there is no scheme of loans. Whatever you think of the student loan scheme, at least it is there and is automatically available. Frankly, if you wanted to become a pilot in recent decades, it was a good idea to be born to an affluent family. More recently, I have to commend my old employer, which has at long last gone back to training its own pilots.
I want to pick up the issue of secondary legislation. Concern has been expressed that there will not be enough parliamentary involvement once the Bill has been passed. I have seen the other side of that, I am afraid. For 14 years, I was Her Majesty’s loyal Opposition’s odd-job Front-Bench Peer. I used to pick up transport, defence, Treasury matters, and so on. You would batter away at Bills, and the one thing you went for was, “Let’s get some more affirmative orders. Let’s get the Government to come back and get involved in this piece of legislation”. Over and again, I was punished for that. I would end up in the Moses Room with three other Peers: the Government Minister, the Government Minister’s sidekick, and a Lib Dem. Is that really involvement by Parliament?
The problem with our secondary legislation processes is that, in the Commons, the Government always have a majority, but, in this House, there is a constitutional crisis when we vote down an affirmative resolution. It is much more important to get the involvement of the people who know what they are talking about—the trade unions, the owners, the operators, and so on—as well as, of course, customer representation, especially in the important area of disability.
I will be looking out, as this develops, to see that we use secondary legislation, affirmative secondary legislation in particular, only where it will add real value, because I have to tell noble Lords that, in my 14 years of experience—including 40 or 50 appearances in the Moses Room in a year when we were going through Brexit—secondary legislation adds no significant value. We must look for a much wider view of how to input things and have checks and balances.
I hope that we have a good time working through this Bill. I hope that we do not spend too much time on it, going late into the night. The Bill in general is sound. I hope that we fine-tune it, rather than ruin it with unnecessary amendments.
Baroness Bray of Coln (Con)
My Lords, there is much in this civil aviation Bill that is sensible and worthy of support across the House. As we have been hearing, aviation remains vital to the United Kingdom, island nation that we are. It supports trade, tourism, investment and employment in every region of our country, it connects families and businesses, and it helps sustain Britain’s position as an outward-looking and internationally connected nation, serving passengers across the world.
When those passengers purchase a ticket, they are entitled to fairness, transparency and proper treatment when things go wrong. Consumers should know clearly what they are paying for, should receive timely information when delays or cancellations occur, and should not face endless obstacles when seeking compensation or redress. In that respect, measures to strengthen consumer protections and to improve clarity, by making aviation regulations clearer and less fragmented for consumers and industry, are welcome, provided that such reforms remain subject to proper scrutiny and ongoing review when necessary.
I recognise and support the case for fairer competition within aviation markets and for ensuring that access to airport capacity is not unduly dominated by entrenched, long-standing interests. At some of our major airports, incumbent airlines can become excessively dominant over time, which may reduce competition and ultimately work against the interests of passengers through reduced choice and weaker competitive pressure. However, reforms designed to improve operational efficiency must proceed with proper regard for the communities affected by likely increased aviation activity. At its best, good governance is about balance: balancing economic progress with accountability, transparency and public confidence. It is on that basis that parts of this Bill deserve closer scrutiny.
Too often, modern legislation comes before this House as a broad framework, while substantial powers are left to future regulations, ministerial direction or regulatory interpretation. That matters in this case, where changes presented as technical or operational may have significant consequences for communities far beyond airport boundaries. Parliament should always exercise caution before delegating wide discretionary powers without sufficient safeguards or scrutiny.
To be clear, this is not formally an airport expansion Bill, but it does involve changes to airspace management, operational arrangements and regulatory powers. Sometimes communities have been told that proposed changes are just technical adjustments, only for them to discover over time that the cumulative effect is a substantial increase in aviation intensity which subsequently places them under new or busier flight paths, sometimes far beyond airport boundaries.
For many residents, especially in rural and semi-rural Britain, this can be a serious development. It may well lead to the introduction of aircraft noise over towns and villages hitherto totally unused to it, or an increase for others. There are quite likely to be more runways and expanding regional terminals, along with increased traffic on local roads and pressure on local infrastructure, countryside and green spaces, and the gradual erosion of the quiet character of areas where people have chosen to live and which are all that some people have ever known. Once lost, it is rarely recovered. What does that do for local property values, by the way?
I am not opposed to aviation or economic growth. Britain needs both. However, public confidence depends upon assurance that change will proceed fairly, openly and with proper regard for those affected. This House must not only support economic activity but ensure that decisions command legitimacy and democratic consent. The countryside is not simply spare land awaiting development. Communities likely to be affected are not obstacles to be managed through consultation exercises of questionable sincerity. Quality of life—including quiet, landscape and environmental stability—has genuine public value, even when such things are hard to quantify economically.
While I support many of the broad objectives of the Bill, I hope that Ministers will listen carefully in Committee to concerns regarding parliamentary scrutiny, community consultation, and the cumulative impact of aviation expansion and airspace change. I hope that we can ensure that significant regulatory changes remain subject to proper parliamentary oversight, that communities likely to be affected are properly consulted before decisions are settled, and that environmental and countryside protections remain meaningful safeguards rather than procedural formalities.
If the Bill proceeds in that balanced spirit, supporting consumers and economic activity while respecting communities and democratic accountability, it will be considerably stronger legislation. Ultimately, that is the balance that I hope this House will seek to achieve.
Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Lab)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to participate in this debate. I welcome the Bill and I welcome my noble friend the Minister on the Front Bench. This Bill focuses on supporting the aviation industry and provides much-needed related consumer rights and safeguards.
To come at it from a Northern Ireland perspective, the aviation industry makes a major contribution to the local economy, employment creation and business development there. Some businesses have grown up around Belfast City Airport. In my former constituency of South Down, when I was in the other place, Collins Aerospace, located in Kilkeel, manufactures aircraft seats and other components for the world aerospace industry. That company and its predecessors have done that for generations. Bradfor, based in Rostrevor, some 10 miles away, manufactures the covers for the seats and Thompson Aero Seating, in Lurgan, makes aircraft components for the global market. Air connectivity and the aerospace industry are vital to the economic development of Northern Ireland.
Like my friend the noble Lord, Lord Empey, and other noble Lords from Northern Ireland, I am a weekly user of return flights between Belfast and London. I gently say to the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, that if we were restricted to two flights per year, unfortunately we would not be here very often. On those weekly flights, I witness the challenges which face the aviation industry and its consumers, and like the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, I speak in this debate as a consumer. Such challenges include flight disruptions caused by weather patterns and climate change, late arriving aircrafts and mechanical difficulties at the airport—as I experienced on Sunday evening at Belfast City Airport. Other challenges include inadequate compensation enforcement and accessibility barriers for vulnerable passengers, including disabled persons, as has been referred to by many noble Lords this evening. To the amateur traveller, airlines can cancel flights at short notice without due consideration for the rights of passengers.
I respect the need for consumer and air safety, but consumer rights need to be recognised. The Bill is designed to address this by giving the Government and the Civil Aviation Authority expanded powers to update and enforce passenger rights. This is a welcome step forward. The Bill will promote economic growth and infrastructure, as air connectivity is key to economic growth.
This piece of legislation will enhance aviation safety and will also seek to modernise UK airspace. Around two years ago, I tabled Questions about air traffic control issues at Gatwick and Edinburgh Airports, which had a knock-on effect on flights to and business with Belfast and Northern Ireland. So many flights were cancelled, which caused immense inconvenience to passengers and businesses. At that stage, I met representatives of NATS, who wanted the Government to bring forward measures to improve and modernise UK airspace and largely welcomed the provisions within this piece of proposed legislation.
Like many noble Lords in the Chamber this evening, I have been contacted by NATS, Airlines UK and the British Airline Pilots Association regarding the legislation. It is worth noting that NATS has no concerns about Clauses 4, 5 and 6, or Schedule 2, as it believes that they are sensible changes which support the practical delivery of airspace modernisation and help ensure that the regulatory charging and appeals framework keeps pace with the way the UK airspace is evolving, such as the integration of new airspace users into UK skies. Clause 4 is seen as strengthening the framework for progressing and implementing airspace change proposals, which would help support the delivery of the airspace modernisation strategy and the work of the UK Airspace Design Service, which the Government have asked NATS to lead on.
NATS also believes that Clause 8 on Civil Aviation Authority rule-making could be usefully strengthened to include two additional safeguards: first, clearer consultation and impact assessment and implementation; and, secondly, a statutory rolling rule-making plan. Therefore, I ask my noble friend the Minister: what are the possibilities of government amendments to reflect these sensible safety requirements?
The British Airline Pilots Association is also supportive of the Bill’s objectives to modernise aviation regulation and enable airspace reform. It feels there are several provisions, particularly the delegation of rule-making powers and the delivery of airspace change, that require stronger safeguards around workforce engagement, transparency and strategic planning. In this regard, I ask my noble friend the Minister: what are the possibilities that the Government could accommodate such changes while ensuring that the best-quality safeguards are in place?
Airlines UK welcomes the legislation and the recognition from the Government that the aviation sector is vital to the UK economy, enabling trade, tourism, business and economic growth while supporting hundreds of thousands of jobs and underpinning critical national connectivity. It does not believe there is a strong case for additional consumer measures at this time and thinks any legislative updates should focus on improving outcomes by supporting a modern and innovative UK aviation market rather than by adding unnecessary regulatory burdens and costs. I have a certain disagreement with that, but I am sure my noble friend the Minister could provide further clarification. Therefore, what is the position of the Government and the Minister in this regard? Will the Government ensure that the protections for consumers in airspace modernisation in this piece of legislation are sustained?
I believe the provisions in the Bill are constructive and proportionate steps towards delivering a modernised and integrated airspace which is fit for the future. I believe that the environment of the cabins within the aircraft and the wider environment need to be respected, but in terms of the wider environment, we also have to achieve a balance which allows our economy to grow. I welcome the Bill. Undoubtedly, it could be improved in the area of the CAA rule-making framework. Undoubtedly, the aerospace industry makes a major contribution to transportation, connectivity, job creation, tourism and our local economy.
Baroness Grender (LD)
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill, for introducing the Bill. In this debate many Peers have been clear about the strength of our aviation sector. Indeed, it has been great to have insight from a flight operations officer, no less, in the noble Baroness, Lady Antrobus, and from pilots in the noble Lords, Lord Tunnicliffe and Lord Kirkhope. This Bill and in particular the air passenger rights are much needed and welcome, along with the modernisation of our airspace.
In many clauses this is, as the Minister described, paving legislation, a framework designed to be filled in later through secondary powers, CAA rules and ministerial directions whose details we are yet to see. Paving legislation, as we have heard from many other Peers, by its nature raises more questions than it answers. But I personally remain hopeful that we will get all those answers either in a few minutes or certainly in Committee, especially with the work of noble Peers such as the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe.
Particularly welcome was the Minister’s engagement with some of us beforehand, including my noble friend Lord Russell and the noble Lord, Lord Barber, last week. It gave me an opportunity to raise with the Minister the concerns of my noble friend Lady Brinton and others, which they will pursue in Committee, because of the lived experiences of disabled passengers. That remains a serious and unacceptable part of modern air travel. Our advance conversations went some way to providing reassurance, in particular that the Bill is not intended as a vehicle for airport expansion. We take that in good faith, but good faith is rarely the same as an absolute guarantee, so we welcome the reassurances already given from the Dispatch Box. It will come as no surprise to the Minister that we will be seeking more, and he will understand why. As a long-standing resident of Richmond, he will be only too well aware of the demands and needs, as set out by the noble Baroness, Lady Bray, of local communities who are under flight paths.
The Minister mentioned the airports national policy statement and said it would be the opportunity for MPs and Peers to scrutinise any changes, but he will also understand that we will seek to embed that within some kind of statutory status. He will be aware that scrutiny of a statement does not sound like a strong opportunity for scrutiny.
I ask the Minister directly whether he can confirm on the record, when he sums up, that the powers in the Bill, including those relating to slot allocation and airspace direction, will not be used in any way to facilitate expansion at Heathrow or Gatwick. If airport expansion is on the agenda, this House deserves, frankly, a very different piece of legislation—one with substantive provisions on the face of the Bill, full environmental impact requirements written into statutes and meaningful parliamentary scrutiny at every stage.
That points to a broader concern about the Bill’s reliance on secondary legislation. The Government are asking this House to endorse a framework before we have sight of the regulations that will give it substance. It is a bit like being asked to buy a house without seeing any of the rooms in it. It is a regular practice that the Conservative and Labour parties in this House do not vote down statutory instruments or support fatal Motions. But without the heft and suggestion of that, we will not achieve what we want to achieve, which is having the potential for detailed scrutiny within the Bill.
Sometimes I miss the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, on these occasions, because he will say, “Just vote for the fatal Motion, and then the civil servants will have to work the detail out”. It is a bit of a brutal instrument, but it is sometimes the only place we are left—and, of course, it is entirely academic because the Conservatives will never, or rarely, support a fatal Motion. That is the only way, if secondary legislation is the only direction.
On the face of the Bill, the consumer protection provisions, the new CAA rule-making powers, the reforms to slot allocation and the Secretary of State’s direction over airspace change all carry significant implications. Yet again, we will need more clarity on those.
On what I consider to be one of the most consequential provisions—that relating to slot allocation and airspace change—the Bill will allow the Secretary of State to make directions about the implementation of airspace changes. Slot and airspace decisions are not merely technical: they are levers over airport capacity. A reallocation of slots at a level 3 co-ordinated airport, combined with changes to airspace design and air traffic redistribution, can have the practical effect of facilitating expansion, even when the expansion has not been presented to Parliament or to communities as a discrete, clear policy choice. Communities living under flight paths, enduring the noise and breathing the emissions, deserve better than to find that outcome enabled quietly through delegated legislation. Any exercise of these powers that has the practical effect of facilitating increased capacity must be preceded by meaningful community consultation and a proper environmental impact assessment. My second question to the Minister is this: what environmental and noise tests will apply before the Secretary of State exercises directions under this Bill?
Like the noble Lord, Lord Harper, I am intrigued to learn what happened to the consultation, which was in 2023, I believe. I noticed that, in the notes we had when we met with the Minister, there was an assurance that no decisions on specific changes to the airport slots regime have been made yet. It says that industry views will be sought, including through formal consultation. It does not reference the consultation of communities on that. I wonder whether the Minister can elaborate on that, along with the very useful consultation of pilots as set out by the noble Lord, Lord Barber.
I turn to the part of the Bill that we hope is at its heart: consumer and passenger protection. The Bill will grant powers to the UK to diverge from retained EU law as it relates to the aviation industry. It is critical that, where this is done, it does not come at the expense of passengers. UK 261 gives passengers rights to compensation for delays and cancellations, but, as we have heard from noble Lords, it has been patchy. Last year, the CAA had to pursue enforcement action to recover over £1 million in refunds owed to passengers for just one budget airline. It should not require a regulator to chase each airline individually for compliance with basic rights.
The EU is currently reforming EU 261, as we know, including maintaining the right to compensation after a three-hour delay and banning fees for basic check-in and child seating. I would be intrigued to know whether the Government intend to keep pace with that. I do not want us to follow that if it is a low common denominator; let us pursue the highest common denominator, whether it is EU 261 or UK 261. We also believe that there is a compelling case for a passenger charter embedded in this legislation: a clear, accessible statement of a passenger-first approach, with statutory weight, not buried guidance. No one could have made a more eloquent case for something along those lines than the noble Baroness, Lady Gill, so I hope she will support it, but I suspect not, given the Bench she sits on. She gave a very eloquent argument about what I think should be a passenger charter.
On accessibility, the new regulatory framework must ensure the CAA has robust enforcement powers over accessibility rights, not just in guidance. My noble friend Lady Brinton shares similar experiences to those outlined by the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson; the mum of the noble Baroness, Lady Ramsey; the noble Lord, Lord Holmes; and the noble Baroness, Lady Griffin. The noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, has shared in the past with this House her appalling experience at the hands of WhizzGo, which insisted on the impossible task of her removing from her wheelchair and carrying two large batteries, bigger than bus batteries. She was evicted from a flight, stuck in Bucharest for seven hours, and then had to pay an additional £900 to get home. We will work with others to ensure that measures such as a wheelchair passport, which the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, is suggesting, are included in the Bill.
On Clause 8 and the new powers relating to CAA rules, we will want to understand the scope of those powers, when they can be exercised and what parliamentary procedures apply. We look forward to guidance from the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee’s report—we have not seen that as yet. The accumulation of wide delegated powers in the Bill deserves this House’s sustained and skilled scrutiny. It is no surprise that so many noble Peers raise this and rightly reference it as an issue, among those the noble Baronesses, Lady Dacres, Lady Foster and Lady Bray, and the noble Lords, Lord Kirkhope and Lord Tunnicliffe.
Finally, where high-quality rail alternatives exist or can be developed, they should be promoted, as described by my noble friend Lord Russell. Eurostar’s potential to connect more of Britain to more of Europe is one such opportunity, not as a substitute for all aviation but as part of an intelligent and integrated transport framework that the Bill should sit within. The climate emergency means we cannot ignore this issue, as the noble Lord, Lord Empey, made clear. I very gently refer the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, to recent research by Climate Outreach which suggested that her own party dramatically reduced its own references to the climate emergency in the local May elections. I am very happy to send the research on. The Liberal Democrats were much more explicit on that issue.
Baroness Grender (LD)
We will engage with the Bill at every stage, welcome its stated consumer protection goals, test its environmental safeguards, scrutinise its delegated powers and ensure that communities and passengers sit at the centre of whatever framework emerges. I look forward to the Minister’s response and a thorough Committee stage.
Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, it has been an excellent debate. Most of my points have been made; in the course of the afternoon, I have been tearing up and disposing of parts of the speech that was prepared for me, so I hope noble Lords will forgive me if what is left is a little disjointed.
I thank the officials who provided me with a briefing and the Minister for arranging that, and I thank noble Lords for their speeches. I learned a great deal, particularly about the experience of those with disabilities. From my own background, I have had to engage with those having experiences with disabilities on trains and on the railways in particular; to hear the stories today about those who have had problems in the air, and the sorts of problems they have had and the responses they have encountered, has been a very important experience for me. I can certainly say that we will consider sympathetically amendments brought forward to try to offer some sort of redress. I hope that some of those amendments could be brought forward by the Government, because I know that the Minister himself is not unsympathetic to that case. I would have thought that it would be helpful all round if the Government could take a lead. If they do not, I am sure that others in your Lordships’ House will do so.
Like other noble Lords, I want what this Bill does. For example, I want the “powers gap”, as it is known, to be filled. The retained EU law Act expires on 23 June and there is a whole range of areas for which we can no longer make regulations without primary legislation. This Bill addresses that in respect of civil aviation. In fact, I have been berating the Minister in various fora over the last couple of months, saying, “What are you doing about this powers gap arising on 23 June?” I will also take time out now to berate him about it because, while this is being dealt with in relation to aviation, his department still has no answer on the regulation of the marine sector, for example, and in other areas where we will be left completely bereft as a result of a perfectly foreseeable development—namely, the expiration on a known date, which happens to be this month, of an Act passed several years ago.
To go beyond that, not just the Department for Transport but other departments will be affected by the powers gap—but the Government have done nothing except in regard to aviation. We want to see that done: we want to see airspace modernised. My way of putting it is that we want to give a legal basis for passenger protection rights to substitute for their basis in EU law, which will no longer exist. That is what the Bill does: it creates a legal basis for those passenger rights. We want to see that done, but I do not think we really want to see it done this way. We do not want to see it done by the creation of a huge, baggy, all-powerful new regulatory body. We have had 25 years of creating regulators as the answer to everything, and it does not work. We have had 25 years of taking powers away from Ministers and Parliament and giving them to wholly unaccountable regulators, and here we are doing it again. The Civil Aviation Authority is, in essence, a safety regulator, an economic regulator and a regulator of airspace. It is a very focused body and it is very good, but we are now giving it a far broader range of powers.
I am going to read the bits that matter from the memorandum on the European Convention on Human Rights. We find that Clause 1 engages Articles 6 and 8, and Article 1 of the first protocol. Clauses 2 and 3 engage Articles 6 and 10. Clauses 4 to 6 engage Article 6 and Article 1 of the first protocol. Clause 7 engages Article 1 of the first protocol. Clause 8 engages Articles 6 and 7. Clause 9 engages Article 6.
Whole swathes of the Bill are open to challenge. Of course, civil servants believe that they can rebut those challenges in court, but it is no wonder that my noble friend Lord Redwood talked about the possibility of delay because, in effect, large parts of the Bill will be determined not in this Parliament but in a foreign court, as we discover whether these clauses will stand should they be challenged. As an illustration of how wide the powers that are being transferred are, I almost feel that parts of the Bill were written by the Civil Aviation Authority. I will come to some of them, but there is also the question of delegated powers.
Tomorrow or soon after tomorrow, thanks to the information offered by the noble Baroness, Lady Ramsey of Wall Heath, we will get the report of the Delegated Powers Committee. Huge swathes of power are being delegated to the Civil Aviation Authority and there are extensive Henry VIII clauses in the Bill. All this needs to be explored and the role of Parliament in it needs to be properly understood. At the moment, we are being emasculated in this. With the great swathes of powers being granted to the CAA, I see no provision in the Bill for parliamentary accountability or, indeed, for any accountability of the CAA to anybody, including to the Minister. How can that be an acceptable way of making law and regulation for the future?
I am going to disappoint the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, but, before I do, I want to say that his speech was one of the most interesting in the debate, because he brought alive for me, in a remarkable way, the experience of being a pilot—even if not a captain—and the things that can happen. I know that other noble Lords with that experience spoke, and I greatly enjoyed his speech and learned from it, but I am going to disappoint him. Of course, I agree with him that, in drafting and preparing regulations, you should consult people who know about things. You should consult pilots, airlines and so forth, and bring them together, but that can be done alongside proper parliamentary scrutiny. While the statutory instrument is an unsatisfactory method for doing so, it is the only one we have. To give up on it completely would be an abandonment of our duty.
I will run through some of the clauses. As I say, many of my points have been made, so I will try not to repeat them, but some things need to be raised. Clause 1(3) gives the Secretary of State the power to confer enforcement powers on the CAA, so why do we need Clause 2? Clause 2 is one of the bits that I think was written by the CAA. It puts into the Bill all the powers that the Secretary of State already has the power to confer, and these powers are extensive. What is going on there?
Then subsection (3)(e) of the new section inserted by paragraph 6 of Schedule 1 creates provisions for the Secretary of State to manage what is going on if two bodies are doing the same enforcement. I do not know which two bodies are meant; I suspect they are the Civil Aviation Authority and the Competition and Markets Authority, but they might be others. One of the principles of enforcement, which those of us with local government experience come across all the time, is that, for one crime, there should be one enforcement agency and one prosecutor. Only in that way do you get clarity and avoid somebody being punished twice for the same thing. We are actually building dual enforcement into the Bill and then giving the Secretary of State some power to manage it from the centre. The Bill should not be doing that; it should be clarifying whether the enforcement is by one or the other—not by both and certainly not by more than two.
Clause 4 is on airspace modernisation. Subsection (2) amends Section 2 of the Air Traffic Management and Unmanned Aircraft Act 2021 to extend the existing ministerial direction powers, so that the Secretary of State can compel implementation of approved airport changes. This is what we are calling the level of last resort. As a last resort, the Minister can step in and force things to happen. But there is nothing here—I echo the remarks made by the noble Baroness, Lady Grender, and my noble friend Lady Bray—about the consultation of the communities that will be affected by airspace modernisation. There will inevitably be winners and losers from that, but where are the communities in this? There is no answer to that, but the Secretary of State can exercise that lever without any regard to community consideration. Is that not too large a power for the Secretary of State to have?
Clause 8 on CAA rule-making is another example of a part of the Bill that I think must have been written by the Civil Aviation Authority. It is astonishingly extensive. First, I want to know what a “rule” is. We have rules in football. There is the offside rule. I know what a “law” is, but I do not know what a “rule” is. What is the force of a rule? Does it have the force of law? The CAA is going to make rules. It has no accountability in how it is going to make rules. There is no requirement in the Bill, particularly about consultation.
Then we have—this must be one of the most bizarre things that anyone has ever written into a Bill, which is one of the reasons I think the CAA wrote it—more in Clause 8 relating to CAA rules. In new Section 61F, we have the power for the Secretary of State to issue a document—note the careful avoidance of the word “guidance”—that
“sets out the Secretary of State’s priorities and objectives for the exercise of the CAA’s rule-making functions”.
I have no problem with that. That makes a great deal of sense. We then then go down to new subsection (6), which says:
“The Secretary of State … must consult the CAA in preparing or revising the document and”—
just listen to this—
“may not issue the document without the agreement of the CAA to the contents of the document”.
So we have an arrangement where the Secretary of State is allowed in effect to give guidance—of course, if you use the word “guidance” that has a legal meaning, but it is effectively guidance, I hope—to the CAA that the CAA can veto. Does anyone read these things before they print them? How can that possibly be justified?
Then we come to Clause 9 on offences. This is no criticism of noble Lords, but nobody in the course of this debate has mentioned the fact that the CAA is being given the power to create criminal offences—something that Parliament normally reserves to itself. The CAA can create criminal offences and you can get a fine. You can be taken to the magistrates’ court and you can get a fine. Again, what is the parliamentary scrutiny for that? What is the justification for leaving that in just that fashion?
We then have the Henry VIII powers. These are completely unnecessary, because the Government’s delegated powers memorandum, which they have written for the benefit of the Delegated Powers Committee, identifies every Act that this Bill interacts with and states that those amendments are already made in the Bill—so why should they need Henry VIII powers to amend further legislation? What is the further legislation, if they have already identified all the legislation with which the Bill interacts? Unnecessary Henry VIII powers have been loaded in that are simply not needed.
We support aviation. I agree with everything that has been said about its economic importance and its contribution to growth. I cannot none the less allow the Government to sit there and say that that is solely their objective when they themselves have done so much damage to aviation in the country. The SAF mandate, for example, is adding significantly to the costs of fuel, and that is feeding through to what passengers are having to pay. Then we have the astonishing, bone-crunching increases in business rates being imposed on airports. This Bill could be a chance for the Government to do something for the benefit of aviation and make good on their commitment to use aviation as a means for growth. It could be that, but it needs drastic change if is to do so credibly.
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
My Lords, I thank those who have engaged in today’s debate on the Bill. I have listened carefully and with much interest to the excellent points raised across your Lordships’ House. I will attempt to respond to as many questions and concerns as possible, and, where I am not able to, I will follow up in writing. As the noble Lord, Lord Moylan says, my contribution is likely to be a little disjointed, even though this Bill is constrained as to its effect. Like the noble Lord, I have learned much from many of the contributions today.
I should start with consumer protection, because virtually every noble Lord who spoke on that aspect was, I think, supportive of the intention of the Bill. A number of noble Lords including the noble Baronesses, Lady Grey-Thompson, Lady Ramsey of Wall Heath, Lady Dacres of Lewisham, Lady Thornton, Lady Gill and Lady Griffin of Princethorpe, and the noble Lord, Lord Holmes of Richmond, spoke passionately and with great strength of feeling about the inadequacy of some of the actuality that people have faced, particularly if they are disabled, whether they are physically disabled, neurodivergent or have sensory issues about air travel. The Government have brought this forward because we do not accept that that is inevitable. The noble Lord, Lord Holmes of Richmond, was kind enough to say that he knows that I have had previous encounters with this in the Bus Services Bill and the passenger railways services Bill.
In this circumstance, there is clear evidence that the Government need to take action and that the action we need to take is to enable the Civil Aviation Authority to deal with this subject much more easily in future than it has been able to in the past. The fact that it has managed only one prosecution, and that that has taken four years, is evidence that its existing powers are not sufficient. That is why we are bringing this forward.
We are particularly grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, for chairing the task and finish group. I will write to her with a current update on where those 16 conclusions have got to. We are determined to do something about this. Access to aviation should be for everybody, not just for people who are physically and mentally fit. I will not go through in greater detail the experiences of noble Lords who have spoken, other than to say that there ought to be real redress about all this in a way that there currently is not.
I noted particularly that the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, referred to inclusion by design. I will take that away and think about the extent to which the Bill covers this circumstance. We need to make progress on this, because it is unacceptable. The stories of the individuals concerned that we have heard about today and from people who are able to make a noise about their experiences mean that we should make a change. The noble Baroness, Lady Griffin of Princethorpe, asked whether this will apply to airports as well as airlines. The answer is that it will apply to both.
There was a question about divergence from former EU protections. We have heard different views today about whether we should be precisely aligned with the EU. Our position enables us to take a view about the extent to which we align with the EU, not foolishly diverging from things that are obviously useful but using the freedoms that we now have to do so.
On airspace modernisation, the noble Lord, Lord Harper, asked whether any direction would affect existing rights to be consulted. Indeed, the noble Baroness, Lady Grender, also raised that question. The answer is that anything in this Bill will not affect existing rights to be consulted. That must be right, otherwise the existing procedures would have no effect on airspace modernisation.
This is not of itself a measure for expansion; the expansion of capacity in most of the country is limited by runway capacity. The Bill is designed to support the entire aviation sector, helping it to grow and remain competitive for decades to come. Some measures in the Bill will support airport expansion across the UK, such as enabling further reforms to airport slot allocation and supporting airspace modernisation to meet future needs. These are not particular to expansion at Heathrow; they are also needed for the broader objectives raised during this approach. Slot co-ordination cannot increase capacity at an airport, but it can help manage that capacity more effectively. The noble Baroness, Lady Grender, and the noble Earl, Lord Russell, will know—because we discussed it prior to this Second Reading debate—that one of the effects of better airspace modernisation and better utilisation of slots is to reduce delays and pollution by better using airspace, rather than having aircraft circling around.
The noble Lord, Lord Kirkhope, raised a question about the single guiding mind. The set-up is now complete, and it is starting work. The noble Lord, Lord Empey, raised the capacity of NATS. We believe that it does have capacity. Notably, the noble Baroness, Lady Foster of Oxton, was very complimentary about the Civil Aviation Authority and NATS. We agree with her; they do a terrific job. It is important that we recognise the CAA as a competent body to do this work.
The noble Lords, Lord Barber of Ainsdale, Lord Tunnicliffe and Lord Kirkhope, raised the question of the engagement of pilots. In that we agree: the people who pilot planes should be consulted about airspace modernisation.
The noble Baroness, Lady Antrobus, raised the whole question of drone use for freight, blood, police and the military. This is, of course, one of the main reasons for looking at airspace modernisation and the charging mechanism. These are new uses of airspace; airspace modernisation needs to allow for these uses, and the people who are using the drones need to be appropriately charged.
On the question of wider slot reform, the noble Baroness, Lady Foster of Oxton, said that we should tread carefully, and I think we will. The noble Lord, Lord Redwood, said—I am paraphrasing—that nothing will happen for ages. We do have to be careful with some of these measures, and we should do them properly, but not everything will be delayed for ever. Indeed, many people regard the question of airspace modernisation as urgent, and we do too.
Going back to consumer protection, I hope we regard that as urgent too; it has been a scandal for far too long. So, not everything in this Bill will take years to do. On airspace modernisation slots, the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, gave us a very careful exposition of safety in the operation of aircraft. We should be very careful to make sure that what we and government bodies do in this space is always safe and properly considered.
The noble Lord, Lord Empey, raised the question of access to slots at Heathrow for regional flights, about which I know a little through some of my prior work. It is not our intention to interfere with airlines’ commercial decisions, but this Bill will give powers to allow the allocation of slots to be relevant to the evolving context of airlines.
On the questions about delegation to the civil aviation safety rules, we acknowledge that we need to be careful with this, and that is why the Secretary of State is retaining powers to direct. However, we also need to be aware that the environment in which we are making aviation safety rules is highly technical and fast-moving. I too was interested to listen to the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, with his experience of business in the Moses Room. We are struggling to keep pace with evolving international standards, and that is why we propose to fix this by placing technical rule-making with the CAA. We will of course listen very carefully indeed to the Delegated Powers Committee when we get its report. I have no doubt at all, bearing in mind the length of time the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, spent on it, that we will have a great deal of discussion about the virtues of doing this. However, we must remember that, in whatever we do here, we have to give this industry the ability to keep pace with international standards so that it can continue, as many noble Lords have remarked, to make its contribution to economic growth. I go back to the previous remarks about the competence of the CAA. It is a good regulator, and it will of course have to be staffed to carry out the functions the Bill seeks to give it.
There were some other questions related to delegation to the CAA. As I say, I have no doubt that we will fully discuss that in Committee.
Noble Lords raised a number of other questions. The noble Lord, Lord Harper, asked whether the CAA has powers to implement all the options for Heathrow expansion. Our current position is that the CAA has not identified any new powers needed to implement the options that have been put forward.
The noble Lord, Lord Davies of Gower, asked about general aviation. This Government support general aviation. They see the connection, particularly with training pilots and so forth, and will continue to maintain their interest in general aviation. They note the importance of general aviation in airspace modernisation and will continue to consult it.
The noble Lords, Lord Barber of Ainsdale, Lord Tunnicliffe and Lord Kirkhope, asked about the future supply of pilots. The Government are mindful of future requirements of the industry. I am sure that we can discuss that in Committee as well. We recognise that to have a healthy industry we need to develop new generations of pilots. More will be said about that, no doubt.
The noble Lord, Lord Empey, asked about cabin air quality. This was last looked at in 2022, when a review of current evidence concluded there was no significant cause to think that it caused ill effects.
I come to the contribution from the noble Baroness, Lady Grender. First, I welcome her to the Front Bench of the Liberal Democrats. She has made a number of very strong points which we will obviously have to answer in Committee. I think I have dealt with the question about whether this is some surrogate vehicle for airport expansion already, but no doubt we will discuss it further. She expressed concerns about delegated powers, which of course we will discuss, and her points about Eurostar were well made. Separately, this Government are very committed to increasing international travel by rail because, of course, if it can be done, it is an environmentally friendly alternative to air travel.
I think that I could better answer many of the points from the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, in Committee because he will make them again, no doubt. I could answer the questions, for example, about Clause 1 and setting out in Clause 2 the details of the powers that are needed. Perhaps I should just answer that question. We have heard so much about the rights of people who use air travel that I do not think it is a bad thing to point out in the Bill what we are trying to deal with regarding the obligations of airports and airlines to provide adequate service to all sorts of customers, including those who are disabled. I cannot quite see how we can conclude that is such a difficult thing to contemplate.
I will not keep your Lordships any longer. It has been highly encouraging to see such passion and interest on the topic of aviation, and I have noted the broad consensus on the important role that aviation can and does play in supporting our country and the broad consensus on having a Bill of this sort and on dealing with the subjects in it. Strengthening consumer rights and protections, promoting economic growth and infrastructure provision, and enabling improved safety standards will ensure that the UK retains its appeal as a competitive aviation hub.
It has been a privilege to present this Bill to your Lordships’ House for the Second Reading. Once again, I thank all noble Lords who have participated in today’s debate. I welcome the support of the many noble Lords who have spoken in favour of the Bill’s measure, and I look forward to the detailed discussions we will have in Committee.
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill
That the bill be committed to a Grand Committee, and that it be an instruction to the Grand Committee that they consider the bill in the following order: Clauses 1 and 2, Schedule 1, Clauses 3 to 5, Schedule 2, Clauses 6 to 13, Title.
Civil Aviation (Consumer Protection and Regulatory Reform) Bill [HL]
Tuesday 16th June 2026
(1 month, 2 weeks ago)
Grand CommitteeRead Full debate Civil Aviation (Consumer Protection and Regulatory Reform) Bill [HL] 2026-27 Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 1-I(a) Amendments for Grand Committee (Supplementary to the Marshalled List) - (15 Jun 2026)
Lord Moylan
“Purpose(1) The purpose of this Act is to—(a) promote the international competitiveness of the United Kingdom aviation sector;(b) support economic growth in that sector;(c) protect the rights and interests of consumers of air transport and airport services.(2) The Secretary of State must, in taking any actions under the provisions of this Act, have regard to this purpose.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment inserts a purpose clause into the Bill requiring the Secretary of State and the CAA to have regard to the promotion of the international competitiveness of the United Kingdom aviation sector and economic growth in that sector.
Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, this Bill represents and achieves an astonishing transfer of power away from Parliament and away from the scrutiny that your Lordships and Members of the other place have customarily brought to regulation and legislation pertaining to the field of civil aviation. Some of this is a necessary transfer of power to the Minister since we have left the European Union. One bears in mind that much of the regulation in the field of consumer protection was made by the European Union, but that is no longer the case and any changes that we might want to make to it now need to be made by a different mechanism. This Bill provides that mechanism, but it does so in a way that is not adequately scrutinised by Parliament. The Bill does other things, one of which is that it makes a massive and unprecedented transfer of power to the Civil Aviation Authority. We will discuss that in a later group and we will want to probe it, because it will be wholly outside the remit of parliamentary scrutiny.
Those are the key constitutional and legal issues, it seems to me, at the heart of the Bill and we must probe them forcefully, even though I completely understand that other noble Lords will bring forward particular measures that they feel would improve the operation of civil aviation. Those are, for the purposes of this Bill, secondary, because the intention is that this Bill does not make those decisions; it is to provide a framework to allow them to be made by other routes. The crucial thing is ensuring that those other routes are under proper parliamentary control.
My Amendment 1 would insert a purpose clause. I know that Governments do not particularly like purpose clauses; they do not want to disclose to the rest of the world and to Parliament what they are actually trying to achieve with a piece of legislation. None the less, I put one in to probe the Government on what they are trying to achieve with this. The Government’s own impact assessment says that the Bill is designed to
“unlock the benefits of airport expansion … help the UK aviation sector to grow … reinforcing the UK’s global leadership in aviation”.
If that is in fact their purpose, I do not see that they can object to a clause that says as much in the Bill, which is the effect of my Amendment 1.
The amendment would insert a purpose clause stating that the Act should
“promote the international competitiveness of the United Kingdom aviation sector … support economic growth”
and
“protect the rights and interests of consumers”.
They are not in conflict with each other, and they should not be treated as if they are. A strong aviation sector needs passengers to have confidence in their rights, but it also needs airlines, airports and investors to have confidence that regulation will be proportionate, predictable and pro-growth. Amendment 23 is intended to make sure that, when the Secretary of State makes regulations under Clause 1, the impact on growth is considered at the start, rather than as an afterthought.
In other words, Amendment 1 would apply to the whole Bill, and Amendment 23 seeks to apply the same effect to Clause 1, which relates in particular to consumer rights. It is obviously vital that consumers are properly protected, but they should be protected in a way that supports demand for aviation, encourages investment and allows aviation businesses to grow. The Government have repeatedly said that economic growth is their number one priority. I fully realise that, depending on the day of the week, there will be a different number one priority. But, at various times, growth has occupied that slot, so the Government should be prepared to apply that test to the regulations made under the Bill. The amendment is simply asking the Minister to take seriously the economic consequences of the powers that they are seeking.
Amendment 24 concerns alignment with EU law and international standards. I was appalled when I read the large final-stage impact assessment document. By page three it is already talking about aligning with European Union legislation. We know that the European Union at the moment is in the midst, or maybe approaching the end, of a contested argument about changes to consumer protection rights. We can take it, with some degree of certainty, that there will be changes to aviation consumer protection rights in the European Union as a result of those discussions.
Already, the department is thinking not what is best for Britain, what is best for the growth of the aviation sector, nor what is best for passengers. It is simply thinking the way it has thought for 47 years: what are we going to do to align with the European Union? To prevent that from being the lodestar of how regulation develops in the future, Amendment 24 would put in certain trip-wires in any case where the intention is to align with European Union regulations. I object to the assumption that the United Kingdom’s ambition should be merely to mirror what the European Union does next.
Amendment 25 concerns the Government’s own target to reduce the administrative cost of regulation on businesses by 25% by the end of this Parliament. That is a noble ambition, to which I can give every level of support. It is an ambition where it is difficult to see, even though the Government have now been in power for about two years, that progress has been made in those first two years. The Public Accounts Committee has warned that the Treasury and the Department for Business and Trade do not have a robust plan to deliver the 25% reduction in administrative burdens. It has also said that the Treasury does not even know if the Government are on track.
In light of that, it is important that in any Bill that is to do with business, there is a requirement that the Government meet their own target on the reduction of the effects of regulatory burdens. Of course, it is open to the Minister to say that that is no longer the Government’s target, and that would be an interesting policy development. But if it is the Government’s target, it is about time that they started meeting it. This amendment is aimed directly at that.
These amendments are not about weakening passenger rights. They are about making sure that passenger rights sit within a regulatory framework that strengthens the aviation sector rather than holding it back. I beg to move.
Lord Davies of Gower (Con)
My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 113. It has been on a bit of a circuitous tour of groupings, but I am pleased to say that it is back in group 1. I declare my membership of the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association. I am vice-president, and I apologise for not mentioning that at Second Reading.
My Amendment 113 is very clear. It seeks to require the Secretary of State and the Civil Aviation Authority, when exercising functions under this Act, to
“have regard to the need to promote and encourage general aviation”.
To achieve this, the Secretary of State and the Civil Aviation Authority
“must consult such persons representing general aviation as they consider appropriate”.
Given the importance of the general aviation community within the UK aviation sector, one would have thought that it would have at least merited an appearance in the Bill, but no. There is not even the tiniest of mentions.
The Minister will recall that, at Second Reading, my noble friend Lord Kirkhope and I spoke passionately about the relevance of general aviation. I even asked questions of the Minister, to which his response was:
“The noble Lord, Lord Davies of Gower, asked about general aviation. This Government support general aviation. They see the connection, particularly with training pilots and so forth, and will continue to maintain their interest in general aviation. They note the importance of general aviation in airspace modernisation and will continue to consult it”.—[Official Report, 2/6/26; col. 827.]
I was very grateful for that short response. However, I am not persuaded as to how this will be achieved. Indeed, it takes two to tango, and I am not currently convinced that, for general aviation, what is on offer at present sufficiently demonstrates that the DfT and the CAA are willing dancing partners.
There is also a belief—I have heard it said—that this is not an appropriate Bill in which to raise the issues of general aviation. I disagree vehemently with that notion. The Bill is clear in its intention: it is a Bill
“to make provision about airspace change, air traffic and air navigation services”,
which are parts that GA is very interested in, and
“to confer power on the Civil Aviation Authority to make rules”
and
“to make provision about aviation offences”,
which GA is extremely interested in and subject to the effect of. These, I suggest, are extremely relevant to general aviation, and we need a recognised voice.
As a vital part of the aviation community, general aviation plays a hugely significant role. I pointed out at Second Reading that, at the last count, it contributes £4 billion to the UK’s economy and supports some 40,000 jobs. Yet it is treated as a peripheral, regarded as nothing more than hobby flying. The current Government, unlike the previous one, do nothing to recognise the value of the sector, having disposed of the general aviation unit within the DfT—an issue I asked for confirmation about at Second Reading, but I did not get a response. Martin Robinson, the chief executive of the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, put it well when he said that general aviation
“should be recognised as a strategic national asset and … should be reflected in the Secretary of State’s priorities for the CAA”,
but there is not a mention of it in the Bill.
General aviation underpins much of UK aviation. It is where most pilots begin their careers and is the first step on the ladder to becoming a commercial pilot or an aero engineer. General aviation supports business aviation, the emergency services, aerial surveying, engineering skills and a whole lot more. Yet, as I have said, there is no mention of it in the Bill. Again, I am reminded of Martin Robinson’s words:
“The challenge is not hostility so much as a persistent institutional mindset that prioritises airline operations, major airports, and commercial air transport”,
leaving general aviation struggling to be heard. Although I am afraid that the worm is making a very strategic turn, to be ignored in a Bill of such importance is foolhardy and contradicts any aim of making the UK the best place in the world for general aviation as a flourishing, wealth-generating and job-producing sector of the economy.
My amendment is well intentioned. If we are to create an environment which enhances safety and encourages compliance then, without the voice of general aviation being heard at the top table, we are likely to endure overly complex regulation, which will create unnecessary barriers, particularly for smaller organisations with limited resources. I urge the Government to accept my amendment, and I commend it to the Committee.
Lord Berkeley (Lab)
My Lords, I start with an apology. I could not be here for Second Reading because I was gale-bound on the Isles of Scilly due to the failure of the air services. Therefore, it seems an appropriate time to look at the whole subject of general aviation, as the noble Lord, Lord Davies, said, to see what can be done. I have been lobbying hard for improved navigation and improved services to the Isles of Scilly, where I live most of the time, for about 10 years; I shall come to that in later amendments. It is 10 years since we left Europe with Brexit and cancelled our membership of EGNOS, which I shall come to later.
It is important that general aviation is included in the Bill, and I support much of what the noble Lords, Lord Davies and Lord Moylan, have said. I am not sure about the European Union amendment, but we will come on to that later. It is worth reminding ourselves that the long title of this Bill says that it is to:
“Make provision for the protection of purchasers and users of air transport and airport services”,
and it then mentions
“air traffic and air navigation services”,
all of which are part of general aviation, just as much as they are part of the rest of the aviation world. It is right to have something at the start of the Bill which demonstrates that this is an important subject which needs full consideration.
Much of what is in the Bill is really good, but, as the noble Lord, Lord Davies, said, all the issues relating to general aviation need discussing, such as training, access to small airfields—on the islands or different parts of the country—and how things compare with what has been going on in Europe. I support the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Davies, and certainly part of the amendments from the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, and look forward to discussing these issues more in subsequent amendments.
Lord Harper (Con)
My Lords, I declare my interest, as set out in the register, as non-executive chair of RVL Aviation. I strongly support the purpose clause which my noble friend Lord Moylan has set out because I think most of the discussion on the other amendments will look at passengers by talking about airlines and concentrating on the experience of passengers. I draw attention to the fact that his Amendment 1 also talks about the international competitiveness of the sector, economic growth and the rights of those who purchase air transport services. My understanding of his amendment and of Clause 1 is that the definition of air transport services is not just passengers but those people who purchase freight and cargo services. I see the Minister is nodding assent.
That is important because it is critical to the growth of the economy. Air freight accounts for over 40% of non-EU trade by value, even though it is only about 1% of freight by volume. That is incredibly important to the overall economy, especially for some sectors, such as pharmaceuticals and high-end manufacturing, where we are particularly competitive, and it contributes to our balance of payments. An amendment that means that Ministers, when making regulations, have to ensure that our international trade remains competitive would be extremely valuable.
That is important, because the conversation about rights and the regulatory burden on airlines is often had while not thinking about the cost of those regulations. It does not mean that you do not make regulations if they have a cost; it just means that when you think about regulating, you have to think about the cost, look at the benefit and balance those two things. You also have to look at them cumulatively. My noble friend Lord Moylan touched on that when he talked about the Government’s target to reduce the cost of administrative burdens by 25% over this Parliament.
It is worth putting on the record—this is why the competitiveness of the sector is important—that overall, in 2024, European airlines had a net profit margin of around 3.9%. They are also expected, once all the results are in, to have had a net profit margin of around 4.4% in 2025, with a profit per passenger of around $8 or $9. I accept that that varies hugely by carrier, but it means that we have to think carefully about the costs that we load on to the industry so that we ensure that it remains competitive for both freight and passengers.
Lord Moylan (Con)
Does my noble friend agree that, as the European Union has said, for European airlines the cost of regulation to date is approximately €8 per ticket?
Lord Harper (Con)
I note that point; it is important when you look at the margins. It is clear that relatively small changes to the regulatory burden will have a direct impact. Businesses with relatively low margins have a relatively low ability to absorb those extra costs, which means that they flow through on to ticket prices and fall on passengers and those who use freight services. The briefing from Airlines UK, which I suspect all Members have received, makes the point that the cost remains the single biggest barrier to flying, which is why it is important that we keep the cost burden as low as we can. Pricing people out of flying is not, ultimately, very sensible.
Let me touch briefly on the other amendments tabled by my noble friend Lord Moylan. Amendment 23 is specifically about the desirability of promoting economic growth. The Minister was nodding but it would be helpful if, when he responds, he sets out that that encompasses not just passenger transport but freight providers. A significant amount of freight goes in the belly of passenger planes, of course, so those two services are absolutely interconnected. It would be helpful if the Minister could confirm that.
On Amendment 24, I strongly agree with my noble friend. This seems a very unobjectionable amendment to me. In effect, it would ensure that Ministers have to be transparent. It would not mean that they could not align our regulations with those in the European Union, but it would mean that they have to think about why they are doing it first. It would also mean them having to set out their rationale for us all to see and having to be transparent about the costs and benefits of doing so. There may be good reasons why we may wish for our rules to be aligned with those in the EU, in which case Ministers should have no problem with setting out the rationale for doing so and why they have decided to make the changes that they have, so that we can all see them.
I agree with my noble friend Lord Moylan that what we do not want is an automatic, knee-jerk approach where, as soon as the European Union changes its rules, we assume that we have to change ours as well, even if we are not clear about the benefits and costs of doing so. This is a transparency measure, basically, and I cannot think of a good reason why the Minister could not accept it—or why, if he does not think that it is drafted well enough, he could not come back on Report with a similar amendment of his own.
My final point concerns the Government’s target to reduce the administrative costs of regulations. I am not sure what exactly they are using as the definition of “administrative costs” but of course—I am not going to rehearse this argument now—this Government have already increased the costs for businesses significantly through the Employment Rights Act. Their own impact assessment said that that Act had a cost to businesses of around £5 billion. It means that, if they are going to reduce the administrative costs for businesses by 25% over this Parliament—I assume that that is a net reduction—if they increase costs in one area, they will have to reduce costs by more than 25% in other areas in order to hit the overall cost reduction target of 25%.
Again, this is a transparency measure that insists that the Government have to track how they are doing against that target and whether they are on track. If we are two years through a five-year Parliament, we should be able to look at the 25% target; that is roughly 5% a year and, if the Government have not already reduced costs and are not on track to reduce them by 10% by this point, they clearly do not have a hope of doing so by the end of the Parliament. This is a welcome piece of transparency, which is why I support it.
Finally, I think that my noble friend Lord Davies is right explicitly to flag the importance of general aviation, not just to the very significant number of people who use general aviation services, both purchasing services and flying themselves—it is also a very important sector in generating pilots and those who are skilled in aviation services, which then goes into the wider sector. An explicit recognition of the importance of general aviation, reminding people of its importance, is very welcome, and his amendment has served us all by putting that on the record.
Viscount Goschen (Con)
My Lords, I start with a couple of declarations of interest. I am a current pilot of light aircraft. I also own and operate an aircraft and am a member of the Light Aircraft Association, and I have worked and continue to work extensively in the civil aerospace, defence and related fields, supporting those industries. Many decades ago, I was a Minister for Aviation. There are no new issues, perhaps, apart from the effects of withdrawal from the European Union 10 years ago. I sympathise and empathise with the Minister, and I shall of course be very supportive.
At this point, I would just like to make two points, or perhaps three. First, I apologise to the Committee for my absence at Second Reading. However, as I was not a Member of the House of Lords at the time, perhaps the Committee will excuse me and allow me to speak.
I make what is perhaps a rather generic point at the outset. We are considering important affairs with this Bill. The UK has a strong reputation for regulation in the aviation sector, with the reputation of the Civil Aviation Authority being very high in the UK and internationally. Of course, aviation is an international activity and I think that we need to tread extremely carefully when it comes to regulation in this field. Yes, when I was in government there was a transfer of competence, in the technical sense of that term, to the Commission and of course, since that position has been reversed, there has been a transfer of competence, again in the technical sense of the term, back. But we have tremendous skill in aviation regulation in this country and we need to be extraordinarily cautious when looking at such issues as design of aerospace and others. The law of unintended consequences is at play.
On a specific point, relating to my noble friend Lord Davies of Gower’s amendment, there is a curious grouping of general aviation with the overall purpose of the Bill. Notwithstanding that, we have a strong GA sector in this country, despite the costs of operating in the UK and despite the weather that we deal with here. General aviation is important; it is not always the highest-profile issue to government and regulators, but it is important. It is important on its own merits and important as a feeder of pilots, skills and engineers into the broader sector. If we lose or damage that, it will be very difficult indeed to recover.
The noble Lord, Lord Davies, has done the Committee a service by emphasising the importance of general aviation. It is very wide: from training, police helicopter operations, offshore operations and the plight of small airfields, it is a broad subject. But it is important and we must not just view aviation in this country as airline-related, which is incredibly important. It is much broader than that, and I look forward to the deliberations of the Committee as we progress through the Bill.
Lord Kirkhope of Harrogate (Con)
My Lords, this is Committee and I do not wish to talk about amendments that will come later, but I want to support my noble friend Lord Davies as another pilot and the honorary vice-president of BALPA.
I raised general aviation with him at Second Reading and I am waiting for answers from the Minister. There will be a specific amendment a little later in today’s proceedings, and I hope my colleagues who have spoken so far on general aviation will be here later to join me when we get to it. In the meantime, I fully support Amendment 113 and look forward to the Minister’s response to my noble friend.
Lord Grayling (Con)
My Lords, I support the amendments from my noble friends Lord Moylan and Lord Davies of Gower. This is not a failing market. This is a highly competitive environment, where both domestic and international competition are working aggressively to make it a challenge to run an airline or a freight airline in today’s world.
The need for extensive government regulation, therefore, is limited and questionable. We are not trying to solve a massive problem. There are, of course, specific issues. We will hear more, for example, about disability rights, where, yes, of course we should make sure that airport operators in particular deliver the right environment for disabled people. But first and foremost, we must ensure that the Government do not interfere in this marketplace in a way that damages the competitiveness of one of the UK’s most important economic sectors. That is why my noble friend Lord Moylan is absolutely right. As we go through this debate—not simply on these amendments but on the Bill as a whole—the Minister needs constantly to have in mind the need not to cramp the style of our sector by overregulation, and, where he is regulating, to explain why, otherwise he will not have the support of this Committee.
Finally, on general aviation, the comments made so far are absolutely right. There is a genuine issue around the future of general aviation—the loss of smaller airports, for example, to planning pressures and planning opportunities, and those who own them trying to make money out of them. General aviation needs to be looked after in this country because at a time when, as we hear, there is a growing shortage of young up- and-coming pilots, general aviation is an essential way of developing the skills that we need for the future. It is not simply a way for a few rich people to have a good time.
Baroness Grender (LD)
My Lords, Amendment 1 and Amendments 23, 24 and 25 are in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Moylan. As we noted previously, the Bill sets out the framework but leaves a great deal of detail to be determined later, so we welcome these amendments. We have consistently argued that such an approach risks leaving both passengers and Parliament with too little certainty about how the regime will operate in practice. We see these amendments as useful in probing how that framework might be strengthened.
Amendment 1 raises an important issue around transparency and consumer protection: the case for clearer comparable information at the point of sale. In our view, it should be pursued and I look forward to discussing my noble friend Lord Russell’s amendment, which aims to strengthen the Bill in this area, in the next group.
Equally, how compensation is delivered remains a live and important concern. The current system too often places the burden on passengers to navigate complex processes to secure redress. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Harper—I am sure we will keep coming back to this issue of a low-margin industry—that a different way of viewing this is that if £1 million is not returned to a whole group of consumers by a low-budget airline over a long period, it is, in effect, using families who cannot afford it, or can ill afford it, almost as an overdraft facility with no interest. Getting the balance right on that will be important as we investigate some of the amendments and get into the detail.
On Amendments 23, 24 and 25, we find ourselves in close alignment with the noble Lord, Lord Moylan. As the Bill proposes to confer significant new functions on the Civil Aviation Authority, it is right to consider how those powers are to be exercised and scrutinised. A more centralised regulatory role must not come at the expense of transparency, or indeed parliamentary oversight. The noble Lord and I have discussed this issue, which is that unless there is a threat, with teeth, to move a fatal Motion on a piece of secondary legislation, there is a tendency for Governments to plough on regardless—also regardless of previous colours, I would just say. If we are concerned about secondary legislation—and we are concerned about this—there needs to be clarity about what we would do with it. I hope we can get into some of the detail on that.
On Amendment 24, later we propose two amendments that explore a high common denominator between UK 261 and EU 261, and we look at shadowing EU 261. I entirely hear what the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, says about there being no ownership of who has the best, so we want to pursue, on behalf of industry and customers in the UK, what is the best. That may be EU 261, as revised when it cuts, or it may not.
Overall, these amendments highlight two issues. We consider fundamental the need to embed meaningful consumer protections and the need to ensure proper accountability in the exercise of new regulatory powers as the Government move to address the post-EU powers gap. It is essential that this Committee is not asked to accept a blank cheque approach. I therefore look forward to hearing the Minister’s response as we all warm to this theme throughout the rest of today.
Baroness Foster of Oxton (Con)
My Lords, I will stay on group 1, on growth and competitiveness. I will just add a brief word endorsing the comments of my colleagues on this side of the Room: whatever decisions we come to on detailed changes to legislation in this Committee, we need to remember that we are part of international law. We comply with the Montreal and Chicago conventions, and we comply with all the rules covered by IATA and ICAO, so whatever we do cannot be done in isolation—whichever area we debate and come to conclusions on over the next couple of days. I just say to my noble friends and the Minister that this has to be at the back of our minds when we determine anything that we do. What we should not do is come to conclusions whereby we end up putting through regulations that are wholly anti-competitive for the UK airline industry and not compatible either to third-country carriers who come to the UK, as we do not have, in most cases, any extra territoriality rights to impose certain rules or regulations. I just say that as a thought, and I am sure we will have very interesting debates on the amendments laid down.
The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill) (Lab)
My Lords, I am grateful to have the opportunity to discuss growth in the aviation sector and I thank the noble Lords, Lord Moylan and Lord Davies of Gower, for their amendments.
This Government’s primary mission is to deliver the highest sustained growth in the G7. Aviation has a vital role to play in achieving that ambition as a key enabler of international trade, investment and job creation across the United Kingdom. As the noble Lord, Lord Harper, said, that includes freight traffic as well as passenger traffic. Aviation is a dynamic, primarily private sector industry. Our regulatory framework must strike the right balance, supporting the sector to grow and innovate, while ensuring strong protections for consumers.
In addition to this Bill, we are taking forward a wide range of work to deliver this. We are modernising our airspace to improve efficiency and to ensure that it can meet the demands of the future. We are embedding a pro-growth approach across our regulatory system. Through the future of flight programme, we are creating the right conditions for innovation, unlocking the economic benefits of new technologies such as drones. Alongside that, airport expansion is an enabler of growth, subject of course to the relevant planning processes. As I set out at Second Reading, this Bill is separate from those processes. This approach will support a thriving aviation sector, strengthen our economy and deliver for passengers.
I turn now to the specifics of the amendments in this group, beginning with the amendment seeking a purpose clause. While I support the intention to drive growth, I do not consider this amendment necessary. Economic growth, investment and competitiveness, which we confirm will be delivered in relation to both passengers and freight traffic, are core to how we approach reforms in this sector. The Secretary of State already takes these matters into account as part of wider government policy and decision-making. She communicates such priorities, including the vital importance of economic growth, to the CAA annually. In practice, this amendment would place a statutory duty on the Secretary of State to have regard to these specified objectives when exercising the powers in the Act. While that might appear helpful, it risks narrowing the focus to a defined list of considerations.
These objectives, though important, cannot be exhaustive. Notably, they do not include safety, which is a fundamental objective of both the aviation sector and this Bill. Setting out only a limited set of considerations would prevent flexibility to balance a broader range of factors as circumstances require. I also note that the noble Lord’s explanatory statement suggests that this duty would extend to the Civil Aviation Authority. That authority is already subject to the statutory growth duty, which requires it to have regard to economic growth in a proportionate way. Ultimately, we believe that it is right that decisions taken under the Bill remain flexible, proportionate and responsive to the evidence, rather than being constrained by specific duties set out in primary legislation. I hope that the noble Lord will withdraw his amendment.
I turn next to the amendment on the promotion of economic growth under Clause 1. Any regulations laid under this power would be subject to growth assessments. These are a central part of policy development and ensure that full consideration is given to growth throughout policy development. Officials will also undertake an options and impact assessment, which requires careful consideration of the impact on business, as well as the impact on trade and investment, the ease of doing business in the UK and further economic growth. As this amendment would duplicate existing government obligations and processes, I cannot support putting it in primary legislation.
I turn to the amendment on alignment with international legislation and air passenger rights. The policy process for developing secondary legislation already includes a full assessment of the potential impacts on business, passengers and government, as well as justification for why government intervention is required. Supporting documentation for secondary legislation would set out the reasons for regulations being made. We will come to other amendments on this subject later, as the noble Baroness, Lady Grender, referred to. This amendment would duplicate existing processes and thus I hope that the noble Lord will not press it.
Finally, I turn to the amendment on regulatory burdens on business. I emphasise that the Government are already committed, across the whole of government, to reducing the cost of regulation to business. That is being taken forward in a co-ordinated and systematic way, including through regular reporting on changes to the administrative burden of regulation, which is collated and published across government. Indeed, as the published impact assessment makes clear, the overall effect of the Bill’s measures on an industry with the margins noted by the noble Lords, Lord Moylan and Lord Harper, is expected to reduce costs to business over time, particularly through improvements to the safety rule-making framework, which will provide greater clarity, consistency and efficiency.
Lord Harper (Con)
I want to press the Minister on my noble friend Lord Moylan’s Amendment 25. I completely understand why the Minister has taken the view that he has about not wanting it in the Bill. I do not expect him to be able to set this out today, but would he be able, perhaps when we come back for the second day of debate on Thursday, to set out for the Committee how the department is doing on its bit of hitting the Government’s target of reducing the administrative burdens on business by 25%? It would be helpful to know how the department is doing. I am sure that it is being tracked, because to hit that target there would have to be some metrics, and it would be helpful if the Minister could provide those to the Committee on Thursday.
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
I will certainly see what information I have, and whatever I have I will tell him about on Thursday.
Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, I note that the Minister quotes the Delegated Powers Committee favourably. I hope, therefore, that he will be willing to accept, when we come to it, my later amendment, which gives effect to the recommendation of the Delegated Powers Committee that certain powers in the Bill be constrained. We will debate that, as I say, at a later stage.
I am grateful to noble Lords who have spoken on these amendments. I say a particular word of thanks to my noble friends Lord Davies of Gower and Lord Goschen for their contributions on the general aviation sector, which, as they say, is not always remembered with the prominence due to it. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Grender, for the support that she found able to give to my amendments in general and to raising a case that we will pursue. I thought that the Minister might have been able to agree with my amendments in the same way, but he was not. He found somewhat footling reasons for saying that they were unnecessary. That only makes it more likely, I am afraid, that we will return to them on Report.
I am persuaded that when the Minister says that he is committed to a competitive and successful aviation sector, he is right. But he is not the only voice in Whitehall. That is why these amendments are so important. I do not imagine that the Minister was consulted when the Chancellor of the Exchequer decided to impose bone-crunching increases in business rates on the aviation sector that he wants to see remaining internationally competitive. I do not know the extent to which the Minister is consulted when DEZNZ—I hate that expression —is pushing for ever-increasing drop-off charges at airports. This is something that we will discuss again in considering further amendments, which clearly imposes a cost on flying for ordinary families, and is intended to do so, and which can only damage the aviation sector and make it less competitive. I was disappointed by what the Minister had to say. None the less, at this stage I beg leave to withdraw my amendment, although I expect to return to the matters on Report.
Baroness Grey-Thompson
Baroness Grey-Thompson (CB)
My Lords, I declare my interest as I was chair of the Aviation Accessibility Task and Finish Group, which published a report last year. I thank the officials at the Department for Transport for their support. The vast majority of the recommendations from that report are now amendments to the Bill. As of today, I have been appointed a board member of Active Travel England, and I also chair the Accessible Transport Policy Commission. We had a useful meeting this morning which looked in a UK context at disabled people’s experience of travelling. I understand that aviation is more complicated than that. The sheer difficulty that disabled people have in using any form of transport came out clearly in the meeting. I make reference to the Transport Select Committee’s report, Access Denied: Rights Versus Reality.
We have probably a once-in-a-generation chance to make a difference to how disabled people are able to access this industry. Since Second Reading, I have had a much-increased number of emails from disabled people who have had truly dreadful experiences of flying, and some of those will be picked up in the next group.
I have two amendments in this group, Amendments 2 and 16, which are in my name and that of the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton. They simply ask that we change “may make provision” to “must make provision”. “May” is too vague in this context, so we have a chance to make a change. The Minister will know from other debates that we have had around disability access, such as the debates around taxis, that it is hard enough when we are trying to enact accessibility legislation that was passed 30 years ago, let alone what we are trying to do now. There have been a lot of promises about what disabled people might have the opportunity to rely on. Unless we have a much bigger commitment to “must make provision”, it feels like we will be kicking the can down the road, as we have done with the rail industry and all the derogations around it.
I am more than happy to discuss a tighter range of regulations that the Secretary of State may make or to work across your Lordships’ Chamber. I am simply looking for assurance that there will be a genuine shift in how disabled people will experience air travel. Both this group and the next have a number of important amendments that both seek to strengthen the Bill and to provide more clarity for disabled people. For them, currently and so far, the experience is far too ad hoc. I beg to move.
Lord Young of Cookham (Con)
My Lords, Amendment 109 in my name aims to remedy a manifest injustice whereby the airlines have to pay for customer compensation when the fault lies not with them but with NATS. I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Kirkhope, who trailed this amendment in his Second Reading speech, but, in the time available, the Minister was not able to address it.
The problem manifested itself on 28 August 2023, when the air traffic system, managed by NATS, failed. An independent review was set up and its report gives the scale of the debacle:
“From CAA estimates, over 700,000 passengers were affected by cancellations and delays ascribed to the incident, including approximately 300,000 impacted by flight cancellations, approximately 95,000 by long delays (over three hours) and at least a further 300,000 by shorter delays”.
It went on to say that
“the incident on 28 August had substantial negative impacts on a large number of passengers, not only on the day of the outage but for several days afterwards, as it took until the following weekend for all the re-routed journeys to be completed”.
The review estimated the costs involved:
“Based on the information provided by the airlines most affected by the incident, the Panel has estimated that the costs to airlines were approximately £65m. In addition, substantial costs were incurred by passengers, airports, tour operators, insurers, and others. The Panel was unable to accurately quantify these costs. It is likely that the total cost was in the region of £75m to £100m”.
Finally, it said about passengers:
“Many passengers incurred costs which they could not recover, for example, the loss of pre-paid holidays, lost income from work to which passengers were not able to return, and other consequential losses. The total costs of this large group would be very difficult to calculate but is likely to have been many millions of pounds”.
However, when one reads the NATS annual report for that year, it puts a slightly different spin on the incident:
“A technical flight handling system issue in August necessitated a considerable reduction in flight capacity for a short period in order to ensure the skies remained safe”.
Noble Lords would expect that the guilty party, NATS, rather than the innocent parties, principally the airlines, would have to bear the costs—not a bit of it. The only cost to NATS was £1.8 million. In the words of the review, that was a
“relatively modest penalty associated with not meeting some of its performance … targets”.
Lord Grayling (Con)
Will my noble friend allow me to help him a little? He may have heard of a company called Network Rail, which, if my memory serves me correctly, must pay compensation to train operators if it goes through the kinds of failing that he has identified. Were he to know anybody who used to chair Network Rail, he might have an interesting point to make.
Lord Young of Cookham (Con)
My noble friend is a mind-reader; I was going to refer to Network Rail in about 40 seconds. As I said, as far as NERL’s ownership is concerned, it is different, but that should not preclude it having to pay up for claims.
The review then produced another pretext, which, again, does not stand up to scrutiny. This is what it said:
“Such a liability would probably lead to a substantial increase in the annual costs of the ATC”—
air traffic control—
“service, which could in turn lead to increased costs to airlines and passengers”.
What happens at the moment? The compensation liability rests with the airlines and, as such, it has already caused increased costs to passengers. If the airlines did not have the liability their costs would go down, but if NATS then passed back all the increased costs we would be back where we started. Crucially, that assumes that the regulator, the CAA, would allow the costs to be passed on by NATS to customers, instead of taking it out of profits. If, as happens with the water companies, costs were not passed on to consumers but funded out of profits then costs to the airlines and passengers would actually go down, not up—the opposite of what the review suggested.
I come to my noble friend’s intervention. The Minister will understand and, I hope, sympathise with the case I am making because of his previous responsibility for Network Rail. If, as my noble friend said, a passenger is delayed, the train operator pays the compensation. If Network Rail was responsible for the delay, it then reimburses the train operator. That is as it should be, and it is exactly what should happen in air transport. A failure in traffic control is paid for by the traffic controller. My amendment is supported by IATA, which actually wants to go further. It would like the amendment to be extended to airports and other parties that provide air services that can cause disruption yet are not liable for passenger compensation. Airlines currently pay all passenger compensation regardless of who is at fault—for example, the power failure at Heathrow last year.
To sum up and use management jargon, we need shared accountability across the value chain. I hope the Minister can respond positively to the case I have made and put right this manifest injustice.
Earl Russell (LD)
My Lords, I will speak to my Amendment 9, which seeks to strengthen the consumer protection provisions at the heart of the Bill. This amendment would insert two paragraphs into Clause 1. We believe that both are desirable and necessary if this legislation is to deliver meaningful change for the travelling public. The first would add the requirement for
“standardised, comparable information at the point of sale”.
Anyone who has purchased an airline ticket recently will be familiar with the booking experience. I will not go through all the painful detail but suffice to say that, by the time you come to the payment page, the fee you are charged bears little resemblance to the one that first encouraged you to make the booking.
That is not an accident; it is intentional. It is a business model that has moved, frankly, from the sublime to the ridiculous. For example, at the moment, the CMA is investigating Ryanair’s mandatory charge of £8 each way for the privilege of sitting with your own children. It is a business model that harms consumers, distorts competition and corrodes trust in the aviation sector. Airlines that compete fairly on total price are undercut by those which strip out every possible cost, just to put them back in. We do not tolerate these practices in other markets—imagine for one moment that the same situation was in place when you were doing your online grocery shopping. It means that consumers cannot make rational or informed choices. Again, that is the intention. Families on modest budgets find themselves paying significantly more than they had intended to.
My amendment would address this directly by requiring airlines and all ticket sellers—I emphasise all ticket sellers, whether the airlines themselves, online travel agents or price comparison websites—to display the total price up front, including all fees, taxes and unavoidable charges. We believe this is not a radical proposition. It is not difficult for the airlines, if they are selling direct to consumers, or their agents to comply with. Most consumers reasonably believe that this is the case already, so this amendment aims to make it so.
The second element of the amendment concerns passenger rights. When a flight is delayed or cancelled, or a passenger is denied boarding, they are entitled to certain protections, and rightly so. But the evidence consistently shows that a significant portion of affected passengers do not know what those rights are and that airlines do not always volunteer that information. My amendment would require this information about passenger rights in disruption scenarios to be provided clearly at the point of sale, not buried deep in terms and conditions in the small print, and accessible only to those who know how to look for it.
Thirdly, the information element concerns environmental impact. Consumers are increasingly seeking to make informed choices consistent with their values. Aviation, as we know, is a significant contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. While the sector as a whole must decarbonise, individuals, too, wish to understand the environmental impact of their individual journeys. Standardised carbon footprint information at the point of sale would enable informed choices. It would also in time, we hope, drive competition on environmental performance, an outcome that we argue would drive consumer-led carbon-reduction measures.
The second part of the amendment includes mandatory minimum compensation standards and, critically, automated payment mechanisms for flight delays, cancellations and denied boarding. The right to compensation for significant disruption already exists in law. Yet, year after year, consumer bodies and passengers find that it is not happening. They are waiting long times and often having to go to court and take legal action. That is an unacceptable situation.
The solution that I have proposed is an automation system to make sure that, where delays happen, there is an automatic payment so that you do not have to go through a complicated process to do it. The airlines have all this information. They know who is on their planes, they know who is not, they know when they are delayed and they know when compensation needs to be paid. We do not believe that this requirement would be too onerous on the airlines. It would simply make it a more efficient, fair and effective system.
We welcome this Bill. We recognise the consumer protections, but we feel that they need to have real bite. That is what my amendments seek to do. Our worry is that, if we do not put stronger protections in the Bill, we will simply have gestures towards consumer rights without actually putting them in statute. With the inclusion of these amendments, we would take concrete steps to make sure that we are acting in the passengers’ best interests in making these systems fairer and more efficient.
Lord Empey (UUP)
My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 41. The question of responsibility for drop-off charges was mentioned in closing by the noble Lord, Lord Moylan. This has become a new and evolving tax in the last few years and it is quite substantial. Edinburgh Airport is now charging £8.50 for somebody to be dropped off. Our major airports, Heathrow and Gatwick, are around the £7 to £8 mark, and other airports around the country have various levels. What effectively is happening is that the sharp increase in business rates applied to the airports has been passed on to a passenger being dropped off at the front door.
This has a huge impact on the potential for growth. It has an impact on the cost of doing business in this country and on the cost of travel. While it might be nice to say that we would like as many people as possible to go to airports by public transport, the realistic situation is that there are many airports around the country where the practicalities of doing that are very limited, particularly if you live outside an urban area. We have to take these charges into account. It seems to me that more and more airports are making more money out of drop-off charges and car parking than they are out of running the airports. While I do not want to see the model of airports made less competitive, the fact of the matter is that this is a tax on travel and a tax on business. There are many parts of this country where, if you are going to do business, there is little alternative to using aviation. I think that is a very important point and I would like the Minister to address that.
The other issue I want to raise relates to Amendment 40 and air quality on aircraft. Obviously, we all fly, some of us more than others, but thousands of people work in the airline industry and are in aircraft all their working days. There have been cases, because the air supply in most aircraft—although changes and improvements are being made—comes from the turbines, of seals failing from time to time in those turbines and oil being vapourised and fed into the cabin, where it is visible. What worries me is that there will be many times when it is not visible. What is the Minister’s response to that? Who is monitoring this and at what levels? Are the levels reviewed and are any checks being carried out on those who work in the airline industry as to whether their health is affected by long exposure?
Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)
I declare that I am president of the CO Research Trust and a member of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee. The Minister has already referred to our report. I am also one of those people who responds when there is a call for a doctor on a flight, and some of my experiences lead to my support for Amendment 36 —in particular, two aspects of it.
I shall deal with my Amendment 14 first. It aims to address potentially toxic dangers sneaking into the air that we breathe, as has already been mentioned. We must have an unconditional duty to protect human life. The silent threat has mostly been ignored; that is the risk of a plane’s cabin air containing contamination by carbon monoxide and hydrocarbons. Carbon monoxide is colourless and has no smell, yet it is highly and rapidly toxic.
In much of the commercial fleet, pressurised air for the cabin and other parts of the plane must be kept frost-free, and that air comes directly from the engine compressors. It is called bleed air. When engine seals are broken or even have a micro-crack, synthetic oils and hydraulic fluid leak into this air flow. When subject to extreme temperatures, the fluids become neurotoxins, which are then inhaled, and that constitutes a cabin fume event. The neurological and respiratory symptoms are often short-lived and fade, but they can be far-reaching. They include things such as dizziness, headache, muzzy thinking and even shortness of breath and nausea—but, very occasionally, it may lead on to much more serious issues. Carbon monoxide binds to haemoglobin, which it does much more quickly than oxygen, so in effect it suffocates our vital organs.
Even at low levels of exposure, passengers can feel unwell, but for the pilots in charge of the plane, hypoxia is potentially a threat to aviation safety, nationally and internationally. Filters exist, such as the HEPA filters, which can block around 99.97% particles, including viruses, but they are useless against gases, which just flow through them.
In 2007, the Committee on Toxicity examined several reports on cabin air sampling on a selection of normal flights, showing very low levels of contaminants. It concluded that cabin air quality globally conforms with standards. However, it stated that
“uncertainties remain, and a toxic mechanism for symptoms cannot confidently be ruled out”.
A 2017 study by the European Union Aviation Safety Agency pointed out that
“there is no contaminant-free indoor environment. The aircraft cabin is no exception. However, due to the exceptional high air exchange rates in aircraft, the cabin air has been proven to be less polluted compared to normal indoor environments”.
So far, so good. The 2018 guidance on cabin fumes from the International Federation of Air Line Pilots’ Associations states:
“When a fume event occurs, cabin air contamination can cause short-term physical effects which may compromise flight safety. Sufficient scientific concern exists requiring more studies in order to determine any short and long-term effects of fume exposures”.
It is worth noting that the Civil Aviation Authority does not officially recognise aerotoxic syndrome, but Unite the Union and other unions are pursuing legal action over airlines’ duty of care and campaigners have called for an independent inquiry. Fume events are indeed rare, affecting only about one in 10,000 flights. Newer aircraft designs, such as the Boeing 787, utilise bleed-free technology, which draws air directly from outside rather than through the engine turbines. However, these planes represent only around 1,175 planes of the approximate 30,000 commercial aircraft in service. Most aircraft pre-date or did not incorporate that design.
The reality of our skies is interesting. Heathrow registers about 1,300 flights a day and Gatwick over 700—let us round that to around 2,000 flights a day. Mathematically, if one fume event occurs every 10,000 flights, the risk is about one a week over London, ranging from very minor to potentially serious. Currently, we rely on the human sense of smell to detect a fume event, and crew report the typical smell of dirty socks or burnt oil. However, the human nose cannot detect carbon monoxide, which is what caused the tragic crash of the Piper Malibu that killed Emiliano Sala.
In 2025, the CAA mandated that certain small piston engine light aircraft carrying passengers must monitor carbon monoxide. This leads to my amendment. If monitoring is vital for the protection of the users of small light tourism aircraft, on what grounds do we fail to offer the same protection, and de facto guarantee of safety, to hundreds of passengers confined in a commercial airliner? The technology already exists. Airbus is collaborating with the Fraunhofer Society to develop mass spectrometry systems capable of pinpointing the source of these pollutants with extreme precision. Our legislation should mandate every air transport service provider to install, maintain and operate continuous active monitoring systems for carbon monoxide, in particular, and hydrocarbons in the cockpit and passenger cabins.
Notably—I believe this is directly relevant—the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, of which I am a member, gave the view that
“the power in section 61A(7) of the Civil Aviation Act 1982, read with section 61A(1), is inappropriate because its effect is to give the Government unconstrained power to decide which operational and safety aviation rules will be delegated to the CAA and consequently made without Parliamentary process; and to ensure Parliament is properly able to scrutinise the scope of delegation of rulemaking to the CAA: the power … should be amended to make clear the principles underlying the exceptions to delegated rulemaking; and that power should be subject to affirmative procedure”.
I hope that the Government will amend the Bill accordingly. Otherwise, we will have to bring this back on Report.
Very briefly on Amendment 36, there is a risk of deep vein thrombosis in passengers. It can result in a fatal pulmonary embolism. It may well often be linked not only to the passenger’s own propensity to have a blood clot but to whether they are in an inappropriate seat to meet their medical needs and the seat pitch is inappropriate, particularly on very long-haul flights. I have had to look after people on the floor of an aircraft, sometimes for many hours. It is extremely difficult to hear what is going on through a stethoscope, because the engine noise is so great that you cannot hear properly, and trying to take somebody’s blood pressure on the floor of a crowded aircraft is not easy.
The thing that concerns me even more than that is the provision of lavatories. I have had an incident on a long-haul flight of two young people with really catastrophic and probably infectious gastroenteritis, which meant creating a public health measure to seal off one toilet for only them to use and making up rehydration fluids to keep giving them all the way back to Heathrow. It meant that there were not many toilets for other passengers, but I certainly did not want other passengers to use the toilets that these two were using. One problem is that the lavatories in many planes are so small that if anyone needs assistance with toileting, particularly if they have a bowel problem of any sort, including a stoma, it is extremely difficult to be in that toilet cabinet to assist them. Amendment 36 is particularly important.
Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to take part in Committee on the Bill. As it is my first intervention in Committee, I declare my technology interests as set out in the register, variously as adviser to the Crown Estate, Endava plc, and Simmons & Simmons LLP, and as non-executive director of Avalanche (BVI) Inc and the Avalanche Foundation. It is also a pleasure to follow my friend the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay. The whole Committee and everybody should thank her for everything that she has done on flights in extraordinarily difficult circumstances. I support everything that she had to say on shortcomings and areas that need to be addressed which, as she clearly pointed out, could be addressed right now.
I also support the amendment from my friend, the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson; it must be agreed. I see precious little point in wasting any of the draftsperson’s ink on a “may” provision. “May” is “whenever”. We have seen from other legislation pertaining to disabled people that “may” is a hope that never comes to fruition, so “may” must be converted to “must”.
Similarly, I support the comments of my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham—he sounds even better when he is quoting himself from a previous Hansard. It seems extraordinary that the circumstances he sets out have not been addressed. They do not, in any sense, reflect what happens in the rail industry. As a corollary, I ask the Minister: as it works so well in the rail industry, would some systems such as Delay Repay not be a positive addition to the airline sector? Those payments can be rightly collected behind the scenes from the source of the problem, be it NATS or another service provider. Smart contracts could be deployed so that those payments are automatically made when such events occur.
However, there is a situation that we are seeing a creeping illustration of across a number of sectors, including in aviation, as my noble friend Lord Young set out. I will highlight what is happening in the financial services sector around fraud. Banks are on the hook for repayment and reimbursement for certain fraud events, such as push payments, whereas telcos or platforms, where the frauds may originate from, are currently not. I would be interested in the Minister’s comment on the sense that there is an increasing tendency for this, where, in reality, the costs and compensation should fall where the breach occurs. It is a very simple and well-established legal principle. I look forward to the Minister’s response to my noble friend’s excellent intervention.
Baroness Brinton (LD)
My Lords, I signed the two amendments from the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, in this group. As she said, they are pertinent to the next group, when we get into the detail. I just wanted to say, as the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, said, that going from “may” to “must” is extremely important. We all know that when Ministers have the option of doing “may”, it never, ever gets to the top of the urgent “must” list.
Baroness Foster of Oxton (Con)
My Lords, I will briefly comment on some of the issues raised. We have to separate out the former regulation 261 on passenger rights for delays and cancellations from the very important report on the former regulation 1107, which the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, has spent a great deal of time working on with passengers with reduced mobility. I certainly echo the points that she has raised.
Without going into detail on the late regulations 261 or 1107, one of the biggest problems is not that we need more regulations on passenger rights but that we need to enforce the regulations that are already in place. These are robust. I was involved in their conception in the European Parliament and they have been revised over the years. We need to be very careful that however they are amended in this Committee does not then cause some sort of conflict. We must have treatment of passengers abroad that would echo the treatment they would have in the UK. We cannot impose differences in regulation on third countries, so we have to persuade, through the international bodies, that we need a certain level of treatment for all passengers. As I said, on the old regulation 261, from a competition point of view, we need to ensure that a balance is struck, notwithstanding what the airlines are culpable for in terms of paying, so that the business runs accordingly and passengers are compensated appropriately.
I will comment briefly on my noble friend Lord Young’s comment on the delays caused through NATS and other providers. We looked at this some years ago when I was in the European Parliament. With the exception of force majeure—people recognise force majeure, where something happens and the airline or air traffic services have no control whatever, and they are pretty magnanimous about it—I wholly agree with my noble friend. It was something we tried to push. What we found, unfortunately, was that air traffic services and providers not just in the UK but across the EU were very reluctant to look at the third party where there was a responsibility for compensation to be paid back to the airlines where it had not been their fault. It is worth pursuing. It is a tough way forward; nevertheless, it is worth looking at.
Finally, the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, is a great expert in these fields, with her medical background. If I recall, the initial problem with passenger air quality arose some years ago with the BAe 146 aircraft. The effects on the pilots went on for years. For reassurance—I declare an interest, having spent four years as the head of European affairs for the Aerospace, Security and Defence Industries Association of Europe—looking all these years on, the safety of and the quality of air in the aircraft that we produce today is really quite different from some of the older aircraft. Fortunately, as former crew on a lot of the older aircraft, I survived 25 years of air quality that was perhaps not great. It needs to be kept in perspective. It should be monitored, of course, but we should reassure the public that, when they fly on these aircraft these days, they are safe and extremely well maintained.
My final point concerns onboard facilities if people fall ill. Believe me, people like me have called for a doctor onboard in the past. It was not much fun when someone was lying on the floor and I, a mere first-aider, was trying to deal with them and keep them alive. It was not ideal. It is very difficult to see how you could rearrange the entire aircraft. Fortunately, a critical situation does not happen very often, but it is up to the airlines to ensure that the crew and everyone onboard are trained sufficiently, that they have the facilities, in terms of medical kits and everything else, and that, if something is extremely serious, the pilot and the captain have the ability to divert to another airfield to ensure that the passenger is looked after as quickly as possible. Those are my points.
Baroness Grender (LD)
My Lords, we support these amendments because they test whether the Bill does more than just create broad enabling powers. If we are giving the Secretary of State and the CAA new regulatory and enforcement functions, Parliament should also be clear about the statutory floor, the scope and the standards against which those powers are to be exercised.
We believe that Amendment 9, tabled by my noble friend Lord Russell, should be agreed to because it would insert a specific passenger safeguarding obligation to prohibit carriers separating children from accompanying adults. In doing so, it would remove a gap in the consumer protection framework and prevent airlines monetising what is, in practical terms, a safeguarding issue. It would also give statutory weight to the principle that family seating should not be treated as an optional extra, which is consistent with the Bill’s wider consumer protection purpose. Although we are aware of the CMA’s present investigation into Ryanair, we think that this an excellent opportunity to embed something in this legislation. We think that that is the right approach.
My Amendment 13 is technically important because it would refine Clause 1 by requiring air passenger rights regulations to standardise hand baggage dimensions by reference to recognised industry standards. This matters because the present position is too often defined by variable carrier policies rather than a clear statutory baseline, which makes the operation of Clause 1(2)(d), on price transparency, much harder in practice. A uniform volumetric standard would enable genuine, like-for-like comparisons at the point of sale. We all know people who have to hold three different sizes of hand luggage if they are using three different airlines. It just does not make any sense.
This amendment would still preserve commercial freedom because it would standardise the box but not the fee. It would also give the CAA an objective benchmark for compliance and enforcement, which is preferable—we can all agree on this, I think—to relying on what is, after all, very patchy guidance or post hoc disputes at the gate. We have all seen those, I am sure.
My Amendment 20 would provide a non-regression safeguard as domestic aviation consumer law replaces assimilated EU-derived protections. The amendment would require the Secretary of State to ensure that new regulations are at least equal to, and ideally better than, the protections that are already in place. I mentioned this in our debate on the previous group. It would provide an important constraint on delegated power because it would prevent the framework being used to dilute rights over time. It would also convert what is currently a permissive approach into a continuing duty of review, which is a sensible way to ensure that consumer rights do not fall behind evolving standards.
Amendment 36 would give the Bill a more coherent accountability structure through providing a passenger charter—I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, not only for her support but for bringing to life the realities of being on a plane in some difficult circumstances. At the moment, the risk with the Bill as it stands is that powers exist in principle but passengers have no clarity or codified statement of what service standards they can expect or how failures will be remedied. Embedding a charter with objective performance measures and a defined redress framework would make the regulatory architecture more intelligible and more enforceable. That said, I recognise that the Minister has set out the challenge to us about being more specific about this passenger charter and we will continue to attempt to do that, including in the run-up to Report. I thank him for the ongoing discussions about that.
Amendment 2, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, and my noble friend Lady Brinton, is also an important technical correction, because it would turn accessibility from a general policy objective into a legal duty. Disabled passengers should not be left dependent on guidance, voluntary compliance or uneven airline practice. A statutory obligation, accompanied by annual reporting, would create clearer lines of accountability for both operators and the regulator. That is especially significant where the Bill is otherwise expanding the CAA’s enforcement role. I thank the Minister again for his willingness to engage and discuss this issue with us behind the scenes. I feel that there is a door that is reasonably open to achieving some kind of understanding, particularly in this area and particularly in the light of the absolutely hair-raising stories that we all heard in the Second Reading debate.
I added Amendment 59B a bit late. It is—with apologies to the noble Lord, Lord Moylan—about echoing and shadowing EU 261. This is a probing and exploratory amendment, which goes to the coherence of the UK passenger rights regime at the moment, when the European framework is evolving and the Government are asking Parliament to confer broad powers on the Secretary of State. If the Bill is to modernise aviation consumer protection, it should not allow UK 261 to drift away from EU 261 without some kind of explicit policy choice or decision and clear scrutiny here in Parliament with a proper explanation.
The practical concern is straightforward. We know that EU 261 is making progress on embedding greater rights—for instance, about travelling with your child or about compensation after three hours’ delay. It would be useful to make sure that we mirror that, unless we can do better. That is in my other amendment, which is saying, “Let’s not do a race to the bottom; let’s do a race to the top of the highest possible standards”. That is why Amendment 59B should be seen as a non-regression and alignment safeguard, not a mere technical tidying-up provision. That said, I very much look forward to hearing what the Minister says in response.
Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, I will introduce my amendments in this group and will then make a few comments about remarks made by other noble Lords in the course of debate—not, I assure your Lordships, responding to every noble Lord who spoke, although it was a very valuable and interesting debate. I will speak first to Amendments 4, 5 and 30. I also have Amendments 38 and 39 in this group, but Amendments 4, 5 and 30 stand as a set that work together, so I will speak to them first.
Amendment 4 would require a review of hidden or undisclosed charges imposed on passengers by airlines or airport operators. I am singing from a similar hymn book to that used by the noble Baroness, Lady Grender, the noble Earl, Lord Russell, and others in trying to get to the heart of understanding how, cumulatively, passengers are being charged for various things. I have cast my amendment in the form of asking the Government to have a review. We all have anecdotal experience of this sort of thing. I booked some air tickets the other day. Of course, a very attractive price is offered, but by the time I have chosen the option that includes the suitcase and I have booked my seats, it is a bit more expensive than it started out.
Lord Harper (Con)
My Lords, I wanted to let all the Members who had amendments speak first, notwithstanding the Front Benches. I just wanted to touch on one amendment where I think I can add some level of knowledge. I agree completely with my noble friend Lord Moylan about the way in which my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham set out his case with some charm and tenaciousness. However, I am afraid to say that I do not agree with the ineluctable logic. Let me just share with the Committee why.
I was in post when NATS had its failure and I will always remember getting that phone call telling me that something terrible had happened, with potentially millions of people whose holidays were going to get messed up. You pay a great deal of attention in that situation. I spent quite a lot of my time over that short period engaging with the aviation sector and ensuring that NATS, the airlines, the airports and everybody else worked incredibly closely together at pace to make sure that passengers had the least terrible experience possible in the circumstances.
Once the initial events had taken place and we had got everybody back to where they should have been, we considered—or I considered, as the then Secretary of State—exactly the point that my noble friend set out, about whether we ought to change the legislative regime around compensation. Superficially, there is a case for doing so, but let me deal with the reason why we decided not to.
The first point is that, if you look at the ownership structure of NATS, which I do not think that my noble friend touched on, almost half the business—49%—is owned by the Government or, in other words, the taxpayer. Some 42% is owned by a group of major airlines, 5% is owned by the staff through a trust and 4% by the company that owns Heathrow Airport. The conclusion that I came to was that, if you were to change the position so that NATS was responsible for paying compensation, almost half the bill would land on the taxpayer, just over 40% of it would effectively end up on a different group of airlines—not necessarily all the ones hit by it—and a little bit would effectively land on the staff. The conclusion that I reached was that that did not really get you to a significantly better place than the current position, accepting that the current position is suboptimal.
What made me think was that my noble friend set out the position with Network Rail, which is and has for a long time been completely owned by the taxpayer. There is a question about whether there is a purpose in doing that. The conclusion that we reached, and the present Government’s conclusion, is that we are not sure that the regime whereby Network Rail has to pay money to train operating companies is an effective lever in driving up standards. The conclusion that we reached, which the current Government are following through on and which we will be debating in due course through the Railways Bill, is that the way you get more effective working between the train operating companies and Network Rail is by bringing them together in what will be GBR. I am not sure, therefore, that getting the taxpayer to pay a chunk of money to airlines is the right way in which to deliver what we actually want, which is to stop these sorts of outages and disruptions happening in the first place.
NATS is a regulated business, so it has quite considerable constraints on how it acts, and the Government have a considerable say in how it operates because of that 49% stake and the Government’s role in nominating a number of members of the NATS board. Certainly, when the outage happened, I had a considerable say in putting pressure on the management of the company and appointing the person who conducted the review, effectively ensuring that the company took steps to make sure that that particular circumstance could not happen again.
I understand the case that my noble friend has made. I considered it at the time, but we did not think that moving from the status quo to that position was particularly compelling. I do not think that I have changed my mind on that, but of course I will happily take a question on it.
Lord Young of Cookham (Con)
I thank my noble friend, who may have saved the Minister a bit of trouble. I will make just two points. First, as my noble friend said, the airlines are one of the major shareholders. The airlines support this amendment. I have a letter from IATA and I have seen correspondence from British Airways; they believe that this change should be made. The second point my noble friend made, which I have real difficulty with, is that the taxpayer picks up the tab when an organisation owned by the taxpayer makes a mistake. Look at the National Health Service, for example. What is happening here is that, where the taxpayer is on the hook, the Government have decided to penalise an innocent party, namely the shareholders of the airlines. As a Conservative, I cannot see how my noble friend began to defend that when he was Secretary of State. Had the incident happened 20 years earlier, when I was Secretary of State, I would have come to a different decision.
Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)
My Lords, before my noble friend responds, far be it from me to get between two former Secretaries of State for Transport before a Transport Minister comes to respond to either of them, but I want to check something with my noble friend Lord Harper. Is he suggesting, as a point of principle, that for any wholly or partly owned entity where the state has even a minor share, there should never be a question of compensation or liability for redress to be made by dint of whole, partial or even minority public share ownership of that entity?
Lord Harper (Con)
No, I do not. The question I had to answer was that if you have a status quo and if you are going to make a change, you have to ask yourself, does the change drive an improvement in behaviour or outcomes? I simply was not persuaded that it would.
Picking up my noble friend’s point about perhaps having saved the Minister a bit of bother, I thought, when I was listening to him make his case, that there is, of course, the opportunity, when one is now both in opposition and on the Back Benches, to let the Minister do all the work. But since the event happened on my watch, as it were, and we put quite a lot of thought into whether we should make the change that my noble friend set out, and since the answers that he received from our noble friend Lady Vere of Norbiton when she was Aviation Minister were effectively on my behalf, I thought it would be a bit slopy-shouldered of me to sit here quietly, not say anything and not give the Committee the benefit of the thought process at least. Being slopy-shouldered has never really been my style, so I thought it was at least worth giving the Committee the benefit of the effort that went in on behalf of aviation consumers who were disadvantaged by this, the work that went on by the industry and the work that the Government did to try to put things right.
My final point is just to say that the industry—NATS, the airlines and the airports—demonstrated a remarkable ability to work together to serve the interests of consumers. The industry has a lot to be proud of in the way that it comes together when there are these difficult circumstances to serve the people who pay their wages.
Lord in Waiting/Government Whip (Lord Katz) (Lab)
Respectfully, before my noble friend responds for the Government, I point out to the Committee that it is a convention—I will put it no more strongly than that—that we let Back-Benchers come in before Front-Benchers. It rather dulls the flow of the argument if we go back from Front-Benchers to Back-Benchers. I urge all colleagues who want to make a contribution to do so before we get to Front-Benchers, because that generally aids the flow of debate.
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
My Lords, these amendments raise important questions about how we strengthen air passenger rights. As I said at Second Reading, the strong intention of the Bill is to increase protections. The Government’s approach is to build on a strong existing framework while preserving the flexibility to act where it is most needed and avoiding unintended or overly prescriptive requirements. Taking each amendment in turn, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, for her excellent work on the Aviation Accessibility Task and Finish Group report and for her amendments seeking to ensure that regulations are made in relation to the areas listed in Clause 1. I am very pleased to see the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, in her place supporting that.
I confirm that the Government intend to make a serious change in the experience of disabled people when flying. The intention of this clause is to provide a non-exhaustive list of areas that can be addressed through regulations. While regulations exist in many of these areas, requiring regulations in all these areas may have unintended consequences. The list of areas currently included could be considered an exhaustive list and therefore prevent amendments on other areas of air passenger rights. Equally, it could require amendments where they may not be required.
This amendment would also require that any regulation made under this clause to address all the areas listed, which would not be necessary for every regulation made under the clause. I reassure the noble Baroness that many of the areas listed are already covered by existing regulations. The Bill allows us to strengthen and update those protections over time, while retaining the flexibility to act where it is most needed. I will discuss with her and others what the next steps will be, to give confidence that action will be taken in secondary legislation, because that is firmly the Government’s intent. That is a commitment to the noble Baroness and others, including the noble Baroness, Lady Grender, and the noble Earl, Lord Russell. I hope that the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, feels able to withdraw her amendment.
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, for his amendment on price transparency. I reassure him that there is already legislation in place to ensure this. All mandatory fees, taxes, charges and surcharges must be included and broken down in the final price paid by the passenger. In addition, any non-mandatory costs, such as baggage or seat selection fees, should be clearly displayed during booking and should be on an opt-in basis, meaning that passengers select which options they want for their trip. The Civil Aviation Authority is already responsible for ensuring that airlines meet those requirements. In response to the noble Lord’s question, I note that the CAA publishes comparison tables for passengers on the charges and fees of different airlines and airports. Clause 2 will strengthen the CAA’s enforcement toolkit, enabling it to deal more efficiently with non-compliance.
I note the point from the noble Earl, Lord Russell, on the current issues with Ryanair charging parents to sit with their children. He will appreciate that I cannot comment since it is currently under investigation by the Competition and Markets Authority. For the reasons I have set out, I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, will not press his amendment.
I turn to the amendments from the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, on travel intermediaries. Consumers should be able to rely on fair and transparent information and functionality wherever they book air travel. I reassure the noble Lord that existing regulations already set out a code of conduct on computerised reservation systems. This seeks to ensure transparent, fair and non-discriminatory approaches for airlines and intermediaries. Should future reforms be necessary on this issue, they would be possible under Clause 1.
The noble Lord’s proposal for the CAA to produce a code on access to airline fares and booking systems for travel intermediaries concerns commercial arrangements between airlines and intermediaries, rather than air passenger rights. These are business-to-business matters for industry, with competition concerns best addressed through the existing body of competition law. It is also not clear that there is sufficient evidence of consumer harm to justify this level of government intervention. Although intermediaries play a role in providing choice to customers, it is not established that this is currently being undermined by a lack of transparency from airlines. Established transparency requirements are already in place, as I have mentioned. If evidence showed that further intervention was needed, Clause 1 powers could be used to consider that properly. For those reasons, I ask the noble Lord not to press his amendment.
I thank the noble Earl, Lord Russell, for his amendment seeking to expand Clause 1 to require upfront information at the time of ticket sales, as well as minimum standards and automated payments for compensation. In addition to requirements for transparency around pricing, there are also clear rules about the rights of passengers during disruption, including when compensation is payable. Clause 1, as drafted, can be used to strengthen these rights further, and we can discuss the Government’s intentions around this.
The noble Lord, Lord Holmes, asked about Delay Repay, which the previous Government considered under a past consultation. It was clear that there were both benefits and risks inherent in this approach, and several respondents noted that aviation is not comparable to rail due to the operational complexities in aviation. However, this could be considered through Clause 1 powers if necessary.
Work is already happening—I will not use the word “ongoing”—to increase transparency around the environmental impact of journeys. The CAA published a framework on implementing consumer environmental information for UK flights earlier this year. Airlines and other relevant organisations are expected to take adequate steps towards implementing this by April 2027. As a result, I hope that the noble Earl feels able not to press his amendment.
I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Grender, for her amendment, which would make regulations on consistent hand baggage sizing. Although I appreciate that this would give consumers consistency, it could have unforeseen consequences for passengers. I cannot, therefore, support this amendment. Aircraft have different overhead and under-seat storage capacities. Setting a standard size would necessitate using the smallest aircraft capacity, resulting in many passengers needing to use a smaller case or bag. Many passengers appreciate the flexibility of choosing add-ons, such as baggage, in order to be able to make decisions about how they travel in a way that works for them. This amendment could force more passengers to use checked baggage, which often comes with an additional fee and time inconvenience due to the need to drop off and collect bags. Moreover, there could be unintended consequences for passengers. I hope that this enables the noble Baroness not to press her amendment.
I now move on to the amendments relating to cabin air quality in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff, and the noble Lord, Lord Empey. All of us will of course be grateful to the noble Baroness and others for responding to medical incidents aboard aircraft; I am especially grateful to the noble Baroness for her knowledge of this subject, which is far more detailed than my own.
The safety of passengers and crew is vital. The department recognises and takes seriously the concerns raised around cabin air quality. The Government have commissioned independent studies and evidence reviews relating to cabin air. The most recent evidence review by the Committee on Toxicity concluded that
“the concentrations of the chemical contaminants … reported in aircraft cabin air are unlikely to cause adverse health effects in aircrew following acute or long-term exposures”.
Commercial aircraft are already required to meet and maintain a number of design requirements for certification, which include ventilation and cabin air flow. The Government are committed to keeping this area—in particular, the technological innovations described by the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay—under review. Operators are also required to report and investigate any incidents involving toxic cabin air. The CAA’s expert medical team regularly reviews every suspected cabin air incident and takes action if it identifies a concerning trend. I hope that this provides reassurance that there is a continuous mechanism to identify and investigate any cabin air issues; and that noble Lords will therefore feel able not to press their amendments.
I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, for her amendment relating to the enforcement of regulations. The Government will ensure that any regulations made under Clause 1 can be properly enforced. This will be enhanced by the CAA’s direct enforcement powers, which are being introduced via Clause 2. The purpose of Clause 1(3) is to outline the types of enforcement provision that can be made in regulations under Clause 1. Amending the wording from “may” to “must” would mean that any regulations made under this clause would have to contain all the enforcement provisions listed. This would not be necessary for all regulations made under this clause. Consideration of any enforcement provisions will be given during the policy development and secondary legislation process. This will be subject to appropriate and full assessment of the available evidence. For these reasons, I hope that the noble Baroness will not press her amendment.
On alignment with the EU, I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Grender, that we must maintain a high level of consumer protections in aviation. Since leaving the European Union, the UK has had the flexibility to set its own approach. The power in Clause 1 enables the UK to keep pace with the EU and, where we choose to do so, to go further. As I have said, the intention of Clause 1 is to strengthen and enhance air passenger rights through secondary legislation. This is in line with the shared UK-EU objective, under the trade and co-operation agreement, to achieve a high level of consumer protections; it also gives us flexibility to improve on these standards over time. However, requiring all future reforms to be “equal or superior” to the current standards is subjective and could have unintended consequences.
Similarly, on the noble Baroness’s further amendment on automatic alignment with Regulation 261/2004, requiring the UK to mirror both the current EU framework and any future changes to that regulation, including those currently in course in the EU, would place a statutory obligation to follow EU reforms without discretion. Although we continue to monitor developments closely, it is important that the UK retains the flexibility to design a complex compensation regime based on the evidence, consultation and what works best for UK passengers and the aviation sector. Therefore, although I agree with the intent that the Bill is used to strengthen rather than reduce protections—and I believe that Clause 1 would allow for this—I would welcome further discussion on this. Meanwhile, I ask the noble Baroness not to press her amendment.
Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, there is the case of airports such as Heathrow—admittedly few in number—that are economically regulated on the basis of a regulated asset base. Assuming that it was approved by the CAA acting as economic regulator, a Heathrow investment in infrastructure would be added to the regulated asset base, and it would earn its return that way. It does not defray those returns on the grounds that it has income from shops, drop-off charges and so on; they are pure bonus to the shareholders.
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
I note the noble Lord’s point on Heathrow and other airports that have a regulated asset base. Airports must retain the ability to manage their own infrastructure. The Government’s role is to ensure that competition and consumer laws are protected and upheld. Ultimately, each airport operator must justify the charges they levy and show that they are fair, transparent and carried out with proper accountability. For those reasons, I hope noble Lords will feel able not to press their amendments.
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, for his amendment relating to reimbursement for airlines if delays are caused by air traffic management, and I note the support from the noble Baroness, Lady Foster of Oxton, and others. Long delays and cancellations that are caused by air traffic management decisions are considered extraordinary circumstances under the current law, and therefore compensation is not due to passengers in those cases. None the less, the airlines are responsible for providing refunds, or care to passengers, such as meals and refreshments, when there are such delays and cancellations, provided certain qualifying conditions are met.
I note that National Air Traffic Services is subject to a robust regulatory regime overseen by the Civil Aviation Authority, and it includes performance targets linked to delays and a financial penalty mechanism when these targets are not met, meaning that NATS must reduce what it charges airlines in the following period. This is at least currently the effective penalty on NATS for poor performance.
I recognise that the noble Lord has diligently pursued this issue across the previous Government and this one. With relative joy, I have discovered how many previous Secretaries of State there are not only on the opposition Benches but in this Room. I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Harper, for his explanation of what happened in the case that the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, referred to. He supposes that I have some sympathy with the proposition that, somehow, the charges levied on Network Rail did not act as the incentive that they were supposed to. He is right, which is why the Railways Bill does not go in that direction. I am grateful to him—seriously—for explaining what decision he came to in that particular case, because he is right that the shareholding of NATS is very far from a conventional commercial company with a range of shareholders.
I hope I have never been grudging. I may—as the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, probably thinks frequently—be unpersuasive, but I think I owe the noble Lord, Lord Young, at least the courtesy of a meeting on this subject to understand better what he has said and to see whether the current Government’s position ought to be the same as what the noble Lord, Lord Harper, described in his Government’s case, or whether there is a persuasive case for change.
Lord Empey (UUP)
I thank the Minister for his response on Amendment 41 regarding drop-off charges. I understand the argument that an airport operator can manage its own property, but we have to distinguish between parking and dropping off. The dropping-off charge is almost a penalty for not parking. We also have to take into account the fact that these airports, by and large, are monopolies because of where they are: people perhaps do not have an option of going to another airport.
It is becoming a growing revenue stream and it can affect regional connectivity but also the economic model. It can put another charge on business, if that is what it is, or on tourism. I will look at Hansard and see exactly what the Minister said, but it is not a simple matter and I do not think it is an issue that will go away, because it is growing and growing. It started off at £1 and, as I said, in Edinburgh it is now £8.50. But what is the alternative for somebody going to drop someone off at Edinburgh Airport? Do they go to Glasgow Airport? It is a monopoly.
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
I should just say that of course I respect the views of the noble Lord, Lord Empey, and if he looks at Hansard and considers what I said, I will similarly consider further what he said.
Baroness Grey-Thompson (CB)
My Lords, I thank everyone who has taken part in the debate this afternoon. I would just like to pick up on a couple of points relating to my amendments, and I will try not to run into the next group.
The noble Lord, Lord Empey, makes some valuable points about the drop-off charges. Although I have not had emails on that specifically to do with airports, disabled people have issues in terms of access and technology and might find physically paying some of these charges quite hard to do. Although we should be trying to get disabled people and everybody to travel to airports by public transport, that highlights a bigger set of problems that we have with wheelchair-accessible transport in this country.
An amendment was not passed on wheelchair-accessible taxis outside London. It might be quite hard, if you have a specially designed WAV with hand controls, to take it to off-site parking. So, if you then use transport around the airport, there is a whole issue with not being tied down in the buses to get from the parking to the airport. My husband is not a permanent wheelchair user, but if we are going on holiday, he will quite often take his wheelchair with him because he struggles to walk long distances. We would not be able to travel on the same bus together because of the current rules.
The noble Baroness, Lady Grender, raised hand luggage and made me think of a different aspect not raised today: travelling with medical aids. I have had some emails about that. Some airlines are great, do not charge and are very accommodating, and some are not. It might be a piece of equipment such as a hoist that needs to go into the hold, or something like a CPAP machine, which absolutely needs to be on board with an individual and which is safe to fly with. I think some of that might come into the training in the next group.
I bow to my noble friend Lady Finlay’s greater knowledge on air quality, but the Task and Finish Group looked extensively at toilets. That is outside our jurisdiction in terms of the design, but we could do so much better at the design of toilets. There are some really good examples. The airline crew should help disabled people to the toilet, but not in the toilet—absolutely not. However, because of the poor design of toilets on planes, most people, including myself, absolutely dehydrate ourselves before we fly to make sure that we do not have to use them, even on long haul flights, which creates a whole different set of problems for safety on board a plane. Any influence we could have on smart design—probably outside the Bill—would be very helpful.
I thank the noble Lord for his response; I understand what he is saying. I will be bringing possibly a different version of this amendment back. I do not think it is impossible to look at a form of words that is a tighter list. Maybe a new clause needs to be inserted to give disabled travellers more reassurance on what the Government are trying to do. But at this stage I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
Baroness Grey-Thompson
“(ca) about the liabilities of air transport services providers and operators in relation to the damage or loss of mobility aid devices, medical and life-sustaining equipment, ensuring compensation of a such loss or damage is commensurate with the full replacement or repair value of the equipment;”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment seeks to ensure that air transport service providers and airport operators are strictly liable for the full financial value of repairing or replacing any damaged or lost mobility and medical equipment.
Baroness Grey-Thompson (CB)
My Lords, this is a really important group of amendments, like the last one, and it needs some consideration. I support Amendment 7 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of Cradley, in terms of her work on allergies. The Task and Finish Group again looked at this and recognised that there were some challenges in what we can do about the complicated nature of international jurisdictions. I also strongly support the amendments from the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton.
In this group, we have to ask ourselves what we are trying to do in considering consumer protection. Looking at transport rights for disabled people, we should be guaranteeing freedom of movement, independence and, above all, dignity. When there is failure, one of the words that is frequently used by disabled people is dignity, which they feel has been taken away from them. So it is vital to reform a system that currently hinders disabled people from travelling.
Baroness Brinton (LD)
My Lords, I apologise for not apologising, when I intervened on the last group, for missing Second Reading. I am very grateful for the Minister’s comments on my return after some ill health.
There are 36 amendments in this group. The vast majority relate to disability and accessibility, but there are some other key ones as well. It would be important not to lose sight of those, and I know that other speakers will cover them. I have supported Amendments 3, 6, 10, 15 and 19 from the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, by signing them. They tackle the issues that the UK Government and the Civil Aviation Authority can make happen. I also commend her and her aviation accessibility group on their report last year and eminently sensible recommendations.
The noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, and I have both been in your Lordships’ House for over 15 years and we have repeatedly raised the issues faced by wheelchair passengers specifically, but passengers with other disabilities as well. I started using a chair when I arrived in your Lordships’ House, and I went to see the noble Baroness, Lady Campbell of Surbiton, and asked whether she could give me some advice on what to do, because I had some international conferences to go to. Unlike her and the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, I did not have experience of this. She said, “Expect either damage or nonsense on every flight. Plan for it. Learn about what duties the airlines have, and have your evidence with you”. She was right. The expectation of the vast majority of people who are disabled is that air travel going to be difficult—and it usually is, even for those of us that now do it a lot. On every flight, I now have to carry photographs of my battery. I print out the International Air Transport Association—IATA—regulations relating to my wheelchair and battery, as well as the IATA regulations for cargo, which many airlines muddle at the airport, quoting the wrong ones back at you. I will say more on IATA later.
My Amendment 21 proposes regulations to provide an appropriate enhanced level of compensation for a disabled passenger when they have been left stranded without assistance or refused boarding because of an accessibility issue and how that claim can be made. I also read Samanta Bullock’s piece on LinkedIn and, although it is shocking, it is particularly shocking in that most people do not understand that the captain of the plane is the person who makes these decisions—including on batteries, by the way. The captain is able to decide, with no evidence whatever and no form of appeal, whether the passenger can continue. That is outrageous.
I remember flying to Stockholm for a conference about four years ago. I had a lithium chair that I was going to use for travel then, although I cannot use it now—taking lithium on aeroplanes is such a flipping nightmare. I used the same carrier coming back, and the pilot said that he was not prepared to accept lithium batteries on his plane—full stop. I got away with it only because I could show him my boarding card from the previous flight three days before and could say, “Your company has flown me here. Please fly me back”.
The consequences for disabled passengers—in Samanta’s case, she was bumped off a flight—are always much greater. It is not just being refused the flight; in a wheelchair, at short notice, you might need to find an accessible hotel room or accessible taxis, which the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, referred to. All of those not only cost much more than the standard but are as rare as hens’ teeth.
My Amendment 29 proposes that the Government and the Civil Aviation Authority have a duty to ensure accessible air travel services and airport infrastructure systems, and ensure that disabled passengers and people with reduced mobility get support. It is not dissimilar to that of the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson; it is just slightly more detailed. Following the famous disability mantra of the noble Baroness, Lady Campbell of Surbiton—which she was speaking about decades before she joined your Lordships’ House—there should be nothing about us without us. So my amendment states that both the Secretary of State and the CAA must consult with disabled people and organisations, enforce minimum accessibility standards and—to complete the communications loop—publish annual reports.
My Amendment 37 proposes wheelchair passports for air travel. Over the past few years, the Department for Transport has discussed creating wheelchair passports, which would smooth the journey, with one brief check at check-in to ensure that both the wheelchair and, if relevant, the battery and the passport match. Once you have that passport, the details can be in the airport system and airline system for ever. However, the amendment also makes clear that the Secretary of State has to work with IATA—and, I hope, other nations supporting IATA—to make this happen, because it will never happen if only the UK does it.
I support Amendment 7 of the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of Cradley; the amendment on air quality of the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay; and many of the amendments of the noble Lord, Lord Holmes. I think we are all trying to do the same job—I will come to that. There is overlap between my amendments and those of the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson. The Government have to work to get to the heart of much of the problem. However, my amendments go further. Neither the UK Government nor the CAA have the power to change these problems across the world because the regulatory body for aviation travel is IATA. It uses the Montreal Convention of 1999, and yet it is also a trade body. Therefore, it is very difficult to make any change or progress when its stakeholders are the airlines that are not providing the service to disabled people.
However, since I laid my amendments, I was asked if I meant to put down the International Civil Aviation Organization rather than IATA. I did not, but it was a very helpful suggestion, because the International Civil Aviation Organization’s description of itself says that it is
“a United Nations agency which helps 193 countries to cooperate together and share their skies to their mutual benefit. Since it was established in 1944, ICAO’s support and coordination has helped countries to diplomatically and technically realize a uniquely rapid and dependable network of global air mobility”.
Therein lies the problem. There are no teeth anywhere. It cannot create regulations. It cannot instruct or penalise aviation companies. It can only diplomatically support its 193 member countries in co-operating with each other. Further, those 193 countries cannot regulate matters that happen in the air or in another country. The noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, referred to the problem: if they do so, it is valid in the UK only. I must say, I have hit a problem. On one flight I took, I was told, “Well, it didn’t happen with us. It was taken out of the aircraft and went elsewhere. It’s nothing to do with us”. In consumer terms, that makes it very difficult ever to get any satisfaction. We need these countries to start to come together, perhaps through the ICAO, to influence IATA to be much more active on its own regulations.
Baroness Kennedy of Cradley (Lab)
My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 7 in my name. I declare my interest as chief operating officer of Natasha’s Foundation, the UK’s food allergy charity, which was previously known as the Natasha Allergy Research Foundation.
At Second Reading, my noble friend Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill emphasised that the purpose of the Bill is to strengthen consumer protections and improve the passenger experience. He recognised the importance of accessibility and ensuring that aviation works effectively for all passengers. We have heard passionate speeches from the noble Baronesses, Lady Brinton and Lady Grey-Thompson. My amendment would not only address their issues around reduced mobility but would include non-visible disabilities and medical conditions, such as allergies, so that all passengers—including those with visible disabilities, non-visible disabilities and medical conditions, especially food allergies—can travel safely and with confidence.
I will focus on food allergy today. It is a serious medical condition, where a trace amount of an allergen can trigger a rapid and potentially fatal reaction. If someone is in the air and ingests the food to which they are allergic, they can be unconscious within 30 minutes. Whether they are on a short-haul or long-haul flight, they therefore experience serious difficulties. More than 3 million people in the UK—and around 220 million people globally—are living with a food allergy. This is not a medical condition the aviation industry can afford to continue to overlook.
UK tribunals have recognised that a food allergy can constitute a disability under the Equality Act 2010, where it has a substantial and long-term impact on daily life. Moreover, legal advice commissioned by Natasha’s Foundation concluded that Natasha’s law applies to pre-packaged meals served by UK airlines, and that airlines have a legal responsibility to provide allergen information under UK food safety law. However, in practice, that does not happen: Natasha’s law is hardly ever applied to pre-packaged airline food. Can my noble friend the Minister clarify the Government’s position on Natasha’s law and pre-packaged airline food? Does it apply, and if so—to illustrate the point raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton—who is responsible for ensuring that airlines comply with Natasha’s law and current UK food safety laws? That question covers both UK-based airlines and those that operate within our UK airspace.
As is it clear to many food-allergic passengers, despite the seriousness of their condition and the laws designed to protect them, allergen management is too often treated as an afterthought by the aviation industry. Passenger support is frequently inconsistent. Passengers encounter a reluctance to make reasonable adjustments or to provide any support to help them travel safely and with confidence. Passengers frequently report difficulties sourcing an airline’s policy on allergy. There is hardly ever a list of the support available to them, and it is not clear whether a plane carries spare adrenaline auto-injectors. Food-allergic passengers need to know that information, especially when research suggests that around one in 10 food-allergic passengers reports experiencing an allergic reaction when flying.
Passengers regularly ask the cabin crew for food ingredient lists on a plane. IATA states that the lists should be available to passengers, but they hardly ever are. Even when passengers do everything asked of them and pre-order a special meal, many find that it has not been loaded on to the aircraft, it has been mistakenly given to another passenger or, worse, it contains the food stuff to which they are allergic because there are weak controls over meal supply chains. Unless a provision such as Amendment 7 is added to the Bill, the lack of priority and attention given to allergen management on flights will continue.
The support for food-allergic passengers that we are asking for is not hard to provide, and it is not hard for the aviation industry to make a big difference. My amendment does not impose disproportionate burdens on the industry. It is largely about ensuring better training, information and communication, as well as compliance with the laws that already exist. In brief, Natasha’s Foundation has identified four areas where improvement is needed: leadership, training, policies and food. Airlines need to be asked to publish clear policies, setting out the support passengers can expect. They should be easily available on their websites, communicated before booking and throughout travel, and applied throughout the passenger journey. Simple adjustments, such as announcements on flights or time to pre-board to wipe down food trays, are easy to accommodate in the airline industry, but they are frequently inconsistent. A food-allergic passenger may request them, but that does not mean that the request carries through to the cabin crew on that plane, as they often do not receive the communication that someone is a food-allergic passenger.
All airline staff, as the noble Baronesses, Lady Brinton and Lady Grey-Thompson, said, should receive training. We would obviously say that that needs to be food allergy and anaphylaxis training, how to recognise an allergic reaction and how to use an adrenaline auto-injector. Spare AAIs should be carried on all flights and be available in many different sites across airports. Accurate allergen information must be available for all the food served on board. Natasha’s law should be applied and enforced, and cabin crews should have access to information about the food they serve.
All these recommendations are very much in line with the conclusions of the Aviation Accessibility Task and Finish Group, chaired by my noble friend Lady Grey-Thompson. Natasha’s Foundation thank her for her support, as we were very grateful to have the opportunity to provide evidence, and we were pleased that allergy was recognised in the group’s final report. The group’s recommendations on staff training, passenger information, communication and support for people with disabilities and non-visible disabilities, including allergies, is exactly as the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, said—we are all trying to do the same thing, because all these conditions need the same thing: information and training.
I therefore hope that the Government will look favourably on the amendment. I also ask my noble friend the Minister to take time to read, before Report, the report from Natasha’s Foundation, Flying with a Food Allergy, and agree to meet the foundation and others to discuss this amendment and the practical solutions that it contains to improve safety, build trust and enhance passenger experience, which is what the Bill should be about.
Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)
I thank noble Lords who have taken part in this debate so far, not least my friends the noble Baronesses, Lady Grey-Thompson and Lady Brinton, who have done so much for disabled people for such a long period of time, despite suffering indignity and discrimination on their own account, often when using various transport modes. It is impressive, and continues to be messaging that Ministers in any and every department should take more than a passing note of.
To take one tiny step back—here I am in danger of giving a bit of a Second Reading speech, but I promise noble Lords that it is purely Committee-stage chat—I want to talk about what is possible. So much of what has been discussed with regard to disabled people goes into the “too difficult” file, or somehow health and safety trumps the rights of disabled people.
At London 2012 we faced the world’s finest elite disabled athletes coming to London—and, whatever we did at the park, the venues, the stadium or the aquatic centre, imagine if we had not looked at the aviation experience, not least at the port of arrival for air, London’s Heathrow Airport. Noble Lords can imagine that whatever we did in terms of athlete experience in the venue and the village would have been as nothing; if we had not intervened, we would have had the world’s finest Paralympians coming to London, and their first experience of London 2012 would have been being pushed through the airport in an airport wheelchair, because it was said at the time that it was too difficult and operationally impossible to repatriate a person’s wheelchair to the door of the aircraft. We were fortunate that we had the power, the brand and the most immovable of deadlines of London 2012 to make that difference.
But the reality is that, no matter how good we planned that golden summer of sport to be, it is as nothing to ensuring, enabling and empowering all disabled people to assert their rights to travel with independence, dignity and respect, or, to put it another way, to have an airline experience equivalent to what a non-disabled person—lucky for them—can just experience and take for granted. I say “experience” because that, I believe, is the most helpful lens to get us to the right position on this. We should think about this experientially before we even make one operational decision in the Bill.
Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)
My Lords, I am absolutely delighted to follow the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, who has really put his finger on summarising all these amendments incredibly well. As you go through, you can look at each one as an individual case. Amendment 12 is about vulnerable people and where they are seated. Amendments 3, 6 and 15 are about being separated from medical equipment. Amendment 37 is about having a wheelchair passport. Amendment 45 is about unaccompanied minors and Amendment 48 is about offboarding times being reasonable. I will go back for a second to toilets on that one. It is appalling to leave people unable to get to the toilet after a flight and leave them on the plane for a long time. If they have an accident, what happens? All their clothes are somewhere else and they are left sitting on a wet wheelchair. It is absolutely appalling. I note that, on Amendment 58 and assistance dogs, it is important to remember that they also need to do a wee; it is not just the passengers.
I ask the Minister whether he sees it as possible with this Bill to set a standard that must be complied with if an airline has landing rights at a UK airport? If there is a standard that must be met, it could become very attractive to be using UK airports. It would seem to make commercial sense, and it could then apply everywhere. We have focused on Heathrow, but I live in Cardiff. It is a tiny airport, and we have a small number of flights, but everybody should still be treated with respect. One of those standards would simply be for people to deplane first, rather than last. That would make a big difference to people with a disability. The other passengers could jolly well wait five or ten minutes, having travelled for hours. I worry about the selfishness that sometimes we see displayed.
Also, when it comes to wheelchairs and wheelchair damage, we would not accept a passenger having their leg broken by travelling on a plane. As my noble friend Lady Grey-Thompson said, for her and other wheelchair users, their wheels are their legs. Similarly, for people using CPAP, their lungs cannot function without it. We are saying that it is okay to let somebody half-suffocate if they need CPAP, but you would not let somebody else half-suffocate. We have really mixed messages. Could the Minister possibly create a UK-wide standard that everyone with landing rights at UK airports would be required to meet, and, if they are repeatedly in breach of it, they might lose their landing rights? I am interested to know.
Lord Blencathra (Con)
My Lords, I apologise to the Committee—I was in Yerevan in Armenia monitoring the election for the Council of Europe at Second Reading. This is the only intervention I shall make in Committee. I have done an observation role for the Council of Europe for the last 10 years, and among the airports and countries I have visited are Basel, Malta, Crete, Rome, Athens, Riga, Tbilisi, Frankfurt, Budapest, Monaco, Venice, Ankara, Amsterdam, Istanbul, Gdańsk last year, where I met Lech Wałęsa—he is still going strong—New York, Oslo, Helsinki, Charles de Gaulle, Seville, Sofia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Saint Petersburg—I am banned from Russia now—Monaco, Bulgaria, Vilnius, Minsk and Kiev, before the war. I do not have the authority of noble Lords who have moved their amendments but, by God, I have the experience of 100 check-ins and 50 hours of non-stop hassle.
I support the content of nearly all the amendments in this large grouping, but particularly Amendments 1, 6, 21 and 48. The Minister will say that we do not need any of them, since he has a general power in the Bill to make regulations in Clause 1(2)(e). That is okay as far as it goes, but we need to spell out the areas and aspects of disability on which we need regulations made. We should not leave it to officials in the department at some time in the future to come up with some regulations which may not be a priority for disabled passengers.
Let us take the problems wheelchair users suffer in chronological order. At least 48 hours before we travel, we fill in the airline forms about the chair—its weight, dimensions and battery type. Airline forms are all different and some misdescribe the type of battery, and ask if there is an open cell one, which was abolished about 20 years ago. We tell them whether we can walk a little bit and whether we need a chair down the aisle or can manage a few steps. British Airways are quite good with its forms. That is all good stuff, but I can tell this Committee with absolute honesty that at every single check-in I have done, not one word of what we fed into that computer is on the check-in computer. All the information they have is that the passenger will have a wheelchair, and the only training they seem to have is to ask about lithium batteries. Airlines are right to be paranoid about lithium batteries, which must never be put in the hold. Every time I check in, the check-in person says to me, with a look of panic, “Are they lithium batteries?” I say, “No, they’re sealed, non-spillable, dry cell”, which is an official category on the form. The next question is, “Can they be taken out”? I say, “No, they are bolted in. Only lithium batteries are removable”. That is usually challenged with the question: “Why not take them out”? I explain that they are bolted in and not removable, and they weigh 8 kilograms each.
Baroness Grender (LD)
Wow—how much blood has to boil before this is dealt with? It was striking at Second Reading to hear these stories, and striking that a lot of them came from behind the Minister on the Government Benches. In a sense, that gives me a little hope that there is enough political will and heft here that something can be done. From meetings that we have had with the Minister, I think there is political will here.
We cannot ever hear these stories again without having taken this opportunity and this moment to do something. It is beyond shocking that this happens. It should never happen, but, in a modern age, today, that this is happening on a regular basis is beyond the pale and needs to stop. Whatever support the Minister requires to get this over the line, I know that my noble friend Lady Brinton, the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, and the noble Lords, Lord Holmes and Lord Blencathra, are powerful advocates who can help deliver on that.
We support the amendment by the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy. I have two amendments in my name, one of which is about an accompanying adult with a child. This is an incredibly important issue. We recognise that there is one bad actor at the moment on this and that the CMA is looking into it. That said, embedding this in the Bill would give the reassurance that families need and deserve. When I was talking about this amendment with my noble friend Lady Brinton, she pointed out that it is not simply families who get separated from their children; people get separated from their carers—when you go searching, you find that there are plenty of examples of that. Again, surely this is a small change that can and should be implemented.
I am incredibly hopeful that there is an opportunity between this Committee and Report to do some serious and significant work, to make use of this Bill to ensure that we never have to hear of this appalling treatment ever again.
Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, it has been an important, valuable and moving debate. I do not have anything to add that would be helpful to the Committee, except to say that we must all take account of the important stories of people’s real experience, which are illustrative of what so many others have to face.
I said at Second Reading that I hoped that there would be sufficient unanimity on these issues and that the Government themselves would bring forward amendments around which we could rally. The advantage of that would have been that any government amendments would be workable and acceptable, so we would have been able to rally around something that worked rather than struggling as Back-Benchers, with the modest support we have, to devise something and impose it on the Government, which is always unsatisfactory in a certain sense. Unfortunately, the Government have not come forward with amendments, but there is still an opportunity for them to do so on Report. If they do not, I am sure that there will be a wide range of amendments that will almost certainly go to a Division. I do not see that they are going to be defeated, given the attitudes that have been expressed by noble Lords across the Grand Committee.
I urge the Government that it is in their interests to seize this issue and run with it. If they did so, I think that the whole Committee, across parties, would rally round them.
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
My Lords, I am grateful to noble Lords for their thoughtful and powerful contributions on accessibility and consumer protection. The noble Baroness, Lady Grender, is right that we should not have to hear these stories. Some of them are simply dreadful, and the worst thing is that they are only examples.
The Government share the objective behind the amendments that disabled passengers and others who need assistance should be able to travel by air with confidence, dignity and appropriate redress when things go wrong. It is for those reasons that the Government established the Aviation Accessibility Task and Finish Group. I have already welcomed the report of July last year from the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson.
Before turning to individual amendments, I should make one point that applies to very many of them. Clauses 1 and 2 are designed to provide powers to strengthen passenger rights and enforcement. The Government’s view is that detailed requirements relating to passenger rights are best developed through secondary legislation, following consultation, evidence gathering and impact assessment, rather than fixed in primary legislation now, when the time to do those things is insufficient. I ask noble Lords to keep these common factors in mind as I progress but, to be clear, I will gladly meet interested Members of your Lordships’ House to discuss each individual amendment and describe further the Government’s intentions. To gently contradict the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, Ministers will have influence on what is brought forward in the regulations; it will not just be civil servants who propose. However, I will be asking noble Lords not to press their amendments, for the reasons I will set out.
Baroness Grey-Thompson (CB)
My Lords, this has been a large group of amendments, and I think the answer is probably somewhere in the middle. I remain unconvinced that the Bill, as it stands, goes far enough. I like the suggestion from the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, of government amendments. That might save quite a lot of time, as this would be something that I would want to push to a Division on Report.
The debate highlights some of the problems we have with international jurisdictions. We have not addressed people who want to fly in electric wheelchairs. That is above anything that we can do here.
Lord Moylan
Member's explanatory statement
This amendment probes why both the CAA and the CMA require powers to compel information from air transport service providers and airport operators, and whether this function should rest with the CAA alone as the aviation regulator.
Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, we come now to a debate about the mechanics of the Bill, and it involves a considerable amount of detail. We are focused on the purposes of Clause 1 and 2. The purpose of Clause 1 is to give the Secretary of State the power to make regulations about the consumer protection of air passengers. As we know, those regulations have until recently been made by the European Union. It is right that the Secretary of State should be given those powers. The Secretary of State is accountable to Parliament and to the public, which is all to the good.
We object to the fact that so many of those regulations are to be made by the negative procedure. I know that at Second Reading, the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, said that it did not matter either way, but it does matter to us as Members of your Lordships’ House that statutory instruments of importance, especially those making regulations to do with consumer protection, should come forward as instruments under the affirmative procedure. We have amendments to that effect in this group. As things stand, the only instruments that would come under the affirmative procedure, as the Bill is written, would be those creating criminal offences. The Government, at least, accept that. But the others, which are matters to do with consumer protection, would be under the negative procedure. That is not good enough.
The second question relates to who is to do the enforcement and how. This is more to the thrust of Clause 2. Clause 2 itself is very short, but it enacts Schedule 1, which in terms of paper takes up about half the Bill. It is a very lengthy schedule, which is why this group might not be as short as one might hope.
Clause 2, with its schedule, splices—I think that is the right word—the Civil Aviation Authority into the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act, which gives the Competition and Markets Authority its power to engage as a regulator with British businesses, looking at matters to do with competition, monopolies, abusive behaviour and so forth. It is interesting that reference was made earlier in the debate to the case being pursued at the moment by the Competition and Markets Authority against a British airline for charging families a fee in order to sit together, particularly a fee that affects younger members of the family under the age of 16. The noble Lord said he was not going to comment on the merits of that case, and understandably; nor am I, but it is interesting that that case, which is clearly a consumer protection case, is being pursued by the CMA.
We are going to have the CAA spliced into the Bill as a parallel regulator. We will have two regulators, with broadly similar powers, regulating the aviation sector. Anyone with even the remotest experience of low-level local government, such as myself, knows that one of the principles of enforcement in British law is that, for one crime, there is one prosecutor, so you cannot be prosecuted twice or pursued twice by different prosecutors for the same offence. That applies to traffic offences. They are enforced by the local authority, as parking generally is, or, if they are moving traffic offences, then, depending on the area—I am speaking of London now, where this is true, but it is not true of the rest of the country—they are enforced by either the local authority or the Metropolitan Police but not both, for the very good reason I have explained. It is simple. Why is the CAA being spliced into this structure—the architecture of the Bill—as a parallel regulator, and how will the two work together?
Well, the Bill has an answer to that: they will work together because the Secretary of State is given powers to sit on top of this Tweedledum, Tweedledee structure and decide—there is no guidance given and nothing explained as to how he will decide—how to co-ordinate the two. One could hardly imagine a more bizarre structure, a sort of pushmi-pullyu horse with two people inside it, and how they will work together. I do not have a solution. My amendment simply removes one of them from the structure and leaves it to the other; I suspect that that is not a wholly satisfactory solution, but my amendment is for the purpose of provoking this debate. But it is wholly unsatisfactory that the Government are proposing this architecture. I think it is for the Government to come forward with something workable that satisfies the Committee that they are actually able to deliver this in a way that will work. At the moment, it will not.
There are amendments from my noble friend Lord Grayling, which I have signed and which I am sure he will speak to himself shortly, but I have further amendments in this group that relate to the enforcement powers. According to the Bill, the way the Civil Aviation Authority will work if it has to take an enforcement action is that it will issue a notice to the miscreant airline or whatever operator it is that comes within the scope of the Bill. That is perfectly all right, but there is no appeal built in against the notice. The only way in which somebody who disputed the notice could appeal against it, as far as I can see, is by way of judicial review, which the Civil Aviation Authority’s decisions are subject to. You would have to proceed to judicial review, which is an astonishingly heavy and wasteful, time-consuming and expensive process, when the Bill is clearly calling out for some sort of intermediary step, tribunal, mediator or body that can sort out disputes where the two are not in agreement and where it is believed that the Civil Aviation Authority has not conducted itself properly or in a way that is reasonable.
Lord Grayling (Con)
My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 17 and 22 in this group. Following on from what my noble friend Lord Moylan has said, my concern is that the nature of the Civil Aviation Authority is being changed by the content of this Bill. It seems to be going further than simply continuing the protections for consumers that existed under European law—which rightly should remain in UK law. The level of enforcement powers in the Bill cause me a great deal of concern and are not what the Civil Aviation Authority is there to do. It is primarily a safety body. Its big focus, as we left the European Union, was taking over the responsibilities for aviation safety in the UK from EASA. Since then, we have seen dramatic changes in technology, the emergence to a much greater degree of drone technology and different kinds of aviation beginning to appear on the horizon. We are looking at the realistic possibility of air taxis in the very near future. There is a very clear and necessary remit for the Civil Aviation Authority to maintain as the guardian of aviation safety in the United Kingdom.
Of course, there will be occasions when it needs enforcement powers, but as my noble friend rightly says, it is taking over enforcement powers that very much mirror those that already exist for consumers in this sector from the CMA. In doing so, it is creating a whole raft of additional responsibilities for a body that I want to remain a very focused organisation that has safety as its number one priority.
I simply cannot understand why it is necessary to give the CAA what are, in essence, enforcement powers that the police have—for example, the power to kick in a door or to interrogate someone in their place of work or their own home. This is not a simple civil enforcement provision. This is taking the role of the Civil Aviation Authority to another level. The first of the amendments that I have tabled is intended to challenge the need for those powers to exist. I am utterly unpersuaded that they need to exist. Unless the Minister can do a pretty good job of explaining why they are necessary, we will return to it on Report.
We will also need to limit somewhat the CAA’s ability to get into the weeds with these enforcement powers. In effect, we need to concentrate its ability to take such action in a situation where there is clearly a systemic failure. We should not be giving the Civil Aviation Authority draconian powers to deal with relatively minor matters. That simply should not be the case in law. The CMA already deals with minor and significant consumer matters. Amendment 22 simply says that the powers in the Bill should focus on substantial systemic failure only.
I await with interest the Minister’s defence of this element of the Bill. I have addressed two specific areas but, as my noble friend Lord Moylan just set out, there are more. I hope the Minister can persuade us because, unless he does, I am sure we will want to return to this on Report.
Baroness Foster of Oxton (Con)
My Lords, I support the thinking behind the comments made by my noble friends.
For clarification, if we are looking at consumer rights, it is the Civil Aviation Authority that has dealt with the public over a number of years when the public have not been satisfied with the compensation for delays or cancellations that they have received from an airline. The CAA is already doing that and playing that role. Do the Government see the CAA continuing with that particular role in such cases? That is one question.
Secondly, when we start to look at the Competition and Markets Authority, I do not see how you can have two authorities basically dealing with the same things. We know that the Civil Aviation Authority has the expertise in these fields, which is quite right, whatever we might object to in terms of powers. I am not sure who came up with the idea of the competition authority coming into decisions that should be made by the CAA as a regulator. I would be very interested to know from the Minister how this thought—that there could be two regulatory authorities dealing with civil aviation, its merits and everything that goes on around it—came about.
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
My Lords, this group concerns the consumer rights powers in the Bill and the scrutiny of those powers. I am grateful to noble Lords for their amendments. The Government’s objective is a coherent, effective and proportionate consumer protection regime for aviation passengers.
Before I turn to the individual amendments, I will make three points that apply across this group. First, Clause 1 does not in itself create new powers of entry or financial penalties; it simply enables regulations to be made, with their scope, safeguards and detail being considered when they are brought forward. Secondly, the Government believe that detailed requirements should be developed through secondary legislation, with consultation, options appraisal and an impact assessment where appropriate. Thirdly, the Bill preserves flexibility so that the CAA, the CMA and the Government can respond effectively to consumer harms that may cut across aviation and wider markets. Where I refer to duplication, proportionality or flexibility, these are the common justifications that I have in mind.
Let me begin with Amendments 8 and 18 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, which are supported by the noble Baroness, Lady Foster, and concern the role of the Competition and Markets Authority. Although most aviation-specific enforcement relating to information gathering and powers of entry will sit with the CAA in practice, the CMA has a broader, market-wide role—including in sectors that overlap with aviation, such as travel and holidays. The CAA and the CMA already have concurrent powers in relation to general consumer law. Removing the CMA from this framework could limit flexibility and make it harder to address problems that span aviation and wider consumer markets. Therefore, in the Government’s view, it is right to retain the ability to include the CMA where necessary. The precise role of each regulator will be considered when secondary legislation is drafted. I therefore ask the noble Lord not to press his amendments.
I turn next to the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Grayling, which seeks to remove the power of entry provision in Clause 1. I am afraid that I cannot support it. The Bill is designed to improve the CAA’s enforcement ability and to reduce reliance on slow, resource-intensive court processes. Clause 2 strengthens the CAA’s direct information-gathering powers. Clause 1 enables those powers to be strengthened further, if needed, including by enabling powers to enter premises or to require documents and information during the course of an investigation. Any such power would be considered carefully, consulted on and include appropriate safeguards when regulations are brought forward.
I also assure the noble Lord that these wide enforcement powers, including powers of entry, fell within Section 2 of the European Communities Act 1972. Much passenger rights law originated in EU law and has now been assimilated into UK law. Since our exit from the EU, primary legislation has generally been needed to amend it. Clause 1 restores the necessary degree of flexibility while preserving parliamentary scrutiny and future consultation. I ask the noble Lord not to press his amendment.
Lord Grayling (Con)
I have a simple question. What the Minister has not done is explain why it is necessary. What are the problems that this is designed to solve?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
I understand the noble Lord’s question. I will come back to him on that.
Amendment 22, also from the noble Lord, Lord Grayling, concerns financial penalties and the circumstances in which the CAA may act. The CAA’s role is to enforce consumer rights where breaches cause collective consumer harm, rather than to resolve individual disputes. Clause 1 does not in itself create financial penalties; it enables regulations to grant such powers in future where that is justified and appropriately framed. Any regulations creating penalties would be subject to the affirmative procedure. Thus the amendment would be unduly restrictive, so I ask the noble Lord not to press it. Having listened to noble Lords on the need for better enforcement, I would not wish to constrain the CAA’s powers in this respect.
I will address Amendments 26 and 27 from the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, together. I agree that future regulations must receive appropriate parliamentary scrutiny. Clause 1 already provides a balanced approach: the affirmative procedure applies to the most significant matters, including criminal offences and financial penalties. Some amendments could be more minor or technical changes, such as updating an organisation’s name. Requiring the affirmative procedure in all cases would not be proportionate and would place unnecessary demands on parliamentary time. I ask the noble Lord not to press his amendments.
On Amendment 28, also from the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, I absolutely agree on the importance of reviewing the impact of regulations. However, post-implementation review requirements are already considered when developing secondary legislation and included where appropriate. Not every regulation will warrant a review, particularly where changes are minor or technical. For the common reason of proportionality, I ask the noble Lord not to press this amendment.
Amendment 33, also from the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, concerns the procedure for regulations on co-operation between enforcement authorities. I do not consider the affirmative procedure necessary. These regulations are administrative in nature. They may cover information sharing, notification arrangements and how direct enforcers determine which authority should act in a particular case. There are precedents for such regulations using the negative procedure, which provides proportionate scrutiny. I ask the noble Lord not to press this amendment.
Amendment 34 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, concerns the jurisdiction of the CAA and the CMA in aviation consumer protection. Paragraph 6 of Schedule 1 already enables regulations to set out how the two authorities co-ordinate, decide which is best placed to act and avoid duplication, including through joint working. The CAA will also have regard to the CMA’s rules, supporting consistent enforcement. A fixed approach in primary legislation would reduce flexibility and risk constraining effective enforcement. I therefore ask the noble Lord not to press Amendment 34.
Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, the structure that the Bill introduces is not going to work. Having two regulators that are, frankly, fighting over turf in carrying out enforcement actions will not work. It will fail. I am giving the Government an opportunity now to recognise that and do something about it.
On whether it should be the CAA or the CMA, my amendment would remove the CMA from the process —my noble friend Lady Foster supported this—so that it stays with the CAA, but I am open to an argument either way as to which of the two enforcement authorities it ought to be. That is not my main point, which is that there needs to be just one. The Minister says that this is all going to be sorted out by a statutory instrument. Indeed it will—that is mentioned in Schedule 1 on page 19—but it is going to be a negative statutory instrument, so we will know almost nothing about it.
In relation to powers, I fully appreciate that the Bill does not in itself create new consumer rights nor particular enforcement powers. I was careful to say that Clause 1 gives the Secretary of State the power to give powers to the Civil Aviation Authority; I was clear about that, I think. None the less, all of those powers, which the Minister says are going to be transparent and consulted on, will be carried out under the negative procedure. Except for the powers creating criminal offences, they should not be; they should be carried out under the affirmative process.
This matter is so important to the Bill, as a piece of administrative legislation, that it is very likely, I am afraid, that I will come back to some of these issues on Report. For the moment, though, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
Lord Holmes of Richmond
“Use of artificial intelligence in CAA enforcement decisions(1) Where the CAA uses an artificial intelligence system to inform or support the exercise of its direct enforcement functions under Schedule 1, the CAA must—(a) ensure that every enforcement decision informed by an artificial intelligence system is reviewed and authorised by a qualified human decision-maker before it takes effect;(b) conduct bias audits of the system at intervals of not more than 12 months and publish the results;(c) provide a written explanation of any enforcement decision informed by an artificial intelligence system to the person affected on request;(d) operate an accessible appeals mechanism through which persons affected by such a decision may challenge the use of the system.(2) For the purposes of this section “artificial intelligence system” has the meaning given in the AI Act (Regulation (EU) 2024/1689), or such other meaning as the Secretary of State may specify by regulations.(3) The CAA must publish an annual report on its use of artificial intelligence systems in the exercise of its direct enforcement functions.(4) Any regulations under this section are to be made by statutory instrument.(5) A statutory instrument containing regulations under this section may not be made unless a draft of the instrument has been laid before, and approved by a resolution of, each House of Parliament.”Member's explanatory statement
This amendment seeks to require human oversight at every decision point where AI is used in the CAA's direct enforcement functions, mandates annual bias audits with published results, requires written explanations of AI-informed enforcement decisions on request, and establishes an accessible appeals mechanism.
Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to move Amendment 31 in my name and to speak to Amendment 32 and the other two amendments in my name in this group. It is worth reflecting that we have now been in Committee since 3.45 pm. We could have flown to Athens in that time, but who would want that when you can have the warmth of the Grand Committee together?
To take a step back, it is interesting that the aviation sector has often been at the forefront of technological advancement. Just two examples are Sir Frank Whittle’s jet and the elegance of Concorde, which also speaks beyond technology to what we can achieve when we work internationally and collaboratively—something unrivalled in commercial aviation since and that is still a marvel. Bearing that in mind, it is extraordinary that this Bill is silent on the possibilities of technology, not least emerging technologies and the powers they could bring to support the intentions of the Bill. That is the purpose of these amendments.
Amendment 31 looks to how AI could be used to assist the CAA in its endeavours. Amendment 32 looks at all the questions around cyber, particularly given the legacy systems at UK airports. The Bill’s provisions will bring a lot of new data into play. It is imperative that this data is subject to stringent levels of cyber security and protection. It would be positive for all concerned if this were set out in the Bill. Harking back to those days of innovation and endeavour—the white heat of technology from the Labour Government under which Concorde came into being—it would be extraordinarily positive to have a technology horizon-scanning requirement for the CAA. That would make a difference not just for airline businesses, as it sits squarely with them, but to how emerging technologies could assist and transform the operations of the CAA for the benefit of airlines, passengers and everybody involved in aviation.
Finally, to turn to the governance that should sit around these technologies, there is clearly an assistive, enabling and supportive role that the CAA could play in terms of guidance and support. The Government have clearly stated their approach to artificial intelligence: to not bring forward cross-sector and cross-economy AI legislation. There is nothing party political in that approach; it is the identical approach to that which was taken by the previous Government. It is a sub-optimal approach, because it fails to give the UK the best opportunity really to realise and optimise the potential from this constellation of technologies that we call AI and go to the heart of the attendant risks, which will otherwise go unaddressed, and oftentimes it will be those at the sharp end who suffer the most.
The Government have stated that they do not want to do cross-sector AI regulation and that they will take a domain-specific approach. Here we have a specific domain—aviation—yet the Bill is silent with regard to AI. Is it the position that the Government are simultaneously not bringing forward cross-sector AI legislation while also not doing anything domain by domain, sector by sector on AI legislation and regulation? That is the position with regard to this domain, as set out in the Bill. This is about the transformational power, and the potential for the CAA to transform how it goes about its operations to enable better services to airlines, and its role in transforming the passenger experience and optimising it, with a far more efficient use of all the resources that are currently in play. That is the current situation, and it seems at least curious if not somewhat unfortunate. I look forward to the Minister’s response and I beg to move.
Lord Barber of Ainsdale (Lab)
My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 101A. I declare an interest as I am currently president of the British Airline Pilots Association.
It is clear that we have ambitious targets for growth in this sector. It is a sector with tremendous growth potential. That will need an appropriate number of pilots to be available in the coming years, but it is clear that there is a rising number of licensed pilots who will leave the workforce in the next few years. There is a compulsory retirement age for commercial pilots of 65. In a recent answer to a Parliamentary Question, the Minister reported that, of the CAA-registered pilots reaching that age, more than 1,300 will leave the sector within the next five years. That is at a time when we have ambitious plans for airport expansion, to promote growth in the sector.
This amendment would require the CAA—and it would engage the sector—not to sleepwalk into difficulties with shortages of pilots by publishing an annual report, with three key issues to address. First, there is the availability of pilots in the coming period. Secondly, there is the capacity of training provision in this area. Thirdly, there are the factors affecting access to the profession of pilot, including the cost of the necessary training.
On that final point, there are currently real financial barriers to pilot training. The cost is something of the order of £100,000 or more, and there are only two airline-funded schemes to train new pilots—British Airways and Jet2. For every successful applicant to the BA scheme, there are around 100 unsuccessful applicants who would like to make a career in the industry and who potentially have the skills and adaptability to undergo the training successfully. In terms of availability of finance, unless you have the bank of mum and dad, there is no real alternative provision available. There is no student loan scheme for people wishing to access the profession, and there is no readily available commercial loan offer from the banks either.
Lord Davies of Gower (Con)
My Lords, I will speak to my Amendment 65A, through which I am pleased to have the opportunity to address the issue of instrument training. I confess that it is a dry subject, but it is essential and falls within the scope of group 5.
The CAA published its refreshed general aviation strategy in October 2025, setting out its vision for
“A safe, innovative, and sustainable general aviation sector”
operating within
“a proportionate and supportive regulatory environment”.
In the report, the CAA acknowledged that, while progress has been made,
“The GA sector faces … challenges including declining flying hours, a stagnating number of recreational pilot licence holders, as well as an ageing fleet of aircraft”.
One very challenging aspect facing general aviation at present, which has not been adequately addressed, is support for self-improver pilots in instrument training: the pilots who pay their own way from initial training for a private pilot’s licence through to commercial pilot qualification and who have, incidentally, traditionally made up the vast majority of commercial pilots. This access to instrument training challenge also applies to students on approved airline pilot training courses, and this reinforces the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Barber of Ainsdale: no training, no pilots. One of the essential ingredients to becoming a commercial pilot, or indeed an additional qualification for any private pilot, is instrument rating. I assure noble Lords that it is an exacting test of 55 hours of blind flying, mathematics and flying skill that allows pilots eventually to fly in and make approaches to airports in marginal weather conditions.
The challenge pilots undertaking training now face, however, is access to airports with the facilities to enable training for the instrument rating qualification. Currently in the UK, there is a complete lack of instrument approach training slots. The whole of the UK professional flight training industry cannot deliver for UK-based students the full range of navigational performance training which is reliant upon satellite-based signals. As I pointed out at Second Reading, worse still, all these GPS-supported approaches are only two-dimensional, lateral and non-positional. Three-dimensional precision requires the European geostationary navigation overlay service—EGNOS—safety-of-life service to enable the airport to provide this. I will not dwell on EGNOS, as there will be more of that later.
Across the channel, in places such as Jersey and in other European countries, and indeed in the USA, a full suite of approaches to training aircraft is available, as they still benefit—certainly in Europe at least—from the EGNOS signal in space. This is a loss of revenue and skills base to the UK. Similarly, air traffic control officers cannot do more than train in simulation for 3D approaches, which can get as low as 250 feet above the runway.
Many UK instrument rating instructors and CAA examiners have highlighted the issues relating to the instrument rating training. The situation has been ongoing for the past 15 years and has been noticeably worse in the last 10 years. The situation has been highlighted to the Civil Aviation Authority, but as yet nothing has been addressed.
My amendment seeks to find a remedy to account for the lack of opportunity for instrument training through the limited availability of suitably equipped airfields. There are many reasons for it: the closure of UK airfields; the removal of instrument landing systems, partly due to the expense of maintaining them to the approved standard; the availability of navigational aids at the airfields that remain open and which accept training flights; the cost of transit flights for the students to access airfields with required navigation aids; and the general shortage of air traffic controllers, both civil and military. Quite a number of airports in the UK do have facilities, although they are not made easily accessible for one reason or another, yet at varying times of the day they have a certain amount of redundancy. Furthermore, a large number of military airfields with the necessary facilities also have a great deal of redundancy.
In conclusion, the purpose of my amendment is to open the debate to see whether there is a way to encourage availability where there is this redundancy. I fully recognise the challenge this creates across government departments, but the situation has become quite dire and the solution requires some thought. I hope that the Minister appreciates my concern and is willing to give some thought to the solution, together with the CAA, which, of course, is responsible for licensing the instrument approaches.
Baroness Foster of Oxton (Con)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, for his very interesting take and amendments in this area.
I want to come to pilot training. I support the noble Lord, Lord Barber, who, as a former trade union negotiator for British Airways cabin crew, worked very closely with our BALPA colleagues for many years—and that continues. I agree with what he said.
My ex-husband trained at Hamble—as I think the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, will remember—and when I joined the airline industry, our pilots had come from the RAF or the schemes run by BEA, BOAC and then British Airways. Other pilots went to Oxford Flying School, Prestwick or various other places. It was always a costly venture for any pilot not part of the state-owned airline industry as such. But we have moved on, and the noble Lord is right to say that it is fine to complain but we need some action.
As the noble Lord said, it costs in the region of £100,000 to train somebody up to be a commercial pilot. That is an extremely good investment for an airline but, as has been mentioned, British Airways and Jet2 appear to be the only airlines prepared to put their money where their mouth is.
These loans, if they come as loans, guarantee that those pilots will pay them back over the years. Unlike certain students, perhaps, I do not think they are going to disappear into the long grass. So it behoves government to start to look at a student loan-type scheme. Industry and the airlines need to step up, and those complaining of a shortage of pilots coming forward need to look at the schemes run by BA and Jet2 and start to provide some incentive and some action to deal with a possible shortage over the next few years.
This is a fantastic profession and those young men and women who go into it will have a rewarding career until their mid-60s. I think it behoves all of us to do everything we can. While we encourage youngsters to go to university, this is a profession that really needs to be supported. We now need to get outside the box and start to look at ways to get in those young, enthusiastic people who will be our brilliant pilots of the future.
Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)
I will go next because of the generality of the subject. I find myself in the peculiar position of agreeing with people for once. I, broadly speaking, share the general direction of the noble Lord, Lord Barber, the specific objection of the noble Lord, Lord Davies—I remember well the joys of the instrument rating—and the general direction of the noble Baroness, Lady Foster.
I have a particular interest in this because I was in the airline industry for 22 years. For about eight of those I was a pilot and during that time, thanks to Norman Tebbit, of all people, I was a pilot shop steward. So I am used to this debate but, peculiarly, my future career in the airline industry was as an airline manager, and I was involved with pilot recruitment. Pilot recruitment and numbers since the Second World War have been chaotic. There was not really any serious civil aviation before the Second World War. The expansion of aviation during that period created a situation where there were pilots and aircraft available after the end of the war. Along came, thanks to the Soviet Union, the Berlin airlift, which was a great provoker of civil aviation in the UK, as small firms all over the place set up and participated in that operation between June 1948 and May 1949.
That was the beginning of a period where the Great British public discovered that the sun in Benidorm was actually rather better than the sun in Skegness. There was, generally speaking, a boom from the early 1950s onwards. The nationalised airlines, BEA and BOAC, woke up to the fact that this pool of free pilots was going to run dry and they created the training facility at Hamble. It trained 2,000 pilots over the 24 years it was in operation, including me.
More recently, we have a shortage, and we have worries about how we are going to solve that shortage. It has been funded in the sense of creating pilots by self-funding pilots. People talk of £100,000. Frankly, I do not think you get a lot of change out of £130,000. That has meant it has been an occupation for people who have access to £130,000 pounds. I hate to tell the Committee this, but a lot of people do not have that access to funds. BA has come forward with a scheme over the past couple of years, and we are right back to where I came from—that is, the airlines paying for pilots. I am slightly narked, because its programme is entirely free, whereas I had to pay back £1,000 after being employed ,and that is about £24,000 in today’s money, but good luck to them.
We just cannot have the chaos of the marketplace, including how rich your parents are, determining the supply of pilots. We need a holistic analysis of where we are, what the demand is and what the training capability is. We need to worry about the components of it, the specialist training that the noble Lord, Lord Davies, talked about, and the fundamental training, of which general aviation is such an important part. We need to at least have a situation where somebody sees the total picture, and that should be the CAA.
The amendments in this group basically say that the CAA should pick up that responsibility and create a report every year, or whatever. When see the whole picture, the industry can more sensibly react to it—the CAA can push these things, to an extent, and British Airways can help with this—which could lead to a smooth situation that we have not had since 1945. That is why I support the two amendments that have been spoken to, as well as my own amendment, which says that we should charge the CAA with creating the data picture that will become the basis for future pilot supply.
Lord Berkeley (Lab)
My Lords, very briefly, I support the amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Gower. I think he will agree that much of what he said—and it was reflected as well in the comments of many of my noble friends—came from the reaction that we both had from the All-Party Group on Aviation. It is a bit of a disaster situation. That group criticised the CAA strongly, not only on training—and everything else that noble Lords have talked about—but on the exam syllabus. The incident training syllabus has apparently not been upgraded for 20 years. This is in spite of examiners and other people asking the CAA to incorporate the charges, to no avail. My plea to my noble friend the Minister tonight is for him to put a bomb under the CAA and convert it into a new, customer-friendly regulator.
Baroness Grender (LD)
My Lords, the amendments in my name insist on statutory duties that would secure workforce resilience and international regulatory alignment, rather than leaving these matters to open-ended secondary legislation.
Amendment 103 would require the CAA to prepare an annual report on commercial pilot licence holders, including anonymised demographic data, and an assessment of workforce sustainability as a regulatory monitoring tool. The licensing authority needs to understand whether the pool of qualified pilots has been maintained at a level that supports safe and continuous operations. I thank BALPA for supporting this amendment and helping to draft it. An important point that has not so far been drawn out is the need to identify the proportion of pilots licensed to fly commercial airliners who are women—the kind of important data that ensures that there is a workforce that reflects the future.
The amendment would also require the CAA to consider the future availability of a pilot workforce. As we have heard, commercial airline pilots must retire at 65. An authoritative annual assessment by the CAA would flag issues about the future supply of trained pilots.
I feel that we are all currently dancing on the head of a very particular but extremely useful and important pin. Between now and Report, I hope that we can put some of this together—unless the Minister says in the next few minutes that he is accepting all our amendments. We live in hope.
Amendment 104 would place a statutory duty on the Secretary of State to pursue UK-EU mutual recognition in relation to pilot and engineer licensing and aircraft parts certification. This came through from one of the APPGs, which had particular concerns about this issue. The absence of recognition mechanisms can create duplicated compliance burdens. We are all familiar with this kind of thing: regulatory friction and delays in maintenance and staffing, all of which matter operationally and economically.
I will not take up any more of noble Lords’ time, except to say that I commend the noble Lord, Lord Holmes. We first served together in 2018 on the first Select Committee on artificial intelligence, so never let it be said that Peers are not sometimes ahead of the curve. Its report was entitled AI in the UK: Ready, Willing and Able? and he continues to pursue this issue with his usual energy. I always support and listen to him on these issues, and I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response.
Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, in the last group, I came up with a modest amendment that would have involved increasing the threshold at which strike ballots had to be passed before a strike could be undertaken—a clear consumer protection measure well in line with the purpose of the Bill. In this group, we seem to have wandered off into discussing pilot training, which I do not see as being intimately connected with consumer protection. Everyone is agreed that something should be done to interfere in the market, and that the Government or one of their agencies should take some sort of responsibility for this. It is entirely opposite to the thrust of the response I had on holding strikes. I find it remarkable.
I understand the problems identified by the noble Lords, Lord Barber and Lord Tunnicliffe, and my noble friend Lord Davies of Gower. I understand that these are indeed serious problems. I am willing to go so far as to accept that the Civil Aviation Authority might want to take cognisance of them and have a sense of how extensive the problems are. But it is surely very clearly for the industry itself to solve these problems, and that is what we must insist on. I imagine that the Minister will be as firm in rejecting these interferences with the market as he was in rejecting my modest amendment in the last group.
My noble friend Lord Holmes made points of great wisdom and vision, and the noble Baroness, Lady Grender, rightly pointed out the assiduity with which my noble friend has brought attention to bear on these important technological issues over a number of years. I do not feel competent myself to make direct comments on them, but I applaud the notion that we should be looking very carefully at the developments that technology will bring. That will include, of course, the abilities and skills required of pilots. I do not want to push it too far, but we have planes that now practically fly themselves—I do not mean that they can do without pilots, but they can practically fly themselves. Of course, in freight, we have drones appearing everywhere and great technological advances being made. That must have an impact on a training curriculum for pilots.
I was astonished to hear the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, say that the training curriculum for pilots was several decades old. I am not sure if I heard him correctly, but if that is so, then perhaps it needs to catch up with modern technology. There are many things that an aeroplane does nowadays that it could not do 30 years ago and that the pilot ought to know about.
I want to make this point again about UK-EU alignment—
Lord Berkeley (Lab)
What I actually said was that the syllabus was 30 years old. I hope the noble Lord understood that correctly.
Lord Moylan (Con)
I am very grateful, but does the syllabus not determine the content of the training? It is a matter we can take up outside—it is not something we need to detain the Committee on at the moment—but I am very grateful to the noble Lord for making it clear what he said and putting me right to that extent. I had no wish to put words into his mouth, but I was just struck by what he said.
I wanted to come back briefly to the question of UK-EU alignment on this. It would, of course, be very good if there were mutual recognition between the UK and the EU, but it would also be very good if there were mutual recognition between the UK and the US. I am not entirely sure why there is this relentless focus on the EU. In the days when we had freedom of movement—mercifully, we do not anymore, because we voted against it—mutual recognition would mean that a pilot could move from one country to another and live there and pursue his calling in those countries. That is no longer the case, any more than it is with the United States, so the argument for a specific arrangement with the European Union seems to me to fall largely by the wayside. Apart from that, I thank my noble friend Lord Davies of Gower for his contribution, and I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say in the four minutes remaining.
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
My Lords, I will do my best to speak as fast as I can, subject only to clarity. I turn to the next group, which covers workforce, skills and innovation. I am grateful to noble Lords for their amendments. Across this group, the Government share the underlying aim of ensuring that aviation remains safe, secure, innovative and supported by the skilled workforce it needs.
Before addressing each amendment, I will make a point that applies to several of them. In areas such as artificial intelligence, cyber security, emerging technology and skills, the Government’s view is that regulation must remain flexible, proportionate and capable of keeping pace with fast-moving developments. Where existing legislation, CAA functions, cross-government work or established programmes already address the issue, placing detailed duties in the Bill risks duplication, inconsistency and unnecessary administrative burden. I will refer back to that common justification where relevant.
I begin with Amendment 31, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Holmes of Richmond, on artificial intelligence safeguards. As he does, I recognise the importance of ensuring that AI is used fairly, transparently and responsibly. At present, the CAA does not use AI to make regulatory decisions, and any future consideration will require board approval. However, there are protections already in place should it do so. The CAA is subject to data protection legislation and Equality Act duties, which require fairness, transparency, accountability and appropriate human oversight in decision-making. Amendment 31 would duplicate those obligations and introduce a prescriptive statutory framework in an area where guidance, assurance processes and evolving standards are more suitable. AI policy is also being developed on a cross-government basis, led by DSIT, and legislation here in isolation risks cutting across that wider work. For those reasons, and applying the common point about flexibility and avoiding duplication, I ask the noble Lord to withdraw Amendment 31.
Amendment 32, also from the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, is on cyber security and legacy systems. Robust cyber security across aviation is essential. The CAA already has deep cyber experience and robust protocols and is subject to expectations in the Government’s cyber action plan. The Network and Information Systems Regulations require regulated entities to manage risks and prevent and minimise the impact of incidents. That already includes considering risks from legacy systems, with compliance assessed and enforced by the CAA.
There is also a wider legislative context. The cyber security and resilience Bill is designed to strengthen the UK’s cyber regulatory framework on a system-wide basis and allows further security and resilience requirements to be introduced through secondary legislation, following consultation. Stand-alone requirements in this Bill would risk fragmenting that coherent approach. I therefore ask the noble Lord not to press his amendment.
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Gower, for Amendment 65A, and the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, for his observations on this matter. Instrument approaches to airfields are subject to specific CAA approvals that ensure that pilots can safely land using their instruments when a visual approach is not possible, usually due to poor weather. These focus on ensuring that instrument landings and approaches can be undertaken safely, rather than adding an additional requirement for the airfield also to train pilots for instrument approaches.
There are also detailed requirements for training in international and UK safety regulations. Requiring training would not be appropriate for all airfields. Smaller airfields may not be able to accommodate this, and it may also be unsuitable for larger, busier airports where the operational environment and potential disruption to commercial flights make such requirements impractical. This amendment could, therefore, decrease the number of airfields that allow instrument approaches, making it more difficult for pilots to find places to land in poor weather. We will ask the CAA to give further consideration to this issue, but we are not convinced that it is a matter for primary legislation. I therefore ask the noble Lord not to press this amendment.
Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who contributed to this interesting debate. I also thank the Minister for his speedy response, which was Concorde-like in its pace of delivery and has landed us at the end of today’s proceedings in Committee. For now, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
Civil Aviation (Consumer Protection and Regulatory Reform) Bill [HL]
Thursday 18th June 2026
(1 month, 2 weeks ago)
Grand CommitteeRead Full debate Civil Aviation (Consumer Protection and Regulatory Reform) Bill [HL] 2026-27 Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 1-II Second marshalled list for Grand Committee - (17 Jun 2026)
Earl Russell
“(aa) after subsection (6) insert—“(6A) Where the Secretary of State makes a direction under this section, the Secretary of State must first—(a) consult persons likely to be affected by the direction, including communities in the vicinity of any airport or airspace affected,(b) undertake an environmental impact assessment in respect of the proposed direction, and(c) undertake a noise impact assessment in respect of the proposed direction.”;”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would require the Secretary of State to consult affected communities and complete environmental and noise impact assessments before making a direction under section 2 of the Air Traffic Management and Unmanned Aircraft Act 2021. It seeks to ensure that the exercise of the direction-making power is subject to scrutiny and community engagement.
Earl Russell (LD)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to start the second day in Committee on this Bill. I open this group on airspace modernisation, consultation and charging and move Amendment 60 in the name of my noble friend Lady Grender, as she is unfortunately unable to be here today.
The amendment is straightforward and seeks simply to insert a new subsection requiring that, before the Secretary of State makes any directions under Clause 4, three things must happen: a consultation with persons and communities likely to be affected; an environmental impact assessment; and a noise impact assessment. On these Benches, we feel that these additions are a basic requirement of legitimate decision-making where the power may have serious local consequences. The Clause 4 directions on airspace redesign are not merely a technical tidying-up exercise and can be used to alter flight concentrations, runway throughput, and the intensity and timing of overflight experienced on the ground. A ministerial direction made under this clause is capable, in substance, of facilitating additional capacity without ever being labelled as such.
As was said at Second Reading, the Bill is a blueprint; it is not the final product. It provides a framework that leaves the substance to future regulation. In that sense, as we have described, it is paving legislation. The Committee is entitled to ask what safeguards are built into that paving before being asked to drive on it. The Minister has given us reassurances that the Bill will not be used as a vehicle for airport expansion; we note and welcome those, and we accept them in the good faith in which they have been given. However, personal reassurances, however well-meaning, are not a legal safeguard. Ministers change, Prime Ministers change, Governments change, and interpretations can also change. The whole point of us seeking to put this duty into the Bill is to ensure that Parliament and the public can distinguish between a necessary operational change and one that, in effect, delivers additional capacity through the back door of airspace decision-making. Without mandatory consultation and impact assessment, the distinction cannot be realistically made. Even if it could be made, it would happen only after the fact.
Airport change proposals are already assessed through environmental methodologies, noise matrices and statutory directions. This should therefore be aligned with that pre-existing reality. For our communities, these matters are really important. Many, as we know, are already impacted by the noise and environmental impacts of existing airports, and future communities could be impacted by proposals under this legislation. These are real impacts on our communities, from noise late at night to environmental pollution. They should not have to rely on good will, however well-meaningly it is given. If the Secretary of State is to have this power, the Bill should state clearly what the procedural safeguards must be before it is used. That is exactly the point of Amendment 60. We are simply seeking to put a safeguard and some handrails in place around these powers. This is a crucial issue for us in our scrutiny of this Bill.
I turn briefly—I am sorry for speaking to these before others have managed to—to the other amendments in this group. In general, they all seek to do fairly similar things to Amendment 60. Amendment 61, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Grayling, would require a minimum 28-day targeted consultation with local communities, local authorities and airport operators before any direction on airspace redesign is issued. We have considerable sympathy for this amendment, for exactly the same reasons that I outlined on our Amendment 60. The 28-day objective is not onerous; it is fundamentally achievable. We hope that the Minister sees fit to put our Amendment 60, this Amendment 61 or some combination of them into the Bill.
Amendment 62, from the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, would add the British Airline Pilots Association to the consultation list. We are broadly supportive of this amendment and recognise the central role that our pilots play, particularly in matters of safety. Their judgment and professionalism are essential in any plans to modernise our airspace and capacity. However, our concern is that the amendment, by its nature, names one organisation and does not, for example, name air traffic controllers. We would prefer it if the amendment was reworded to talk about consultation with representatives of the industry, as opposed to naming only one organisation.
Amendment 63, from the noble Lord, Lord Holmes of Richmond, would require the CAA to establish a blockchain-based audit trail for every airspace change program. We recognise that the underlying objective and purpose of this is to create a tamper-proof, long-term record of what has been decided, by whom and when. That is an entirely legitimate concern. In the past, too many of these decisions have been opaque; it has been extremely difficult for anybody to know what has been happening and what has been done by whom.
The requirements in this amendment, particularly those in proposed new subsection (3) for cryptographic security, 15-year retention and tamper-proof records, are all laudable aims, but we wonder whether naming one specific technology would make this a hostage to fortune in the future. We suggest alternative wording that asks for a secure, auditable and publicly accessible record, without prescribing the exact technology to be used. We feel that that would be a better way forward. It might be that the technology that the noble Lord suggests is the one that is chosen, but alternative wording would at least leave more scope for examination in the round.
Amendment 64, from the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, probes with characteristic precision the rationale for allowing changes to be imposed under Clause 6 on persons who neither use nor benefit from the air traffic services in question. This is a serious point: the Bill should have open scrutiny of who bears the costs for these matters. I hope that the Minister can provide some clarity on those points.
The final amendment in this group is Amendment 65, from the noble Lord, Lord Kirkhope. It would require the Secretary of State and the CAA to have regard to the growth and sustainability of general aviation when setting charges and to ensure that charges on general aviation users are proportionate to the use that they make of air traffic services. General aviation is too often forgotten, and this seems a proportional requirement and a modest and reasonable ask. We look forward to the Minister’s response to it.
Lord Grayling (Con)
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Russell, for his comments on my Amendment 61. I will speak to it only briefly, because it is pretty self-explanatory.
The legislation rightly gives some power to the Government to intervene and, in effect, act as arbiter when it comes to airspace redesign. Airspace redesign has taken much too long. It started when I was Secretary of State and now, nearly eight years later, we are still not close to bringing it to fruition, yet it is fundamental to the future of the aviation sector in this country. It will unlock extra capacity and use next-generation technology to enable us to provide more respite to communities that are affected by aircraft noise, even though the level of aircraft noise, in the world in which we live, has dropped enormously over the past generation.
The Government rightly believe that they need some degree of arbiter powers in this, but I do not think that they should have those powers just to say, “Right, that’s the decision”. There is an obligation there—nothing at great length, because we know that government consultations can last for ever, take months to be responded to and all the rest, but with a simple process saying, “Look, that’s what we’re going to do. Is there anything we haven’t thought of? Is there something we’re not quite getting right here?” I say to the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, that the wording of the amendment is what it is, but I would expect pilots’ organisations, air traffic organisations and all the rest to be able to input a view on this point.
I would see this as being not an isolated consultation but a standard government consultation—a short, snappy one—simply so that the organisations and communities that have a vested interest can come forward and say, “There’s something you haven’t thought of. This is going to have an adverse effect that you haven’t thought about. You really shouldn’t be taking this decision”. It would be improper for that process not to exist where the Government have what is, in effect, a pretty absolute power of direction under the legislation as it is at the moment. I very much hope that the Minister will take that on board and perhaps look to include something of this kind on Report.
Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)
My Lords, I shall speak to Amendments 60 to 62; I express a specific concern in my Amendment 62. I thought that I knew about the technology in this debate until I decided to brush up on it yesterday; I have spent most of my working hours since then getting up to date, to some extent.
The essence of the technology, which would allow a much more holistic review of airspace use, is that it is dependent not on aids on the ground but on global positioning systems. That gives great benefits, in terms of what it does for aviation, but I put it to the Committee that it also gives great benefits to those who are concerned about the environmental impact. If your route does not fit with that bit of society and there is a route that can fit with that bit of society, then, with the overarching technology, it can be changed. Up to this point, changing where aeroplanes go close to the ground has been totally dominated by the ground-based aids that they use to land.
The essence of my amendment—as an ex-BALPA shop steward, I thought that I had better represent my old team—is to get pilots involved in this consultation. They are going to face dramatic differences. One of the first things that I would say relates to the point that the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, made the other day, which is that the planes can fly themselves. Normally, you have to drag the plane into the air then tell it to fly itself, and, when you get to the end, you actually have to make a few decisions. It is a very good theory; hopefully, when you press “flight nav” or something like that, that will happen.
The problem facing the modern pilot is that one of their most important tasks is to cope when there are system failures. There will be system failures. There are no big computer systems in the world that do not have system failures, as we all know to our cost. The problem is that the level of knowledge needed by the operative to cope with a system failure is very large but it is not often practised. It will, I am sure, follow the pilot’s standard of continuous checking. I have never flown an airplane with its engine on fire, but, when I was an airline pilot, I flew a plane with its engine on fire many times in a simulator. It was dramatic and great fun, but the whole essence here is that the systems delivering this will intrinsically and inevitably have failure modes early on. The crew are there to look after that, among all the other safety issues that they have to care about.
All the literature on the impact on pilots of a very different system says that it will require if not an almost completely new licence then certainly a substantial licence endorsement to equip pilots to look after these systems. How can their views and their wisdom be taken into account? They are the only people who can envisage the situation, together with a very dramatic change in standards.
Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)
My Lords, I will speak to my Amendment 63. I thank the noble Earl for the excellent way in which he introduced the group and covered the amendments with such eloquence. This is a very straightforward amendment whose purpose is clear: to have an immutable cryptographic record of such important decisions. I agree entirely with the noble Earl. The blockchain reference is merely illustrative but it also shows the unfortunate speed that I was flying at when I was drafting. I would like to have set out criteria that any technology would need to meet to achieve the objectives in the amendment. That was the approach that we took in the Electronic Trade Documents Act, for example, when we specified no particular technology but set out a series of criteria that any technology would have to meet to be able to perform the task. If we can import that into our considerations of this amendment, that would get us pretty much to where I am at.
The point is that blockchain would more than suffice for the task. There is obviously a difference between blockchain and distributed ledger technologies, which we do not need to go into at this stage, but there are technologies that have not even come to fruition, never mind to a level of usability at this stage, which almost certainly will have a part to play in such illustrations as this. It is critical, though I failed in this amendment, to have technology neutrality, because through that technology neutrality you give yourself the best opportunity of having technology future-proofing. If the Minister could respond with those thoughts in mind, which are in the text but I wrote them in white ink on a white page, I would be obliged.
Lord Kirkhope of Harrogate (Con)
In proposing Amendment 65, I must declare again my interests as set out at Second Reading. I have held a private pilot’s licence for about 40 years now. I am an officer of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on General Aviation, and I am the author of its inquiry into our lower airspace that was conducted a year or two ago. I am honorary vice-president of the British Airline Pilots Association and a former airport director. In a way, I am looking at this subject from rather more than one perspective.
At Second Reading, I pressed the Minister on Clause 6, and, in particular, on the change it makes to who must pay for air traffic and air navigation services from
“operators or owners of aircraft”
to simply “persons”. I asked what lay behind this decision and whether it was prompted by newer developments such as drone delivery, and at that point I referred to the Minister nodding his head. I am afraid that perhaps I was taking too much on in assuming that the nod related to my remarks—I make no aspersions otherwise. I said then that the burden on general aviation ought to remain broadly where it sits today.
This amendment would require the Secretary of State and the authority in exercising their functions over these charges to have regard to two matters: the growth and sustainability of general aviation, and the desirability of ensuring that those carrying out general aviation activities do not pay charges disproportionate to the use they make of the services. Many of my colleagues here who have spoken earlier in these debates have indicated their interest in general aviation, so there are quite a lot of us around, but it is important that I explain to the Committee that general aviation means civil aviation other than commercial air transport. It includes gliders, light aeroplanes, microlights, and the private and training flights of which I spoke earlier. It is not airlines and it is not, as I shall come to say, drones. On the Government’s figures in their general aviation strategy, the sector contributes, they accept, something in the order of £3 billion in gross value added and supports some 38,000 jobs. It is around 1/14th of the size of the commercial airline industry.
The figure I ask the Committee to hold in mind is that a great majority of those who sit at the front of the airliners that this Bill is chiefly concerned with—by some estimates three-quarters or more—began in general aviation, very often paying for their own training at the small flying schools the regulator knows as declared and approved training organisations. Those same schools and that same flying give us our future air traffic controllers and aircraft engineers, as well as those who pilot light aircraft. With Boeing and Airbus alike forecasting a need for several hundred thousand new pilots around the world in the years ahead, this is exactly the wrong moment to make it more expensive to learn to fly. From my involvement with the British Airline Pilots Association, I can tell the Committee that the profession, as was referred to earlier by the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, watches the health of general aviation closely, for it is from there that the profession is renewed.
I will mention drones, for I suspect they lie close to the heart of the change. The Government have been candid that the Bill is needed in part because of new users of the air—the drones and the air taxis that will follow. I do not quarrel with that. Those users will make real demands on a future digital airspace and it is fair that they should pay their share, but the drone is not general aviation. They are governed by a separate code altogether in the air navigation orders and the unmanned aircraft regulations, in their own open, specific and certified category. My concern is that, when one widens the net from the owner and operator of an aircraft to any person, one catches the drone operator one is aiming at but one may also catch the local gliding club.
The danger is of a single standard designed for the commercial airliner being pressed on everyone, bringing cost and complication to those who fly small and simple aircraft—not always terribly simple, I might add. A glider under tow or a training aeroplane in the circuit draws on a fraction of the air traffic services that an airliner consumes or, for that matter, a fleet of delivery drones one day will. The charge each meets should reflect that and no more. There is a related point that it can hardly be right to levy a charge on a person who does not use and cannot use the very service being charged for. That is the principle behind this amendment: that those who make little use of the system should bear little of its cost.
I want to be clear about what I am not asking. I am not asking that general aviation be exempted from all charges. It pays its way today and it should continue to do so. Nor am I seeking to frustrate the much-needed programme of modernisation that, rightly, this Bill provides for. I supported its general objectives at Second Reading and continue to support them now. I ask only that, as these powers are set out in greater detail, the interests of general aviation are kept in view and the principle of proportionality is clearly set out, rather than left to assurances by the Secretary of State.
If the Minister can tell me that the Government have no intention of drawing general aviation into a charging regime built for the airlines or for commercial drone activity, and that he will consider how that intention might be given proper statutory form, that would be enormously welcome.
Baroness Bray of Coln (Con)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Kirkhope. I support the proposal from the noble Lord, Lord Grayling, of a targeted consultation with local communities.
It will surely be the case that, as part of the civil aviation Bill, there will be changes to the use of airspace overhead and the potential not only for increased numbers of flights but the redesign of flight paths and expanding airports. It must surely follow, then, that, as part of the planning and preparation for these changes, residents who may experience new aircraft overflights, increased noise and other meaningful impacts, such as increased traffic on roads leading to local airports, should be given a meaningful role in considering these changes.
It is already the case that government and CAA policy recognises that airspace changes can have significant impacts on people on the ground and therefore includes consultation and stakeholder engagement requirements, but that sometimes feels a little like a box-ticking exercise. I feel strongly that it must be more than that. Communities that may find themselves under new or intensified flight paths deserve a meaningful voice in these decisions that seriously affect their quality of life.
I recognise that the updating of our aviation policies is an essential process from time to time, but surely the best outcomes are achieved through reasonable discussion. A stronger consultation framework may well deliver reforms more smoothly and avoid delay in being implemented, which can arise where opposition intensifies. Whereas existing consultation processes are often seen as insufficient as they take place too late in the process after key decisions have already, in effect, been made, proper engagement with those affected at an earlier stage and a clear demonstration of how their views are being considered is more likely to appear proportionate and pragmatic.
I am not suggesting that communities could or should have a complete veto over necessary airspace changes, but it would help ensure that residents who may experience substantial increases in overhead flights are fully consulted earlier and can see how their concerns are being taken into account. The key may be to introduce formal reviews of new routes after a year or so, independently conducted, and a commitment to revisit the design if impacts prove worse than forecast. The most defensible demand is surely a requirement that decision-makers must demonstrate how community representations have been considered and explain publicly why particular concerns were accepted or rejected.
Yes, residents already have consultation rights in relation to airport expansion and airspace changes, but they are limited and there is no guarantee at the moment that community concerns will materially affect the outcome. The issue is not whether consultation occurs but whether it is meaningful. Communities facing substantial increases in aircraft noise should have a guaranteed opportunity to influence decisions and receive a clear explanation of how their views have been taken into account.
Viscount Goschen (Con)
My Lords, I start by repeating my interest, which I declared on Tuesday, as a current pilot, aircraft owner and operator. On Tuesday, we had a good debate around general aviation, when my noble friend Lord Kirkhope and others took pains to explain the benefits not only to the economy, through the contribution that GA makes, but the broader aviation ecosystem, as it were, particularly in pilot training. Anything that is done to reduce opportunities for pilot training in the UK will have an easy to define effect, which will be the export of pilot training to Europe, where some countries have a different regime and much better weather, the United States and elsewhere. We have to regulate and legislate carefully; the law of unintended consequences is very active in this field.
Access to airspace is critical to the operation of general aviation. I refer to and support my noble friend Lord Kirkhope’s Amendment 65 in both of the thrusts that it seeks to take forward. First, it would protect the importance of GA when it comes to decisions being made around airspace design. It would be easy for the interests of general aviation to be minimised or not taken fully into account, and once decisions are taken it is very difficult for them to be reversed. Yes, much of the country is open, class G airspace, but there are real pinch points and that situation is likely to become exacerbated, rather than made any easier. One example would be around the area of Farnborough, which is close to the London airspace around Heathrow and so forth. I therefore plead for the interests of GA to be considered properly in the design, or redesign, of airspace.
Like my noble friend Lord Kirkhope, I recognise the technological advantages of change that is coming so rapidly. It is difficult for us now to be able to consider what life is going to be like in five years’ time. We support all the advantages that can come from that, including the safety advantages. When I was training as a pilot, one of the biggest concerns was getting lost. It took up quite a lot of my time thinking where one was, particularly in less than perfect weather. Nowadays, with GPS systems, you know precisely where you are at all times. That has taken away one of the excuses, but the safety benefits are extraordinary, and they will continue to come, as the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, said. I flew an aircraft with a big orange button on the front. If you pushed the button, the aircraft could land itself should the pilot become incapacitated. It was way beyond my knowledge and expertise, and I would not be allowed anywhere near such a machine now. The point is that that technology exists today.
The reasonable points that my noble friend made around charges were not special pleading in any sense. He is saying that the charging regime has to be proportionate; it really is as simple as that. There have been issues in the past. I took pains in my remarks on Tuesday to pay tribute to the CAA, but sometimes the cost, for example, in giving approval to small general aviation airfields that are regulated as full airfields can be disproportionate. It is a system that would suit a much bigger airfield and the result is that the airfield in question is no longer regulated, because it is much easier to move to a deregulated situation. However, that has implications for training and what can be done in such a field. What we are saying is this: be cautious and careful, and take into account the advice and interests of what really is the grass roots of aviation, which has been a major part of our success as a nation in the broader aviation industry.
Amendment 62, from the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, is on the importance of hearing the professional pilot’s voice. I would be very surprised if any consultation did not take into account the views of those who know what they are talking about on large-scale commercial aviation. Exactly how that should be done and the mechanism for it I will leave to others to decide and opine on, but the noble Lord gave a powerful voice to BALPA, as we heard on Tuesday.
In recollecting the discussions around BALPA, I remember our late and much missed colleague Lord Clinton-Davis, who was a powerful advocate for BALPA. I spent many happy hours at the Dispatch Box with him as opposition spokesman in this field, and indeed he was earlier a Minister.
This has been a balanced debate and we very much look forward to the Minister’s response.
Lord Harper (Con)
My Lords, I repeat my declaration of interest that I made on Tuesday as the non-exec chair of RVL Aviation.
I will say a word or two about the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Grayling, and strongly support what he and the noble Baroness, Lady Bray, said. I wanted to ask the Minister to flesh out a bit the answer to the question that I asked at Second Reading. There are already consultation processes, as the noble Baroness, Lady Bray, mentioned. There is no specific one for the exercise of the direction power. I am keen that, if there are extra processes, they fit well together; we do not want one set of consultations at one stage and then, if the Minister decides to do some direction, another set. When the Minister responds and, I suspect, urges the noble Lord, Lord Grayling, not to press his amendment, I would welcome a clear exposition of how the current position works, how it would dovetail with any use of the power of direction that Ministers are taking in Clause 4, how they would expect to use it and how that would fit with the existing consultation mechanism. I am keen that we do not invent another consultation mechanism.
If that power of direction is taken and is used—although the Explanatory Notes say that they do not expect the Government to use it very much, as it is a backstop power—it is almost certainly going to be used in difficult or controversial circumstances, because it would not be needed otherwise. That is the position set out in the Explanatory Notes. It would be helpful to understand how that end-to-end process works. It may be that the Minister should come forward with an amendment on Report that sets out how the power would be used and consulted on, or at least how it will dovetail with existing consultation mechanisms. I am not clear about how that would currently work.
Finally, I back up the remarks made by the noble Lord, Lord Kirkhope, and the noble Viscount, Lord Goschen, about the charging mechanism. I want to set out some of the views from the International Air Transport Association. IATA strongly supports, as I do, and welcomes the Government’s intention to do airspace modernisation but has concerns about the charging regime. It thinks that the drafting is too broad and ambiguous, and risks undermining the international charging principles that exist.
IATA is also concerned—a concern shared by the noble Lords, Lord Kirkhope and Lord Moylan—about replacing the words
“operators or owners of aircraft”
with the undefined “persons”. It thinks that that significantly expands the pool of liable entities and breaks the link with service provision. It understands the need for flexibility for future entrants but think there should be a narrower definition that encompasses those but is not as broad as the one that exists.
IATA is also concerned about revised Section 75(7), which allows charges to be levied on the basis that services are merely
“available for use or benefit”,
irrespective of the actual use. That represents a fundamental shift away from usage-based charging, which is the agreed international regime.
IATA has a number of concerns, not about the principle of what the Government are doing. It recognises that there will be new users and technologies, and the need to change how charging is done, but there are some accepted principles about the user paying for these things. As the noble Lord, Lord Kirkhope, and the noble Viscount, Lord Goschen, said, that should be done proportionately, but it is not sufficiently backed up by the broad wording in the Bill as currently set out.
It would be helpful if the Minister could say what the thinking was behind the drafting; whether the Government agree with IATA’s views about whether the Bill is in accordance with existing principles; and whether the Bill would be improved by a tighter definition that absolutely encompassed new technologies such as drones and other potential things in the future but was not so broad, and explicitly reintroduced the link between the usage of airspace and the charging, rather than simply the theoretical benefit. The Bill would be improved if those changes were made, and I look forward to the Minister setting out the Government’s thinking about how its wording was arrived at.
Lord Empey (UUP)
My Lords, there are some positive amendments in this group. Amendments 60 and 61 are trying to get to the same place. If there are new arrangements for the management of airspace, that is code for motorways in the sky. But it also means that if there are new routes or a material intensification of a route, it is only right and proper that local people are consulted about it, because it can have a significant material impact on their lives.
Where perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Grayling, has the essence of the matter is that he specified a time. We could argue about whether 28 days is right, but the fundamental principle that he is pointing out is that consultations can be endless and open-ended and never reach a decision. Something needs to be put in to tie it down, provided consultees have adequate notice and there is an understanding. It is a bit like neighbourhood notification and planning applications. There are specific groups of people who need to be approached about this: the people over whom these aircraft will be flying, and those affected by other intensification activities, whether traffic or whatever. The amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Grayling, gets to the essence of this. Whether we settle on a specific number of days is another matter, but the principle has to be established.
I agree with the principle of the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, but I also accept that it would be inappropriate to specify a particular trade union, because they may change. There are pilots represented by other unions and some represented by none. That could change over time. If you specify the union in your legislation, that would be awkward. As the noble Lord said, we can find a form of words but the principle is the same. However technology may change, having air traffic controllers in the frame for that is common sense. These are the people who, day to day, have to do it. Also, as has been made clear, computer systems break down. We had a long debate on Tuesday over NATS and the breakdown there. The noble Lord is right. Pilots earn their money when the systems do not work, which is a regular occurrence.
By and large, there are some positive amendments in this group. However, I say to the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, that I would not specify a particular trade union. Other than that, I support these amendments. There are some positive ones.
Baroness Pidgeon (LD)
My Lords, this is an important group of amendments, and this has been a useful debate. It goes to the heart of what the Bill could enable and the safeguards clearly needed to protect communities that will be impacted by any changes to airspace use. As my noble friend Lord Russell outlined, Amendment 60, in the name of my noble friend Lady Grender, would put those guardrails in place. It would require the Secretary of State to consult affected communities, alongside making environmental and noise impact assessments, before being able to make a direction. This is critical. As we know, altering flight paths and redesigning airspace will have a significant impact on a surprisingly large area, as those communities impacted by the existing Heathrow and Gatwick airports, for example, are only too aware. A Secretary of State must understand the impact on people, noise and the environment of any potential decision. It is an important part of the decision-making process.
I understand that the Minister has given assurances that the Bill is not intended as a vehicle for airport expansion, but that is not a legal safeguard, as my noble friend Lord Russell outlined. Putting a duty in the Bill would ensure that Parliament and the public can distinguish between a necessary operational change and a change that, in effect, facilitates additional capacity without the transparency that would accompany a normal expansion decision. Without mandatory consultation and that impact assessment, there is a real risk that expansion could be delivered through the back door. This amendment matters to residents under the flight path, including communities such as those in Richmond, Kingston and Hounslow. They already live with the consequences of aircraft noise and emissions. If the Secretary of State is to have this power, the Bill must clearly specify procedural safeguards.
As we have heard from noble Lords, the other amendments in this group test the same principle of whether airspace modernisation is being carried out in a transparent, accountable and proportionate way. We are sympathetic to their aims as detailed by my noble friend Lord Russell. I am rather nervous about the noble Viscount, Lord Goschen, getting lost in the sky, as he said earlier. I am very grateful that we have modern navigation systems these days. If we are to redesign our skies, we should not do so in a way that leaves people on the ground with less say, less information and fewer protections than we had before. I look forward to the Minister’s response.
Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, I am impressed by the enormous experience of aviation and ministerial responsibility for aviation present in the Committee. I do not claim either, but I will do my best to respond to this group. First, I say that we support the principle of airspace modernisation. If we have a complaint about it, it is that it is taking so long. If it needs legislation, why is that legislation is arriving only now, seven years after it started? The Minister might explain that and what sort of timetable he is expecting to pursue with airspace modernisation.
The Bill gives the Minister new powers of direction that are extremely broad, and that is the basis for most of the complaints and concerns—I think concerns rather than complaints—expressed in the Committee so far. They are very broad powers of direction and are almost unconstrained. I think it fair to say that no part of the Committee believes that those powers should be unconstrained. We believe that there should be processes that allow for consultation and accountability. Indeed, one could even argue that it would be more appropriate than giving directions for the Secretary of State to have to have recourse to a statutory instrument. That is not an amendment that has been proposed today, but it would be one way of addressing the Committee’s concerns.
I will briefly deal with the amendments. Both Amendment 60, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Grender, and Amendment 61, in the name of my noble friend Lord Grayling, seek to impose a consultation requirement of a general character on the Minister. I do not think that that can be gainsaid; the Minister will have to agree it in one form or another. If he cannot give us assurances today that he will bring forward an appropriate amendment on Report, I very much hope that the noble Baroness and my noble friend will work together to draft an amendment that we can all rally behind.
Amendment 62 is in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe. As at Second Reading, I found his speech most enlightening and interesting. I will make a small diversion to comment on it in a moment. However, the general principle is whether pilots—either through their trade union or in some other forum, as he said—should be consulted, and consulted specifically and early, about airspace changes. The answer is surely that they must be, since, as he explained—I do not need to repeat it—their stake in the business and activity is so high and so responsible that they should of course be involved in consultation at an early stage.
I will comment briefly on the broader question raised by the noble Lord of how this system works. We are seeing automated systems very much on the railways and certainly on London Underground—I know the noble Lord has great experience in rail and not just as a pilot—and in the motorcars with gubbins on the top that one now sees around the streets, driving themselves but with a driver present. The essential point of all these systems is to get them to drive closer together. They will drive closer together more safely under these automated systems. Take the example of the Victoria line, where the trains come practically every 90 seconds: that would not be possible if there was a human driver responsible for stopping and starting, because they would need to make judgments about how to do that.
The crucial difference—here I support the noble Lord—with ground-based systems such as railways, and, I assume, cars, is that the fail-safe if something goes wrong is to bring the system to a total stop. You can do that on a railway; you can just stop it, so that no train moves until you work out what has gone wrong and how to put it right. That is the safety mechanism. You cannot do that in the air, so our approach to aviation safety has to be very different. The input of pilots must be crucial to all of this. If, in the absence of an amendment from the Minister, one were to come forward from the noble Lord that expressed that—although not necessarily in these words, but if he could show himself open to adaptation—we would be very happy to support it.
My noble friends Lord Kirkhope and Lord Goschen spoke about the importance of general aviation. I am happy to second that for all the reasons they gave on both its economic contribution and its role in being a feeder to the skills necessary in the larger commercial aviation sector.
I will focus particularly on what my noble friend Lord Kirkhope said about charging and turn to my own Amendment 64, which is on just that point. There is a striking new subsection in Clause 6. It says:
“Persons may be specified (or of a description specified) if the services concerned are available for their use or benefit, and it is immaterial whether or not the services are actually used or could be used by, or actually benefit or could benefit, them”.
There is something of a contradiction written into that, because they would have to meet both limbs of the test. The first limb says that they
“are available for their use or benefit”.
The second limbs says, “Well, they could not be used by them and could not benefit them”. How can they be available for their use or benefit on the one hand and it still be the case that they could not be used by or benefit them and are still chargeable? I hope that I have expressed that correctly but, if noble Lords read the clause carefully, they will see that that is what it says. It says that they have to be available for their use or benefit but that it is immaterial whether they could use them or benefit from them. That seems like an obvious contradiction.
Introducing the word “persons” obviously requires some explanation. I am sure that the Minister is going to give it. I suspect that the explanation might be along the lines of the fact that there are drones and other things in the skies now, not simply aircraft. If that is the explanation, it has to deal with the clear point made by my noble friend Lord Kirkhope of Harrogate, but I am a little more relaxed about that. What I am not relaxed about is being asked to give the Minister the power to levy charges on people who could not use or benefit from the services in question. As it stands, this clause shows every sign of being hastily and poorly drafted. One would hope that the Minister would come forward on Report with improved drafting, but, if not, I suspect that there will be an amendment to deal with it.
It is fair to say, in these happy circumstances that have arisen, that the whole of the Committee is united on nearly all of the points we have debated in this group. I very much hope that the Minister will be able to join that circle and not disrupt the unanimity that the Committee has so fortunately achieved.
The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill) (Lab)
My Lords, I am grateful to noble Lords for their thoughtful contributions on this group of amendments. Although I rarely seem to agree with the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, I do so now in admiring the depth of aviation knowledge in this Committee today.
I will respond to the points that have been made and set out how the Bill enables progress on essential airspace reforms while maintaining the appropriate safeguards. I will start with Amendment 60, which was introduced by the noble Earl, Lord Russell, and the comments from the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon. It will be convenient for me to address Amendments 61 and 62, in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Grayling and Lord Tunnicliffe, respectively, and to note the comments from the noble Baroness, Lady Bray of Coln.
I assure all of them that environmental assessments and consultation are, and will remain, a fundamental part of the airspace change process. Let me be clear at the outset that nothing in these powers removes or weakens the existing requirements for thorough consultation and robust assessment of environmental and noise impacts. The Bill will extend the Secretary of State’s existing powers under the Air Traffic Management and Unmanned Aircraft Act 2021. It allows her, if needed, to require the implementation of an approved airspace change. For the avoidance of doubt, that means an airspace change proposal that has already been properly developed, consulted on and approved.
The powers introduced by the Bill do not circumvent the existing requirements built into the airspace change process, and any proposal must first go through the Civil Aviation Authority’s CAP1616 process. This requires the sponsor of an airspace change to undertake detailed assessments of the potential impacts of flight paths, including noise exposure and greenhouse gas emissions. Sponsors must hold meaningful consultations on the proposals with affected communities and other stakeholders, including airspace users or groups representing them, and, where appropriate, with pilots and those who represent them. These assessments must be rigorously scrutinised by the Civil Aviation Authority before any proposal can be approved. Where a change is taken forward by the UK Airspace Design Service, it will work closely with airports, in line with the bespoke partnership agreements.
Lord Grayling (Con)
May I just ask a specific question? If we countenance the situation where, for example, a plan coming from Heathrow to amend the routes into that airport clash with the routes into Farnborough and it has been through extensive process and, effectively, there is a logjam where one says one thing and the other says another, my understanding is that the Government, using their direction power, can say, “Right, we vote for Farnborough, not Heathrow”, or vice versa. In that situation, where the Government say they are voting for Farnborough, is there still a duty to consult on that decision before it is implemented?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
I will take some advice and respond further. But I note in response to the comments from the noble Lord, Lord Grayling, that both proposals will have been consulted on and agreed, so it is not the case that consultation would not have applied to either of them. I will write to him with the precise answer to his very reasonable question and copy it to other noble Lords.
Amendment 63 is from the noble Lord, Lord Holmes of Richmond, and he is right that information about airspace changes should be secure and transparent. I take the noble Lord’s point about the choice of technology. The Civil Aviation Authority’s CAP1616 airspace change process is designed to ensure transparency throughout. There is already a legal requirement for directions related to airspace change to be published, as well as any steps the CAA takes to enforce them. In addition, both the sponsor of an airspace change and the CAA are required to publish relevant documentation throughout the process, which is held on the CAA’s airspace change portal—a secure platform which acts as a single source of truth. When an approved design is implemented, it is published in the UK Aeronautical Information Publication, as required by international law.
This is not an area where there is a lack of trust or accountability requiring a more complex or novel audit mechanism. The CAA operates within a well-established statutory framework with clear oversight and requirements for publication and traceability. Introducing a requirement to store this information in a prescriptive or novel format risks adding complexity without corresponding benefit, given that the core objectives of transparency, accessibility, and auditability are already being met. It would also apply irrespective of any identified gap, creating additional cost and rigidity on how information is managed, so I respectfully ask the noble Lord not to press his amendment.
Amendment 64 from the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, relates to a technical change arising from the proposed expansion of who can pay charges for air traffic services, which will ensure that the “user pays” principle can continue to be fairly applied in future. Air traffic services are provided for all users within a block of airspace. Even when an airspace user does not use a service directly, they may still benefit from it. For example, if two aircraft avoid a collision because one is directed away from the other, both benefit even though one did not directly receive the service.
It is right that the charging framework reflects this. The Bill does not say that charges may be imposed on persons who cannot use or benefit from them. We reassure noble Lords that charges are not set without safeguards and that the Bill maintains them. The Civil Aviation Authority accounts for factors such as efficiency and proportionality and follows an established process, including extensive engagement, statutory consultation and rights of appeal.
A requirement to prove the precise level of use or benefit for every airspace user would be disproportionate and unworkable, particularly as an increasing number of emerging uses, especially drones and other unmanned aircraft systems, are integrated into shared airspace and require air traffic services in future. That issue is what the existing provision is designed to avoid and what the changes in the Bill seek to maintain. For that reason, I ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Moylan (Con)
The Minister says that the Bill does not say that you can be charged if you cannot use the service, but that is precisely what it says. It says that
“it is immaterial whether or not the services are actually used or could be used by, or actually benefit or could benefit, them”.
I do not think it is logically coherent, because they have to be available to them to qualify on the first limb of the clause.
It may well be that the noble Lord has the intention he expressed at the Dispatch Box. However, I ask him whether he considers this clause to be drafted to articulate that intention. As it stands, it seems internally self-contradictory. But if it is not internally self-contradictory and he can prove that it is not, I would still object to people being charged for services that they could not use or benefit from.
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
In those circumstances, I will take away the noble Lord’s very detailed point and attempt to either explain why it does what I said, or alter it so that it does what I said.
Finally, I will address Amendment 65 from the noble Lord, Lord Kirkhope of Harrogate. I also listened carefully to the noble Viscount, Lord Goschen, on this subject. As experienced pilots themselves, they know better than most that general aviation is an important part of the UK’s aviation industry, covering a wide range of public service, commercial and recreational activities.
Clause 6 seeks to provide the Civil Aviation Authority with greater flexibility as to who can be charged for air traffic services provided under a licence. This will ensure that, as the UK’s airspace evolves, the cost of providing those services can continue to be recovered fairly and proportionately, in line with the user pays principle. I note the replication of the IATA view on this from the noble Lord, Lord Harper, and I will take that away.
As noble Lords will be aware, these costs are currently recovered primarily from commercial airlines as they are the main users of the relevant services. General aviation is largely exempt. The noble Lord is right that we do have in mind drone operations on operators and other unmanned aircraft. Ahead of any changes in future, the CAA has a statutory duty to consult on its proposals. Those whose interests are materially affected by its decision could appeal if they considered they had grounds to do so.
The CAA already has an obligation under the Transport Act 2000 to further the interests of operators and owners of aircraft, including in relation to the availability and cost of licensed air traffic services. This includes any that might be classed as general aviation to the extent that they are affected. Given this duty, the thorough and well-established processes for setting charges and the fact that there is currently no plan to create a new charge for general aviation users, I ask the noble Lord not to press his amendment.
Earl Russell (LD)
My Lords, this has been a really interesting and informative group. I know that we have spent a bit of time of it, but it has been time well spent in understanding the Bill. Four key points have come up. There is the whole issue of the need for modernisation, and the fact that it can provide environmental as well as safety benefits, but also the sheer complexity of doing that. Obviously, the powers given to the Minister under Clause 4 and the need for guardrails have come up as well and, as the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, said, there is consensus in Committee on the concern around those issues. There is the need for consultation, where I thought the noble Baroness, Lady Bray, put it really well; that needs to be meaningful. Finally, there is the issue of general inclusion and the Bill’s impacts on general aviation.
I am forever thankful to the Minister for his care and attention to these matters. We welcome his response on Amendments 60, 61 and 62. It is fair to say that we will reflect on his exact words and have a look at Hansard. These matters are complex and I welcome the words he has given. I am not certain, as I speak here, whether they will be enough or whether we will need to look at drafting a joint amendment on those matters. In any case, I am sure that we can have further conversations prior to Report on those issues.
I also note the Minister’s comments in relation to Amendment 63 and welcome the response from the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, about having the purpose rather than the technology as the vehicle. Again, we need to reflect on some of the Minister’s response around the risks. I note the reassurance that he gave about the CAA as a single source of truth and the systems already in play. With that, I beg to withdraw my amendment and thank noble Lords for the debate we have had.
Lord Berkeley
“Air ambulance operations: regulations(1) The Secretary of State may by regulations make provision for the purpose of supporting the operation of air ambulance services in civil aviation.(2) Regulations under this section may, in particular, make provision about—(a) access to airport and aerodrome facilities;(b) access to airspace and air navigation services;(c) the treatment of air ambulance operations in aviation planning and operational decisions.(3) Before making regulations under this section, the Secretary of State must consult the CAA, air ambulance operators, airport operators and such other persons as the Secretary of State considers appropriate.(4) Regulations under this section are to be made by statutory instrument.(5) A statutory instrument containing regulations under this section may not be made unless a draft of the instrument has been laid before, and approved by a resolution of, each House of Parliament.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would allow the Secretary of State to make regulations supporting the operation of air ambulance services in civil aviation.
Lord Berkeley (Lab)
My Lords, I am grateful for the opportunity to speak to these amendments today. Before speaking to the individual amendments, I would like to reflect on how great it has been to hear so many comments about general aviation, which tends to get left out on occasions. All my amendments in this group apply primarily to general aviation.
Amendment 65B is designed to give encouragement and support to the air ambulance team, which does an enormous amount of good work not only in places such as Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly but all over the country—and not just over the sea.
Lord Harper (Con)
My Lords, I support Amendment 102A, also supported by the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Gower, who is unfortunately not able to be with us today. He was here for day one in Committee, and he wanted me to place on record his support for this amendment.
As the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, has set out, the airfield advisory team is something that existed and has recently been disbanded. It would be helpful for the Minister to confirm that that is indeed the case, give the reasons for disbanding it, and say whether, in the light of the amendment, he would reconsider that decision. My understanding is that it was a useful forum for the CAA and the Department for Transport to engage with airfield operators to discuss relevant issues, and for them to communicate with those operators, but, perhaps more importantly, for airfield operators to feed back their concerns and ask questions of the regulator and the department.
Unless there was a very good reason for getting rid of it, having those forums for users of the services provided seems a very good thing. My understanding is that the airfield operators would very much welcome that advisory team being re-established. I would be pleased to hear what the Minister has to say.
Viscount Goschen (Con)
My Lords, I support the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, in this group of amendments.
We are fortunate to have air ambulance services operating in the United Kingdom. It is important to stress that these are typically not government-provided services; they are supported by charitable organisations and others. When one needs the service, one needs it very much indeed—that is probably the best way of putting it. The speed of response, particularly in rural Devon where I live—the air ambulance is based in a field that I am very familiar with—means that it is a tremendous service. It is able to get around the county swiftly and provide much needed services for people who have been involved in serious road or agricultural accidents, have been carried out to sea, or whatever.
I was concerned to hear, as the noble Lord stated, that the industry had concerns about the rules and regulations and procedures under which they operate, and felt they could be enhanced. From my own anecdotal experience of hearing from the air ambulance service, I know it is always given priority, formally and informally, by other users and by ATCs. I am concerned and surprised that there are such problems, and I look forward to the Minister responding. On whether those requirements should be written into the Bill, I am not going to fall into the trap, much criticised earlier in our proceedings, of doing the Minister’s job for him. We will let him do some heavy lifting on that.
Similarly, on Amendment 102A, I am not familiar with the precise detail but it is clearly important that the CAA takes fully into account all the voices and interests of those with a great deal of expertise in small airport operation. Again, whether that needs to be written into the Bill or not is something that we can consider later. If the noble Lord succeeds in achieving his objective of easier access to the Scilly Isles, no doubt he will be carried shoulder-high by his fellow islanders.
Baroness Pidgeon (LD)
My Lords, the amendments from the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, are worthy of support and raise some important points. I am grateful to him for bringing these important matters before the Committee and for his persistence on these issues.
Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, has brought before the Committee some interesting and valuable amendments. I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say about them.
On EGNOS, I never quite understand why everyone wants to crawl back to Europe. The problem with that is that, every time you ask the Europeans for something, they want to exact a very large price, simply because they are still very cross with us for voting to restore our representative democracy in this country and for taking advantage of Brexit.
It is worth asking the Minister if he has discussed whether this service might be available, with a bit of expenditure, from Mr Elon Musk. As I understand it, Elon Musk is now in command of around two-thirds of the satellites going around the earth. I am sure that a man of such ingenuity and enterprise could easily develop a navigation system that depended on these satellites. Would that not be a sensible alternative? It might keep the Europeans on their toes, should we want to use their system, if they thought of taking advantage of us. Otherwise, I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say. There is a bigger world out there—it is not just Europe—and we should all take advantage of it.
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
My Lords, this grouping covers resilience, infrastructure and connectivity. I begin by addressing my noble friend Lord Berkeley’s Amendment 65B. I listened carefully to the noble Viscount, Lord Goschen, and the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, on this subject. The Government support the life-saving work of air ambulances and the department, alongside the Civil Aviation Authority, regularly engages with air ambulance charities to understand their unique needs. Air ambulances already operate under a special regime from the Civil Aviation Authority that allows them privileged access to airspace and ensures that they can land wherever they need to in order to carry out their life-saving work. If my noble friend or the operators have any concerns about how this is working, the Minister for Aviation in the other place would be more than happy to hear them and deal with them. I hope that reassures my noble friend that his amendment is not needed.
On my noble friend’s Amendment 65B, the Government recognise the importance of satellite navigation services to support operations in all weather conditions. As my noble friend notes from his observation of the Answer to a Written Question in the other place, the Government are actively reviewing the viability of these services, including our access to the European geostationary navigation overlay service, or EGNOS, and the output from that is expected later this year, as he said. I will not pre-empt that review by accepting this amendment. I have not personally spoken to Elon Musk on this, or indeed any other subject, but I am sure that the Government are considering the full range of possibilities to do what EGNOS delivered in the past. I hope my noble friend understands that I cannot pre-empt the outcome of that review.
Finally, I thank my noble friend Lord Berkeley for his amendment relating to an airfield advisory team. The CAA carries out extensive engagement with aerodrome operators and values the insights and feedback that they provide, which play an important part in informing policy development in this area. At present, there is no clearly established rationale for creating a statutory panel for this group of stakeholders, particularly when similar arrangements are not in place for other stakeholder groups. Introducing such a panel could risk creating an imbalance by conferring a status on one group over others. But, having noted the concerns of the noble Lord, Lord Harper, I will take the issue away and inquire further about this team and the reasons for its disbandment. I hope that my noble friend will not press his amendment.
I should add clarity to my comments in Committee on Tuesday, to which my noble friend referred. I said this in my speech:
“Requiring training would not be appropriate for all airfields”.—[Official Report, 16/6/26; col. GC 114.]
I then gave some different reasons, which my noble friend quoted, for why training might not be possible at some airports. It was certainly not intended to suggest that no airfields would be suitable for training, as that would be unacceptable. I hope that that makes things clear.
Lord Berkeley (Lab)
My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have taken part in this short debate. I am very grateful to my noble friend the Minister for his answers, which I shall read carefully. I still think that it would be useful if we could have a quick meeting with him before the next stage, particularly to be told a bit more about what is happening on EGNOS and whether Mr Musk’s alternative is a sensible one. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Grayling
“(a) allocating additional capacity created at an existing airport or a new airport where the affected air carriers have failed to reach a voluntary commercial agreement within a reasonable timeframe;(b) as to the circumstances in which, the terms on which and the procedure by which, slots may be transferred, exchanged or withdrawn where there is no agreement between the commercial parties about the slots;(c) determining the temporary reallocation or suspension of unused slots during a period of international crisis;”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment strictly limits the Secretary of State’s power to intervene in airport slot allocation to distinct scenarios: managing unused slots during international crises, handling entirely new airports, or distributing newly created capacity where commercial airlines fail to reach an agreement, thereby preventing broader state intervention in functioning commercial slot markets.
Lord Grayling (Con)
My Lords, we now move on to the slots regime. My two amendments in this group, Amendments 66 and 68, are designed to press the Government to understand what they are trying to achieve and where the limits to that are.
I had always expected that, when we left the European Union, we would be able to have a less regulated slots regime, particularly once we and the European Union had taken the view that we would not stay part of the EASA. Fundamentally, we are talking about a private sector market, with privately owned airports or airports owned by third-party bodies—such as the local authorities in Manchester—and independent airlines. So the question is this: what do the Government actually need to do? What is the role of the Government in this space? Should the Government be determining how many airlines fly to an airport, how many slots are available to it and the circumstances in which slots can transfer between one organisation and another?
It seems to me that there are three things that the Government should be doing. I see the role of the Government in this as referee rather than regulator. I am concerned that the content of the clauses that relate to the slots regime give the Government extraordinarily sweeping powers. If I have a slight regret, it is that I did not provide for the removal of new subsection (4), which says:
“The regulations may make different provision for different purposes”.
What on earth does that mean? The Government are taking on to their own shoulders blanket powers to manage the whole of the slots regime between a commercially run airport, a commercially owned airport and a commercially owned airline. To me, that feels like many steps too far.
What I have sought to do with these two amendments is, first, on the principal amendment, focus on the things that the Government need. The first is all about acting as arbiter and referee, where there is genuinely a problem. We are talking about our key airports here. Where there is genuinely a problem—a dispute that cannot be resolved—I understand that the Government may, for strategic reasons for the benefit of the United Kingdom, need to have put in place some form of arbitration mechanism. Proposed new paragraphs (a) and (b) are designed to achieve that. It is topical because of the Iran war, as we have seen. We had the debate last week over the change to the slot regime resulting from that conflict and the need to take away from airlines the requirement to use a slot at a particular time. There may be circumstances in which, in a period of international crisis, the Government need to have a role in the slot regime.
I should also say that, on reflection—I look at the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Empey—I agree that there is an element, although we might not agree about the scale of it, of a need to make sure there is connectivity within the United Kingdom. In part, the market delivers that anyway. If you are a major international airline flying from Heathrow to another part of the world, you need the feeder flights to fill your planes. If you do not have flights from Belfast, Glasgow, Edinburgh and Manchester, you are losing a whole chunk of your market—probably losing a whole chunk of it to Schiphol. It is not, therefore, necessary for the Government to take an absolute view about this. But in much the same way that the Government provide and subsidise key strategic routes within the United Kingdom that may not be economically viable but are socially necessary, I understand that there may be a case, in some circumstances, for making sure that a particular route and slot is available to the airline. Therefore, I am not sure I agree with the full detail of the noble Lord’s amendment, but I have some sympathy with what he is trying to achieve.
What we do not need to do—this is my fear about elements of the Bill—is try to micromanage the market that is the independent aviation sector. This part of the Bill feels like it is treading into that territory. I am looking for the Minister to provide some clear justifications for the steps being taken here. Particularly, Clause 68 is designed to address, effectively, a criminal provision within the slots regime. I do not quite understand that. Why on earth does there need to be a criminal context to the management of the slots regime? I understand that there can, on occasions, be a need for regulatory enforcement or enforcement in the civil courts—but the criminal courts? My amendment would take out that provision. Frankly, I would take some persuading by the Minister before we come to Report that we need a criminal provision in the management of slots at our key airports. That feels like a bridge that goes much too far.
I need to hear from the Minister an explanation for why all this is necessary: why the slots regime needs to be as all-encompassing as it is, and why the Bill comes up with extraordinary provisions of interference. I refer again to proposed new subsection (4). The Bill does much more than is necessary to provide a sensible framework simply for protecting the strategic interests of the United Kingdom. It amounts to interference, not strategy, and should take a step back from where it is.
Lord Empey (UUP)
My Lords, I instinctively agree with a lot of what the noble Lord, Lord Grayling, has said but there are situations in extremis that could arise regarding access to hub airports, which is a critical—not only socially but economically—necessity. It has nothing to do with subsidy. There are some modest PSOs in operation. We had them when we were in the European Union. Cornwall was involved at one stage and had a subsidised air route. But that is not what I am getting at here. It is nothing to do with subsidy because all the main regional airports going to hub airports, primarily Heathrow, are perfectly economically viable. It is not a question of subsidy.
Lord Harper (Con)
My Lords, I will primarily speak to my Amendment 73, which was suggested by IATA. I tabled it because I read it and thought it raised some important issues on which I want to test the Government’s thinking.
When I was Secretary of State, this process worked very smoothly and, as my noble friend Lord Grayling said, this is largely a commercial exercise. Slots have economic value. They are allocated independent of government and that usually works very well. There are circumstances, as the Minister set out at Second Reading, where there are challenges to how the system works because of outside circumstances. The Government then step in and make some changes which work in the interests of consumers and the industry.
It is also the case that the slot co-ordinator, Airport Coordination Limited, a private company, exercises a considerable amount of power and influence. At airports with a constrained supply of slots, that gives it significant economic power. At the moment, it does not have any regulatory oversight. It is effectively exercising what could be argued to be a quasi-regulatory function, but there is no formal oversight.
The amendment I have tabled is quite narrow but would bring the co-ordinator under the oversight of the CAA, which would give it the ability to scrutinise decisions and its governance. It would, importantly, preserve the independence of the UK slot co-ordinator, which is important and required by our international agreements. It would also introduce a proportionate independent mechanism to challenge decisions. At the moment, if anybody wants to challenge a decision, they have to go through a judicial review process, which is very costly, time-consuming and almost never happens. If you had CAA oversight, it would mean that either the airlines or the department could refer decisions to the CAA and have them looked at independently. It is important that the Government do not have the power to do that, but we should have some sort of process in place.
What I seek from the Minister is the Government’s view on whether the system works well at the moment. Do the Government believe the slot co-ordinator, effectively, has powers which should be better regulated or are they perfectly content with the system as currently set up? Do the Government think it need any changes? I thought the amendment was a useful way of testing the Government’s view. I was therefore very happy to table it and to make the case for it. I look forward to the Minister setting out the Government’s position when he responds to this group.
Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)
My Lords, I am delighted to follow my noble friend Lord Harper. I intend to speak to Amendments 74 and 75 in my name. It would be only slightly reductive to say it is all about the slots. In many ways, this part of the Bill is the very heart of the industry.
To that end, it would seem to make sense, under Amendment 74, to have greater clarity and transparency for all those who should be involved, should be concerned and should have a role in this. They would have that clarity through such a system as set out in Amendment 74. Again, I accept the specificities around blockchain and DLT and would insert mid speech a criteria-based approach so that other technologies which could achieve this aim are equally beneficial to the purpose of the amendment.
Amendment 75 moves that on somewhat to test how much the Government would wish not to overly interfere with slot allocation but, where all things remained equal, they would want other provisions to be brought in. In Amendment 75, I cite the example of environmental concerns, but the principle would work equally well for regional connectivity being higher up the agenda or other issues the Government may wish to push through. As has been rightly set out by my noble friend Lord Grayling, this is largely a commercial matter and there is a market but, like all good markets, that does not mean there is no role for government in it.
It is clear that the Government need to get the right level for that role and not overstep, but it is critical because in many ways the essence of that element of the industry is all about the slots. I am interested to hear where the Minister believes that line should be drawn and whether there is potential to bring other factors to bear, which would fit very well with some of the Government’s other key objectives, such as environmental issues, growth, the nations and regions, and connectivity. I look forward to the Minister’s response.
Baroness Foster of Oxton (Con)
My Lords, I should like to make a couple of observations on the amendments tabled by colleagues. First, it is clear that slots are a very complex and sophisticated trading system, the value of which, as my noble friend Lord Empey mentioned, will certainly be like the value of a company. I go back to the comment about European Union regulation. I was involved in the initial European Union regulation more than 20 years ago, and the revision about 10 years later. I can say with great certainty that even the European Commission did not have any involvement in the designation of slot use. That was completely a no-no, and that was absolutely right.
This brings me then to the possible role of the Secretary of State. Slot allocation is a neutral, independent activity, handled by the slot co-ordinator without due influence of government, airlines and airports, and long may that remain—if it ain’t broke, we do not need to fix it. My view is that Secretary of State should not be at liberty to decide on slot allocation outcomes, whether temporary, during periods of crisis, or during normal times. There is no evidence that our slot co-ordinators, certainly in the United Kingdom, have ever been unduly influenced and made the wrong decisions, so I think we should continue to have that confidence in their role. It is recognised both Europe-wide and more internationally, because Heathrow as a hub is an extremely important airport.
I would like to touch on a comment from the noble Lord, Lord Holmes. His amendment talks about the environment and a possible link to an environmental allocation. I do not believe that is the right way forward at all. It is the wrong tool to ensure the sector’s sustainability targets can be met. In any event, the actual co-ordinators can already choose an air carrier due to their environmental credentials. However, this is not and should not be their primary decision.
I finally reflect on what we complied with in the United Kingdom, and still do, even though we are not members of the European Union. Regulation 598/2014 introduced noise-related operating restrictions at EU airports, which broadened that out to environment as well. It was called the balanced approach and repealed a directive from some years before.
Baroness Pidgeon (LD)
My Lords, this is a substantial group and I am grateful to noble Lords who have tabled amendments covering how slot allocation powers should be structured, constrained and scrutinised. It is a clear theme in many of the amendments before us. I thought the referee versus regulator point from the noble Lord, Lord Grayling, was powerful in summing up a lot of this.
Before I turn to the amendments, I will remind the Committee of a thread that ran through Second Reading: the question of airport expansion and, in particular, whether the slots regime and the significant new powers that the Secretary of State is taking in relation to it could be used to facilitate or, in effect, predetermine expansion decisions. As your Lordships have heard, slots are capacity. Control over slot allocation is, in important respects, control over how airports can grow and who benefits from that growth. The Government may say that the expansion question is separate, but the mechanisms are not neatly separate, and I suspect that those questions will return on Report.
The regional connectivity concern raised in this group is one that many noble Lords feel strongly about. Hub airport access for regional routes is not just for commercial convenience. It is a question of whether communities and economies across the United Kingdom are connected nationally and then internationally.
Finally, on parliamentary procedure, the House has consistently held that significant regulatory powers should be subject to proper parliamentary oversight. I hope the Minister would not want to resist that principle here. I look forward to his response.
Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, I will briefly introduce my own amendments and then comment on others. I have Amendments 70, 71 and 72. Amendment 72 is consequential on Amendment 71 so, in effect, I have two amendments, and the first is to do with consultation.
I can see no requirement in the Bill for the Government to undertake any consultation prior to exercising the powers they seek under this legislation. We recently debated the Airports Slot Allocation (Alleviation of Usage Requirements) Regulations 2026, and the industry told us that the consultation on those was extremely short. That was partly to do with getting the regulations done before the powers gap closes or opens, but the consultation was extremely short.
The result of it, according to the Government’s own statement, was that the airlines supported what the Government were doing but the airports were adamantly opposed. They were opposed principally because, as my noble friend Lady Foster said, the slots allocator already has the powers to respond in emergencies; there is no need for this action to take place. I come back to the point about consultation. That was a good example of consultation done badly and not listened to. Here, we have no consultation promised at all. My amendment would require it.
My second amendment concerns the fact that statutory instruments will be used here. The significant ones will be done by the affirmative process, but there is an exemption for those that have temporary effect, which will be done by the negative process. This is a direct downgrading because the airport slots regulations we considered in Grand Committee only last week were temporary in their character; they last only for the coming summer and winter seasons. It is precisely that type of statutory instrument—that type of government action—that will now be moved to be taken under the negative process. This is definitely a downgrade of parliamentary scrutiny and my amendment would eliminate it. Amendment 72 is, as I say, consequential on that.
To come to the other contributions in this debate, it is fair to say that, between them, my noble friends Lord Grayling and Lady Foster of Oxton have driven an entire coach and horses through this section of the Bill. They ask the crucial question: what is the necessity for this? Not only that, but what is the benefit to the public of the Government intervening in something that is, in essence, first, a private market activity and, secondly, working perfectly well at the moment, with no reason to think that that is likely to change? Although I am sure that the Minister will want to defend these proposals when he gets to his feet, the tenor of debate in Committee is that they should be done away with wholesale. My amendments, which would simply require consultation and better processes, are inadequate to the task. When we come back on Report, we will have to challenge clearly why the Government are involved in this at all, with what purpose and to what effect—unless, of course, the Minister can satisfy us today.
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
My Lords, as we have heard, this group concerns the airport slots regime. I am grateful to noble Lords for their amendments. I will address each one in turn but first note two common points that apply across this group.
The UK slots regime depends on independent, fair, transparent and non-discriminatory allocation by the slot co-ordinator. It also operates within international frameworks, such as the Worldwide Airport Slot Guidelines, the global standard for managing airport capacity at congested level 3 and capacity-constrained level 2 airports. The regime already recognises commercial expectations that require clarity, consistency and timely decision-making. Where I refer to independence, proportionality, flexibility or international alignment, these are the common justifications I have in mind. I also say to the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, that the processes in this Bill do not in themselves allow airport expansion; they are about the efficient allocation of capacity created by expansion, which is a different issue.
I begin with Amendment 66, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Grayling. I understand the concern that the Government should not interfere in a liberalised and well-functioning sector, and our policy intent is not to interfere in this. These provisions, however, largely replicate provisions previously available through EU legislation. All the Government are doing is replicating the powers we think we appropriately need to continue. I refer the noble Lord to paragraphs 20 to 24 of the Explanatory Notes to the Bill.
Neither the Government nor airlines have a role in the day-to-day allocation of slots. As noble Lords have noted, that is undertaken by an independent slot co-ordinator who must allocate slots openly, fairly, transparently and without discrimination. The amendment would therefore not have the intended effect and would create uncertainty. The temporary reallocation or suspension of unused slots during an international crisis is already addressed by Clause 7. In our view, Amendment 66 is therefore unnecessary and duplicative.
I turn to Amendment 67, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Empey, which would require sufficient slots at hub airports such as Heathrow to be allocated to flights from UK regional airports. The Government recognise the importance of strong regional connectivity and effective access to hub airports for people and businesses across the United Kingdom.
However, I cannot support the amendment because requiring hub airports to prioritise domestic regional services over international routes could conflict with non-discrimination and fair competition obligations in the UK’s bilateral air services agreements. It could also require the reallocation of slots from incumbent operators that have historic rights where usage requirements are met, raising legal and practical issues. I therefore ask the noble Lord not to press his amendment.
The next amendment, from the noble Lord, Lord Grayling, seeks to remove the ability to create regulations on enforcement of the slots regime through criminal and civil sanctions. Existing assimilated law already contains criminal and civil enforcement provisions, which the Government believe are necessary. Removing this power would freeze the current enforcement regime, meaning that even proportionate updates could be made only through further primary legislation. I do not believe that that is the noble Lord’s intention.
Lord Grayling (Con)
Can the Minister illustrate to me the kind of circumstance in which a criminal sanction is required?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
I will respond to the noble Lord after today.
Clause 7 already reduces the severity of sanctions by removing the possibility of imprisonment for breaches of slots regulations. Any exercise of the power to amend enforcement provisions would be subject to the affirmative procedure, ensuring scrutiny and debate in both Houses. For those reasons, I ask the noble Lord not to press his amendment.
I turn to Amendment 70, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, which would place a statutory duty on the Secretary of State to consult airlines, airport operators and others before making any slots regulations under Clause 7. The Government recognise the importance of proper engagement and, where new policy is developed under this power, will carry out appropriate consultation, including with industry and, where relevant, communities. However, an inflexible statutory consultation duty would not be appropriate. The power may need to be used urgently in response to significant disruption, as was necessary during the pandemic. In those circumstances, government must be able to act swiftly and proportionately. I therefore ask the noble Lord not to press Amendment 70.
I will take Amendments 71 and 72, also tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, together. They would require all regulations relating to slots to be subject to the affirmative procedure. I recognise the desire for parliamentary scrutiny, but the Bill already draws a proportionate distinction. The negative procedure is available only where there is a significant threat to public health, or another substantial reason, and only for temporary changes to slot-usage requirements. Requiring the affirmative procedure in every case could delay necessary action during disruption, where speed may be essential. I therefore ask the noble Lord not to press Amendments 71 and 72.
Amendment 73, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Harper, would—
Lord Moylan (Con)
The point that the Minister makes about emergencies and so forth is not reflected in the text of the Bill, which says on page eight:
“Regulations are excluded regulations if the Secretary of State considers that their only substantive effect is temporarily to disapply or modify a requirement as to regularity of use of slots”.
That would cover the airport slots regulations that we debated last week. Those would move from being affirmative procedure SIs to negative procedure SIs. The additional stipulations that the Minister mentioned are not reflected in the clause that defines an excluded regulation.
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
I thank the noble Lord for that observation. I will of course take it away and consider what he has said.
Amendment 73, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Harper, would place the slot co-ordinator under the oversight of the Civil Aviation Authority. I understand the intention to strengthen oversight, but the amendment would cut across a fundamental principle of the slots regime: that the co-ordinator must remain functionally and financially independent of all interested parties, including government. The noble Lord asked whether we are content with the current system, and we are. That principle is reflected in the Worldwide Airport Slot Guidelines, which align these matters across all level 2 and level 3 airports across the globe and are essential to ensuring that scarce airport capacity is allocated fairly, neutrally and without bias towards any airline, airport or Government. They protect new entrants and maintain confidence in the global system. Creating a statutory CAA oversight role would risk putting the UK at odds with established international practice and creating legal and operational uncertainty. I therefore ask the noble Lord not to press Amendment 73.
Lord Empey (UUP)
In the Minister’s response to my Amendment 67, he responded to a point that I had not made. I had not asked for domestic slots to replace international slots. Mine is a probing amendment, but it is a very simple proposition: in extremis, does the Secretary of State have the power to ensure regional connectivity, or does he not? It is not a complicated issue in essence, even though the operational issues are. He anticipated something that I had not actually proposed, and I assure him that on this issue, while I shall not move my amendment today, I do not intend to go away. Perhaps his team could engage with me before Report.
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
If I may, I shall respond to the noble Lord by saying that, if I have not understood his point clearly, I shall indeed go away and have a further discussion with him.
Lord Grayling (Con)
My Lords, we have had an interesting debate. Again, some important issues were raised. The noble Lord, Lord Empey, makes an important point. In fact, when reflecting on my own amendment at the start, I thought that what he was saying might be an element missing from mine. I have a lot of sympathy with what he has said.
I want to be frank with the Minister. He knows that I have the highest regard for him; he knows that I regard him as knowing more about much of the transport system than anyone I know, so I do not direct this comment at him, but at the Government. I am really quite unimpressed by the Government’s inability to explain what are relatively simple things, or should be relatively simple, if they had thought this through properly, in the measures that they are taking in this Bill and those in the debate that we had last week over the slot regime. If the Government want to take powers or continue powers to enforce criminal sanctions, they should at least be able to say what kind of issues those criminal sanctions are designed to address, because I do not think that this is simply a replication of existing EU law—and were it so, I would be asking what we can we do less of, rather than more of, outside the European Union.
However, if the Government’s intention is purely to replicate what is there already, they do not need new Section 34A(4), which says:
“The regulations may make different provision for different purposes”.
What does that mean? What it does is create a blank cheque for the Government to expand their remit in the slots regime beyond where it is at the moment. They are also seeking, as I say, to continue with criminal sanctions. That does not feel to me like a Government who are trying to maintain a light touch in what the Minister rightly says is a commercial marketplace with established processes that are part of international agreements that go beyond the European Union. So some of this should not be necessary, and it should not be necessary to continue some of it on from what we had before. Where it is continuing, there needs to be a good explanation for it. I am sorry, but I do not think that the Minister has been able to give that good explanation. The Government need to do a better job on what should be pretty basic questions about what they are proposing.
I will of course seek to withdraw this amendment today, but I give notice to the Minister that these questions need to be answered properly before we get to Report, because I can see no justification for having what are clear Henry VIII powers in the slots regime. There is not even a provision for the affirmative resolution so, frankly, in six or 12 months’ time, another Minister—I am sure that it would not be this Minister—could simply come back and take a much more interventionist approach to the slots regime, which would be absolutely out of kilter with anything that we have done either inside or outside the European Union. For now, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment, but I will not leave this issue untouched when we come back on Report.
Baroness Pidgeon
“(4A) The Secretary of State may not make regulations under this section that would have the effect of facilitating airport expansion unless the Secretary of State has first—(a) consulted persons likely to be affected by the proposed expansion, including communities in the vicinity of the airport,(b) undertaken an environmental impact assessment of the proposed expansion, and(c) undertaken a noise impact assessment of the proposed expansion.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would prevent the Secretary of State from making regulations that facilitate airport expansion unless they have first consulted affected communities, completed an environmental impact assessment, and completed a noise impact assessment. It ensures that proper scrutiny and community engagement take place before any expansion can be progressed through secondary legislation.
Baroness Pidgeon (LD)
My Lords, in moving this amendment, I shall also speak to Amendment 105 in the name of my noble friend Lady Grender, to which I have added my name. Amendments 69 and 105 address what is, for me, the key issue with the Bill: whether the powers could be used to facilitate airport expansion and, if so, on what terms. Amendment 69 would require the Secretary of State to consult affected communities, complete an environmental impact assessment and complete a noise impact assessment before making any regulations that facilitate expansion. Amendment 105 would go further by prohibiting the use of the powers in the Bill for that purpose altogether.
All the communities that are most directly affected by airport expansion—those living under flight paths, those experiencing noise, air quality and traffic impacts and those with a general disturbance from planes flying over them quite some distance from airports—have consistently found themselves presented with fait accompli decisions rather than meaningful consultation. Amendment 69 would, at a minimum, require such consultation, environmental assessment and noise assessment to precede any regulatory action that facilitates expansion. That is not a high bar; it is basic good governance. Although I heard what the Minister said to us in our debate on an earlier group, we believe that this amendment is very much needed, so that it is clearly spelled out.
Airport expansion, at Heathrow in particular, is one of the most contested infrastructure decisions that this country faces. It has planning implications, climate implications and profound implications for communities living under flight paths. Amendment 110 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Harper, rightly asks for a published assessment of airspace slot and scheduling impact before any decision on a third runway. We think that he makes an important point.
The central question for the Minister is simple: can he give this Committee a clear, unambiguous assurance that nothing at all in the Bill could be used to facilitate airport expansion decisions that have not been subject to full environmental scrutiny, proper community consultation, which goes far further than the exercise we discussed earlier, and meaningful parliamentary oversight? I look forward to his answer with interest and I beg to move.
Lord Harper (Con)
My Lords, I will speak to my Amendment 110 and make one or two comments on the amendments that the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, spoke to. Amendment 69 seems perfectly sensible, requiring consultation and so forth. I have more of an issue with Amendment 105. If the processes to determine airport expansion have been complied with, it does not seem sensible to say, “As a result, you can’t use any of the powers in this Act to facilitate that properly taken and consulted-on decision”. While I do not have enormous objection to the noble Baroness’s first amendment, the second one goes a bit too far, so I am half agreeing with her, which is an improvement on where we were last time. I hope that she takes that in the spirit in which it is intended.
My remarks on my own amendment may appear a bit disjointed because I am going to slightly amend them in flight, as it were. Members of the Committee may or may not be aware that, while we have been debating this, the Secretary of State has published a Written Ministerial Statement on the aviation framework, which is specifically to do with Heathrow expansion. I thank the Minister for his courtesy in drawing to my attention, because I have tabled amendments on Heathrow, that the timing of the Written Statement would be during our debate today. I have been through the Statement, but it is quite extensive, so I have done it at speed and might ask things that are covered in it or in some of the attached documentation, which I have not had a chance to study. Given that the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, talked about airport expansion, my amendment might give the Minister a helpful opportunity when he comes to wind up this group of amendments to perhaps set out for the Committee’s benefit one or two of the key points in the Secretary of State’s Written Statement, which I think will interest all noble Lords who are interested in aviation.
My amendment is drafted in such a way as to make sure that it is within scope of the Bill. The purpose of tabling it was to press the Government a bit on the choice that they made, which they set out last November and reiterated in the Written Statement today, to settle on the more expensive of the two options set out: the proposal by Heathrow Airport Ltd for a more ambitious, longer runway with a total price tag of £49 billion. Heathrow Airport has committed that that will be financed entirely privately. Obviously, there will need to be a regulatory funding mechanism for that, but I will not dwell on that now because I have some later amendments, in group 7, which I will touch on at that point, so as not to repeat myself.
I want to understand from the Minister whether the Government are satisfied—I presume that they are, given that they are proceeding in this direction, but I have not seen the underpinning rationale that supports the decision. When she made the decision, the Secretary of State said that the Government’s choice of the more expensive of the two options was “the most credible”, so I would like to understand the Government’s thinking about that.
The Minister and I worked together on HS2 when I was Secretary of State and he was chairman of Network Rail. He knows that infrastructure projects, albeit publicly financed ones, can end up costing rather more money than originally intended. I am worried that this project is now intended to be entirely privately financed. If that does not stick, the Government are very much committed—rightly, in my view—to expanding Heathrow, and I want to make sure that the taxpayer does not at some point end up being on the hook for very significant amounts of public money that they are not currently planning to spend.
Earl Russell (LD)
My Lord, I shall speak to Amendment 114, standing in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle. She is unable to attend the Committee today. I will speak to both her amendments, this one and one in a later group. I am mindful of what the Companion says on these matters, so, just to be clear, these are my words and not hers.
This amendment seeks to insert a new clause imposing a climate duty on the Civil Aviation Authority and the Secretary of State. It would require the CAA, when exercising its functions under the Bill, to have regard to the target established by Section 1 of the Climate Change Act 2008, the carbon budgets established under the Act and the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from civil aviation. It would also require the Secretary of State to have regard to emissions reductions when exercising powers under the Bill, to refrain from using those powers for the purposes of airport capacity expansion and to use them in pursuit of a strategy aimed at reducing airport capacity.
The case for the amendment is reasonably straightforward. Aviation is one of the hardest sectors to decarbonise, but difficulty is not an argument for inaction. It is precisely because aviation is hard to abate that we need clear legislative direction now rather than later. Without it, the CAA risks operating in a policy vacuum, exercising its functions under this Bill, particularly new functions, with no statutory obligation to consider our national carbon budgets or our commitments under the Climate Change Act, specifically in relation to new powers. I argue that that is not a sustainable position; it warrants examination and perhaps further clarity. The duty the amendment would impose is well known and deliberately light-touch. To “have regard to” is not a command. It would not stand in the way of other duties that the CEA continues to have in carrying out its functions. It would simply require that, when those functions are exercised, it has one eye on the statutory climate framework that Parliament has already enacted.
It would be curious indeed if the Bill to modernise our regulatory aviation framework contained no reference whatever to our climate obligations. I should be transparent with the Committee that my Amendment 107 in a later group pursues similar goals in perhaps a slightly different way. I guess my motivations are similar to those of the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett.
The CAA, particularly with its new powers, must be benchmarked against our national climate commitments. This and my future amendment both call for some form of reporting on that process. An annual account of the environmental efforts of the CAA’s functions and of its compliance with the climate duty is essential for meaningful future parliamentary scrutiny. Aviation’s contributions to emissions cannot be indefinitely treated as an afterthought in legislation. I hope the Minister recognises the constructive spirit in which the noble Baroness’s amendment is advanced, and I look forward to the Government’s response.
I turn briefly to Amendment 110, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Harper. I thank him for his half-support, or support for one of our amendments, which is gratefully received. We on these Benches are supportive of his amendment: it is sensible and modest in its proposition. He asked some interesting questions of the Minister on the revisions to the Airports National Policy Statement that have literally just come out, and I would be interested in hearing the answers. We could have completely opposing views on whether we need Heathrow expansion but both accept this amendment. The point is not whether we support expansion but how it is reported and properly assessed. There needs to be a proper framework for doing that, so we are supportive of that.
Baroness Foster of Oxton (Con)
My Lords, I will comment briefly on the subject in general. I have long been an advocate for airport expansion, particularly at Heathrow. On that note, I support the Government taking this brave step. Having lived in south-west London and under the odd flight path from time to time, I recognise that there was an airport there long before me and before most people who live in the area. It was unfortunately most regrettable—I now intend to be quite party political—that the fortunes of the Liberal Democrats relied on objecting to every element of expansion at Heathrow, whether for new terminals or runways. Most people would agree that we should have had a third runway more than 30 years ago, when the cost would have been substantially less.
My final point is that, while I fully support the Government pushing ahead with expansion and a third runway, the decision on this particular project, at a cost of £49 billion, with disruption to areas around the M25 and elsewhere, is completely wrong. I see it ending up like some of the other massive infrastructure projects that we have had in rail. I do not believe this is the best way forward. There should be a rethink. Other projects would be less disruptive but have not been fully considered. As a general point, I fully support the Government’s ideals to expand but think that the initial decision is wrong at this time.
Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, I note the publication, while the Committee has been sitting, of the revisions to the Airports National Policy Statement. Obviously, I have not read it, and I do not imagine that other Members have, apart from the Minister and his close associates.
It is worth saying that that this publication does not take us forward; it takes us back to 2018, when the Airports National Policy Statement was published. It was then taken through the courts. There were some ridiculous objections to it, but it got through the High Court. It fell on one particular objection only at the Court of Appeal, which turned, as I recall, on the question of the definition of the word “policy”—this is how great infrastructure projects proceed in this country. It eventually went to the Supreme Court, which took a different view on the definition of “policy” and finally approved the ANPS. By that stage, of course, it was totally out of date and Covid had intervened, so the work had to be started again by the department. The fruits of that work are what have been published today. As I say, I am not in a position to comment on it. We are back to where we were in 2018 and have made no progress in that period. We will see whether this new ANPS survives the sort of process that the previous one was subjected to and whether we will need a third ANPS a few years down the road.
In relation to these amendments, I unfortunately find myself not entirely able to agree with my Liberal Democrat colleagues on the two in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Grender. It is not because of the intention, because that is of course important—there should be consultation, an environmental impact assessment and a noise impact assessment if Heathrow is to be expanded—but because I think those things will happen anyway without this amendment. Nor can I honestly say that I support Amendment 105. One cannot create powers for the Government in specific areas of aviation and then say that they cannot be used for one particular purpose within the field of aviation. That makes no sense so, sadly, I am slightly out of sympathy on those two.
I understand the comments about the amendment proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, but, sadly, this time, I do not feel I can pursue that either. There are other amendments relating to the environment later on, not least one in the name of my noble friend Lord Harper, which raise some interesting questions.
I find myself very much in support of the amendment tabled by my noble friend Lord Harper. I sympathise with his remarks about the financial consequences and financial circumstances relating to Heathrow expansion. Perhaps I can give a few figures that will help the Committee put this in some context, and then put a couple of questions to the Minister.
Heathrow is a private company and it is very difficult to know its market valuation, because its shares trade so rarely. There was a trade 13 or 14 years ago, which valued the company at approximately £14 billion. That was roughly the same as the value of the airport’s regulated asset base at the time. There was then a trade approximately two years ago—there was quite a reorganisation of shareholders approximately two years ago—and I understand that the valuation implicit in those trades was that the airport was now worth only £10 billion, roughly. Its value had fallen over that period. Meanwhile, its regulated asset base has gone up to in excess of £20 billion, so the shareholders bought a regulated asset base for half its price.
Of the capital structure of the company, there is a large amount of debt—in fact, more debt than there was some years ago. The amount of equity belonging to the shareholders in the company is therefore probably no more than £2 billion—let us say £3 billion to be generous. Now we hear of a company with £3 billion of shareholder commitment that wishes to embark upon a project costing, conservatively, £49 billion at current estimated prices. This is vaunting ambition at the very least. If it were purely a private company, it would be completely unfinanceable without a huge new infusion of shareholder capital, because no bank will lend £49 billion to a company that has only £3 billion of equity and already has several billion pounds of debt on top of that. It is simply an unfinanceable project.
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
My Lords, this group concerns airport expansion capacity. I am grateful to noble Lords for their amendments.
I will address Amendments 69, 105, 110 and 114 in turn. Before doing so, I will make two points that apply across the group. First, as I made clear at Second Reading, the Bill is not a route to airport expansion. It does not grant planning consent, remove environmental safeguards or predetermine the outcome of any expansion proposal. Secondly, where airport expansion is proposed, the relevant issues, including noise, carbon emissions, air quality, economic benefits and local impacts, are considered through national policy statements and the development consent order processes, with consultation, assessment, scrutiny and independent examination. Those are the common justifications, which I will refer back to. Expansion decisions sit within the planning regime, while this Bill concerns aviation consumer protection and regulatory reform.
I turn first to Amendment 69 spoken to by the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon. This amendment would require the Secretary of State to undertake consultation impact assessments before laying slot regulations that facilitate airport expansion. I reassure the noble Baroness that the Government are fully committed to meaningful consultation with communities and to thorough environmental and noise assessment before airport expansion proceeds. However, slot regulations do not grant planning for physical expansion, nor do they increase the legally permitted cap on aircraft movements. They determine how capacity at co-ordinated airports is allocated between airlines. The slots measure in the Bill would allow regulations to be updated if needed so that any capacity already approved through the planning process can be used effectively. Amendment 69 would therefore duplicate consultation and assessment processes that already take place before slot allocation becomes relevant, and for that reason I ask the noble Baroness to withdraw the amendment.
I turn next to Amendment 105, also tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Grender. This amendment would prohibit the powers in the Bill being used for the purposes of airport expansion. The Bill and the question of airport expansion are distinct. The Bill is focused, as I said, on consumer protection reform of the aviation regulatory framework. The Government would take forward these measures, irrespective of any expansion decision. The Government support Heathrow expansion, but any decision on the third runway is subject to the national policy statement and the development consent order processes, both of which include consultation and scrutiny. Airspace modernisation is also needed, whether or not a third runway is proceeded with. Its purpose is to make UK airspace more efficient, resilient, quieter and cleaner, not to provide a shortcut to expansion. Similarly, slots regulation does not create airport capacity; it manages capacity after it has been approved through the planning process.
Amendment 105 would undermine the workability of the Bill’s regulatory framework. For example, it could prevent reforms to slot regulation where those reforms are needed to manage new capacity that has already been approved. I therefore ask the noble Baroness not to press it.
I turn next to Amendment 110, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Harper, on a third runway at Heathrow. The Government agree that decisions on airport expansion should be evidence-based and subject to transparency, consultation and scrutiny. However, Amendment 110 is not necessary to achieve that, because decisions on Heathrow expansion will be taken through the national policy statement and development consent order processes.
As noble Lords have noted, the department has today published the revised airports national policy statement, which has been renamed the draft Heathrow expansion national policy statement, to clarify that it applies only to Heathrow expansion and its associated infrastructure for consultation.
In response to the noble Lord, Lord Harper, and others, I am not going to be in a position to respond to the detail of what has literally just been published, which I am sure he and others will understand. However, I have no doubt that the points he and others raise will be discussed both in your Lordships’ House and in the other place. I have also heard the noble Earl, Lord Russell, the noble Baroness, Lady Foster of Oxton, and the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, but as I say, this is for discussion at another time.
I have also written today to all noble Lords with further details. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, will accept that I am not going to answer his questions now, because the Written Statement was laid less than two hours ago.
Lord Moylan (Con)
Would the noble Lord be so good as to answer them by letter before we reach Report?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
I will certainly consider what I can say to the noble Lord before Report.
The Heathrow expansion national policy statement includes the full suite of appraisal and supporting analytical documents. Alongside the public consultation, that draft policy statement will be laid before Parliament and subject to parliamentary scrutiny by a nominated parliamentary Select Committee. Following the consultation, the Government will carefully consider all responses received, alongside the report of the parliamentary Select Committee, before deciding whether to designate an amended national policy statement. If the Government decide to proceed, the amended policy statement will be published and laid before Parliament, in accordance with the requirements set out in the Planning Act 2008, and be subject to a vote in the other place before it can take legal effect. Any development consent application for expansion at Heathrow must include detailed, project-specific assessments, including operational and system-wide impacts, and will be published and examined through the Planning Inspectorate process.
Not all the matters covered by Amendment 110 can be determined at a single point. Airspace design, in particular, is developed iteratively and requires sufficient certainty about an expansion scheme before it can be finalised, approved and implemented. Airspace change proposals are also subject to their own oversight processes, including detailed assessment and public consultation, and do not pre-empt planning decisions. It would not be appropriate to include requirements for a specific infrastructure project in this Bill, which is concerned, as I have said, with consumer protection and regulatory reform. Given the extensive information and scrutiny that will already apply to Heathrow expansion, I ask the noble Lord not to press his amendment.
Finally, I turn to Amendment 114, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, but spoken to by the noble Earl, Lord Russell. I agree that tackling climate change and reducing aviation emissions must remain central to aviation policy. However, I cannot accept this amendment. Elements of Amendment 114 would duplicate existing duties under the Climate Change Act 2008, but the provisions on airport capacity go significantly further. This Government support airport expansion where it is justified. The UK needs sufficient airport capacity to support economic growth, trade, freight and connectivity across the country. Proposals are, and will continue to be, assessed case by case against strict climate, environmental and economic tests.
Amendment 114 would prevent the Secretary of State using powers under the Bill to support any expansion of airport capacity and go further, by requiring a reduction in capacity. That would remove the Government’s ability to respond to real capacity constraints, even where a scheme could meet the rigorous tests I have described. This Bill is not the vehicle for making those determinations. I therefore ask for Amendment 114 not to be pressed.
Baroness Pidgeon (LD)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his detailed response. It has been an interesting debate, and I think that how noble Lords view these amendments and powers may reflect which side of the debate one sits on in terms of airport expansion. On these Benches, we are clear that we oppose expansion of Heathrow and Gatwick. I am grateful for the half support from the noble Lord, Lord Harper, for our amendments, though we clearly have different views on Heathrow expansion. We will now need to reflect on the Minister’s words—and, of course, the draft Heathrow expansion national policy statement that, as has been discussed, has been published while we have been sitting—ahead of Report in any amendments that we may wish to table then. But on that basis, I agree to withdraw the amendment at this stage.
Lord Moylan
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would provide for CAA rules to be made by regulations by the Secretary of State.
Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, I have a lot of amendments in this group, but I assure noble Lords that a number of them are duplicative, because they seek to replace “document” with “guidance” wherever it appears in the clause. None the less, it will take me a moment to go through my amendments.
We are dealing here with the CAA’s rule-making powers. It is worth reminding noble Lords that the first part of the Bill is about consumer protection and the CAA’s role as the direct enforcer of consumer protection powers. This is a very different part of the Bill. It is about making rules. It gives the CAA huge, unprecedented powers to make rules, including ones that may have criminal penalties, and it does so with practically no supervision—certainly not by Parliament and, as far as I can make out, very little by the Minister either. That is what these amendments are intended to deal with.
The first one probes why it is necessary for the Civil Aviation Authority to have rule-making powers at all. Until recently, the rules it made emanated from the European Union; in fact, they often came through from the ICAO, trickling down in that fashion. But, for all their faults, regulations made by the European Union were not made in secret. One could see what was happening. We had, here in your Lordships’ House, a committee that reviewed regulations and statutory instruments relating to European Union legislation.
All these rules were made under air navigation orders, which are a form of statutory instrument—again, it is a parliamentary process. In future, neither will apply. There will be no scrutiny whatever. But, since these rules have been made by statutory instrument and similar in the past, a question arises: why should they not be made in that fashion in the future?
The Minister said—or I may have read this somewhere in some of the supporting documentation—that there is a backlog of 100 or so of these that have to be got through, and that using parliamentary time for this purpose is not appropriate. It is disturbing to think that there is a backlog, but that is not an excuse in itself. After all, we are all being made to sit here in Grand Committee for five hours rather than four, and for three hours on a Tuesday morning. There is no lack of parliamentary time for considering statutory instruments. We are all being held to the last, and we work very hard. There is no excuse that there is no room for them when the Chamber is full of debates on subjects such as tackling child poverty, rather than legislating, which is what it should be doing while we are in here. We will carry on in here; we will do the statutory instruments and put the time in, so there is no problem there.
At an earlier stage—I cannot remember whether it was on our first day in Committee or at Second Reading—the Minister said he had a trump card. He said that the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee thought that it was appropriate for this regulator-led rule-making approach to be adopted. But he did not read the next sentence:
“Inherent in the proposition is that CAA made rules would be highly technical in nature”.
But this Bill does not limit the CAA to making rules that are highly technical in nature. It does not limit it simply to implementing ICAO powers.
In fact, this has caused concern to another committee of your Lordships’ House: the Constitution Committee. The chairman of that committee, my noble friend Lord Strathclyde, has written to the Minister saying among other things that:
“This Bill strengthens the secondary law-making and rule-making powers of both the Civil Aviation Authority and the Secretary of State”
and that this
“will, by the nature of negative parliamentary approval of secondary legislation, be subject to minimal parliamentary oversight. We are concerned that this will result in a scrutiny gap”.
We will wait to hear, but so far the Minister has had no answer to that.
So my first question is: why should we make such a dramatic change at all? Secondly, if there is going to be a rule-making power of this character, the Secretary of State should publish the underlying principles. It is not all given to the Secretary of State: it is for the Secretary of State, following the enactment of this Bill, to decide which rule-making powers are given over. There is no limit in the Bill on what those powers are. The second amendment, Amendment 77, would require at least a statement of principles, in advance of enactment of the Bill, as to what basis the Secretary of State is going to use for deciding which powers should be transferred over into this new process. Amendment 79 would require consultation by the Civil Aviation Authority when making rules. There is no requirement for consultation in the Bill.
Amendment 81 in my name probes why the Secretary of State’s priorities and objectives statement is described as a “document” rather than “guidance”. As I said at Second Reading, this is the oddest part of the Bill. It says that the Secretary of State is allowed to issue a document that gives guidance to the CAA on what the Government’s priorities are in relation to rule-making. The word “document” is used and the word “guidance” is avoided. I fear that that is a deliberate choice. The word “guidance” has a legal weight to it; we understand what guidance is in relation to the action of public bodies and how they are bound to it, but we do not understand what obligation a public body has to pay attention to a document issued by the Secretary of State. Does it have the weight of guidance? What weight does it have? I am trying to replace it with the word “guidance” so that we have clarity.
Then we come down to this further point: the Bill prohibits the Secretary of State from issuing this “document”, which I would change to “guidance”, without the agreement of the Civil Aviation Authority. This is truly remarkable. I do not think that I have ever come across an example where a regulated body acting on behalf of the Secretary of State can refuse to accept the document or guidance that the Secretary of State is going to issue. I raised the point at Second Reading, and the Minister made no defence, although no doubt he is better prepared now—but what could it possibly be, and how could your Lordships possibly agree to such a thing?
There are other matters here. For example, on Amendment 98. The Bill states that the Civil Aviation Authority “may” publish a consolidated set of rules so that people can look at them. That is a good idea, but it would be a better idea if the Bill said that it “must” publish a set of consolidated rules. How could this be left to the discretion of the Civil Aviation Authority? Then the Bill has the cheek to say that anybody who is so impertinent as to ask for a printed copy of that set of rules can be charged a fee, with no limit placed on the fee or on how that might be used. My amendment would take away the fee.
This whole section gives new and unprecedented powers. There is no justification given for them and it is very difficult to understand why the Government would want to do this. I have respect for the Civil Aviation Authority because, as a safety regulator, it is of the highest quality. It is in the box of good regulators; there are bad regulators, but the CAA is not a bad regulator. I do not like to say something disobliging about the CAA, but it seems that this Bill has been written as an enormous power grab by the Civil Aviation Authority. It muscled its way into the digital markets Act in relation to consumer protection, and now it is taking over a whole swathe of rule-making powers. I just remind the Minister that, when we voted for Brexit, one thing we voted for was that rules should not be made by unelected bureaucrats. This Bill moves from a system where there is some scrutiny and understanding of the process and some parliamentary scrutiny of how these rules are made, to one where they are all being made by unelected bureaucrats, without supervision. It is a retrograde step, and not one that we should support. I beg to move.
Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)
My Lords, I have Amendment 78 in this group. I shall only say a few words, and I suppose the very few words I could say are that, if we are to get new powers that may affect pilots, we wish to be consulted. In many ways, it is as simple as that. Hopefully, the Minister can give us a better feel for what this piece of legislation will be used for. I find myself almost agreeing with the noble Lord, Lord Moylan. If we are to have powers where we are not clear what they will be used for and what their extent will be, there are two sensible outcomes: either you do not bother with the powers, or you have an appropriate set of checks and balances to make sure that the powers are sensible.
Viscount Goschen (Con)
My Lords, my noble friend Lord Moylan has done the Committee a service by bringing to our attention some of the conflicts within the Bill in terms of rule and regulation-making powers. I should add that I am a member of the Delegated Powers Committee. I have previously been a member of the Delegated Powers Committee, but I was not a member at the time that its report on this Bill was made, for reasons that I explained on Tuesday—I was not a Member of the House at the time.
This a highly complex subject and complex field, and it is very easy to get tangled up in it. Some of the principles that my noble friend has elucidated are extremely valid. The other point is that one perhaps needs to be careful what one wishes for, because I could see hundreds of very technical regulations—technical in the technological sense of the term—coming before your Lordships’ House for scrutiny. None the less, my noble friend has made the particular point around the Government choosing which regulatory process to utilise, and I think there are some real difficulties in that.
Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow my noble friend. I shall speak to Amendment 96 in my name. It rehearses an issue that we discussed in Committee on Tuesday, but it is pertinent to this section. Essentially the point at issue is this: we have a Government who have stated that they have no desire to legislate or regulate cross-sector or cross-economy for artificial intelligence and that a domain-specific approach is preferred. I suggest that that is a suboptimal choice, but it is still a legitimate choice.
The difficulty is that every time we come to some such domain—this Bill is about aviation—the Bill is silent on AI. I appreciate that there are data protection provisions in other legislation, but that is but one specific element of artificial intelligence. I believe that when one considers the role and functions of the CAA and the positive role it could take when it comes to artificial intelligence, all the people who are subject to the CAA’s powers would greatly benefit from an AI aviation standard to deal with transparency, explainability and bias and to look to the systems that not only the CAA uses, may use or, indeed, it could be said, must use in the very near future and to AI systems that are already in use across the aviation sector.
A specific AI aviation standard could bring clarity and coherence across this industry, across the roles and powers that the CAA is responsible for and across actions. It is imperfect because it would be far better to have AI legislation and regulations that could be understood by the public, business and all of us wherever we happen to come across AI, because those flexible, agile regulations would be cross-domain, cross-sector and cross-economy, so they would deliver the clarity, consistency and coherence that you require whether you are an aviator, an investor, an innovator or a citizen. However, that is not the choice the Government have made, so I suggest it would be worth considering an AI aviation standard at least to deal with this domain. The issues go far beyond data protection, which is but one part, albeit an important part, of this, but AI is already impacting in this sector. I look forward to the Minister’s response.
Lord Barber of Ainsdale (Lab)
My Lords, I begin by recording my registered interest as the president of BALPA. I strongly echo the point made so clearly by the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, about the importance of engagement with the pilot community on many of the key issues in the Bill. I very much welcome the recognition that I have heard from just about everyone in the Room of the vital expertise that BALPA members can bring to the consultations required by both the Government and the CAA in key provisions in the Bill.
I will speak briefly to Amendments 89 and 95 in my name, which are supported by the noble Lord, Lord Kirkhope. Amendment 89 seeks to remove the apparent veto given to the CAA over the document to be issued by the Secretary of State setting out their priorities and objectives for the exercise of the CAA’s rule-making functions; the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, touched on this point in his remarks. It seems a curious piece of drafting in this part of the Bill. The amendment also strongly emphasises the importance of consultations on these issues with organisations and persons with relevant interests and expertise who would be affected by the new or amended proposed rules; that will clearly include pilots.
Amendment 95 would require the Secretary of State not only to publish any directions issued to the CAA, as the Bill currently requires, but to lay any such directions before Parliament, thus allowing parliamentarians the opportunity to probe and scrutinise them. This would provide greater openness and transparency without being overly burdensome. I look forward to the Minister’s response.
Lord Empey (UUP)
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, has conducted a forensic examination of many parts of the Bill, to which I am sure we will return at a later stage.
I shall commence by referring to Amendment 78 from the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe. I agree entirely with the substance and strength of it but I will apply the same remarks to it as I did to a previous amendment he tabled, in that it is not appropriate to specify a particular trade union when it does not necessarily have a monopoly—never mind now; who knows whether it would in future. However, the sentiment is right, and I support it.
I have tabled Amendment 118. Perhaps the Minister could write to me on it before Report. We have here a situation where the CAA is getting a lot of powers and, if I interpreted one part of the Bill correctly, is almost in a position to veto a decision made by the Secretary of State. I might have picked that up wrong, but it seems to be accruing an exceptional amount of power.
One issue—it is a health and safety issue, apart from anything else—is flight-time limitations. A number of years ago, there was a major change to the relevant European directives that apply here, but, of course, flight-time limitations apply not only to airlines that operate or are based in the United Kingdom but to airlines in other jurisdictions that carry UK passengers and use our airspace. That is important. There are international agreements but, with all the changes taking place around who is regulating this area, it would be most helpful if the Minister could write to me before Report clarifying what his department believes the situation to be. This is one of the most difficult issues to deal with because safety is vital. At the same time, there is competition between the desire to have the safest possible environment and airlines pressurising for the maximum amount of efficiency. There is an in-built tension there.
Circumstances arise, be they weather-related or incident-related, in which an airport has to close and crews overshoot their time. We understand the practicalities of flying, but I want clarity on who is setting the rules for the operation of flight crews of not only UK-based airlines but airlines that use UK airspace. Those of us who fly have an investment in ensuring that the right conditions apply. We know that fatigue is a regular cause of accidents and fatalities: it has been well documented in reports, and air crash investigations frequently come up with it as a major issue. So it is important to know precisely where we stand now, given that our rule-making regime is undergoing so many changes and the CAA is accruing so many powers. We had a European arrangement prior to our departure from the European Union. I would be grateful to ensure that we have clarity on who does what and who sets the regulations.
Lord Harper (Con)
My Lords, I support my noble friend Lord Moylan in two of his amendments.
On Amendment 76, my noble friend made some very good points about making sure that we have a proper parliamentary process. From a combination of listening to him and looking at the Delegated Powers Committee’s report, I am not against his argument that very technical rule changes should be done by the CAA, but that distinction is not made in the Bill. Clearly, rules that have more impact than that should remain with Ministers—obviously, with the CAA advising them—so that they are made through parliamentary procedure and receive appropriate scrutiny in the House. If there is a backlog of non-technical ones, we can put processes in place, even for a limited period, to deal with it, if that is required. That has happened before: it happened when we were putting through the various changes that were required as a result of Brexit. Both Houses set up processes to deal with the one-off process of changing our legislation. It can be done.
What I want to hear from the Minister is: what powers do the Government intend to give to the CAA, and what powers do they intend to keep for themselves? How will they make a judgment on which powers to make rules it is appropriate for the CAA, which will have no parliamentary oversight, to have? Where Ministers will retain parallel powers, what will they be used for? As far as I can tell, that is not set out anywhere; it would be helpful if it were.
My final point is small but important. My noble friend Lord Moylan’s Amendment 91 deals with the extraordinary idea that, when the Government are issuing guidance to the CAA, the CAA somehow has a veto over whether the Government can issue the guidance. That does not make any sense to me at all. It is clear that, although the CAA rightly has operational independence in its regulatory and safety responsibilities, the Secretary of State sets out its objectives—she did so as recently as 20 April—in the letter that she sends to the chair of the CAA. Ultimately, she has the ability to hire and fire members of the board.
So it is clear who is in charge here. It seems very odd that, with this drafting, the CAA will be able to stop the Government issuing the guidance. I do not understand why that is there. It might simply be a drafting error, in which case the Minister should bring forward an amendment on Report to deal with it. If not, he should give us a clear explanation of what it is there for; I genuinely do not understand it. My noble friend Lord Moylan has done us a service by spotting this and highlighting it to the Committee.
With that, I draw my remarks to a close. I look forward to hearing from the Minister in due course.
Baroness Grey-Thompson (CB)
My Lords, I will speak briefly to Amendment 80 in my name and that of the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton. Although this amendment sits in this group, there is considerable overlap with the amendments that I had on day one in Committee. This amendment would require the CAA to publish a disability impact assessment before implementing significant new regulations. The thought behind the amendment was to put disability rights higher up the priority list, while ensuring there is a better understanding of the needs of disabled people and that they receive both equal and equitable treatment. I am very interested in the Minister’s view on this amendment.
Baroness Pidgeon (LD)
My Lords, this is a substantial group that touches on the constitutional and regulatory framework at the heart of the Bill. Amendment 102, in the name of my noble friend Lady Grender, would change the power in Section 61A(7) of the 1982 Act to the affirmative procedure, in line with the recommendations of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee. This House takes those recommendations seriously and I am sure the Government do as well. When Parliament is being asked to delegate significant rule-making powers to the CAA, the least we should expect is meaningful parliamentary oversight of that delegation. I hope the Minister can support this.
Several of the amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, in this group probe the curious decision to describe the Secretary of State’s priorities and objectives as a document rather than guidance. He made some interesting points in that it has implications for the enforceability of the Bill. Amendment 83 asks that this document address connectivity between the nations and regions of the United Kingdom, which we strongly support.
Amendment 80, tabled by the noble Baronesses, Lady Grey-Thompson and Lady Brinton, would require a disability impact assessment before significant new regulations and speaks to obligations that should be automatic—these are not optional. We should not have to say, in this day and age, that disabled passengers and those with reduced mobility deserve to have their needs considered systematically before regulations are made, not just retrofitted as an afterthought once a problem emerges. Yet the experience of disabled travellers tells a very different story. We have seen wheelchairs damaged or lost in transit, and passengers left on aircraft without explanation or assistance, long after others have disembarked. We have seen accessible services withdrawn or downgraded, with no prior assessment of the impact on those who depend on them. These are not isolated incidents; they reflect a culture in which the needs of disabled travellers are treated as a secondary consideration, rather than an absolute core service.
A disability impact assessment requirement before significant regulatory change would begin to change that culture. It would require the CAA to ask the right questions at the right time, to engage with disabled people and their representative organisations and to put on the record its assessment of how proposed rules will affect those with protected characteristics. This is not just a bureaucratic issue. It is the minimum standard we should expect of a modern regulator. We on these Benches strongly support the noble Baronesses in pressing this point, and we look forward to hearing a response from the Minister.
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
My Lords, this group concerns Civil Aviation Authority rule-making. I begin with the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, which would require aviation safety regulations to continue to be made by the Secretary of State, and on which the noble Lord, Lord Harper, also spoke. That would prevent the delegation of technical rule-making to the Civil Aviation Authority, which is a central purpose of the Bill. As I said at Second Reading, the current process risks the UK falling behind its international safety obligations. Delegating technical rule-making to that authority will allow the regime to keep pace with international standards and industry change, while retaining robust safeguards, ministerial oversight and parliamentary accountability. As I will say on a number of amendments in this group, the Bill is designed to create a quicker, more responsive regulator-led system, without removing proper democratic controls.
The words of my noble friend Lord Tunnicliffe at Second Reading strongly resonated with me then, as they do now, but I note that the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee clearly recognised a case for such an approach. The noble Lord, Lord Moylan, referred to the letter from the chair of the Constitution Committee, which as yet I have not seen but will obviously fully consider when I do. I will reply to it as soon as I can and take on board all those matters that need to be considered in the Bill before Report.
Lord Moylan (Con)
The argument is that these rules have to be made by the CAA because parliamentary scrutiny slows things down and there is a risk that we fall behind meeting our international obligations. That is the case for change, but how often in the past have we fallen behind our international obligations using the existing system?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
I will certainly consider what the noble Lord says and respond to him. I am sure that what I have said is correct, but I will produce an answer for him as soon as I can.
Amendment 102 from the noble Baroness, Lady Grender, and Amendment 77 from the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, respond to the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee’s recommendations. Amendment 102 would move the relevant regulation-making power to the affirmative procedure, while Amendment 77 would require the Secretary of State to publish principles explaining how the power to prevent CAA rule-making in certain areas would be used.
I am grateful to both noble Lords for seeking to address the committee’s concern. The power is important because it helps to define the boundary between the Civil Aviation Authority and the Secretary of State. We are considering these points carefully, and, as I said at the previous Committee hearing, I fully intend to return before Report. I strongly note the advice of the noble Viscount, Lord Goshen, to be careful about what we wish for, given the possibly hundreds of technical amendments. On that basis, I hope the Committee notes that I will fully answer the points of the Constitution Committee and the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, and that noble Lords will not press those amendments at this stage.
My noble friend Lord Tunnicliffe’s amendment, which is supported by the noble Lord, Lord Empey, would require the CAA to consult the British Airline Pilots Association. The Bill already requires the CAA to consult. The Secretary of State will expect it to consult appropriately with all relevant stakeholders, and the British Airline Pilots Association will of course be able to respond to consultations. However, a specific duty to consult that organisation in all cases would not be appropriate, because, as the noble Lord, Lord Empey, pointed out, the British Airline Pilots Association is not the only trade union representing pilots, and pilots are not the only people affected by CAA rules. Nor would it be proportionate to require that trade union to be consulted on every rule, including matters unlikely to affect pilots. I hope that reassures my noble friend. I will, of course, be happy to meet him to discuss how consultation will work in practice.
The next amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, would give the Secretary of State a power to direct the Civil Aviation Authority to consult specific persons. As with the previous amendment, I recognise the importance of appropriate consultation. However, new Section 61G, inserted by Clause 8, already enables the Secretary of State to direct the CAA in how it uses its rule-making functions, including by requiring consultation with specific parties. The amendment is therefore unnecessary and I ask the noble Lord not to press it.
Amendment 80 from the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, would require the Civil Aviation Authority to prepare a disability impact assessment for significant rule changes. Accessibility is a priority for the Government, and we are committed to ensuring that anyone who wants to fly can do so without barriers. The Civil Aviation Authority is already subject to the public sector equality duty and must have due regard to equality impacts when making rules. As the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, remarked, that should be considered automatically where appropriate. It includes careful consideration of the impact on disabled people and people with reduced mobility. I hope that reassures the noble Baroness and that she will not press her amendment, but, as I said on Tuesday, I am considering the many powerful points raised about disabled travellers and what we can and should do further in this Bill.
I will deal next with the 10 amendments from the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, which would replace references to a document setting out the Secretary of State’s priorities and objectives with references to guidance. As he notes, the distinction matters. This is not statutory guidance; it is intended to be an agreed administrative framework and work programme for the CAA’s functions. That approach allows Ministers to set clear expectations, maintain appropriate oversight and secure visibility of future rules, while respecting the CAA’s statutory independence. Labelling the document as guidance would weaken that intended effect. I therefore ask the noble Lord not to press those amendments.
Amendment 83, also from the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, would require the Secretary of State to explain how the CAA’s new rule-making function supports regional connectivity. The Government fully recognise the importance of strong air connectivity across the United Kingdom. However, most technical safety rules will have no direct bearing on that policy. Those wider objectives are more properly addressed through aviation strategy and policy, rather than through technical safety and operational rules. I therefore ask the noble Lord not to press this amendment.
I will speak to Amendments 89 and 91 together, as both concern the governance of the priorities and objectives document. Amendment 89, from the noble Lord, Lord Kirkhope of Harrogate, and my noble friend Lord Barber of Ainsdale, would replace the requirement for agreement with the CAA with a broader duty to consult stakeholders. Amendment 91, from the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, would similarly remove the CAA’s role in agreeing the document.
Here, I return to a common point in this group: the Bill seeks to create a streamlined, effective system with clear roles, while preserving regulatory independence. Replacing agreement with broad consultation would duplicate consultation that already takes place on individual rule changes and would slow the process. Removing agreement would also undermine the CAA’s ability to stand behind the programme it is asked to deliver. Agreement is not a veto; it ensures the programme is credible, deliverable and consistent with the Civil Aviation Authority’s statutory duties. If agreement cannot be reached, the Secretary of State retains existing powers, including the ability to make regulations directly. I will further explore the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Harper, on this. I therefore ask noble Lords not to press Amendments 89 and 91.
The next amendment, also from the noble Lord, Lord Kirkhope of Harrogate, and my noble friend Lord Barber of Ainsdale, concerns parliamentary oversight of the priorities and objectives document. I recognise the importance of transparency. However, Ministers must retain clear backstop powers to direct or intervene quickly where appropriate. Where directions are issued, they will be published, and the Secretary of State will remain accountable, including through the Transport Select Committee. In that context, laying the document before Parliament may not add significant transparency. We will continue to reflect on the points raised but, meanwhile, I ask the noble Lord and my noble friend not to press the amendment.
I turn to Amendment 96 from the noble Lord, Lord Holmes of Richmond, on AI technical standards. Artificial intelligence and automation are already important to aviation safety, and automation has contributed significantly to the high levels of safety achieved over recent decades. The Civil Aviation Authority takes developments in AI seriously and has a developed AI strategy, which it will continue to review as technology evolves. The Civil Aviation Authority already scrutinises technology used in safety-critical systems, including AI, through expert, system-specific certification and oversight. A single framework for all AI use would not be workable, and mandatory human intervention in every decision could undermine safety by introducing avoidable human error. I therefore ask the noble Lord not to press his amendment.
I will take Amendments 97 and 98, from the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, together. They would require the Civil Aviation Authority to republish the entire rulebook whenever a new rule is made, or an existing rule is updated. The CAA rulebook runs to many thousands of provisions. Republishing it in full for even minor changes would be disproportionate, costly and time-consuming, and would frustrate the aim of an agile, consolidated rulebook. The Civil Aviation Authority will publish new rules and updates to existing rules in a timely way. I therefore ask the noble Lord not to press Amendments 97 and 98.
Lord Moylan (Con)
Can the Minister give a commitment that the Civil Aviation Authority will maintain an up-to-date rulebook on its website at all times? Any changes made could simply be inserted on the website. That is what I am asking for; I am not asking for a book. The amendment says “publish”; it does say “publish a book”. At the moment, the Bill does not require the CAA to do that; it specifically exempts it from doing so.
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
The noble Lord makes a reasonable point; I will take it away.
Amendments 99 and 100, also from the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, would require the Civil Aviation Authority to provide a free paper copy of the rulebook to anyone who asks. As I have just noted, the rulebook is extremely large, so requiring free paper copies would create a significant cost and administrative burden and, frankly, could be open to abuse. It is right that the CAA may charge for that expense, while ensuring that rules remain available to view for free on its website. I ask the noble Lord not to press Amendments 99 and 100.
I am grateful to the noble Lord for Amendment 101. The provision he seeks to remove is needed to ensure that the transition to CAA-led rule-making works coherently, including by enabling necessary consequential changes to existing legislation and enforcement provisions. Without it, gaps could arise that would require further primary legislation, which would not be proportionate or efficient. This is not an unfettered power. It is limited to what the Secretary of State considers necessary to facilitate or give effect to CAA rules, and it is subject to parliamentary procedure—affirmative where it amends primary legislation and negative in other cases. That provides proper oversight while allowing the new regime to operate effectively. Therefore, I ask the noble Lord not to press Amendment 101.
Finally, Amendment 118 from the noble Lord, Lord Empey, concerns flight time limitations. The CAA is responsible for ensuring that operators comply with those regulations. It already has powers to audit and enforce compliance, and is currently reviewing flight time limitations and enforcement. That review will be published later this year and will inform the CAA’s future approach. I will write to the noble Lord on the points he raised. I hope that that reassures him, and I ask him not to press Amendment 118.
Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, I note and am grateful for the assurance from the Minister that he will return on Report with an amendment—or amendments—that will address the points raised by the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee. I am sure that the noble Baroness, Lady Grender, and I will study that carefully, to see whether it will allow us not to press our own amendments. Beyond that, I am afraid to say that the Minister has, I think, disappointed the Committee with his response.
I will briefly comment on the relationship between the Secretary of State and the CAA. In normal circumstances—we might take Great British Railways as an example, as it is being created at the moment—we expect the Secretary of State to issue a document setting out the Government’s priorities and to impose them on the body being regulated. However, in this case, the Minister seems to envisage a partnership arrangement—a contract of some sort—between the Department for Transport and the Civil Aviation Authority, in which the CAA can say, “No, we don’t accept that part of the contract. We want something else”.
That seems to be unprecedented, although it is possible that the Minister can find precedence for it elsewhere in the regulatory environment in which we exist. It seems unprecedented, but it also seems to requires its own supervisory structure. In the end, if the Civil Aviation Authority can decide what it is willing to do, and the Secretary of State does not have the power to issue guidance requiring it to do those things, then we have created a monster that is totally outside of our control. I hear the Minister’s justification, but, as far as I understand it, it seems to raise more questions than it answers. I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
Lord Harper
“(g) set out how the CAA will have regard to the seventh carbon budget in exercising its functions under this Act, including any implications for aviation demand and consumer access to air travel.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment probes whether the CAA will be required to have regard to the seventh carbon budget in exercising its functions and what that would mean for aviation demand and consumer access to air travel.
Lord Harper (Con)
My Lords, let me explain what the amendment would do and the rationale for why I have tabled it. It goes back to the famous document of the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, that will be issued and seeks to add one thing to the list set out in the Bill: for the Secretary of State to set out to the CAA how it will have regard to the seventh carbon budget in exercising its functions, specifically
“any implications for aviation demand and consumer access to air travel”.
The amendment’s purpose, if I am being frank, was to make sure we could discuss this issue, because it is important and connected. A number of noble Lords have talked about the environmental impact of aviation.
Before I get on to my specific questions about the seventh carbon budget, I want to put this in a little context to make sure—although no one in this Committee would do so—that no one outside misrepresents me. I am a strong supporter of decarbonising aviation. I chaired the Jet Zero Council when I was Secretary of State, working with government, industry, airlines, airports, manufacturers, suppliers of fuel, academia and representatives of the Climate Change Committee looking at how we develop technology to ensure that we can continue flying but in a way that has less impact on the environment. As I said in our debate on the Sustainable Aviation Fuel Bill, I had the great pleasure of being on the VS100 Virgin flight to the US, which was the first flight that had 100% sustainable aviation fuel, showing that it was technically possible to deliver that with a significant reduction, in the order of 70% to 80%, in emissions. I am a strong supporter of decarbonising aviation.
I want to flag, though, the real challenge for government and the question of who makes these trade-off decisions. The current position, which I was operating under when I was Secretary of State and which the current Government have no plans to change, is this: with the net-zero target due to be hit in 2050 in statute, and the Climate Change Committee making its reports on carbon budgets, which the Government accept—Parliament will have the chance to vote on the seventh carbon budget shortly—there is a hard stop for the impact of carbon emissions. A clear path is set out by the Government for the technologies that will be needed to make sure we can decarbonise aviation and those are explained by the Climate Change Committee. But what happens if those technologies do not proceed at the pace that we hope and expect they do?
I am a strong supporter of ordinary people being able to continue to fly. The danger, which I will come on to in a minute, is that, if the technology does not go fast enough and the legislative position remains unchanged, the Government will be forced to use what is euphemistically called demand management—that means jacking up the price of flying so that ordinary people cannot fly any more. Wealthy people will continue to be able to do so because they will be able to afford it, but ordinary people will no longer be able to take their reasonably priced holidays and businesspeople will not be able to fly for essential economic activity. Those sorts of trade-off decisions should be made by Ministers, who are democratically accountable, rather than, as would actually happen, judges, when people judicially review decisions and so they would be made in the courts. That is the purpose of the amendment, and I want to test where the Government’s thinking is on that.
The Committee will be aware that the Climate Change Committee published the Seventh Carbon Budget, which covers the period from 2038 to 2042, on 26 February 2025, which, coincidentally, was my birthday, for completely random reasons. The committee recommended carbon budget 7 and the Government are required to legislate for it by the end of this month. The Climate Change Committee supports the various technologies that are needed to decarbonise aviation; it specifically sets out in the budget that the primary tool in that timeframe is sustainable aviation fuel. A number of Members of this Committee were also involved in the debates on that, so I will not rehearse this at length. There are also other technologies such as the development of hydrogen-powered aircraft for smaller and shorter-haul flights and battery-electric planes. There will also be the necessity, which the Climate Change Committee sets out, to do direct capture of carbon from the atmosphere and then store it. That is how you reach net zero.
The problem is, as I said, that the Government’s current view—it is the view I took when I was Secretary of State and I do not disagree with the Government at the moment—is that the technology the industry is developing will get us on a path to hitting the targets and all will be well and good. But there is risk involved in this process. My view is that Ministers should make the judgments about risk and should balance those things. That is why, while being a very strong supporter of decarbonising aviation, I support the position my party has reached that we should not legislate the net-zero target. If you do that, these decisions—I think my noble friend Lord Moylan talked about the judicial challenge to the Airports National Policy Statement—get challenged and end up being made by judges, not democratically elected and accountable Ministers. In the end, because Ministers are democratically elected, decisions are made by voters.
Given that we are in a position where this is in law, I just want to test the Government’s view. It is set out very clearly in the Explanatory Notes to this Bill, the Minister has said on a number of occasions and it is in the policy statement published today, that the Government support the aviation sector and understand how important it is to economic growth. On a number of occasions, Ministers have made it very clear, rightly, that they support people being able to fly to see family and friends around the world and take holidays, and all those sorts of things, and business. We talked on day 1 of this Committee about the real importance of UK trade and the amount of valuable cargo that is shipped by air, which is particularly important for an island nation such as the United Kingdom.
There are trade-offs here. If the net-zero line is legislated for, it becomes the most important thing, as opposed to one of the things you have to balance. I just want to test Ministers and listen to what they have to say. If the technology does not move quite as quickly as we would hope, are the Government planning to use the demand management measures? To be clear, those are taxes and charges that make aviation more expensive. Are they proposing to give the CAA direction in its regulatory decisions? For example, the CAA has a number of airports that have regulated asset bases and are allowed to pass on a certain amount of charges to consumers. I would not want to see the CAA making aviation and flying more expensive to reduce demand because, inevitably, that would mean that the burden would fall on people who are less well-off, and I do not think that would be reasonable.
I just want to hear from the Minister, when he responds to my amendment and the other amendments in the group, which are obviously on the same theme of the environmental impact on aviation, about where the Government think that these lines should be drawn, given that the Government say that their number one priority is economic growth. If they start slamming the brakes on aviation, they are not going to deliver economic growth and that is not really their number one priority. That is what I am looking forward to hearing from the Minister when he winds up. I beg to move.
Lord in Waiting/Government Whip (Lord Katz) (Lab)
I meant to stand up at the start of the group, but the noble Lord, Lord Harper, was a little too quick on his feet. I just want to point out that we now have bang on an hour to finish the remaining groups, which I think that we can achieve, if we have concision in our remarks. That would be very helpful.
Earl Russell (LD)
My Lords, I note the comment just made. I welcome the probing amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Harper. That is useful in the Bill, so I thank him for that.
I will speak to my Amendments 106 and 107. Together, they seek to form a coherent case for environmental accountability in the regulation of civil aviation. Amendment 106 asks the Secretary of State within 12 months of the Act passing to lay before Parliament a report assessing its impact on passenger information, on low-carbon travel choices and on emissions from civil aviation. The Bill contains important consumer protection measures, but a consumer framework is only as good as the information that it generates and the behaviour that it manages to change. The amendment asks a simple question: once the Act is on the statute book, how is it actually working?
My amendment calls for a report, which must address four things. First, it must address whether consumers are receiving clear and consistent information about the carbon emissions associated with their flights. Currently, there is no standard for presenting that, and the report would help to establish whether the Act drives progress. Secondly, it must address whether consumers are genuinely comparing aviation and rail options at the point of decision. At present, they largely cannot and booking platforms are entirely siloed. The integrated comparison of journey time door to door, total price and carbon footprint and the whole booking simplicity just barely exist for people who want to be able to do that. For short-haul routes, where rail is a credible alternative, this is a serious market failure. Thirdly, and relatedly, it must address whether consumer awareness of lower-carbon alternatives to short-haul flights has improved. Evidence from France and Sweden shows that better information helps to shift consumer behaviour. Fourthly, it must address the overall emissions trajectory of civil aviation, which, as we know, is one of the most difficult to decarbonise. Demand management, through better information, has an unavoidable role to play while sustainable aviation fuels and zero-emissions flight technology continue to mature.
The amendment would also require consultation with aviation, rail and consumer representatives. It would require the report to include recommendations, not merely descriptions. If the Act is working, the report will say so. If not, Parliament will have the information that it needs to act.
Amendment 107 addresses a related but distinct gap: the absence of any statutory environmental duty on the Civil Aviation Authority itself, particularly in relation to the new powers in the Bill. The duty that I am seeking is deliberately light touch. The amendment says that the CAA “must have regard to”. It does not override safety, does not prescribe outcomes and leaves the CAA to weigh its environmental responsibilities against its other functions. It would simply require those commitments to be present when decisions are made.
Three specific matters in subsection (2) are carefully drawn out: reducing greenhouse gases and other environmental impacts; supporting biodiversity and natural environment, consistent with the framework in the Environment Act 2021; and improving resilience in the aviation sector to the physical effects of our warming and changing climate. This would be in the form of an annual report, which would also be published to Parliament. It might be that the amendment is clunky and not acceptable because of how I have drafted it. I am more than happy to work with the Minister between now and Report. If there is a form of wording that could capture some of this in a better way, I am more than happy to discuss it.
Finally, I will speak to Amendment 115 in the name of noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle. This amendment is straightforward in its purpose. It seeks to insert a new clause requiring the Secretary of State to make regulations by statutory instrument to reduce carbon emissions from private aviation. These regulations could impose restrictions on private aircraft operations, impose changes on private aircraft movements, prohibit specific categories of movements and make different provisions for different classes of aircraft. This instrument would be subject to the negative procedure.
We have not talked about private aviation yet, but it is important. There is a compelling case here. Private jet movements in the United Kingdom have grown by over 40% since 2020. The carbon emissions per passenger of a private jet are on average five to 14 times higher than those of a commercial flight, yet private aviation sits entirely outside the consumer and environmental framework that this Bill seeks to create. That is a significant gap. The vast majority of private aviation growth is coming from short-haul flights and private aviation is a big part of that. It is in precisely these segments where we have the strongest leverage to change consumer action.
We cannot meet our obligations under the Climate Change Act, as have heard, without using some of those levers. Short-haul flights and private aviation are two of the matters that we need to move the dial on. On these Benches, we have considerable sympathy for the principles contained in this amendment and I welcome the challenge. However, I am not fully supportive of the drafting. The powers in subsection (2) of the new clause are substantial. They are broad, restrictive changes prohibiting entire categories of movements, yet subsection (3) subjects them only to the negative procedure. For powers of this reach, the affirmative procedure would provide more appropriate parliamentary scrutiny. We would welcome a clearer policy framework sitting behind the regulation-making powers, rather than leaving it entirely to ministerial direction.
To conclude, I hope that the Minister can tell the Committee what assessment the Government have made of private aviation emissions and whether a levy, perhaps proportionally hypothecated towards sustainable aviation, has been considered alongside perhaps a restrictions-based approach. How do the Government plan to regulate that sector, considering that it is not mentioned in the Bill?
Baroness Pidgeon (LD)
My Lords, this group of amendments focuses rightly on the environment and climate impacts. My noble friend Lord Russell has set out clearly Amendments 106 and 107. They are modest, sensible asks and the Government should not find them difficult to accept, given that the aviation sector accounts for a significant and growing share of UK emissions and that it is one of the hardest sectors to decarbonise. We strongly support my noble friend’s amendments and look forward to hearing from the Minister how the Government intend to address this gap.
Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, between them, my noble friend Lord Harper and the noble Earl, Lord Russell, have drawn attention to the unreality of this debate. Everything in this Committee and everything to do with this Bill is about growth—economic growth, building new airports, having a new runway at Heathrow and so on. However, elsewhere there are, as I mentioned, government policies and statutory commitments that are undeliverable unless that growth is restricted. It is a great advantage to the Committee that the two noble Lords between them have drawn attention to that.
My Amendment 111 asks for a review of the cost of sustainable aviation fuel and takes us back to the issue that we discussed when the Sustainable Aviation Fuel Act was before your Lordships’ House.
Ministers have said that SAF costs are subject to fluctuation but are currently based on costs of £3.30 per litre for conventional SAF and approximately £4 per litre for power-to-liquid fuel. They have also set out estimated RAF market costs rising from £16.5 million in 2025 to £187 million by 2040 as a result of SAF. That has been reported as the RAF spending more than £1 billion over 15 years on switching to sustainable jet fuel. Wider commentary has suggested that sustainable aviation fuel can cost up to eight times as much as conventional jet fuel.
It matters because, as we know, the mandate requires an ever-increasing amount of SAF to be used by the commercial aviation sector. For passengers, it will mean higher fares, and therefore less demand. For airlines, it may mean higher operating costs, but also weaker competitiveness and a reduction in aviation activity. If the demand is falling, the number of planes in the air will be fewer, the number of destinations served will be fewer and the amount of regional connectivity that we can look forward to will be less.
If the Government are imposing this policy, they should be prepared to assess openly what it means for airfares, airline costs, public expenditure and national security for the UK. My amendment calls for the Government to make that assessment within two years—plenty of time—of the passing of the Bill and to publish it. It is the least they can do.
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
My Lords, this group concerns environment and climate impacts. I am grateful to noble Lords for their amendments. I will address each in turn, but first I will make two common points that apply across the group. The Government recognise the need to reduce aviation emissions and to ensure that environmental impacts are properly considered. At the same time, many of the amendments would duplicate existing statutory duties, reporting arrangements or wider decarbonisation policies. Where I refer to duplication, proportionality or the need to treat aviation as a whole sector, these are the common justifications I have in mind.
I begin with Amendment 84, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Harper. This amendment would require the Secretary of State to set out how the CAA should consider the seventh carbon budget when exercising the new powers in the Bill. I agree that aviation’s climate impacts must be properly considered, but the CAA already has statutory responsibilities in this area, including a legal duty independently to monitor, assess and report on the environmental protection performance of the UK civil aviation sector through the UK Aviation Environmental Review. Domestic aviation emissions have been within legally binding carbon budgets since the first carbon budget, and the Government have laid legislation to include international aviation emissions from the sixth carbon budget, beginning in 2033.
The Government are also supporting greener aviation through the sustainable aviation fuel mandate, the Sustainable Aviation Fuel Act, airspace modernisation and funding for low and zero-emission aircraft technologies. Most safety and operational rules are technical and have limited environmental impact. Where environmental effects are relevant, the CAA will consider them as part of rule-making. A blanket requirement would be disproportionate, add red tape and risk slowing the benefits of delegated rule-making. However, I hear the noble Lord’s question about a political decision on whether demand management might be required. This Government support the ability of ordinary people to fly, so I will consider this point further. In the meantime, I ask the noble Lord to withdraw Amendment 84.
Amendment 106, on supporting low-carbon travel choices, was tabled by the noble Earl, Lord Russell, and spoken to by the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon. The Government agree that passengers should have clear information and that aviation policy should support environmental objectives. However, a further statutory review is unnecessary. The Civil Aviation Act 2012 already requires the Civil Aviation Authority to publish information and advice on the environmental effects of civil aviation, including measures to reduce, control or mitigate adverse effects. This is again through the annual UK Aviation Environmental Review. The CAA also works to improve consumer information so that passengers can make informed choices. The Government keep aviation policy impacts under review, informed by CAA reporting and wider climate work. I am afraid that Amendment 106 would add process without improving the evidence base, so I ask the noble Earl not to press it.
Lord Harper (Con)
My Lords, I am mindful of the Whip’s injunctions on timing. Just very briefly then, before I seek leave to withdraw my amendment, my objective was to probe the Government’s policy, and particularly to make sure that aviation remains affordable for ordinary people to be able to use and that its cost does not rise significantly. Given that the Minister has given me a clear commitment to write to me on that specific point or those related points, I am content to seek leave of the Committee to withdraw my amendment.
Lord Harper
“Assessment of impact of business rates revaluation on airport services and consumer protection(1) The Secretary of State must, within three months of the day on which this Act is passed, publish an assessment of the impact of the 2026 business rates revaluation on the provision and regulation of airport services and consumer protection measures.(2) The assessment under subsection (1) must include an assessment of the impact of the revaluation on—(a) the cost, quality and resilience of airport services provided to passengers and other users,(b) airports’ ability to meet consumer protection obligations and service standards,(c) airport investment in facilities and infrastructure used for the provision of airport services to consumers,(d) airport expansion and infrastructure development in order to meet regulatory requirements,(e) the financial sustainability of airports and the effects of that on consumers,(e) regional air connectivity, and(f) the regulatory stability of the airport sector.(3) The Secretary of State must lay the assessment before Parliament.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would require the Secretary of State to publish an assessment of the impact of the 2026 business rates revaluation on the provision and regulation of airport services and consumer protection, including its effect on passenger outcomes, service standards, investment, infrastructure, financial sustainability, regional connectivity and regulatory stability.
Lord Harper (Con)
My Lords, in moving Amendment 108 in my name, I will also speak to Amendments 116 and 117, also in this group. I am afraid it is my group, I suppose. This seems an appropriate moment, given that it is about economic impacts and competition, to remind the Minister that when on Tuesday my noble friend Lord Moylan and I referred to the Government’s commitment to reduce the administrative burdens on business by 25% during this Parliament, he said he could not furnish us with the details immediately but confirmed that he would come back to us today with whatever information he was able to lay his hands on. Since this is effectively an economic-related matter, I thought I would mention that at the beginning of my remarks, and I hope that when he winds up he can give us what he was able to find. If he was not able to pull it all together comprehensively, if there is more to come, I am sure my noble friend Lord Moylan and I will be content for him to write to us with that further information. I wanted to give the Minister a bit of notice rather than springing it on him at the end.
Amendment 108 is distinct and Amendments 116 and 117 are effectively linked. I will deal with Amendment 108 first. If noble Lords are wondering why I have raised it, it is because part of the Long Title of the Bill is to:
“Make provision for the protection of purchasers and users of air transport and airport services”.
One of those protections is obviously to look at the cost of those services and what services people get. One of the things that is going to drive up the cost of those services is the 2026 business rates revaluation, which has had a particularly significant impact on our airports. Rateable values will increase more than sixfold at some regional airports. To be fair, the Government have put in place transitional relief, but all transitional relief does is delay things. Most airports are going to see their rate bills more than double in the next three years. I do not want to spend too long talking about rates in general, but they are a particularly bad tax because they are not linked to the profitability of a business. They are not like corporation tax, where you pay only if you make a profit. They are a cost that hits your business above the line. Given that the aviation sector in general is not a high-margin business, it is inevitable that the cost of that business rates revaluation is inevitably going to flow through to the customers of airports—that is, the airlines—and they will inevitably have to pass that cost on to consumers.
From the figures that I have managed to lay my fingers on, for example, Manchester Airport is going to see an extra £4.2 million per annum on its business rates bill. That is a significant percentage increase, going up to £18 million. Bristol Airport is going to see an increase of just over £1 million, taking its bill to just over £5 million. Those organisations have explained the consequences. Manchester Airports Group, for example, has said:
“Airports were already some of the highest rates-payers in the country and were prepared to pay significantly more. But increases of more than 100% mean we have to look again at our plans to invest more than £2bn in our airports across the UK over the next five years. It is inevitable air travel will become more expensive”.
I draw attention to that because the Government’s position is that aviation and airport expansion are an essential part of driving economic growth, and they keep telling us that economic growth is their number one priority. It seems to me that having a significant increase in your business rates bill of more than 100% over the next three years in a sector where margins are quite tight is inevitably going to increase the price to consumers, business travellers and those shipping cargo in a way that is not going to drive economic growth but do the opposite.
The purpose of my new clause is to say that the Secretary of State, within three months of the day that this Bill is passed, should publish an assessment—that is all; we are not telling her to change the taxes—of the impact of that business rates revaluation on the provision and regulation of airport services and specifically to look at the cost, the ability of airports to meet their obligations, the investment that airports have available to invest in the facilities and infrastructure, their ability to expand the financial sustainability of airports, the effect on consumers and, an important issue that has come up in this Committee before, regional air connectivity.
All the amendment does is ask the Government to assess the impact of that business rates revaluation on this sector. That seems to me to be a reasonable request. It would also have the benefit that if the amendment were accepted and that assessment was done by the Secretary of State for Transport and it showed that the business rates revaluation had a negative impact on the sector, it would give the Secretary of State the evidence base that she could use to have a good conversation with the Chancellor about changes that might be needed to reduce the burden on the sector. There seems to be no downside to producing that information. It might be a useful tool for the Secretary of State and provide some transparency for business.
The second two amendments that I have tabled, Amendments 116 and 117, are related to the conversations we had earlier about the role of the CAA and the cost of flying. The first is about adding to the CAA’s duties when it is exercising its economic regulation functions. It should have a primary duty to promote effective competition in airport operations, services and infrastructure where that competition can deliver benefits to passengers, airlines and operators. The CAA’s objectives are set out in the letter that the Secretary of State sends to the chair of the CAA. The six priorities for 2026-27 in the letter sent by the Secretary of State to the chair of the CAA on 20 April are growth and innovation, economic regulation, airspace modernisation, decarbonisation, modernising its consumer focus and efficiency, effectiveness and resilience.
Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, I wholly support the amendments proposed by my noble friend Lord Harper. I keep coming back—I must—to the absolutely cruel imposition of increased business rates on airports. They are a smash and grab of deliberate design; they can have no effect other than to make aviation less accessible to ordinary people, despite what the Minister has just said is the Government’s policy. Equally, if the CAA is to have these very substantial new powers, it is reasonable to ask why it should not also have a clear duty to promote competition. For that reason, I strongly support the amendments in this group.
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
I thank your Lordships for the debate on this group regarding economic impacts and competition, and I thank the noble Lord, Lord Harper, in particular for his amendments. I turn first to his amendment on the impact of business rates revaluation. At the Budget, the Valuation Office Agency announced updated property values from the 2026 revaluation. This revaluation is the first since the pandemic to result in significant increases in rateable value for some property, which includes some airports. The Government recognise the impact that these changes can have. We have considered this carefully and have put in place measures to ensure that the effects are manageable. We are delivering a support package worth £4.3 billion over the next three years, including a £3.2 billion transitional relief scheme. That provides more generous support to the largest ratepayers, including airports. It caps increases in airport bills arising from revaluations to just over double by 2028-29, before any supplements and reliefs are applied, preventing the much larger increases they otherwise would have seen.
The Government believe these arrangements strike the right balance, reflecting updated property values while ensuring a smooth and manageable adjustment for airports. Looking ahead, however, the Government recognise that businesses with decades-long capital cycles need stability and predictability to deliver capital investment plans. To provide this, the Government published a call for evidence around the receipts and expenditure valuation methodology and its impacts on long-term, high-value investments. This will allow the Government to work constructively with airports and other ratepayers ahead of the 2029 revaluation. I should also note that if an airport, or indeed any business, disagrees with their business rates valuation, they may challenge it with the Valuation Office Agency and, if that fails to produce a satisfactory outcome, the affected party may escalate the case to the independent Valuation Tribunal. As a result, I hope the noble Lord feels able to withdraw this amendment.
I turn to Amendment 116. The Government agree that effective competition, where it can be delivered, plays an important role in improving outcomes for passengers, airlines and the wider sector. The CAA already has a clear statutory role in economic regulation and a duty to further the interests of air passengers, both of which it actively applies. The Civil Aviation Act 2012 provides a well-established framework designed to give the Civil Aviation Authority clear focus on furthering the interests of passengers. The framework ensures that competition is properly considered as a means of furthering those interests, while allowing the regulator to take a balanced and proportionate approach in markets where competition may not always be effective. It is important that the CAA continues to have discretion in how it regulates airports, including by balancing the promotion of competition with other ways to further the interests of consumers where those are more appropriate. Although the CAA’s competition remit is targeted, the Competition and Markets Authority is able to intervene when wider competition issues arise.
We recognise that there are arguments for looking more broadly at the CAA’s role in relation to competition, but so far we have seen no evidence that the current framework is not working effectively, although we will continue to keep it under review. If we consider it necessary, we will, indeed, as the noble Lord, Lord Harper, suggested, add competition to the next letter to the Civil Aviation Authority chair.
Changes in this space could have wide-ranging implications for investment, passenger costs and regulatory independence, so it is important that those impacts are fully considered before any changes are made. Amendment 116 does not address those broader questions, and it risks cutting across a more considered approach. The proposed reporting requirement is unlikely to add significant value, given the CAA’s existing transparency and reporting obligations. For those reasons, I hope the noble Lord feels able not to press his amendment.
Finally, Amendment 117 seeks to enable the CAA to impose pro-competition remedies at Heathrow. As noted, the CAA already has a well-established framework of powers relating to economic competition. These enable it to act where competition is not working effectively. It can impose and enforce licence conditions on dominant airports and has concurrent competition powers alongside the CMA. In short, the tools to act are already in place, and competition consideration is already embedded in the statutory duties.
We note, as the noble Lord did, that the CAA is currently consulting on aspects of the future regulatory framework at Heathrow, including options, as he mentioned, that relate to competition and the delivery of airport infrastructure. In answer to his question, the CAA does not believe it needs further powers if it chooses a more radical option. On his second question, about whether the Government will take a view on the CAA’s choices, I cannot say at the moment, but since the Heathrow expansion national policy statement has been launched, we will no doubt be able to in due course. I have no doubt that the noble Lord is engaging with those processes and, for that reason, we do not believe that this amendment is necessary.
The noble Lord asked on Tuesday about the department’s role in reducing the administrative burden of regulation on business by 25% in this Parliament. I can confirm that the department is working closely with regulators and with the Department for Business and Trade to identify legislative and practical changes to deliver that. We have already made progress: for example, changes to rules for large vehicle licence holders with diabetes, which reduce costs by several million pounds a year; and there are some examples of Civil Aviation Authority initiatives that contribute to a reduction in the administrative burden incurred by businesses, including investment in systems modernisation, the recent update to the Airspace Coordination and Obstacle Management Service, and the general aviation licensing and training simplification programme. I am very happy to write to him further, and I will do so.
Lord Harper (Con)
My Lords, I am grateful. On Amendment 108, I am very pleased that the Government are consulting on the process by which business rates revaluations are done for airports, given the necessity for capital expenditure over a significant period. I will look carefully at the results of that consultation. I am sure airports will have been, and are, responding to that consultation to make the arguments that they need to, so that is welcome.
On the extent to which competition should be one of the CAA’s objectives, I accept that the CAA has to balance objectives, and that is very sensible. If it were added to the Secretary of State’s letter, which sets out a range of objectives for the CAA, then the CAA would be able to balance those objectives as it is taking its decisions. I think that that is perfectly appropriate. As I said, all I would ask is that, when Ministers are formulating the next letter, they think about whether an explicit mention of competition is set out as part of one of the economic sections of that letter.
Finally, the Minister has confirmed more explicitly than he was able to at Second Reading that the CAA has all the powers it needs to do any of the options, including the more radical ones. I am sure that, when we no doubt get the opportunity in the House to ask questions about the Heathrow document, whatever it will now be called—
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
It is the Heathrow expansion national policy statement.
Lord Harper (Con)
I thank the Minister for that prompt. When we get that opportunity, we can no doubt ask whether the Government will take a view. For very sensible reasons—and I am not trying to be mischievous—I was always very careful to let the CAA get on with their economic regulations, and there is a very strong argument; it is simply that, if the Government are very wedded to delivering the Heathrow third runway, they have to make sure that they are confident that the economic model will finance it. We will no doubt come back to that. With that, I beg leave to withdraw Amendment 108.
Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, I shall briefly oppose Clause 10 standing part of the Bill. This is a wide-ranging Henry VIII power, and wholly unnecessary. In a letter sent by the Civil Service to the Delegated Powers Committee, civil servants identify every Act that this Bill interacts with and states that all amendments necessary are already made in the Bill. Why should the Government be seeking a Henry VIII power to amend even further legislation, yet unknown and undiscovered, when the case has been closed off already?
Baroness Pidgeon (LD)
My Lords, the Clause 10 stand part notice tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, raises a point of constitutional principle that the Committee will wish to consider carefully. I draw attention to subsection (6), which enables regulations to be implemented using the negative procedure. Have the Government considered whether the affirmative procedure should apply to all regulations made under this clause, rather than only to those presently specified? Given that the power extends to modifying primary legislation, there is a reasonable case that every exercise of it should require the active approval of both Houses, rather than passing on the nod. Can the Minister confirm whether he is prepared to reflect further on that question before Report?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, opposes the inclusion of Clause 10 in the Bill. I recognise the importance of proper parliamentary scrutiny where powers are taken to make consequential provision, particularly where those powers may be used to amend primary legislation. However, I reassure the noble Lord that this clause is both limited and appropriate. I note that the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee did not draw this clause to the attention of your Lordships’ House.
Clause 10 gives the Secretary of State a power to make consequential regulations so that the statute book properly reflects the changes made by the Bill. It is not a power to make substantive policy changes. The clause allows regulations to amend, appeal or revoke provision made by or under an Act passed before this Bill or later in the parliamentary Session, but only when that is consequential on the Bill. Importantly, where regulations made under this power amend or repeal primary legislation, they must be laid before Parliament and approved by both Houses under the affirmative procedure.
Such consequential powers are a common and practical feature of legislation used to ensure that the wider statute book works coherently once a Bill is enacted. In this case, the power is appropriately constrained and subject to the necessary parliamentary safeguards. Removing this clause would mean that the Government may need to rely on primary legislation to make minor changes and that, if there were delays, this could create inconsistencies in legislation and legal uncertainty.
I note the suggestion made by the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, to reflect on Clause 6. I will, of course, consider that further. For those reasons, the Government consider it necessary to retain this power, and I hope the noble Lord will withdraw his opposition to Clause 10 standing part of the Bill.
Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, the fact is that the job has been done. The Minister did not address the point that all the relevant Acts have already been identified and that no further amendments are required. He did not explain—perhaps he cannot explain—what legislation this power should be used for. It is not constrained and, as the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, said, some of its provisions, although not those that allow the alteration of primary legislation, can be processed using the negative procedure. It is not appropriate.
I will conclude very briefly. We started by identifying this Bill as a massive power grab. Our last discussion in Committee is yet more about massive power grabs. This is not the way to treat Parliament. I think many of these issues are going to come back on Report and there will be widespread opposition to the way the Government are conducting themselves. For now, however, I withdraw my opposition to Clause 10.
Civil Aviation (Consumer Protection and Regulatory Reform) Bill [HL]
Monday 13th July 2026
(2 weeks, 5 days ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Civil Aviation (Consumer Protection and Regulatory Reform) Bill [HL] 2026-27 Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 1–R–I(b) Manuscript Amendment for Report (Supplementary to the Marshalled List) - (13 Jul 2026)
17:52 - Division on Amendment 3 - Ayes: 158 / Noes: 239 - Amendment 3 disagreed.
19:42 - Division on Amendment 33 - Ayes: 142 / Noes: 138 - Amendment 33 agreed.
21:47 - Division on Amendment 65 - Ayes: 41 / Noes: 118 - Amendment 65 disagreed.
Lord Moylan
“Purpose(1) The purpose of this Act is to—(a) promote the international competitiveness of the United Kingdom aviation sector;(b) support economic growth in that sector;(c) protect the rights and interests of consumers of air transport and airport services.(2) The Secretary of State must, in taking any actions under the provisions of this Act, have regard to this purpose.”Member's explanatory statement
This amendment inserts a purpose clause into the Bill requiring the Secretary of State and the CAA to have regard to the promotion of the international competitiveness of the United Kingdom aviation sector and economic growth in that sector.
Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, this is what I refer to as, in essence, an administrative Bill, in that it does not make large changes to the way in which civil aviation operates but changes significantly the way in which decisions will be made in future about how civil aviation operates. It does that necessarily because many of the decisions that have been made in the past and until now have been carried out under European Union legislation. Since we happily left the European Union, a substitute for that decision-making must be found.
My concern about this Bill throughout Committee has been that the new system has, in many ways, been a terrible botch. One of the features of it has been that very large powers are being taken away, so to speak, from the European Union and given to the Civil Aviation Authority almost without supervision or ministerial oversight: they are, in other words, being transferred to unelected bureaucrats. It is as if the Government have been completely deaf to what we voted for when we voted to leave the European Union.
I will be fairly brief on Amendments 1 and 3, but a few words of introduction are important in this case. The background to them—and I have to say this frankly— is the catastrophic Government we have suffered from in the last two years. They have been so catastrophic that they have had to depose their own party leader and Prime Minister and go outside Parliament to seek a substitute, in order to reset the Government and try to recover from what has been a complete disaster. In that context, it seems quite wrong that the Government should be seeking our trust to take these powers, with almost no parliamentary scrutiny, to pass many of them to the Civil Aviation Authority with very little ministerial oversight, saying to Parliament, “You can trust us to get it right”. I am afraid the basis of that trust has gone.
That is why we have two amendments in this group, one of which, Amendment 1, seeks to give a purpose to the Bill and sets out what the guiding principles underlying the Bill should be: that competition and the economy are important. I know that Governments generally do not like purpose clauses, and I have to admit that, as I think most noble Lords know, even the Public Bill Office does not like them. However, I have reinforced and buttressed Amendment 1 with Amendment 3, which gives specific guidance to the Government on what they need to take into account when making decisions under Clause 1 to do with passenger protection. They focus very much on the opportunities that aviation gives us for economic growth and on the necessity, to that end, of competition and competitiveness in the sector.
It is astonishing that when one talks to members of the Government and asks, “What about the economy and competitiveness?”, they often look at one as if one were talking about something from Mars. They are all for growth, but when you say that the mechanics of growth involve such things as competitiveness and light-touch regulation, they wonder what you mean. It is as if the only route to growth is the expenditure of public money—money we have now, in fact, run out of.
The Minister has said, and I do not think it is a matter of controversy, that the aviation sector—indeed, like other transport sectors—is an important infrastructural base for economic growth and that we need the capacity to give the country the aviation services it requires. Therefore, requiring the Government to have regard to those factors and to avoid overregulation is reasonable guidance to them in putting this together. It must be said at the outset that the Minister has clearly listened carefully to many of the points made in Committee and has tabled a raft of amendments in response. Many of his amendments could have gone further, but they have come some way in the direction I and many other noble Lords, including the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, have been arguing for, so I am grateful to him for that. However, he has not listened on this point, and it is perhaps time that he should. He still has a chance to redeem himself. I must say that if he fails to do so, I am very likely to test the opinion of the House on Amendment 3.
Lord Harper (Con)
My Lords, I will speak briefly in support of my noble friend Lord Moylan’s two amendments. I have some general remarks about them, and two specific points which are questions to the Minister.
The first point, which I will not labour at length since we dealt with it in Committee, is the focus of my noble friend’s Amendment 1: the importance of growing the aviation sector itself and making sure it is competitive. It is important to have that as a focus, because there are those—some inside your Lordships’ House and also those outside—who want to stymie and stifle the aviation sector, which would be a retrograde step. I should have done this at the beginning of my remarks, but at this point I declare my interest, as in the register, as the non-exec chair of RVL Aviation. I did that one or two moments too late but in the nick of time.
My second point is on my noble friend’s Amendment 3, which is about economic growth more widely and therefore links the importance of growing the aviation sector and its role in growing the economy. I want to put this point on the record because I suspect that a lot of the debate will be focused, rightly, on the impact of many rules on passengers. But it is worth remembering the very significant role that aviation plays in trade, and in not just the volume but the value of imports and exports to and from the United Kingdom. This is very significant. It is important to our overall competitiveness, particularly in high-value sectors, that aviation remains strong to promote the wider economy.
I have two specific questions to the Minister. He will remember that in Committee, we had a debate, prompted by an amendment I tabled, on the impact on airports following the revaluation and very significant rises—a multiple factor increase—in business rates. The Minister referenced the fact that a review is ongoing. I want to put on record the importance of this issue in the context of my noble friend’s two amendments, for this reason.
There has been some talk—which I recognise is only speculation at this point—from the man who will be Prime Minister next week that he favours an increase in business rates on what are loosely defined as out-of-town warehouses, large premises, in order to generate revenue for the Government and cut business rates for the high street. I ask the Minister to specifically make it clear that for this purpose—I am not going to go into the wider debate on business rates—airports should not be included in the category of large, out-of-town warehouse sites, and should not be facing a significant increase in business rates in order to pay for reductions on the high street. I ask the Minister to give whatever commitment he is able to at this stage about that, because that would be a retrograde step. The review that is taking place will, I hope, conclude that the very significant rise in business rates that has hit airports is good for neither the sector nor passengers and freight users, because those costs are just loaded on to the users. I hope the Minister can rule that out.
The second area is for me to reflect on the point that my noble friend Lord Moylan has made in both his amendments: the importance of economic growth. The Government have said on a number of occasions that economic growth is their number one priority. The problem with that assertion is that, since the general election, there has been almost no GDP growth per head. The economy has grown a little, but it has not kept pace with the rise in the population, so there has not really been any economic growth.
Baroness Foster of Oxton (Con)
My Lords, I support the comments made by my noble friend Lord Moylan. I do not think that there is a very simple solution. Before we covered all the legislation from the European Union, it was fairly straightforward for many decades in this country, as the CAA as a regulator had sole responsibility for all the technical issues, obviously coming under the auspices of the Government, the Secretary of State and certain experts and committees. We then started to debate and bring in a lot of primary legislation from the EU; that was obviously implemented in all member states, including the United Kingdom.
From when I entered the European Parliament in 1999, all these huge subjects—security, passenger rights, traffic rights, airspace restructuring, mandatory reporting, slots, flight time limitations or anything else related—were all debated by the Committee on Transport and Tourism. It was not a small committee; the committees in the European Parliament are not small. Everything was debated very carefully, with different points of view. Experts were brought in. It would take a couple of years to take through a piece of legislation. It was the same system, where there were at least two or three readings.
That brings me to where we are, because we have a different system. It is clear to me that the CAA is our primary regulator—it is an excellent regulator, in my view. We in the United Kingdom were always seen as one of the paramount countries in terms of regulation for both the maritime and aviation sectors. How is this going to work? On the one hand, we have the Civil Aviation Authority, which is the correct regulator, but, on the other, throughout the Bill there is reference to “the Secretary of State will decide”. Therefore, the Secretary of State decides, but there does not seem to be anything in the middle.
That brings me to the question of how we then bring back very difficult and complex decisions, for example, to the Floor of the House or a Committee. In the European Parliament, when we believed it was a very important issue—such as passenger rights or security—we did not go along with the delegated Acts argument. With delegated Acts, once something was updated, the Commission could then implement those changes without coming back to the Parliament. Therefore, very often, we insisted that, for a number of these subjects, we would have implementing Acts. Therefore, whenever a piece of legislation—for security, passenger rights or slots, for example—needed to come back to be updated, normally within a few years, it would come back to the Parliament and withstand scrutiny by the members of a committee who could call in the required experts.
There is, therefore, a bit of an issue over how we bridge this to ensure that, when we require scrutiny and some of the areas of civil aviation to come into Parliament for more discussion and debate, there is an easy way for that to happen. This is not a criticism of the Civil Aviation Authority; as I have said, it is an excellent authority. I will throw that to our friend, the Minister, who, as he very well knows, I have great regard for, because it needs some clarification.
My final point is on growth. My noble friend covered this issue well already. I do not see anything in the Bill that shows where we can create growth. There seem to be many areas where, as my noble friends said, we want to increase taxation or business rates on the industry. Other Members of this House would like to see the industry restricted, which is not what I would like to see. Again, we need to be bold and forthright. This industry is hugely important to the economy; basically, it is one of the most successful industries that we have ever created in this country, with vectors from around the world from imports and exports, as well as the free movement of people. I would like to hear more from the Minister on how we can achieve growth here, because some of the restrictions that are proposed by others will certainly not lead to the continued success that we would all like to see.
Lord Redwood (Con)
My Lords, this is a very strange Bill; it is a Bill in search of a purpose, which proposes and transfers substantial powers to a regulatory body but which gives us no road map for how those powers are going to be used. In the debates we have had so far and in the amendments we are looking at this afternoon, it is inevitable that there will be amendments to try to give the Bill a purpose, to limit the use of the powers, because their use has not been explained, and to get some better regulation directly into the Bill, given the absence of any suggestion for improvements in the legislation that we have before us. That includes some very good proposals that we will come to later to improve the lot of disabled travellers, for example. I can understand why people want to get something worth while into the Bill, which is otherwise this rather strange transfer of powers, in order to be able to trust this independent body. We know that there is no urgency about this because we know from the impact assessment that there will not be any costs or benefits for the foreseeable future, and that the CAA will be given about a year after the successful passage of the Bill, if it goes through, to contemplate and review.
I support my noble friend because he is trying to give the Bill an overriding purpose, which should be entirely at one with the manifesto, the plans and the stated intentions of both the outgoing and the incoming Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I think we all agree, across parties, that it would be good if our economy grew faster than it has been growing since the great crash of 2008-09. Surely we can all see that this requires a sector-by-sector response, as well as changes in general economic policy that are not the subject of this debate.
My noble friend is right to try to make growth and competitiveness the twin aims. I suspect that the Minister is very sympathetic, but he will need to get colleagues and others to co-operate in speeding up work to try to ensure that the aviation sector—which is normally a fast-growing, modernising, important sector, particularly in an island country that needs good transport links—is one of the attractive means of increasing our activity and our growth, creating more and better-paid jobs.
This legislation covers issues that could make a very material contribution to that faster growth. It covers the question of airport slots. Will there be more of them, and is there a policy to try to create more capacity? What is the Government’s view on airport expansion? Will there be more expansion of smaller and regional airports to take some of the strain off the main centre in London? What is the plan for London, and when will we have the very large number of slots expanded? It is clearly under great pressure of demand.
Regulations on charging are mentioned but not detailed in this legislation. We have already heard from my noble friend about the possible tax charges on certain types of business premise, but we really need to hear from the Government what the charging policy is going to be for scarce airport space, particularly in London, where we are becoming uncompetitive against Schiphol, Paris, Frankfurt and some of the other continental airports that are our natural competitors. If you become not very price competitive, you start to lose the interlining and air-switching business, which can be handled by a big intersection airport such as Amsterdam just as well as it can be handled by Heathrow. We need a bit more guidance on how these regulations might develop and be included.
I urge the Minister to take off one or two of the veils and give us some idea of how these policies on improved regulation for the cost of use of airports, the amount of airport space, the allocation of slots and the general conduct of air traffic in our country might be deployed. I find it odd that, two years into a Government with a very strong majority and a strong mandate for quite a limited manifesto, they do not seem to have those burning desires, for example, to get our aviation sector really growing quickly. They are not answering the questions about these very basic things. How much airport space? How do you allocate the slots? What is the pricing? How much support do you give to the industry? What will the regulatory impact be on that industry? We all want safety regulation and good regulation so that the customer gets a decent deal, but we do not want so much regulation that it throttles the industry here and an extremely mobile and fast-moving industry can shift its assets the following day to another hub airport somewhere else, taking a lot of the business away.
Baroness Brinton (LD)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, for Amendment 1, but I express concern that it and Amendment 3 are in conflict in their proposed new subsections (1)(c) and (1B)(c). The reason for that was amply explained by the noble Lord, Lord Redwood. He started by saying that this Bill is one in search of a purpose, but went on to say that we are going to improve the lot of disabled people, among other things. I am very grateful that he said that, because proposed new subsection (1B)(c) in Amendment 3 asks the Secretary of State to make it an absolute priority to consider the impact of the regulations on
“the burdens imposed on air transport service providers and airport operators in complying with the regulations”.
Part of the journey of disabled people in buying a ticket, going through various airports and actually flying is that most of the providers would say that all provision for disabled people is a burden. They try to minimise everything they can. Does the Minister agree with me on that? Perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, also might like to address that when he comments at the end.
Baroness Grender (LD)
My Lords, I turn to the first group of amendments, Amendments 1 and 3 tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Moylan. I thank both Front Benches for having met us over the past few days in the run-up to Report. All the insight, information and conversations have been very much appreciated. I admire the attempt of the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, to insert an overarching economic growth purpose into the heart of the Bill, which I see as a valiant attempt. I hope that he will in turn look kindly on some of my valiant attempts in further groups.
As he rightly says, the Government should be stretching every sinew to pursue growth, as we did in the wake of the economic crash of 2008 and the extremely difficult days of the coalition Government. I had the enormous privilege of being what one might describe as an unelected bureaucrat, sitting in Cabinet meetings and watching those proceedings. Not a week went by when economic growth was not discussed, and that was a good thing.
Technically, unless I have misread it or misunderstood it in Committee, this is primarily a safety and consumer protection framework, with slots and modernisation as part of it. In mandating that the Secretary of State have regard to promoting economic growth when regulating passenger rights under Clause 1, I worry about subordinating the safety and dignity of the travelling public to the commercial margins of what the noble Lord, Lord Harper, described in Committee as a low-margin industry. It is vital to reflect through this Bill, as we talked about in Committee, the low margins of ordinary passengers who must jump through hoop after hoop to get what is by rights their compensation and, in turn, bear the financial consequence and burden. That is what worries me.
Lord Harper (Con)
Before the noble Baroness sits down, can I reference the point that she made about disabled people? The amendment tabled by my noble friend Lord Moylan just says that the Government have to consider the burdens. If you make air travel better for disabled people, you will grow the top line. You will have more people flying and higher revenues. Secondly, the Minister has simply to consider those costs; he may still consider that they are the right thing to do. So I do not think that there is a contradiction in the way that she set out.
Baroness Grender (LD)
I thank the noble Lord. We think that driving for this principle cuts across the stronger consumer rights that we have been talking about all through Committee.
The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill) (Lab)
My Lords, before addressing these amendments, I thank all noble Lords for their continued contributions to the Bill. It is clear that we share the common goal of improving the aviation sector. The Government have carefully reflected on the arguments that have been put forward during the Bill’s passage. The amendments in my name respond to that constructive engagement and I hope that they will be welcomed by your Lordships.
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, for bringing Amendment 1 forward. We discussed in Committee how the Bill will promote economic growth. Having considered the arguments made then and, indeed, the speech made by the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, just now, and that of the noble Lord, Lord Redwood, and others, the Government’s position remains unchanged. I fully recognise the intention behind the amendment, which is to ensure that, alongside consumer protection, we would continue to support a competitive and growing aviation sector. Those are objectives that the Government strongly support. As I set out in Committee, growth and competitiveness are already central to the Government’s aviation agenda. Beyond this Bill, we are also taking forward airspace modernisation, supporting innovation through the Future of Flight programme, embedding a pro-growth approach across regulation and backing airport expansion where it can deliver economic benefits and meet planning and environmental requirements.
The amendment also seeks to protect the rights and interests of air passengers. On that point, the Government have listened carefully to concerns raised during the Bill’s passage and have brought forward amendments requiring the Secretary of State, while exercising the powers in Clause 1, to have due regard to strengthening air passenger rights and to principles relating to dignity, accessibility and support for disabled passengers and those with reduced mobility. We have done so because these considerations are directly relevant to the exercise of those powers.
I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, that this issue is important and relevant to economic growth. However, I do not consider Amendment 1 necessary. Economic growth, investment and competitiveness are already important considerations in aviation policy and regulation, and these priorities are reflected in the Secretary of State’s engagement with the Civil Aviation Authority. On the authority, I note the view of the noble Baroness, Lady Foster of Oxton, from her extensive experience, that the CAA is an excellent regulator. The noble Baroness will, I hope, note my later amendments on the proposed delegations and controls when we get to that section of the Bill.
More fundamentally, Amendment 1 would require the Secretary of State to give statutory regard to a specific set of objectives when exercising powers under the Bill. Although those objectives are important, they are not the only relevant consideration. As I noted in Committee, this list does not include safety, which is fundamental to aviation and underpins the measures in the Bill. Nor does it capture the full range of factors that may need to be taken into account in particular circumstances. The Government’s view remains that it is better to preserve the flexibility to balance all relevant considerations rather than elevating a limited set of factors in legislation. I think that is also what the noble Baroness, Lady Grender, referred to, and I also note, as she did, that the Civil Aviation Authority is already subject to a statutory growth duty, which requires it to have regard to economic growth in the exercise of its regulatory functions.
Turning to Amendment 3, the Government agree that economic growth is a priority. However, consideration of growth is already embedded across government decision-making. Policy proposals are assessed for their impact on growth and departments are required through options, appraisal and impact assessment processes to demonstrate those effects before decisions are taken. I listened to the noble Lord, Lord Harper, carefully and he referred to the call for evidence about the valuation methodology, which will involve constructive engagement with the aviation industry ahead of the 2029 revaluation. I note his view that airports should not be considered as out-of-town warehouses, and we will see what happens with government in the future about that. For all those reasons, I am unable to support the amendments, and I respectfully ask the noble Lord not to press them.
Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, I am disappointed to hear the noble Lord’s response; I would largely be repeating myself if I were to explain in any detail why. I think the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, has been responded to by my noble friend Lord Harper. I will be second to none in admiring the valiance of the noble Baroness, Lady Grender, in this debate—I am with her entirely in that regard. None the less, I have no embarrassment in saying, even if we are the only party in your Lordships’ House saying it, that we are the party of economic growth. It is about time those words meant something. This amendment seeks to make sure that they do. I will test the opinion of the House at an appropriate moment. For the moment, I beg leave to withdraw Amendment 1.
Baroness Grender
“(1A) Regulations under this section may not reduce the standards of service and protection available to passengers and consumers of airport and air transport services compared to any provision which those regulations replace.”Member's explanatory statement
This amendment ensures that regulations made under this section do not make provision setting out lower passenger and consumer standards than current regulations.
Baroness Grender (LD)
My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 2 standing in my name. Throughout the passage of this Bill, these Benches have pursued a consistent and, I hope, unwavering approach that passengers must come first. Whether we were debating information rights, delay compensation or the powers conferred on the Secretary of State, our test has always been the same: does this provision leave the passenger better protected or leave the door open to erosion of standards that they currently enjoy?
This amendment is a direct continuation of that approach. It does not seek to load new obligations on to the Government; it simply asks that, when Ministers use the powers that this Bill grants them, they cannot use them to quietly lower the bar. The principle underpinning this amendment is non-regression. Where government takes a power to make new regulations, the existing baseline of protection should not be capable of being diminished through that power.
It is not novel. Section 20 of the Environment Act 2021 already requires a Minister, before the Second Reading of any Bill touching environmental law, to confirm that it will not reduce existing environmental protection; if they cannot, they must say so and explain why. That single duty has kept the floor from moving. Air quality standards inherited from EU law were carried through undiluted and remain in force today. I see no reason why passengers travelling by air should be treated as deserving of any lesser assurance than that already extended to the air they breathe.
This amendment therefore asks nothing exceptional of the Minister. It would not fetter the Government’s ability to modernise, update or respond to changing aviation sector developments, all of which the Bill quite rightly enables. It would provide an assurance in the Bill that modernisation will not become a euphemism for dilution. Passengers who currently benefit from certain consumer protections, certain standards of information and certain rights when things go wrong should be able to trust that those protections form a floor, not a ceiling that can be quietly lowered by statutory instrument, or with little scrutiny or even less public attention. I hope the Minister recognises the modesty of what is being asked here and the strength of precedent behind it.
If the Government are confident, as I am sure they are, that these powers will be used to enhance rather than diminish passenger standards, this amendment would cost them nothing. It would simply put that confidence into the Bill in black and white, so that it rests not on ministerial assurance alone but on the statute itself.
Amendments 8, 10 and 11 in this group, also in my name, address the most basic issues of safeguarding. Amendment 8 requires that airlines and airports provide specific support for those who require assistance from a carer. In doing this, we need to acknowledge that the Minister has moved a long way on the amendments that have been tabled in this area.
Amendments 10 and 11 would ensure that families and those requiring assistance were never separated during their journey. If you book a table at a restaurant, you do not arrive to discover that your child has been put on a different table. I know that there is one bad-actor air company here, but it can get away with it at the moment because there is no restriction. We have also heard far too many heartbreaking stories of passengers with disabilities treated as the lowest priority. It is not a premium or luxury service to have your carer or child with you; it is a statutory baseline that we would like to see included in the Bill.
Amendment 36 seeks to mandate transparency during frequent and exhausting periods of flight delays. It is not enough to rely on patchy guidance. Operators must have a statutory duty to provide timely, accurate and accessible information to ensure that the silence at the gate is replaced by clear communication. I should just explain that this was written while I was waiting at a gate at an airport having witnessed someone who was on crutches being shouted at because he had not managed to take his stuff off the plane when we were all removed from the plane because of an engine failure. It was appalling, and that was two weeks ago.
The Deputy Speaker (Lord Faulkner of Worcester) (Lab)
I should point out to the House that Amendment 25 erroneously appears in two groups—this one and the next. I understand that it should be in the next group.
Baroness Kennedy of Cradley (Lab)
My Lords, in speaking to my Amendment 6, I declare my interest as chief operating officer of Natasha’s Foundation, the UK’s food allergy charity. I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Grey-Thompson and Lady Brinton, for adding their names to the amendment and the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, for his support on this issue.
As we discussed in Committee, there are far too many barriers to air travel for people with medical conditions, non-visible disabilities and allergy—in particular, food allergy. Amendment 6 asks the Government to recognise this and to ensure that these passengers are covered by the Bill so that they can travel more safely, more easily and with greater confidence. The Government have rightly said that aviation must be accessible to all passengers, and all noble Lords will welcome that.
However important statements of intent are, it is action that matters. Although it is not perfect, that is why I support government Amendment 19, as it should put in place the building blocks for action by the Government that should lead to action by the aviation industry. In supporting it, I want to press my noble friend Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill on four areas. The first is the timeframe for the consultation. I strongly support Amendment 20 from the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, which would remove what I might call the “We are able to drag our feet” caveat—my words, not the noble Baroness’s. The consultation in Amendment 19 does not have to start for a year and could last for years. The caveat risks giving the impression that the Government intend the consultation to take a long time. I am sure that is not the intention. Therefore, can my noble friend Lord Hendy indicate how long the Government expect the consultation to take and commit to a meeting two months after Royal Assent so that officials can update all interested noble Lords on their plans?
Secondly, and I am sure other noble Lords will echo this, can my noble friend outline how the consultation sits alongside the excellent work of the Aviation Accessibility Task and Finish Group chaired by the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson? That group met for many months and brought together people with disabilities and medical conditions, including allergy, consumer representatives and the airline industry. Its final report made 19 practical recommendations. The implementation of those recommendations must continue at pace. Many do not require legislation. They require clear guidance, effective policy and willingness from the airline industry to deliver that change. To that end, will my noble friend Lord Hendy arrange a meeting for noble Lords with the co-chairs of the Aviation Accessibility Implementation Group to discuss what can be done now, without waiting for legislation, to improve air travel, especially for passengers with allergy?
Thirdly, from recent conversations with officials and other legal professionals, it is clear that the interaction between the Equality Act and aviation-specific regulation is complex. Regulation 1107 covers disability assistance in air travel, while the Equality Act may apply to allergy and other medical conditions that fall outside that regulation. For example, an airline’s allergy policy could potentially amount to indirect disability discrimination or a failure to make reasonable adjustments if it places passengers with allergy at a particular disadvantage without objective justification. The legal position for passengers and airlines needs clarification. I ask my noble friend Lord Hendy to seek that clarification from the relevant Ministers on how the Equality Act applies to air passengers with allergy and other medical conditions. If there are gaps between the two legal frameworks and legislation is needed to provide greater clarity or protection, can my noble friend confirm that this will fall within the scope of the consultation under Amendment 19?
Finally, I thank my noble friend Lord Hendy for writing to the FSA to clarify the application of Natasha’s law to airlines. When a response is received, whatever the answer, further discussion will be inevitable. If the food labelling rules do not apply, we need to understand why and whether there is a gap to close. Again, I hope that will be part of the consultation under Amendment 19. However, my hope is that they apply, and therefore we need to understand how the FSA, the CAA, passengers and allergy charities can help ensure the rules are properly applied. I therefore hope that my noble friend will be willing to convene a meeting with interested noble Lords, the FSA and other relevant organisations on Natasha’s law and airlines.
Amendment 6 is about ensuring that passengers with medical conditions, including allergy, are not invisible within the aviation accessibility framework. I welcome the progress we have made, both inside and outside the Chamber, and the government amendments in this group. I look forward to my noble friend Lord Hendy’s assurances on the four points I have raised.
Baroness Brinton (LD)
My Lords, I am grateful to the Deputy Speaker for pointing out that Amendment 25 appears in both this group and the next. I plan to speak to it in the next group. I had hoped that the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Hendy, might have spoken to his Amendment 18 and to his Amendment 19, to which I have tabled amendments in the next group, in which the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, also has amendments. Since that has not happened, I will speak to my amendments to his amendments in this group, although I may also briefly cross-reference them in the next group. But it would be unfortunate if they were debated completely separately.
I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of Cradley, for her contribution, and I absolutely support everything that she said. I have seen the consequences at a Lib Dem party conference event where there had been some nuts, not at that event but in the same room at a previous event, and a person reacted very badly. Clearly, Natasha’s law must be implemented and, if the current regulations do not do that, there must be further regulations to make sure that that happens.
I have one amendment in this group, Amendment 22, which seeks to ensure that a disabled or elderly person who travels with a carer is not separated from their carer while they are receiving assistance at the airport. I echo the points made by my noble friend Lady Grender on the importance of how we treat carers more generally.
Since Committee, this issue was brought home to me particularly a fortnight ago in Heathrow terminal 2, where a very elderly couple were waiting. She was in a wheelchair; he was not. They were both concerned about their journey. They were told by the assistance person, in somewhat terse terms, that the assistance person could not take both of them through together, and so the husband had to go back and make his own way through security on his own. He was not even given the usual option of following behind. His wife looked very distressed by this, and he had to reassure her that he would see her in a few minutes. Such behaviour by the assistance staff was uncalled for. The staff member did not even ask whether the husband was able to go through security on his own; nor did she ask whether the wife was okay with that. Had one of them had memory loss—and I suspect that one of them had—this would have been really distressing and difficult. The staff member saw only a wheelchair and an excess person trying to streamline their journey. That is why Amendment 22 is important.
I noticed something else in the “cripple ghetto” in Heathrow terminal 2—I steal the term used by the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, but anyone who goes to the assistance area, which I think is a temporary area, knows exactly what it is like. To talk to people waiting there, people have to talk round corners, which is not very clever. More importantly, there is not one space for a wheelchair; I thought that I had found one, and sat there, and then watched as wheelchairs without people in them were wheeled past me and over my toes on one occasion. It was actually the route for other wheelchairs, not mine.
All of this fits very much with my noble friend Lady Grender’s concerns, in Amendments 8, 10 and 11, about people with care-giving duties being provided a remedy for a particular journey through an airport. As I have said, assistance staff should not make assumptions about the non-physically disabled person travelling as a carer.
The Minister’s Amendments 18 and 19 set out the arrangements for a consultation on the protections that should be in place for people with disabilities, reduced mobility and nut allergies, and who should be doing what. Again, I am very grateful for his response on this between Committee and Report. However, as he knows, I have some very specific concerns about the wording, which I raise in Amendments 20 and 23, which seek to amend his Amendment 19, and Amendment 25, which seeks to amend his Amendment 24.
Amendment 20 proposes to leave out the words in brackets at the end of subsection (1) of the new clause inserted by Amendment 19, which state
“(but the Secretary of State need not complete the process within that period)”.
I think that is a real threat that the whole process might be thrown into the long grass, and I hope that the Minister can reassure me that that is not the case.
Amendment 23 seeks to amend subsection (4)(c) of the new clause to be inserted by Amendment 19, by leaving out the word “or”, which appears at the end of line 26, and replacing it with “and”. Retaining “or” would mean that a Secretary of State could choose either not to consult groups representing disabled passengers or not to consult the individual passengers themselves. It may be that consultation needs to cover the lived experience of individuals as well as hearing from the strengths that are available from disability groups. It would be a shame if that were really “or”; let us hope that “and” is possible.
Baroness Grey-Thompson (CB)
My Lords, I will speak in support of Amendment 6, to which my name is attached, and the amendments in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton. As noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, said, I chaired the Aviation Accessibility Task and Finish Group
Those who have allergies do not easily fit into the current system of support going through airports. While it is better understood in the outside world, I think that within the aviation industry there is still a very long way to go. This is a case which is literally life and death. As the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, said, we have to ensure that people are able to travel safely and easily. I very much look forward to the Minister’s explanation of government Amendment 19. As the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, said, to some extent it crosses into the next group.
Since our last debate, I have been contacted by several people who have been separated at the airport from the people they need around them. There was one instance where a young woman was separated from her family. She can communicate only by an iPad and needs family support to operate it. She was left in an absolutely terrifying situation, where she felt she had all her communication ability taken from her. We cannot continue to let that happen. It simply needs a little bit of empathy, some support and thinking differently about how we do this, because it is about getting people on and off aircraft as easily as possible.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, said, we have to look at lived experience. Organisations will contribute towards the consultation, but we need to listen to some of the absolutely horrendous experiences that disabled people have; they do not complain because it is too difficult to do so—which fits into the next group. We do not get to hear about some of those stories and those cases, until we actually sit in your Lordships’ Chamber. I support the amendments in this group and look forward to the Minister’s response.
Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, if the House will indulge me, I will speak now rather than at the end of the debate, because I have amendments in this group and other noble Lords may wish to comment on them after I have spoken to them.
Before I come to those amendments, I will briefly refer to two others. First, I express my support for the amendment tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy. I am pleased that she seems to have reached an accommodation with the Government.
Secondly, Amendment 71, in the Minister’s name, removes the cap on compensation for loss of wheelchairs. However, it is important to note that, as I understand it, this applies only to domestic flights. The reason it has no international effect is that matters such as compensation are subject to an international agreement administered by the ICAO, which is based in Montreal, and would, I suspect, require all parties, or at least a majority of parties to the treaty, to make that amendment. I want to hear that the Government will make this a priority and a commitment on their part. Even though it might take 20 or 30 years to persuade everyone to change their mind, I want this to be a goal for the Government and for it to be on their agenda at every meeting of the ICAO until, gradually, things are chipped away at and they get somewhere in the course of time. Unless the Government start, they will never get there, so it would be very good to hear the Minister say that he is going to start.
I have three amendments in this group. The noble Baroness, Lady Grender, in saying that she could not support my Amendment 4, somewhat gave the impression that I had invented the target of reducing the costs of regulation on business by 25%. That is the Government’s target. The only purpose of my amendment is to oblige the Government to achieve their own target in the aviation sector. If the Government say they do not want to accept the amendment—I understand that Governments do not like having their hands tied—will they at least say that that is still their target? Will they say that it is the policy of Ministers to make that reduction in the aviation sector, that civil servants in the Department for Transport are under clear instructions to achieve and deliver that reduction in costs, and that the Civil Aviation Authority will have it as a primary objective? If they did, I would regard the purpose of my amendment as having been met. I hope the Minister will say that.
My other two amendments are technical. Amendment 21 would amend Amendment 19, in the Minister’s name, by deleting one word from it. The effect of Amendment 19 is to require consultation. It is a good amendment and I welcome it; it responds to the debate we had in Committee. It requires consultation by the Secretary of State when exercising his powers under Clause 1. However, it goes on to say that this obligation to consult relates only to matters in subsection (3), paragraphs (a) to (e). It is only those matters that arise under the subsection that are the subject of consultation.
Cunningly, I noticed that if you take out “concerning” and replace it with “not excluding” then you would bring the whole of Clause 1 into scope, allowing the Government to consult on other matters that are dealt with by the clause, not simply those mentioned here. That would be an improvement to the Minister’s amendment. It would not in any way damage or wreck the Minister’s amendment but would welcome and try to improve it. My amendment would allow the Government to keep their focus on the five items mentioned in Amendment 19 but would provide the scope and a statutory basis for consulting on the other matters as well. I hope the Minister will be willing to accept it.
My Amendment 26 might be regarded as slightly more controversial. It relates to government Amendment 24 and proposes the deletion of “in particular”. The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, has an amendment in relation to this government amendment, which she has already spoken to. I will explain what I am trying to achieve. The amendment puts clear blue water between me and what the noble Baroness, Lady Grender, said in her opening remarks. The thrust of her argument is that there should be no regression from standards for consumer protection in the future—bear in mind that this whole argument is about consumer protection. That is a very bad principle.
This new clause effectively introduces what the noble Baroness is looking for, in that it is a non-regression statement on consumer standards. It then says, “In particular … disabled persons”, but it actually covers everybody, because disabled people are picked out only “in particular”. I do not think we should introduce a non-regression standard. It is simply the case that what counts as consumer protection changes over time and things that might be important to consumers now might be less important in the future. If we had non-regression of safety standards, we would still have men with red flags walking in front of motor cars, but things change and things are adapted. What matters to consumers also changes, and sometimes trade-offs are necessary.
The effect of removing “in particular” from the Government’s amendment would be to retain the non-regression clause in respect of disabled people—and having listened now and in Committee to the noble Baronesses, Lady Brinton and Lady Grey-Thompson, I have no hesitation about the rightness of doing that—while removing the effect of a non-regression clause in relation to those who are not disabled.
Although that means that I disagree with the noble Baroness, Lady Grender, that is what political difference is all about. We are in favour of a commercial and flexible approach to aviation, which is, after all, one of the few genuinely private and successful enterprises that we have in this country.
Baroness Foster of Oxton (Con)
My Lords, I have some comments and observations. This is a wide-ranging group, and very varied regulations are part of it. We must be careful not to mix them all together. The former EU regulation 261/2004 was about delays and compensation and regulation 1107/2006 was about passengers with reduced mobility. We appear to be having conversations here where it is all mixed into one, and that is obviously not how we can legislate.
These regulations are already in place, and I was very involved with them as a Member of the European Parliament. We put in place robust regulations over the last 20 years, and they have fared well. In my view, we have been let down not by the regulations themselves but by certain bodies in certain airports that are not being compliant in ensuring that they are fulfilling their obligations. We have heard examples of passengers with reduced mobility in wheelchairs being separated from carers or relatives. That is not allowed—it should not be happening.
I gently remind colleagues who were in Committee the other week that it was not, ironically, the airlines themselves that wanted to put in place the responsibility for passengers with reduced mobility. The European Commission took away the responsibility for passengers with reduced mobility to be looked after by the airlines. That was part of what you got in your ticket. That changed about 20 years ago, when it was put into the hands of the airports. As I said at the time, this will not be reversed now. It is a massive operation.
Lord Redwood (Con)
My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Grender, posed an interesting question when she said that she thought that the mixture of amendments in this grouping created a tension and that maybe Amendment 4 was not compatible because it was trying to reduce the administrative and regulatory burden, whereas some of the other amendments were trying to achieve better outcomes, particularly for disabled passengers, by improved regulation. However, I think that these two things are perfectly compatible.
Most of us in this House benefited greatly from learning from the expertise of noble Lords and noble Baronesses with experience of service for disabled passengers, and we would want the regulations to be of the best quality in order to give the best opportunity for good outcomes. However, we have also heard from my noble friend Lady Foster, with her experience of the airline industry, that a lot of the bad cases that have been described are bad practice by a commercial business. They may already be violating existing rules, but they are certainly violating normal standards of good conduct and probably doing damage to the reputation of that business, because not only the disabled people but all their families and friends will be singularly unimpressed by what has occurred. We clearly need a cultural improvement in the case of some commercial airlines, and it may be that some of the proposed improvements in the regulation will help achieve that.
If we look at the whole burden of the cost and complexity of regulation, we can see that that great weight of business and economic regulation, as the CAA and others call it, is exceptionally complicated and is now producing a cost problem for aviation that is using the facilities of United Kingdom airports and trying to build businesses from a United Kingdom hub and headquarters base. That regulation is doing a lot of business damage to our growth and competitiveness and encouraging the growth of alternatives, such as Schiphol. That is what the Minister and his colleagues in other economic departments ought to be most interested in, and it is why I am attracted to my noble friend Lord Moylan’s proposal that the Government should either put their own general target for deregulation into the Bill or at the very least say, in the course of this debate, that aviation is not excluded from what is a perfectly attainable and sensible aim.
For all those noble Lords who think that the EU gets a lot of these things right, the EU is, of course, following exactly the same stated policy: it has come to the conclusion, through a number of reports, that it is massively overregulated and therefore not competitive compared with, say, the United States of America. It too is trying to set itself a target of a 25% reduction in the volume and cost of regulation, because it thinks that would be a good start in trying to restore some of the lost jobs and slower growth that it is undoubtedly incurring as a result of overcomplicated and excessive regulation, in particular business and economic regulation of the kind that afflicts the United Kingdom’s aviation industry. I hope that this House will look favourably upon my noble friend’s proposals and see that they are perfectly compatible with the excellent idea that we need better treatment for disabled passengers.
Lord Harper (Con)
My Lords, I will comment very briefly on my noble friend Lord Moylan’s Amendment 4. There are two parts to it. The first part, as he explained very carefully to the House, is the 25% reduction in administrative costs, which is the Government’s own target. We discussed this in Committee and I asked the Minister if he would set out the progress that the Government have made in achieving that 25% cost reduction in the areas that are the responsibility of his department. Clearly, we are two years into a five-year Parliament, so if the Government were on track, other things being equal, one would expect a 10% reduction in cost or an explanation as to why it was going to be loaded towards the back end of the Parliament. We did not get a lot of information, so I would be grateful if the Minister could tell the House what work is going on in the Department for Transport to track progress in reaching that 25% reduction in administrative costs. What information is currently available and published by the department about hitting that target? As my noble friend Lord Moylan said, if we received a lot of that information it would make the amendment unnecessary.
My second and final point is just to reflect on the point that I made on the earlier group. The wording of my noble friend Lord Moylan’s proposed new subsection (1B) is very sensible. It does not rule out the imposition of costs, but it challenge the Government to make a judgment as to whether the cost increase is disproportionate to the consumer benefit. It absolutely would allow some regulations to be introduced that had a cost but it would require the Government to look at the benefit that those regulations delivered to passengers and assess whether that balance was correct—in other words, whether the benefit to passengers outweighed the costs that were levied on the airlines. That is a good test for the Government. We do not want to have costly regulations which have a big economic burden but do not result in significant benefits to passengers. That is a perfectly sensible point and one which I think addresses the perfectly sensible point that the noble Baroness, Lady Grender, made about making sure that the focus on economics does not lead to a reduction in passenger support.
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
My Lords, before I address these amendments, I thank noble Lords for their constructive engagement with the Government on passenger rights and accessibility in Committee, in meetings since and in the debate today. In particular, I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Brinton, Lady Grey-Thompson, Lady Finlay of Llandaff and Lady Foster of Oxton, my noble friends Lady Kennedy of Cradley, Lady Ramsey of Wall Heath and Lady Griffin of Princethorpe, and the noble Lords, Lord Holmes of Richmond and Lord Blencathra. Their contributions have greatly strengthened the Government’s approach to accessibility in the Bill, including the government amendments on this topic.
First, I turn to government Amendments 18, 19, 71 and 72 in my name. These amendments are intended to ensure that the Bill fulfils its potential to strengthen air passenger rights, with particular emphasis on improving protections for disabled and less mobile passengers. Amendment 19 will place a statutory obligation on the Secretary of State to consult on accessibility issues and identify what changes may be needed to existing law. Any necessary reforms could then be made through Clause 1. The consultation will cover issues raised in your Lordships’ House, such as compensation for breaches of assistance duties, protections for passengers with allergies and complaints handling, but it will not be limited to those matters.
The Government will consult disabled passengers and persons with reduced mobility and their representative organisations, alongside airlines, airports, the Civil Aviation Authority, passenger rights advocates and wider stakeholders, as appropriate. This will support a genuinely pan-disability approach grounded in lived experience and expert evidence. We will begin the consultation as soon as possible after Royal Assent, while allowing sufficient time to consider the full range of accessibility issues. It will focus on legislative reform and sit alongside the non-legislative work already undertaken through the Aviation Accessibility Task and Finish Group, chaired by the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, to whom the Government are grateful. Amendment 18 is a technical amendment enabling government amendments on accessibility, and Amendments 71 and 72 deal with commencement.
I turn now to Amendment 2, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Grender. The intention of Clause 1 is to strengthen and enhance air passenger rights, and this aligns with our obligations under the trade and co-operation agreement to achieve a high level of consumer protections. I recognise the noble Baroness’s intention to ensure that this clause is used only to make things better for air passengers. However, such a requirement could limit what the clause is used for, which may ultimately work against passengers’ interests. The Government share her objective of strengthening passenger rights and have tabled amendments to support that aim, including some which will be discussed in the next group.
I turn to Amendment 4, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Moylan. The Government are committed to reducing administrative burdens. The Bill is expected to reduce business costs over time, as set out in the published impact assessment. In Committee, in answer to the noble Lord, Lord Harper, I gave some examples of changes made within the department towards this target. However, it would not be appropriate to place a fixed numerical target in primary legislation, as targets may change over time. It is the Government’s overall target; it is not split by department. But, to be clear, aviation is included. I also reject any notion that these amendments adversely affect efficiency, because they will facilitate disabled people playing a full part in economic life and making their contribution.
I turn to Amendment 6, tabled by my noble friend Lady Kennedy of Cradley and the noble Baronesses, Lady Grey-Thompson and Lady Brinton. The Government are clear that aviation must be accessible to all who wish to travel. Clause 1 has been drafted deliberately broadly to support a pan-impairment approach. It relies on existing legislative definitions that would already capture all the conditions and impairments specified in the noble Baronesses’ amendment. By contrast, a more detailed statutory list risks unintentionally excluding passengers whose impairment or condition is not specifically mentioned.
The Government recognise the importance of adequate protections for passengers with allergies travelling by air. Allergies and wider accessibility issues can be considered through the consultation required by government Amendment 19, which I have already outlined. Persons with allergies must be consulted as part of that process. Any reform shown to be necessary will then be made using Clause 1. I will ensure that noble Lords continue to be engaged as that consultation develops. This consultation will sit alongside the excellent work of the Aviation Accessibility Implementation Group, which is focused on non-legislative work with the industry to improve accessibility across the sector. In answer to my noble friend Lady Kennedy of Cradley, I will be happy to arrange a meeting with the co-chairs of the group to discuss what more could be done in a non-legislative capacity.
Lord Harper (Con)
Before the Minister sits down, can I press him on his point about the Government’s plan to reduce the administrative burden on business by 25%? In Committee, he said that the Department for Transport was working closely with the Department for Business and Trade, which I presume owns this target across government—the Minister is nodding assent. What expectations for delivery has the Department for Business and Trade set out for the Department for Transport? Unless each department is going to deliver something, the Government have no hope of hitting this target. If the Minister is not able to tell me that now, he committed in Committee to write to me with further information, which has not yet happened; I would be perfectly happy if he were to furnish me with that information in writing.
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
The noble Lord is right: I am pretty sure I did commit to write to him, I am pretty sure I have not yet and I am pretty sure I will do shortly.
Baroness Grender (LD)
My Lords, I will be brief because a whole load of people have arrived for a particular purpose. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, for mentioning the ICAO and some of the international progress we need to make. I also thank the Minister for giving us a hint that we will hear a bit more about that in the next group, so I am excited to get on to the next bit of business. We have made quite a bit of progress in this group, especially on the government amendments, so I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
Lord Moylan
“(1A) When making regulations under subsection (1), the Secretary of State must have regard to promoting economic growth.(1B) In complying with subsection (1A), the Secretary of State must in particular consider the impact of the regulations on—(a) the competitiveness of air transport service providers and airport operators, (b) investment in the United Kingdom aviation sector, and(c) the burdens imposed on air transport service providers and airport operators in complying with the regulations.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment requires the Secretary of State to have regard to the desirability of promoting economic growth before making regulations under clause 1, with particular reference to the competitiveness of the aviation sector, investment, and the regulatory burden on businesses.
Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, as I indicated earlier, I am not at all satisfied with the Government’s response to my Amendment 3 and I wish to test the opinion of the House.
“(e) establishing minimum standards to provide assistance to disabled persons or persons with reduced mobility, including but not limited to—(i) mandatory accessibility and disability awareness training for all personnel;(ii) requirements for the safe handling, storage and return of mobility aid devices and medical and life-sustaining equipment;(iii) the collection and publication of data regarding the damage, delay or loss of mobility aids devices and medical and life-sustaining equipment;(iv) standardised levels of accessibility for all digital communications, including websites, apps and emails;(v) the implementation of the “One Click” standard to enable straightforward access to key information;”
Baroness Grey-Thompson (CB)
My Lords, in speaking to my Amendments 5 and 9 in this group, I thank the other noble Lords who have signed them. I intend to be brief because there has been some crossover with the last groups. I thank the Minister for his time and availability. He has managed to assuage some of my concerns. My amendments in this group are around appropriate training on how to assist disabled people, the storage and handling of mobility equipment, data gathering and complaints.
To refer back to the previous group, while there may be rules and procedures in place, disabled people still experience way too many difficulties trying to get on or off an aeroplane. It is also too difficult to complain. Quite often, passengers are passed around: when they buy a ticket, they think the contract is with the airline, but when things go wrong it can be a combination of the airline, the airport and the crew that does the handling. If there is one thing I hope for from this, it is for disabled people to stop being patronised when they fly. That would be a big step forward.
It was helpful to listen to the Minister on government Amendment 19 and the consultation. The reality is that disabled people have quite a high expectation, but we have to be realistic. Some of the things that we really need—appropriate compensation if mobility equipment is destroyed or goes missing or is not tied down in planes—relies on international jurisdictions. I ask the Minister to keep that level of pressure up. We could do better—throughout the whole world, actually—in how disabled people are treated. Complaints should not be so complicated, and it should not take so long or be so difficult to get compensation or to get equipment repaired.
From personal experience, I would say that Schiphol and London City are the best airports in the world—other people may have a different experience of that. The voice of disabled people is important and we should be learning from the best, so I will be watching the consultation closely. The industry can and should do better. I look forward to listening to the Minister’s comments on the government amendments in this group. I beg to move.
Baroness Brinton (LD)
My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister and his officials, who have met with us to discuss issues relating to standards to provide assistance to disabled people throughout their journey and why this desperately needs to be remedied formally. I signed Amendment 5, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, which specifies a minimum standard for training and service delivery.
I have spoken at length, not just in Committee and at Second Reading but on other Bills and in other debates, about the different approaches taken to the batteries in a wheelchair when you get to check-in. That is one of the areas on which there really needs to be training. When check-in staff do not understand the difference between lithium batteries, which you can and must carry on yourself, and acid batteries—I have two bus batteries on my chair—then you have got a problem, because you cannot have a sensible conversation. That sort of training is vital. Part of the problem is that the moment you start to very politely question the person who is asking, you are deemed to be a trouble-maker and everything goes downhill from there.
It is part of most disabled travellers’ experience to be told repeatedly that they are wrong. I have absolutely found this, even when I was last at Heathrow, a fortnight ago. Staff just knew better until I produced the IATA regulations and showed them chapter and verse on batteries, at which point they had the grace to apologise— but sometimes, they have not done so. I may be very odd, but I always have a copy of the IATA regulations with me.
Amendment 5 would ensure transparency in service delivery, through
“the collection and publication of data regarding … damage”
done to
“mobility aids … and medical and life-sustaining equipment”.
I pick up on the point I made in Committee, when I laid amendments to formalise an informal arrangement for the UK Government’s role in ICAO, which was mentioned in the previous group. It is absolutely vital that the Montreal agreement is reviewed and that the responsibility for regulations is removed from IATA. I find it mind-numbingly astonishing that the trade association for the aircraft carriers is also responsible for the regulations. In no other area would we allow that to happen. ICAO has a key role. I am sorry that it has felt that it did not need to push to act as anything more than a support group for disgruntled people. It needs to go further. It is vital that the Montreal agreement is reviewed and that responsibility for regulations is taken away from IATA.
Finally, Amendment 25 seeks to amend the Minister’s Amendment 24 in this group on matters to which the Secretary of State must have regard. Lines 5 and 6 of the Minister’s amendment refer to
“the desirability of strengthening the rights of persons who purchase or use air transport services”.
We had this debate before, but I know that the Minister will respond to this amendment. I am really concerned; the word “desirability” is or should be redundant. At worst, it weakens the position of disabled passengers, because it sets disabled rights in the wider context of everyone who purchases or uses transport services. As I said earlier, that is dangerous, and I hope the Minister will really try to remedy this. I am worried that it will create a worse problem than we have now—and what we have now is not good enough.
Baroness Kennedy of Cradley (Lab)
My Lords, I rise briefly to support Amendments 5 and 9, to which I was delighted to add my name.
In truth, we live in an era of rapidly advancing technology, when other industries are bending over backwards to ensure their staff are trained to deliver a high level of quality service with an attitude of respect, and when digital means of communication are being used in abundance to ensure that customers have information that is clear and easily accessible. It is shocking to me that an amendment like this is necessary to ensure that the aviation industry steps up and does what should be standard practice to support disabled people—but it is necessary. The reality is that services for, and the treatment of, disabled people in the aviation industry are woefully inadequate—and they do not have to be. We know the issues and we know what needs to change. We now need to find the legislative framework to deliver that change. I look forward to the Minister’s reply.
Lord Blencathra (Con)
My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 5; it is the only amendment to which I shall speak on Report.
I can tell the House that I have now beaten Frank Gardner’s record for being left on a plane. On 24 June, my flight back from Basel left the city 45 minutes late. We touched down at exactly 9.10 pm at Heathrow. At 9.15 pm the plane came to a stop, the seat-belt signs were switched off and we were parked somewhere out in the sticks. The pilot said that the buses had not arrived yet and would arrive in a few minutes. The first bus arrived 20 minutes later at 9.35 pm. The high-lift wagon to take me and other disabled passengers off did not turn up until 9.50 pm, but it turned up simultaneously with the food wagon. Since the plane was on a turnaround for Budapest, the food wagon was given priority over getting the crippled passengers off. So, at 10.05 pm, I and others were taken off in the high-lift wagon. At 10.12 pm, my wheelchair was loaded. Then we set off on a 15-minute magical mystery tour around various tunnels at Heathrow. At 10.25 pm, I was deposited at a door in terminal 5, and at exactly 10.30 pm I got to passport control. Things then speeded up considerably—but after all that delay, my luggage was still delayed.
That is one example—I have a few more I want to give to the Minister—to show that there are two things in this amendment that are essential: training, and returning the wheelchairs and the bodies to the aircraft door or to where they are supposed to go. I say to my noble friends on the Front Bench: I am not calling for some massive, gold-plated regulatory regime that will bring up costs; I am calling for some of the current law to be enforced and for improvements to be made. Of course, I accept that it will make no difference if we pass some gold-plated regulations here, because the cartel of airline operators that run IATA will simply not adopt it anywhere else in the world.
I will begin with training. I serve on the Council of Europe, and for the past 15 years I have had hundreds of check-ins at countries all over Europe. There has been one occasion only, and it happened last month at Heathrow, where the guy at the BA check-in desk actually had, for the first time ever, the information I supplied at least 48 hours beforehand. Every other time you send the information to airlines—the size of your chair; the weight of the chair; the batteries; blah, blah, blah—when you get to check-in, they do not have it on their computer. Then you get asked questions again and again—and the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, is right that they are about batteries, batteries, batteries. They are of course right to be paranoid about lithium batteries: if you put a lithium battery in the hold, whether in a wheelchair or in your phone, it is highly dangerous. But there are two types: lithium batteries, which are removable, and all the other bolted-on batteries—the lead acid ones, including the sealed lead acid ones, and the sealed non-spillable ones—which are not removable.
So they ask you, “Is it lithium?”, and you say, “No, it’s not”. Then, “Can you remove it?”, and, “Well, no, you only remove lithium batteries; you don’t remove these”. “But surely you could remove it”; “No, you can’t remove it”. Luckily, one’s wife says, after those questions have been asked 20 times, “Keep your temper; stay nice”—and, on most occasions, I have managed to do so. There is no point getting aggressive, because they have not been trained. I say to the Minister: that is the vital thing—for God’s sake, make sure the airlines tell them about the batteries.
Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow my noble friend Lord Blencathra, who always tells it very much as it is. I think we should probably all follow the wise entreaties of Lady Blencathra to “Be nice”. As an ex-Chief Whip, my noble friend Lord Blencathra is always nice. I say that with an ex-Chief Whip to my left, an ex-Chief Whip right in front of me and, as far as I know, other ex-Chief Whips dotted around the House. I say that to the Minister as well, with regard to the amendments in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of Cradley, bearing in mind her connection to that aforementioned role of the not ex but current Chief Whip.
I support the amendments in this group, and indeed nod to the previous group, and I thank the Minister for his engagement throughout this process, particularly between Committee and Report. There is a lot that cannot be done directly by the UK Government, whichever party that happens to be, because of the international nature of this and the Montreal convention—I will come to that in a bit. However, the Government would not have brought forward their amendments were it not for this Minister—not any Transport Minister but this Minister. I thank him for all the work he has done on the Bill when it comes to accessibility and inclusion, and indeed on Bills in the past—and, I might say, with railway Bills yet to come.
It is clear that many of the provisions will apply domestically. That is obviously a fraction of air travel but it is an important one, and it matters. Ultimately, all this could be got right. We would not need to talk about disabled people, wheelchair users, guide dog owners, passengers with restricted mobility or any of this if there was passenger customer service. All this is just quality passenger customer service, but, because that is not the case, we see illustrations which bite hardest on disabled people. That is problematic not only because there is not the passenger customer experience that should be there but largely because none of this is planned experientially; it is planned operationally. That is never the way to plan anything if you want it to be human and dignified and have all the values that we subscribe to, of fairness, equality and respect.
If things are planned operationally, it is hardly surprising that it often feels like disabled people are being treated like cargo, to be just moved in whatever fashion is determined from one place to another—or, indeed, as the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, and others have pointed out, to not be moved, missing the flight or being left on the flight long after it has landed and all the passengers have left the plane.
If you plan experientially from the outset, you necessarily bring in all the human dimensions and you bring in inclusive by design—an inclusive culture, led on, which then flows through the whole experience. In addition, if you plan experientially, you do not have all the difficulties that come when one provider—one operator—ceases its part of the deal and another one takes over, or indeed does not, because that passenger experience is planned right from the first moment that any of us even thinks about potentially buying a ticket right through to where we clear customs and baggage and continue our onward journey at that destination airport. If you plan operationally, each operator plans its bit and many things fall down as those operators are not connected together in a seamless, quality passenger experience. So, yes, it is training, information in accessible forms, and thinking about every beat point of that journey, but it should be a journey planned experientially.
The Minister’s amendments go some way and certainly set the right tone, and we need to ensure that that runs through all the consultation and the subsequent regulations. I thank him again and I put one final ask to him: would it not be a good idea for the UK to seek to convene international airlines and all operators involved in air travel in London, bringing them to this city not because we are saying that the UK is the best at this or because we are talking about UK exceptionalism, but to try to start this international dialogue, to move forward with the Montreal convention and to bring other like-minded nations around that table to move things forward? It is good to make a difference in the UK—it is small but significant—but the Government can, and I hope they will, play a leading role among other like-minded nations, using all our convening power and our soft power to make some movement in this area. This has gone on too long and it is unacceptable that, just at the point you step airside, all your rights fly away.
Baroness Hoey (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I support Amendment 5 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson.
I travel back and forth every week to and from Belfast. We should also be saying that there are some really excellent people working with disabled people and wheelchairs—I see it every week—and it would be a bit remiss of us if we have the public thinking that we are all saying that it is absolutely terrible. I sometimes see some over-the-top behaviour in terms of how people are treated, quite rightly. We have to recognise that it is not all as bad as perhaps some of the examples, which obviously we could all bring out.
I also wanted to say that it is important that we have minimum standards, because each airline seems to be different. I see that travelling on easyJet and British Airways, and I have to say that easyJet does an excellent job. If it knows in advance, it does extremely well. I would hate to think that those people, many of whom are young people working in their first job—and, yes, training is important—are listening to this and thinking that we are condemning all of them for being heartless and not doing the right thing. Of course, as we know, a lot of it is up to the airlines.
Lord Harper (Con)
My Lords, I raise just one issue, which is the point that the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of Cradley, raised on the previous group: the interaction between specific regulations in place for the aviation sector and more wide-ranging legislation, such as the disability elements of the Equality Act. I have a specific question for the Minister to answer when he responds. We are obviously looking at Amendment 5, which the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, introduced so well and which would set down some minimum standards. However, such standards will not achieve the outcome we want if they are not enforced. Can the Minister therefore say what the Government’s assessment is of the extent to which the gap is the legislation, standards or regulations, and to what extent it is the degree to which those existing regulations are enforced? If it is the latter, what is the Government’s plan to close that gap between the regulatory standards that are in place and the ones that take effect for passengers and to make the experience that my noble friend Lord Holmes referred to a much better one for disabled passengers?
Baroness Grender (LD)
My Lords, I will be extremely brief. I know that quite a lot of people say that and then do not fulfil it, but I really will. This group of amendments of course has a great deal of support from our Benches. We look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say. In particular, we look forward to hearing something about how, having raised the bar at a UK and domestic level, it is possible to further that. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, for giving some indication of what that could include, because what comes next is the question of how we can create a gold standard here in the UK and explain it elsewhere at an international level.
Baroness Foster of Oxton (Con)
My Lords, we have raised the issue of enforcement. It may be that amendments are put in place and will, I hope, reinforce the legislation but, unless legislation is enforced—we have strong regulations already in statute—then we are just having a conversation that does not go anywhere. I therefore ask the Department for Transport and the Civil Aviation Authority to really put some pressure on airports to ensure that they are complying now—I emphasise “now”—with the regulations that are laid down to see whether we can at least put to bed these awful experiences that some of our passengers and fellow travellers are subject to.
Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, I start by paying tribute briefly to the Minister who, over the last 15 years or so that I have known him, has taken issues about disabled access on transport systems very seriously and made a personal commitment to them. I am delighted to say that the efforts made by noble Lords who suffer disabilities and the arguments that they made in Committee have found a resonance with him and, therefore, he has been able to come forward with amendments. They do not necessarily give everybody what they want—I suppose that is the nature of the way the legislative process works—but, generally speaking, they take this issue forward in practical terms. We support those amendments, as we indeed support the case that has been made by various noble Lords in the course of this debate.
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
My Lords, I begin with the government amendments in this group and start with Amendment 24, tabled in my name, which establishes duties and principles to guide the future use of Clause 1. It is intended to ensure that the power is used, wherever possible, to strengthen air passenger rights and to address barriers faced by disabled passengers and those with reduced mobility. I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Grender and Lady Brinton, and the noble Earl, Lord Russell, for their time and expertise to strengthen broader air passenger rights, which has helped lead to this amendment.
The amendment seeks to ensure that all air passengers are treated with dignity and have their individual physical and mental health needs respected, and that those with disabilities or reduced mobility are afforded access to air transport services equal or comparable to that afforded to other passengers. The examples that we have heard, in particular the powerful speech by the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, set out exactly why we need to do better. I hear the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, and I am sure that noble Lords agree that there are many individual members of staff who are good. However, we have also continuously heard that there is terrible, and unacceptable, inconsistency. That is clearly too frequent an experience.
I turn next to Amendment 25, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, which would amend government Amendment 24. I understand the noble Baroness’s concerns, but I reassure her that the use of the word “desirability” does not allow the Secretary of State to shy away from their obligation to have due regard. I want it to be clear that Clause 1 is intended to strengthen and enhance air passenger rights, and that this duty reinforces that. It requires the Secretary of State to have due regard to improving passenger rights every time the power is used. However, the impact of policy changes must always be considered holistically—for example, safety, cost, deliverability and wider impacts. The word “desirability” ensures that the regard to strengthening air passenger rights is properly weighed alongside those other factors, so that the Government can act on the full picture.
The second government amendment in this group removes the compensation cap for damaged or lost mobility aids on domestic UK flights. Many wheelchairs and mobility aids are highly customised, specialist pieces of equipment that can cost many thousands of pounds, well in excess of the current Montreal convention liability limit. Removing the cap for domestic UK flights allows passengers to recover the full cost of repair or replacement. That reduces a barrier to travel, gives passengers confidence and gives carriers a far stronger incentive for careful handling.
I turn to the amendments tabled by noble Lords and begin with the amendment from the noble Baronesses, Lady Grey-Thompson and Lady Brinton, the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, and my noble friend Lady Kennedy of Cradley, seeking minimum standards for passengers who need assistance. I recognise the intention behind the amendment and the important issues identified by the Aviation Accessibility Task and Finish Group, under the leadership of the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson. The Government greatly value that work and will ensure that it informs the next stage of policy development. As I noted previously, government Amendment 19 requires a statutory consultation on accessibility issues following Royal Assent. That consultation will consider all the matters raised in this amendment, alongside wider issues affecting disabled passengers and passengers with reduced mobility, with any necessary reforms capable of being taken forward under Clause 1.
On the amendment on complaints procedures, the Government agree that passengers, in particular disabled passengers and passengers with reduced mobility, should have clear and effective mechanisms for raising concerns when standards fall short. However, the detail needs careful consideration. Legislating now risks creating a provision that is either too vague to enforce or too rigid to work well. Government Amendment 19 therefore identifies complaints procedures as a specific area for consultation, with Clause 1 providing powers for any resulting reforms.
The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, has also tabled an amendment seeking clarity on the timing of the consultation under government Amendment 19. As I said on the last group, we will begin that consultation as soon as possible after Royal Assent. The wording is designed not to delay the process but to ensure that the Secretary of State has sufficient time to consider the full range of accessibility issues properly before reporting on the outcome. As I said on the previous group, we will meet interested noble Lords two months after Royal Assent to show what has been done, what is being done and what will be done under my amendments.
I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, for Amendment 23, which concerns who should be consulted. She is right that the consultation must be informed by those with relevant expertise and lived experience. This Government are committed to the principle of “nothing about us without us”. The clause uses a non-exhaustive list so that the right people can be consulted on the right issues without requiring every listed group to be consulted on every matter. We will draw on expertise—including from the Disabled Persons Transport Advisory Committee—to identify who should be engaged at each stage.
In tabling the government amendments in this and the previous group, we recognise that aviation operates within an international framework of conventions, agreements and regulatory arrangements. There are limits to what any one country can achieve through domestic legislation alone. However, as we have heard, that is not an argument for inaction. Rather, it is an argument for leadership. These amendments are a significant step forward for United Kingdom passengers. We have long been a leader on accessibility and the Government will use their influence internationally to press the higher standards for disabled passengers. Specifically, through our work at the International Civil Aviation Organization and the European Civil Aviation Conference, we will use appropriate fora to champion the UK’s approach to accessibility, promote improvement of standards and seek international alignment.
We will take every opportunity available to raise these important issues at all relevant meetings, starting with those following Royal Assent, such as, but not limited to, the ECAC sub-group on the transport of persons with reduced mobility and the ICAO working group on accessibility in international civil aviation. By strengthening passenger rights at home and placing accessibility at the centre of our approach, the United Kingdom can continue to use its influence internationally and in its engagement with partners across the sector to advocate for higher standards of accessibility worldwide. I note the suggestion from the noble Lord, Lord Holmes of Richmond, to convene an international meeting. I will discuss with the Aviation Minister and the Secretary of State in the other place when we might do that.
The noble Lord, Lord Harper, asked about standards and enforcement. Both are needed—hence the powers in the Bill for enforcement by the Civil Aviation Authority, which cannot currently impose penalties. That is the reason for Clause 2.
Taken together, the government amendments relating to air passenger rights provide a significant and practical step forward for passengers, in particular disabled passengers and passengers with reduced mobility. I therefore hope that the House will support the government amendments in this group and that noble Lords are reassured that the issues raised in their amendments will be addressed through the consultation process and the powers provided by the Bill. On my own position, I echo the words of the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, that I wish for everybody else only the experience that I have myself when I travel by air.
Lord Blencathra (Con)
My Lords, I make two very brief points. First, it was neglectful of me—in fact, rude of me—not to thank the Minister for the government amendments, particularly government Amendment 24, which will deliver nearly everything that we have been asking for. I echo the wise words of my noble friends Lord Moylan and Lord Holmes of Richmond in thanking the Minister for all the work that he has been doing to help disabled passengers over the past 10 or 15 years. I am grateful for that.
Secondly, on delays at check-in, what annoys me most is not just the delay I suffer but the delay that the people behind me suffer, and the grumbles, muttering and hateful looks that I get. An able person checking in may take three or four minutes. If I am held up for 15, 20 or 30 minutes, there are 10 people behind me who have formed a hostile opinion of everybody a wheelchair. It is also a horrible feeling that I have held them up. The top priority for me is to speed up that check-in process through training so that we do not hold up the disabled people and antagonise a dozen people behind us.
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
I thank the noble Lord for his noble thoughts on both points.
Baroness Grey-Thompson (CB)
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in this group. I also thank the officials who worked on the task and finish group and on the Bill.
The reality, as a disabled person, is that you must know all the rules—every single one of them—whether the rules of an airport, an airline or different jurisdictions. Jumping on and off a plane is not so simple. I learned a very long time ago to book my flights with airlines where there is a tight turnaround. There is then a chance that you might get off, since leaving you on costs them quite a lot of money. I also learned never to move from my seat, because they are not allowed to move you without permission. I do not move from my seat until I have line of sight of my own wheelchair, because as soon as you are off the plane, you have lost every bit of power that you have in the system. It is a great shame that the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, has to travel with the IATA rules, which nobody should have to do. However, again, that is the reality of what it is like.
The noble Lord, Lord Holmes, talks about experiential support. We need to look at this slightly differently. If, during the 2012 Paralympics, we could get thousands of disabled people going through one airport, on and off, in a couple of days then we should be able to do it the rest of the time. I know that it increased staff and did lots of other things, but how disabled people were treated at that point was amazing. The noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, is right that there has been a big increase in requests. We need to be smarter about how people are supported. Anyone who is disabled or who has flown has seen people who required support to get on a plane but were able to skip off at the other end. That cannot be the right way to do it. I certainly do not think that charging passengers is the right way to do it, but we must think differently about what end-to-end support looks like.
On batteries, the Minister offered a meeting for interested Peers. The sub-group of the implementation group is working very hard on batteries. It is co-chaired by David Leighton and Tony Jennings. It would be worth setting up a meeting with the interested Peers as part of that. I will closely watch the consultation and the meetings, but I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
Lord Moylan
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment ensures the CAA will be the sole aviation regulator.
Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, I will speak to a number of amendments in this group that are in my name. Nearly all of them are technical in character. None of them would make an enormous difference to the Bill, except perhaps the last one. There is not the slightest prospect of the Minister accepting any of them and I do not intend to divide the House on any of them. Therefore, it would be of assistance to noble Lords if I go through them briefly so that they are aware of the good things that the Government are casting aside and taking no notice of.
Amendments 7 and 12 relate to the Government having decided that the relevant aspects of the aviation sector, in particular consumer protection, will be regulated by two bodies—the Civil Aviation Authority and the Competition and Markets Authority. The Government have no way of ensuring that they work together effectively, or who takes the lead on one rather than the other. None of this is vouchsafed to us, but the Minister will have a sort of balancing power at the top to sort it all out ad hoc. We made the argument in Committee that it would be sensible to have one regulator and that dual enforcement is never a good idea, especially where potential criminal penalties arise. We have tabled these amendments to put an end to it, but the Government are not going to pursue that line.
Amendment 15 raises a cause of concern for the many noble Lords who are worried that the only ideas the Department for Transport has continue to come from the European Union. It would put restrictions and limitations on the ability of the Government to use these powers simply to adopt European legislation and continue to be compliant with European legislation as it changes, which indeed they are expected to do, because I understand that the European Union is reviewing some of these aviation regulation areas at the moment. I was moved to table this because I was shocked when I picked up the final version of the impact assessment that the department prepared to go with the Bill—a document that is at least two inches thick, I would think. One has to get only to page 3 to discover that the Government are saying how wonderful it is that this legislation will give us the powers to continue to align with any changes the European Union makes in the future, because those powers expire this month, so we would not be able to align with the European Union, but now we are going to be able to.
We have to have a Civil Service and a Government who actually realise that we are not part of the European Union, that there is no prospect of our being part of the European Union for a very long time—indeed, if ever; I do not think it will be ever—and that we have to come up with some policies of our own that are good for this country. That is the substance of Amendment 15.
Amendments 16, 17 and 29 address some of the many instances in the Bill where the negative procedure for statutory instruments is preferred over the affirmative procedure. There are also two massive Henry VIII powers in the Bill—I will come to these separately in their appropriate cases. I am not going to press these further at this stage, because to give the Minister the credit that is due to him, he has tabled amendments, which in some cases will move negative procedures over to affirmative procedures. Indeed, in one case, he has actually signed my own amendment having an effect on that. So he has come some way to meet the criticism that I tabled in Committee, so I will not press the fact that he has not come all the way, although I would be delighted if he announced, even at this last moment, that he would change his mind and perhaps accept these amendments.
Amendment 32, finally, perhaps has a little more hope of being adopted—I do not know. Under the current approach of the Bill, the only way that someone subject to a civil aviation decision can appeal against it is to the High Court. The courts are chock-a-block with demands on them at the moment. It seemed sensible to seek to create an intermediate mediation stage where someone aggrieved by a particular decision against them would have the opportunity to have an independent mediator appointed to seek to resolve the issue, and an amendment was tabled to that effect.
In Committee, the Minister was very dismissive of the whole idea and obviously believes that the High Court has nothing much to do and will be able to take these things on and that is the appropriate place. But a lot of money and testosterone can be wasted going to the High Court, when some of these matters can be sorted out better through more of a mediative approach, and that was the purpose of the amendment.
Those are my amendments in this group. As with many of the amendments I tabled in Committee, they are all intended to improve the operation of the Bill and the operation of administrative law. With that, I beg to move.
Lord Grayling (Con)
My Lords, Amendments 13 and 14 are in my name. I declare again my interest as an advisor to AtkinsRéalis in the UK and Ireland.
I have a lot of sympathy with my noble friend on the Front Bench and his comments about various aspects of the Bill; in particular, his comments about the European Union. We should not be looking simply to match the European Union going forward. Indeed, I am very much in favour of having high standards which are not tied to the European Union. Where we can do better—and we should do better—without doing damage to the commercial viability of the UK industry, we should seriously consider taking that kind of step.
While mentioning briefly the international side, in the light of the easyJet takeover proposals, I urge the Minister and his colleagues in the department to use the most muscular approach on this. It would not normally be possible for a UK airline to buy a US one. We need to make sure that the rules and ownership are properly and rigorously enforced. It is urgent to do that.
My two amendments are designed simply to try to put some limitation on the powers that would reside with the Civil Aviation Authority as a result of the Bill. I always envisaged changes upon leaving the European Union as likely to lead to a degree of deregulation and a relaxation of restrictions. The Minister knows that I raised a number of concerns with him in Committee about the extent of the powers to enforce—to enter premises and to impose penalties. These two amendments are designed to put some limitations around the freedoms of the regulator to take enforcement action, so that it does so only in what are genuinely serious situations. I know the Minister is not going to accept these amendments, but I would ask him to give some thought to how this is applied in regulations. Of course, we need a regulator to have the ability to take serious action in a serious situation, but what we do not want is to create a situation where we have undue levels of enforcement on small matters in a way that is overly onerous on the commercial independence and freedom of businesses. We want common sense; these two amendments are designed to apply common sense, and I hope the Minister will be able to take that principle forward.
Finally, I will just comment on my noble friend Lord Young’s amendment, which I am sure he will be speaking to in a moment. Given the impact on the airlines of the failures, when they do happen, in the air traffic control system, I think he makes an important point that is worthy of consideration by the Government.
Lord Young of Cookham (Con)
My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for that trailer. The reason behind Amendment 65 in my name is what happened on 28 August 2023, when the air traffic system run by NATS failed. There was an independent review which looked into the debacle, and I want to quote very briefly from the report, which said:
“From CAA estimates, over 700,000 passengers were affected by cancellations and delays ascribed to the incident, including approximately 300,000 impacted by flight cancellations, approximately 95,000 by long delays (over three hours) and at least a further 300,000 by shorter delays”.
The review went on to estimate the costs involved:
“Based on the information provided by the airlines most affected by the incident, the Panel has estimated that the costs to airlines were approximately £65m. In addition, substantial costs were incurred by passengers, airports, tour operators, insurers, and others. The Panel was unable to accurately quantify these costs. It is likely that the total cost was in the region of £75m to £100m”.
Noble Lords may be surprised to learn that the company responsible for those losses—NATS—with a turnover of over £1 billion, with profits of over £200 million in each of the last two years, has immunity from those losses. Those losses instead are borne by the airlines, which are tied into a monopoly provider. To my mind, this is a manifest, wholly indefensible position that flies in the face of natural justice, and that is what my amendment seeks to remedy.
Baroness Foster of Oxton (Con)
My Lords, I strongly support the words of my noble friend Lord Young, and will add one small piece of information. While the passengers would not necessarily have compensation for the delays or cancellations in those circumstances, the airlines still have what is called a duty of care. Once an aircraft is delayed, food or refreshments should be provided, and hotel accommodation if the passengers have to remain in the airport overnight. So they sustain that cost, albeit in exceptional circumstances.
Lord McLoughlin (Con)
My Lords, I add my support to the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lord Young. One of the things I find slightly worrying in the letter from the Minister to my noble friend is that he says:
“Were NATS to be made responsible for paying compensation, almost half of the cost would fall to the taxpayer”.
That is a fairly interesting line of defence from the Minister, because we are about to renationalise the railways. Therefore, any cost delays from Delay Repay will fall to the taxpayer. Will we see a policy from the Government that does away with any Delay Repay repayments to the passenger, as those faults would now impact on the taxpayer? That is a very interesting scenario. I wonder why the Government are approaching delays that are caused by an organisation that serves airlines differently from those caused by one that may well in due course serve the rail passenger.
My noble friend Lord Young of Cookham has ably put the case and shown the inconsistency in the Government’s position. Should he test the opinion of the House, I very much hope that we give the Minister that mandate to go back, renegotiate this and come forward with a proper proposal that gives the right compensation to airlines in due course.
Baroness Grender (LD)
I am a little hesitant to start the Front Bench responses before I triple-check that nobody else wants to speak.
I thank the noble Lords, Lord Moylan, Lord Grayling and Lord Young, for raising these important issues. On the theme of parliamentary scrutiny, we on these Benches support the spirit of Amendments 16, 17 and 29 tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Moylan. They seek to mandate the affirmative procedure for regulations, and we attempted to suggest similar amendments in Committee. The Bill delegates vast, unscrutinised powers to the Secretary of State to redefine passenger rights, so it is only right that Parliament retains the ability to debate and approve these changes before they take effect. I have previously mentioned signing a blank cheque that allows for the fundamental alteration of consumer standards via the negative procedure. However, like the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, I also acknowledge that the Minister has changed his position on that and signed one of the amendments from the noble Lord on this issue.
I will not revisit or rehearse my comments in Committee about the need to deliver on the threat of a fatal Motion, which we have got into in the past. Sometimes, the muscular possibility of delivering on that threat is the only way of dealing with these procedures. I fully recognise that both the Conservative Benches and the Labour Benches have a long-standing tradition of not doing that.
We welcome government Amendment 28, which requires the CAA to report annually on its enforcement functions. We see this as a necessary step towards the transparency that we called for in Committee. However, while we welcome the technical corrections in government Amendments 30 and 31 regarding the concurrency arrangements, we remain concerned by the potential for regulatory fragmentation. Probing Amendments 7 and 12 rightly ask why both the CAA and the CMA require overlapping powers. We believe the regulator must have teeth, but those teeth need to be clearly seen and defined. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response on that.
On Amendment 13 from the noble Lord, Lord Grayling, while we support proportionality, we feel that confining financial penalties only to “systemic failure” risks leaving individual passengers in the lurch. We worry that it might defang the regulator in a way that prioritises industry margins over individual dignity—a common theme that I have already pursued on previous groups.
On Amendment 65 from the noble Lord, Lord Young, I read more on this issue this weekend than on almost anything else to do with the Bill. The only thing I can say is that we on these Benches still have an open mind on this issue. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response. Normally we would follow the noble Lord through hell-fire, but I have had discussions with Commons colleagues and have read everything I can on this issue. We wait to hear the Minister’s response.
Finally, Amendment 15 would require a statement on international alignment. As we have previously argued, any divergence from EU standards must be used as a lever for enhancement, not a race to the bottom. If we are to move away from established protections, the public deserve a clear technical explanation of why that divergence is in their interest. I look forward to the debates that this has thrown up and to the Minister’s response to these amendments.
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
My Lords, I will begin with the amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Grayling, on financial penalties and powers of entry. Clause 1 does not create financial penalties or powers of entry; it simply enables such powers to be conferred by future regulations if evidence shows that they are needed. Their scope should be determined when those regulations are made, on the basis of the evidence available at that time. It would not be appropriate to fix a systematic failure test in primary legislation now, particularly as the CAA already addresses breaches causing collective harm, rather than individual disputes.
Powers of entry would require reasonable grounds to suspect a breach and would be used only where less intrusive methods had proved insufficient. Similar powers already exist for other regulators, including the Financial Conduct Authority and the Information Commissioner’s Office but not the Civil Aviation Authority. Appropriate safeguards are essential but are best considered when any regulations are laid.
To help the noble Lord, I was assured, having asked a former chief executive of the Civil Aviation Authority, whom the noble Lord knows well, that these powers will be essential to allow the CAA to effectively use the powers it is being given through the Bill to enforce consumer regulation. It has faced some difficulties with that in the past.
Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, I am, of course, overcome with disappointment. The Minister has been disdainful of the many excellent amendments that have been advanced in this debate. I am not proposing to debate them further except to say, first, that he has waved his trump card in the shape of my noble friend Lord Harper at your Lordships’ House. From our point of view, it is rare, almost inconceivably rare, but none the less possible, that my noble friend can have made a mistake. In that context, if my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham chooses to divide the House, as he has intimated he would on this point, we will support him. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would apply the definitions in clause 1 to my new clauses (Consultation) and (Matters to which Secretary of State must have regard).
“Consultation(1) The Secretary of State must, before the end of the period of 12 months beginning with the day on which this Act is passed, begin the process of consultation under subsection (3) (but the Secretary of State need not complete the process within that period).(2) After completing the process the Secretary of State must publish the Secretary of State’s response to the consultation.(3) Consultation under this subsection is consultation with the persons mentioned in subsection (4) about the provision that should be made by regulations under section 1 concerning—(a) the compensation that should be paid for breaches of requirements to provide assistance to disabled persons and persons with reduced mobility;(b) the measures that should be put in place to protect persons with allergies when using air transport services;(c) the procedures that should be put in place by air transport service providers and airport operators for dealing with complaints;(d) the provision by air transport service providers and airport operators of wheelchairs suitable for use in aircraft;(e) any other matters that appear to the Secretary of State to be of particular importance (4) The persons mentioned in this subsection are—(a) air transport service providers,(b) airport operators,(c) such disabled persons, persons with reduced mobility and persons with allergies who are users or prospective users of air transport services, or such organisations appearing to the Secretary of State to represent such persons, as the Secretary of State considers appropriate, and(d) such other persons as the Secretary of State considers appropriate.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would require the Secretary of State to consult on the provision that should be made by regulations under clause 1.
“Matters to which Secretary of State must have regard(1) When considering whether and how to exercise the power to make regulations under section 1, the Secretary of State must have due regard to—(a) the desirability of strengthening the rights of persons who purchase or use air transport services, in particular where the persons whose rights would be affected are or include disabled persons or persons with reduced mobility, and(b) the principles set out in subsection (2).(2) The principles are—(a) that all persons travelling by means of air transport services should be treated with dignity and that their individual physical and mental health needs should be respected;(b) that disabled persons and persons with reduced mobility should be afforded access to air transport services that is equal or comparable to that afforded to other persons;(c) that where assistance is required by disabled persons or persons with reduced mobility the assistance provided should meet their needs;(d) that independent journeys by disabled persons and persons with reduced mobility should be facilitated wherever possible.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would introduce (i) a duty concerning strengthening air passenger rights, and (ii) principles where the Secretary of State is to make consumer protection regulations under clause 1
“Non-international flights: compensation for damage to wheelchairs etc(1) Council Regulation (EC) No 2027/97 of 9 October 1997 on air carrier liability in respect of the carriage of passengers and their baggage by air is amended in accordance with subsections (2) and (3).(2) In Article 3, after paragraph 1 insert—“1A Article 22 of the Montreal Convention applies in relation to carriage by air performed by a UK air carrier within the United Kingdom as if—(a) at the beginning of paragraph 2 there were inserted “Subject to paragraph 2A of this Article”, and(b) after paragraph 2 there were inserted—“2A In the carriage of wheelchairs or other mobility equipment or assistive devices, the liability of the carrier in the case of destruction, loss or damage is unlimited.””(3) In the Annex, in the entry relating to destruction, loss or damage to baggage, after “at fault” insert—“In the case of carriage within the United Kingdom of wheelchairs or other mobility equipment or assistive devices, the liability of the air carrier for destruction, loss or damage is unlimited.”(4) Schedule 1 to The Carriage by Air Acts (Application of Provisions) Order 2004 (S.I. 2004/1899) (application of the Montreal Convention: non-international carriage) is amended in accordance with subsections (5) and (6).(5) In Part 1, after paragraph (4), insert—“(4A) In Article 22.2, at the beginning, there shall be inserted “Subject to paragraph 2A of this Article,”.(4B) After Article 22.2, there shall be inserted—“2A In the carriage of wheelchairs or other mobility equipment or assistive devices, the liability of the carrier in the case of destruction, loss or damage is unlimited.””(6) In Part 2, under the heading “Article 22—Limits of Liability in Relation to Delay, Baggage and Cargo”—(a) at the beginning of paragraph 2 insert “Subject to paragraph 2A of this Article”;(b) after paragraph 2 insert—“2A In the carriage of wheelchairs or other mobility equipment or assistive devices, the liability of the carrier in the case of destruction, loss or damage is unlimited.””Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would remove the current compensation cap in relation to destroyed, lost or damaged wheelchairs or other aids for non-international flights.
“(2) In section 21 of the Civil Aviation Act 1982 (CAA’s annual report), in subsection (2), after paragraph (b) insert— “(ba) must include a summary of what the CAA has done during that year in the performance of its functions under—(i) Part 3 of the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 (enforcement of consumer protection law), and(ii) Schedule 5 to the Consumer Rights Act 2015 (investigatory powers etc);”.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would require the CAA to report each year to the Secretary of State on the performance of its enforcement functions.
(b) another direct enforcement authority (“the relevant direct enforcement authority”) is also capable of exercising its direct enforcement functions in respect of that commercial practice.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would correct the position on concurrency arrangements between the CMA and other direct enforcement authorities, to ensure that those arrangements operate as intended.
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would make a consequential amendment required as a result of my other amendment to paragraph 26 of Schedule 1 (concurrency arrangements).
Lord Moylan
“Review of airport drop-off charges(1) The Secretary of State must, within six months of the day on which this Act is passed, conduct and publish a review of the impact of airport drop-off charges on users of airport services in the United Kingdom.(2) The Secretary of State must lay a copy of the review before both Houses of Parliament.(3) In this section, “drop-off charge” means any charge levied by an airport operator on a vehicle entering a terminal forecourt or designated kerbside area for the purpose of setting down one or more passengers.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment requires the Secretary of State to conduct and publish a review of the impact of airport drop-off charges on passengers.
Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, I shall endeavour to be brief. Nobody, I think, in your Lordships’ House can fail to have been affected by the growing scandal of rapacious drop-off charges being charged by airports for people who have to arrive—some choose to, but some have to arrive—at the airport by car, sometimes to drop off and sometimes to collect a passenger who might be a relative or a friend. These charges have got higher and higher. They are a burden that people are not expecting. Many passengers, particularly families, older passengers and disabled passengers, do not have a realistic alternative to being dropped off at the terminal, yet the policy direction appears to be to make that more expensive, and the airports are stepping up to it with great enthusiasm.
Only last month, the Department for Transport published A Strategic Vision for Transport to an Expanded Heathrow Airport. That is a non-statutory document to accompany the now-renamed Heathrow Expansion National Policy Statement, which was issued for consultation. The document’s purpose was to give us the Government’s picture, their strategic vision, of what transport would look like at an expanded Heathrow Airport. I have read it. I know very little about what transport is going to look like as a result of reading that document. It is very vague, and it contains no commitments, but there is one thing in it that is absolutely nailed on now even before we have a deliverable plan for Heathrow expansion. That is that there are going to be increased terminal drop-off charges or a fee to access Heathrow-owned roads. At the same time as motorists have been looking for relief from higher costs, including after His Majesty’s Opposition forced the Government to U-turn on their planned fuel duty rise, the Department for Transport is now openly floating higher terminal drop-off charges and road access fees for Heathrow.
This cuts against the Government’s stated concern for disabled passengers. The Government have gone some way, as I said earlier in this Bill, to improve protections for disabled passengers in aviation, but it is no good strengthening rights inside the airport while supporting surface access policies that make it harder and more expensive for disabled passengers or those assisting them to get to the terminal in the first place. Amendment 33 in my name—there is a similar amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Empey, which I am sure he is going to speak to now—simply asks for a review of the impact of airport drop-off charges on airport users. That is the least that we could expect. I beg to move.
Lord Empey (UUP)
My Lords, in support of the arguments advanced by the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, we discussed this in Committee among those of us who regularly use airports. As I recall, this phenomenon of airport drop-off charges started off at £1 not that long ago—in fact, some airports had a basket and the thing opened when you threw in the £1, and that was it—but it is now a significant expense and has moved on to £3 or £5, with some airports charging £8.50 or even more. The way this is going is in one direction.
Now, we understand that businesses have to survive and make money, but, if I may refer the House to the arguments put forward at the beginning of Report today on economic growth, this is not only a business cost but a tax on tourism and an inhibitor. It is becoming a significant issue, when you add in parking charges and so on.
We would all love people to be able to get to airports by public transport, but, very often, public transport is not integrated into airports in the way that we have all seen in other parts of the world. If you go to Schiphol, the trains run through the terminal, but that is not the case for many airports here. Realistically, if you come from a rural area or if a family with kids and a load of stuff are going on holiday, there is little opportunity to save on that cost. The noble Lord, Lord Moylan, has also made the point about disabled passengers, of whom we have spoken significantly, but this is not confined to people with physical disabilities; it is a charge on everybody and, in my opinion, the risk is that it just gets completely out of control.
My amendment has slightly different timescales and so on from that of the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, but that is neither here nor there. The fundamental point is that this revenue stream did not exist a relatively short time ago. It is rapidly increasing and it will continue to increase, either because the airports feel that it is a way of making money or because some people think that a policy that forces people away from the drop-off and on to public transport has its own advantages. However, that applies only in limited cases, and it is certainly not universally spread around the country.
In short, we need to take steps to get this matter under control. It is not a dramatic change in policy, but if we are focusing on economic growth, this is a business cost and is no different, in effect, from any other charge. I sincerely hope that the Minister will reflect and acknowledge that this is an area of activity that is growing and is currently out of control.
Baroness O'Loan (CB)
My Lords, I support the noble Lords, Lord Moylan and Lord Empey, on this issue of parking charges. In Belfast City Airport, which I use every week, there is a £4 charge to drop someone off, but if you are longer than 10 minutes, it rises to more than £20. The alternative is to use the short-stay car park.
I would just like to tell noble Lords what I paid for five visits over 14 days in June: for eight minutes, I paid £12; for 12 minutes, I paid £6.50; for 20 minutes, I paid £7; for 12 minutes, I paid £8; and for 13 minutes, I paid £8. So I wrote to the airport to ask how I was supposed to know what I would have to pay. I had already checked the website, which tells you that it costs £4 to drop someone off, but it does not tell you that you need to do so within 10 minutes. I got an email back from the airport, which said something really quite strange:
“we have introduced flexible drive-up rates in our Short Stay Car Park, meaning prices may vary depending on peak times and availability. These prices are displayed on the boards … Our three on-site car parks provide flexible options”.
I cannot understand what is meant by “flexible drive-up rates” and “prices may vary depending on peak times and availability”. The amount that we are being charged seems to be a figure that is pulled out of a hat.
I do not think that that is satisfactory, and there is a need for regulation on this. Customers coming into the airport—particularly the elderly and the disabled—have a difficulty in managing to get out quickly. Another aspect is that people who have to wait for baggage depend on the availability of baggage handlers to put their baggage on to the carousel in order to allow them to get out to the pick-up point where someone is picking them up. Sometimes you can wait for 10 or 15 minutes, and then you are into big-money charges.
Baroness Hoey (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I add my support to all those who have spoken to the amendments. If we pass one of these amendments, it will send a message and signal that what airports are doing is not right—and it will get worse unless we show that, while we understand that they need to raise money, they should not be able simply to add to the amounts charged.
At many airports now, because people know that they need to get in and out within 10 minutes if they are picking someone up, they wait on the roads outside. At Belfast International Airport, in the evening, the road is absolutely packed with cars parked right along, because, if they go in too soon or if the passenger waiting for luggage is a little late, the money goes up and up. It is just not acceptable. I hope that the Government will accept what are very reasonable amendments from both noble Lords.
Baroness Grender (LD)
My Lords, airport drop-off charges are a constant source of frustration to the travelling public. Although neither amendment is in my name, these Benches will support whichever amendment is taken forward.
These measures are a common-sense attempt to bring transparency to what often feels like a stealth tax at the terminal door. So far on Report, we have not talked about how people are often captured the minute they enter the door of an airport. This is not a choice; people are captured and are given these charges. They cannot instantly withdraw their custom and go to a different airport, because they are pretty much locked in both to the airline and to the airport that they have gone for. They cannot shop around, because all of them are doing it.
It seems to us that it is right to support the amendment. For too long, the rules of the game around these levies have been opaque. It feels similar to the bundling and poor practice that we have seen in ticketing, and it is only right that we shine a light on it. I see it as quite useful that we should at least look at this and try to create a bit more transparency.
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
I thank the noble Lords, Lord Moylan and Lord Empey, for re-tabling their amendments on airport drop-off charges. I will address them together.
I understand the concerns behind these amendments. Passengers should have clear, accessible information about travel options to and from airports, including drop-off, short-stay parking and free alternatives. The Government expect airports to act transparently and fairly, and reinforces this through regular engagement with the sector. However, these amendments are neither necessary nor proportionate. Most UK airports are privately owned and responsible for managing their roads and parking. Their arrangements are already subject to consumer protection law, competition law and industry standards, with enforcement and redress where practices are misleading, unfair or non-compliant. There are also established mechanisms to review airport drop-off charges where concerns arise.
The CAA has already examined airport surface access, including competition, consumer issues and the transparency of information on options and charges, and found insufficient evidence to justify a competition or consumer law investigation. Private parking operators are expected to comply with the sector’s code of practice, including requirements on clear signage, accessibility, penalty charge notices and appeals. The Government will continue to expect airports and operators to provide clear, accurate and accessible information before passengers travel. I say to the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, that if the information at Belfast City Airport is as unclear as she describes, she has a valid complaint.
Drop-off and parking charges support airports’ wider commercial and operational management. They can reduce congestion, improve traffic flow, support surface access strategies and fund passenger facilities, including cleaner transport options. Restricting them in primary legislation risks shifting other costs to passengers and undermining airports’ ability to manage congestion effectively. Almost all airports that charge for terminal drop-off provide free alternatives, such as shuttles. Airports should ensure that these options are clearly communicated in advance so that passengers can make informed choices. For those reasons, while I understand the noble Lords’ concerns, I ask them not to press their amendments.
Lord Empey (UUP)
Before the Minister sits down, he used the phrase competition, but is it not the case that, in the vast majority of cases, we are talking about monopolies? There is nobody to compete with because you have no choice. If you want to go to Heathrow, yes you have Gatwick as an alternative but it is miles away. There is really no competition here.
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
I am referring to choices in the method of access to the airports, rather than the choice of airport itself.
Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, I thought that was a deeply unsatisfactory answer that failed to address the amendment. The Minister said there was no case for restricting these charges in primary legislation. Who has proposed that? Nobody has proposed that. The noble Lord, Lord Empey, and I have asked for a survey, an examination or a report to be done on the effect of these drop-off charges. There is no proposal to restrict them. That was a deeply unsatisfactory answer, so I fear I will insist on testing the opinion of the House on my Amendment 33.
Lord Empey
“Responsibility for air quality standards on planes (1) Within 12 months of the day on which this Act is passed, the Secretary of State must conduct a review to establish responsibility for standards of air quality on civil aviation planes.(2) The review must—(a) make suggestions for which organisation should be responsible for standards of air quality on civil aviation planes, and(b) provide guidance for implementing a strategy for the establishment of standards of air quality on civil aviation planes.”
Lord Empey (UUP)
My Lords, we discussed this in Committee. It affects all of us who use aircraft on a regular basis—and, more importantly, those who fly and crew them, who live in a capsule with artificially filtered and pressurised air. Over the years, we have had examples of oil seals in engines leaking and vapour coming into the cabin, which has largely been down to either design faults or poor maintenance.
I have a close relative who works in the industry and spends his time in a cockpit. We know that, in that compressed environment, the air you breathe in can sometimes be contaminated with mineral oils, since the air is bled from the engines and pressurised, and in some cases heated, before being brought into the cabin. It is true that pilots quite frequently have a separate air supply from that of the passengers, but ultimately it all comes from the same fundamental source. The issue is contamination from these oils; they are there to help the engine, but this has the effect of breaking them down into their components, some of which can be toxic.
I am simply asking for the Secretary of State to
“conduct a review to establish responsibility for standards of air quality on civil aviation planes”.
We are now seeing longer journeys than ever, with people flying in an aircraft for 14, 15 or 16 hours. This issue is extremely important for those who earn a living in these environments and spend vast parts of their lives there. This is not a new phenomenon in industry; we have had it in mines, factories and all sorts of environments. In addition to being a location where passengers are carried, an aircraft is a location where people work. It therefore seems not unreasonable for us to pay significant and serious attention to this and ensure that we guarantee, as far as possible, the health and safety of the people who work in the industry and the rest of us who use it.
This amendment is not an unreasonable thing to ask for; it would not impose any huge burden on the Secretary of State, other than to review. We also need clear lines of responsibility. I hope the Minister can address this, because this amendment is not just about requiring a review of the health implications of long-term exposure to pressurised air. If we want to encourage people to join and use the sector, then they must be satisfied by the health and safety standards.
In proposed new subsection (2)(b), I have asked for the review to
“provide guidance for implementing a strategy for the establishment of standards of air quality on civil aviation planes”.
I think the Minister will find that that is not a burden on his department; it is a perfectly sensible and reasonable thing to do. Aircraft are places where we all spend a lot of time—some of us spend more time in them than others. If you work in one for your career, whether as a pilot or a member of the cabin crew, you are spending most of your working life in that environment, so it is not unreasonable for this to be reviewed and examined by the Secretary of State and that any necessary steps are taken. I beg to move.
Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)
My Lords, I remind the House that I am president of the CO Research Trust. Cabin air quality is a critical issue. I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Empey for the way he introduced this group, and for co-signing my amendment.
My Amendment 37 would create a statutory duty on air operators to install continuous active monitoring for carbon monoxide and volatile organic compounds in the cockpit and passenger cabins, and provide an immediate alert to the crew and direct data reporting to the Civil Aviation Authority. I thank the Minister for meeting me last week and for the very constructive and open discussion we had. I hope he can confirm that the Civil Aviation Authority has the powers to act on cabin air quality and is willing to meet to see how we can best ensure this aspect of passenger and crew safety, as we would then not need to seek to put these powers in this primary legislation.
It has been interesting to go back over some air disaster reports, as the possibility of carbon monoxide and volatile compounds seems not to have been fully considered in some instances, along with questions over the possibility of fumes in the cockpit, even when pilot hyperventilation was noted. As we become increasingly aware of the dangers of low-level carbon monoxide exposure, particularly over prolonged periods, cabin air quality is critically important. I remind the House that HEPA filters deal with viral and similar particles in recycled cabin air but do not capture gases. In any case, carbon monoxide and volatile organic compounds enter the cabin’s air intake directly from the engine turbines—in other words, before the filters deal with recycled air.
In Grand Committee, the Minister referred to the committee on toxicity reporting that normal levels of chemicals found in cabin air are not likely to be harmful. But a fume event is not a normal occurrence, and we have to take a precautionary approach. It is a mechanical failure, for which carbon monoxide is an easily detected indicator of contaminated cabin air. Operators must report and investigate any suspected leaks, but the paradox is that an operator cannot report a suspected leak of carbon monoxide without any monitoring, as the gas is colourless and odourless, which explains why carbon monoxide exposures are undetected and unreported without monitoring.
Baroness Foster of Oxton (Con)
My Lords, I support the comments made by the noble Lord and the noble Baroness about the rigorous way that any airline in this industry monitors the air supply in their aircraft. But we need to give some context on this subject. A number of years ago, there were some instances with the BAe 146 aircraft type. This was well known in the industry, and there appeared to be health issues among pilots who flew on that aircraft for a period of time.
I am former crew, and spent 25 years on aircraft—some of them a lot older than the aircraft these days and less sophisticated, I suspect—but I am not dismissive of the fact that this subject has to be taken seriously, and neither is the aerospace sector. I worked closely with the aerospace sector: I was head of European affairs for the aerospace and defence industries for four years when I was in Brussels, and I had obviously been with British Airways for many years before that, and had dealt with all these issues as an MEP. I take it seriously. However, we must not worry passengers, predominantly, or make crew worried about going to work. The maintenance standards obligations for the airlines are sophisticated, and they have legal requirements to follow them. The timing for aircraft servicing is extremely rigorous and, if an airline was not doing that job, I assure you that it would not have certification for very long.
Although I agree and take on board that this is a serious issue, it needs to be considered in a proportionate way. People will be watching this on BBC Parliament or parliamentlive.tv—if they are not doing something that is more interesting fare—and we do not want to frighten the life out of people who are going on holiday or doing business. There is a gentle conversation to be had about this, notwithstanding the authorities’ responsibility to ensure that flying is safe and that the environment that the crew and cabin crew work in, and for passengers, is as safe as can be.
Baroness Brinton (LD)
My Lords, this group addresses the most profound structural shift in this Bill: the delegation of aviation rule-making to the Civil Aviation Authority. We are pleased to see that Amendment 62 now carries the Minister’s name, alongside that of the noble Lord, Lord Moylan. This is a vital victory for parliamentary scrutiny. The amendment mandates the affirmative procedure for regulations, specifying the limits of the CAA’s new rule-making powers, ensuring that this House retains its right to debate and approve the scope of what is delegated.
We similarly welcome government Amendment 58, which requires ministerial directions to the CAA to be laid before Parliament. For too long, the single guiding mind of the aviation sector has operated one step removed from democratic oversight. However, we must go further to prevent the creation of an all-powerful and potentially unaccountable regulator. We support the spirit of Amendment 57 from the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, which would remove the CAA veto over the Secretary of State’s statement of priorities. It is a constitutional nonsense to suggest that a Minister must secure the agreement of the body they are intended to oversee before setting their strategic objectives.
We support government Amendment 56, which correctly identifies that the Secretary of State must retain responsibilities for matters of public interest, including environmental protection and the needs of disabled passengers.
Regarding technical safety, we offer our strong support for Amendments 34 and 37, from the noble Lord, Lord Empey, and the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff. The monitoring of aircraft cabin air for carbon monoxide and other toxins is not a luxury; it is a fundamental safety requirement. If we are to grant the CAA more agile powers to update safety rules, those powers must be used to address the very real concerns of flight crew and passengers regarding air quality.
Similarly, Amendment 66, from the noble Lord, Lord Empey, regarding the enforcement of flight time limitations, is essential to ensure that operational efficiency never comes at the cost of pilot fatigue or of public safety.
Let us all ensure that, as we delegate these powers, we do not defang the regulator or emasculate Parliament. We must fill this skeletal Bill with the furniture of transparent reporting and mandatory safety reviews. I urge the House to support these measures to ensure that the UK remains a safety-led aviation hub that respects both the expertise of the regulator and the sovereignty of this House.
Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff, and the noble Lord, Lord Empey, raised important points that can only arouse the sympathy and interest of all Members of your Lordships’ House. Cabin air quality is crucial to safety. Without committing myself to the wording of either amendment, I do not think that this subject can be allowed to rest today. The Government will have to commit to come back to it in a credible and convincing way.
The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, is correct in saying that this group is largely about administrative matters related to Clause 8. Although we have tended to focus so far, quite properly, on the consumer protection parts of the Bill, in Clauses 1 and 2, we are now coming to that part of the Bill where the Civil Aviation Authority is authorised to make rules. These rules were previously made either by statutory instrument or by means of European Union legislation. The complaint from the Department for Transport is that it does not have enough time to do the statutory instruments and that it is all too much, so could we not, by statute, give the power to the Civil Aviation Authority to make these rules for it. I am not making that up. That is actually the complaint that has been made: that there are too many statutory instruments, so the department wants to give them to the unelected bureaucrats, regulators and so on—especially as it is not receiving new regulations from the European Union any more, which would be a different matter.
Many of the amendments in this group are about that administrative process and trying to reverse some of the original draft of the Bill, giving these powers without any accountability to the Civil Aviation Authority. I thank the Minister for his letter on this and for engaging in the concerns that were raised in Committee on this point. I also welcome the fact that the Government have tabled amendments to give effect to the recommendations of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee. In Committee we were clear that the Bill should set out the principles underlying the exceptions to delegated rule-making, and government Amendment 56 now seeks to do that.
Government Amendment 58 addresses an important scrutiny point by requiring directions for the CAA to be laid before Parliament. I am also grateful to the Minister for adding his name to my Amendment 62, which ensures that the Secretary of State’s power to define exceptions to the CAA’s rule-making powers is subject to the affirmative rather than the negative procedure.
I turn to Amendments 59 and 60. If the CAA is to make detailed aviation rules directly, industry must be able to find, understand and rely on the rules in force. The Bill says that the CAA may publish its rules. It really is not good enough to say that it may publish its rules; these amendments simply say that it must. It will not have to publish them in hard copy—they can be published on the internet—but even if the rulebook is very thick, which the noble Lord told us in Committee was the case, it must be possible to publish it and keep it up to date. Otherwise, how can anybody be sure that they are actually keeping the rules?
There is part of Clause 8 that really upsets me, and I am quite upset about it because I think it is a constitutional outrage. It was referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, and it is on page 12, where new Section 61F is being added to the existing legislation, the Civil Aviation Act 1982. It says, in relation to these new rule-making powers:
“The Secretary of State must issue a document that … sets out the Secretary of State’s priorities and objectives … and … deals with matters relating to the exercise of the functions”.
That is good; I am all in favour of it. The document, by the way, is going to contain guidance. It says quite clearly, in subsection (2), that it will contain guidance on consultation, for example, and
“guidance about how the CAA should interpret and apply the environmental principles”,
and so forth. I imagine that is statutory guidance. But it then goes on to say:
“The Secretary of State … may not issue the document without the agreement of the CAA to the contents of the document”.
I think this is absolutely unprecedented. In Committee, the Minister said it was a new way of working; it certainly is. He said it was more like a contract. I think this is very misleading.
It is perfectly possible for the department, or the Secretary of State, to enter into contractual-type arrangements with the Civil Aviation Authority. I have no objection if they do that. Contractual types of arrangements exist in various parts of public life. It might contain key performance indicators. It might contain all sorts of things; I am not going to attempt to enumerate them. It would say, “This is your task, this is what we expect from you, this is what you are going to do in exchange for the funding” and so on. That is a contract—I understand that—and it is not precluded by this. But overarching all that, there must be a power, always, for an accountable Minister to issue guidance to an arm’s-length body or executive agency, to issue binding statutory guidance, without having to seek its agreement to the contents of the guidance first. Otherwise, where does ministerial accountability come in?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
My Lords, I begin with Amendments 34 and 37, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Empey, and the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff. The department takes cabin air quality seriously. Commercial aircraft must already meet certification requirements for ventilation and cabin airflow, and operators must report and investigate suspected toxic cabin air incidents. The CAA’s medical experts review such incidents and can take action where necessary.
The committee on toxicity’s most recent review, in 2024, concluded that reported concentrations of chemical contamination in aircraft cabin air are unlikely to cause adverse health effects in air crew following either acute or long-term exposure. However, I understand the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff, and she made a strong case when we met. Nevertheless, if necessary, the Civil Aviation Authority could use the new powers in Clause 8 to make further regulations relating to cabin air quality. As discussed with the noble Baroness, I am happy to facilitate a meeting as soon as possible between noble Lords and the Civil Aviation Authority to discuss this matter and existing evidence. Depending on the outcome, I am prepared to meet them myself if that were needed. I hope that this reassures noble Lords and that the noble Lord, Lord Empey, will withdraw Amendment 34.
I turn to the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, which would require aviation safety regulations to be made by the Secretary of State rather than the Civil Aviation Authority. This would undermine a core purpose of the Bill and maintain the status quo. As drafted, the Bill will enable the Civil Aviation Authority to make aviation rules more quickly and more efficiently, reducing the current backlog, which has been an issue since we left the European Union and the European Union Aviation Safety Agency.
Previously, that agency’s regulatory changes became law via implementing regulations, and although the existing body of EU law was transcribed into UK law, any additional changes must be made by statutory instrument, which has caused the backlog. Any Government would have run into these problems without the reforms being brought forward in the Bill. It also preserves the Secretary of State’s power to make rules by statutory instrument and to intervene through backstop powers where appropriate.
I turn to amendments giving effect to the recommendations of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, which the Government have accepted in full. I am grateful to the committee for its scrutiny and recommendations, which have strengthened the Bill. I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, for tabling amendments to give effect to this. We support his Amendment 62—he got to that subject first—which would make the reserving power in new Section 61A(7) subject to the affirmative procedure. I hope noble Lords will support it, too.
Government Amendment 56 in my name gives effect to the committee’s recommendation to clarify the principles underlying the exceptions to delegated rule-making. This sets out these principles in the Bill. It would require the Secretary of State to consider matters such as national security, the wider public interest and passengers’ interests, including accessibility, when deciding what should remain reserved to the department. I hope that noble Lords will support this.
Amendment 57 from the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, would remove the requirement for the Civil Aviation Authority to agree the Secretary of State’s priorities and objectives. The Civil Aviation Authority is the UK’s independent aviation safety regulator, and I place real emphasis on that independence from government. As the CAA’s experts will deliver the rule-making programme, the CAA must be satisfied that it is deliverable. Requiring it to implement priorities with which it disagrees would undermine that independence. Where disagreement arises, the Secretary of State can still reserve matters and make regulations herself. I ask the noble Lord not to press the amendment.
Indeed, were there to be a disagreement, Amendment 58 in my name requires any directions issued by the Secretary of State to the CAA under Clause 8 to be laid before Parliament, as well as published. This responds to concerns raised in Grand Committee by the noble Lords, Lord Kirkhope of Harrogate and Lord Barber of Ainsdale, and it will support Parliament’s scrutiny of these powers. I trust that noble Lords will support it.
The noble Lord’s Amendments 59 and 60 would require the Civil Aviation Authority to republish the entire rulebook after every change, however minor. The Civil Aviation Authority already publishes its rulebook online and will keep it updated. Republishing the full, approximately 12,000-page, rulebook for minor changes would be disproportionate and costly. Instead, the Civil Aviation Authority will update individual rules as they change and publish consolidations where appropriate.
The noble Lord’s next amendment would remove the power to make consequential amendments relating to the CAA rules. As safety rule-making moves to the CAA, the Government need a mechanism to keep related legislation consistent with the new framework. This standard power will be used only to enable and facilitate the CAA’s rule-making function. Secondary legislation made under this power will be subject to normal parliamentary scrutiny, including the affirmative procedure where primary legislation is amended.
Finally, the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Empey, seeks a review of flight time limitations. The CAA already ensures that cabin crew and pilots comply with legal flight time limitations and has enforcement powers to support that role. The CAA is reviewing flight time limitations with stakeholders, so it would be premature to create new provisions before that work concludes. Flight time limitations are in DfT-owned secondary legislation and, if changes were needed, the CAA could propose amendments, or my department could act directly. I hope that this reassures the noble Lord that the matter is already under active review.
Baroness Foster of Oxton (Con)
Before the Minister sits down, on flight time limitations and who takes charge of this, the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, may remember that prior to 2012 when the flight time limitations were dealt with by the European Union, we came under what was called CAP 371, so the Civil Aviation Authority was always responsible for the flight time limitations for pilots and cabin crew. EU flight time limitations came through the European Parliament and those limitations then were enforced EU-wide. But we are now reverting. In my view, the CAA would take back control of flight time limitations under the normal civil aviation procedures.
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
I defer absolutely to the noble Baroness’s far superior knowledge. I think what she is referring to is the review that is currently being undertaken.
Lord Empey (UUP)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for the offer of a meeting with the CAA. I see from her head, which is about to nod off her shoulders, that the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, agrees that this is a good idea, so I thank the Minister for that. It is a helpful contribution.
To the noble Baroness, Lady Foster of Oxton, I say that I would not wish at any point to frighten people away from aircraft. I feel I almost live in one as it is, and we all use them. However, we must remember that, as well as being a conveyance for passengers, an aircraft a workplace, which is the big difference. We have learned all about minute contamination. If we look back at the regulations that were enforced on what was supposed to come out of the nuclear power plant in the north-west of England and the levels of contamination that was allowed initially, which people said did no harm to anybody, we see that that is now down to about a thousandth of that. These things evolve with time, knowledge and so on. Nevertheless, the Minister has made a fair and reasonable offer and that is most helpful. Therefore, I beg leave to withdraw Amendment 34.
Baroness Grender
“(aa) after subsection (6) insert—“(6A) Where the Secretary of State makes a direction under this section, the Secretary of State must first—(a) consult persons likely to be affected by the direction including communities in the vicinity of any airport or airspace affected,(b) undertake an environmental impact assessment in respect of the proposed direction, and(c) undertake a noise impact assessment in respect of the proposed direction.”;”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would require the Secretary of State to consult affected communities and complete environmental and noise impact assessments before making a direction under section 2 of the Air Traffic Management and Unmanned Aircraft Act 2021. It seeks to ensure that the exercise of the direction-making power is subject to scrutiny and community engagement.
Baroness Grender (LD)
My Lords, Amendment 38 is designed to install necessary statutory guardrails around the new last resort direction powers introduced by Clause 4. We must be clear about the technical shift this clause represents: it amends the Air Traffic Management and Unmanned Aircraft Act 2021 to allow the Secretary of State to compel the implementation of airspace changes, rather than merely their development.
Although we on these oh-so crowded Benches acknowledge that our ground-based navigation systems are antiquated—in effect remaining unchanged since the 1950s—we cannot allow technical modernisation to bypass community consent. For residents and communities such as Richmond, where the Minister resides, these directions are far from operational tweaks; they are powerful levers over airport capacity. A redrawn flight path or a redistributed traffic flow can fundamentally alter the noise and environmental footprint for thousands of people living below.
My amendment would mandate three specific duties before a direction is made: a requirement to consult affected persons and communities, and the completion of full environmental and noise impact assessments. We have received reassurances from the Minister that the Bill is not intended as a vehicle for airport expansion, and we take those assurances in good faith, especially from this Minister. However, as I have argued throughout Committee, good faith is no substitute for legal guarantees. My heart breaks at the thought of it, but no Minister right now can guarantee that they will be in the same post by this time next week. There is also the continuing threat of the very blunt instrument known as the first past the post system, through which a Reform Government with hugely damaging notions on environment and climate issues could come into power. Without these mandatory assessments in the Bill, the public lack a formal mechanism to distinguish between a technical modernisation and a quiet, unscrutinised increase in capacity.
Operational reform must not become a backdoor for expansion at Heathrow or elsewhere that has not been presented to Parliament as a discrete and clear policy choice. We have heard evidence that communities experience significant annoyance and sleep disturbance at lower noise levels than previously assumed. It is therefore essential that any exercise of ministerial power that has the practical effect of facilitating increased capacity is preceded by meaningful transparency. Airspace modernisation should be a resource for the entire nation, not a tool for industry margins. We must ensure that, as we redesign the skies—the principle of which we wholeheartedly support and recognise needs updating—we do not leave communities on the ground in the dark, for want of a better word. I beg to move.
Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)
My Lords, I will speak to my Amendment 39. We had a very interesting conversation about this issue in Committee, but I will repeat it a little bit. Essentially, aviation is dangerous. There is a phrase that people in flying training always come across, that if God had meant men—and women, of course—to fly, He would have given them wings. And He did not, so flying is an uphill battle.
It is perhaps more accurate to say that flying is potentially dangerous. A failure in aviation safety can become a catastrophe. Very few passenger aircraft take off with fewer than 100 people on board, so any crash kills 100 or more people all in one moment. Simply flying the aircraft, of course, is quite straightforward. But the challenge in aviation is flying the aircraft while taking account of all the other issues—principal among these is weather. Weather in England can occasionally change very dramatically. The other issue is failure.
The essential issue that binds all these things together to make the pilot’s job very difficult is that you cannot park. With virtually any other sort of transport, if something is going wrong, you can stop and sort it out. The key imperative of flying an aeroplane is to make sure you do not become a glider. That really weighs on your soul as it approaches. It is that inability to take the problem away. You have to fly the aeroplane while accepting a weather forecast, which is very marginal. You are then listening for what is going to happen, and you have to think about your fuel. It is about bringing those things together for when you have a failure—an engine failure, for instance.
Pilots are very difficult to describe, but they certainly do not have a brain the size of a planet—they are reasonably ordinary people. How do they cope with this difficult environment? Through procedures and training. I have never flown an aeroplane with an engine on fire. In particular, I have never flown an aeroplane where the engine was on fire just as we took off. But when I was a professional pilot, I had to prove that I could do that twice a year in a simulator. That was just as a mere co-pilot. Training and procedures are what have turned something intrinsically dangerous into something that everybody now assumes is routinely safe.
What we are facing with this airspace reorganisation is really dramatic. The total concept is not to have navigation aids on the ground. The total process is to use GPS to know precisely where the aeroplane is and how high it is. That gives you a whole new set of flexibilities, which are mutually beneficial. Of course, the CAA and the airlines are doing it to achieve greater capacity, through the aeroplanes getting closer together, because you can now pick routes that are closer together and know that the aircraft is going to follow them. It is really very exciting.
The key thing is: who will have to cope with this when it goes wrong? The pilots. They are the ones who are best equipped to do so—not solely them; lots of people are involved, particularly on the technical side and in proving the integrity of the stuff. But the pilots will be at the centre of anything going on. While my amendment does not say “pilots”—it says “safety-critical professionals”, because I am told that it what it has to say—the whole point is that, just as consultation for people on the ground is important, it is important to take on board this group of people during the development of this.
I am reasonably confident that I will not move my amendment because, as many others have said during the passage of the Bill, the Minister has kindly spent time with me and colleagues debating this. Although it could be voted on, I think that before we get to that, the Minister will have said enough to satisfy me, to satisfy the other people who are concerned and to satisfy professional bodies—particularly those for pilots, but I have no doubt that the air traffic controllers will also want, properly, to give their two pennyworth. I believe that his words will be sufficiently helpful that I will not be forced to move the amendment.
Baroness Bray of Coln (Con)
My Lords, I welcome this opportunity to stress the importance of establishing a meaningful consultation with those communities directly affected by the likely expansion of flight paths and airports as a result of the Bill. I hope the Minister will give us an assurance that this important issue is recognised by the Government and can outline what plans they are developing for a genuine process to achieve this.
The amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Grender, contains some important proposals, and I will add a brief comment specifically about the necessary quality and depth of the consultation process. It should not be a one-off procedure to take place after expansion plans have already largely been settled. Communities need to be engaged from the outset, when options are still genuinely open. To be clear, while the expansion of flight paths is perhaps the main concern, there is also the likelihood that more flight paths will lead to busier airports, attracting more traffic on surrounding roads and greater pressure on local transport and public services. This must also be part of the consultation process.
There will of course be occasions when, having weighed up all the competing considerations, the Government, or the relevant authority, decide that an expansion should proceed despite local objections. That is always a possibility. But those affected communities will still deserve a clear explanation of why their concerns were outweighed by other considerations. This is essential if public confidence in the process is to be maintained. I look forward to hearing what assurance the Minister can give us today.
Lord Grayling (Con)
My Lords, I will speak very briefly. I raised the issue of consultation in Committee. The Minister gave me a very helpful response, but he very clearly said that, in a case where the Government took a decision, that approach would already have been subject to detailed consultation. That was only one particular approach. In a situation where there could be three or four different options for an airport, what is his view on the Government’s job in explaining why they have chosen one of the different options available?
That is where we get down to the basic principle in the amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Grender: the Government cannot simply take a decision out of the blue without detailed explanation and without some degree of clarification to, and discussion with, the communities affected about why they have taken it out of maybe two or three options. I accept the Minister’s very helpful response to my comments in Committee, but can he now set out for us how the Government will approach a choice between numerous options? What approach will they take to consultation in that situation?
Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, some very important points have been made about consultation. I just want to be clear that I understand what points are being made. I believe these amendments are not about airport expansion. On airport expansion, I would say that, especially as it is subject to a process under planning law—namely, the development consent order—there will not be a shortage of consultation as a result of that development consultation order. Certainly, in the case of Heathrow, if it expands, the consultation will take place.
I think that the amendment that the noble Baroness, Lady Grender, put forward is not about expansion but about airspace modernisation. Although I would not want to commit myself to the wording of her amendment in particular, she has a point which the Government need to be quite clear about and they need to reckon what the difficulties are; that is, the reorganisation of flight paths will have winners and losers. It is not simply that flight paths might be moved from one corner, one area or one approach to another; part of the purpose of airspace modernisation is to concentrate flights, so there could be quite a lot of winners but some very bad losers as a result of this. The Government need to take people with them as they do this. There is a strong case for doing it, and we support modernisation, but the Government cannot leave their successor in a position where people have not been given a chance to be brought along.
My Amendment 39A in this group is about charges for air traffic and air navigation services in Clause 6. I drew attention in Committee to the sheer incoherence of the drafting of this clause. The Government have come forward with an amendment which improves it somewhat, but it slightly misses the point—it still leaves it saying something quite incoherent. I offer this only because I like to see properly drafted legislation. There is no politics in this; the Government should be doing their job properly in the first place. Clause 6(3)(c) says:
“Persons may be specified … if the services concerned are available for their use”—
note that phrase—
“or benefit, and it is immaterial whether or not the services are actually used or could be used by … them”.
I understand the part about it being immaterial whether they are used: “It is available for your use, but you did not use it; we’re still going to charge you”. That may be right or wrong, but that is what the law says. That is the situation. How can the services be available for their use, but they could not be used by them? You could still be charged for them even if they could not be used by you. How is that consistent with them being “available”? I do not understand it. I just think it is very poor drafting.
Anyway, I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say. I am glad he has corrected the other part of it that was incoherent; we are getting somewhere slowly. Maybe he will come forward with some sensible amendments at Third Reading so that the Bill makes sense in some key areas.
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
My Lords, the next group concerns airspace modernisation, consultation and charging. I begin by thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Grender, for retabling her amendment, and I have also heard the noble Lord, Lord Grayling, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bray, on this matter.
I have considered this carefully, but the Government’s position remains unchanged. The environmental assessment and consultation are, and will remain, fundamental parts of the airspace change process. Nothing in these powers removes or weakens existing requirements for thorough consultation or robust assessment of environmental and noise impacts.
Any procedure or policy the Civil Aviation Authority puts in place, or any decision it makes to change airspace, must be exercised in accordance with the duties set out under Section 70 of the Transport Act 2000. These require the Civil Aviation Authority to take account of the Secretary of State’s guidance on environmental objectives, as well as the interests of any person in relation to the use of airspace.
In practice, sponsors of an airspace change must undertake detailed assessments of potential impacts, including noise exposure and greenhouse gas emissions, and consult meaningfully the affected communities, airspace users and other relevant stakeholders. The CAA then scrutinises these assessments before any proposal can be approved. In response to the noble Lord, Lord Grayling, my understanding is that the CAA will bring forward only one proposal at a time.
Lord Moylan (Con)
Before the Minister sits down, he has again misconceived the point. It is not that you can be charged for something that you do not use. He says that this is a well-established principle. I have already said that it might be rough justice, but if it is what the law says then it is what the law says. What he has to explain is how something can be available—it has to be available before there can be any charge at all—yet be something which the person being charged could not use. What does he understand by “available” in that case, bearing in mind that, unless it is available, there is no charge at all, as that is the first condition?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
I think I have explained that to the noble Lord. I certainly feel that I have.
Baroness Grender (LD)
My Lords, I thank noble Lords for participating in this debate. I am sure that we are all keen to move on to the next group. The Minister has been very patient in our meetings and recognises that we will not let go of this issue lightly. We will keep on referencing what we see as this critical need. However, for the moment, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
Member's explanatory statement
This amendment would ensure that the amended section 75(7) of the Transport Act 2000 accurately reflects the intended operation of charging arrangements for air traffic and air navigation services.
Lord Kirkhope of Harrogate
“(4A) After section 80 (Secretary of State’s duties) insert—“80A Consideration of growth and sustainability of general aviation in relation to chargesIn exercising functions relating to charges for air traffic and air navigation services, the Secretary of State and the CAA must have regard to—(a) the desirability of promoting the growth and sustainability of general aviation, including its role in introducing individuals to aviation, supporting aviation skills development, and encouraging entry into commercial aviation careers, and(b) the desirability of ensuring that persons carrying out general aviation activities are not subject to charges which are disproportionate to the use made by such persons of air traffic and air navigation services.””Member's explanatory statement
This amendment seeks to ensure that decisions relating to charges for air traffic and air navigation services take account of the importance of general aviation to the sustainability of the wider aviation sector, including its contributions to aviation skills and future workforce development, and that such charges remain proportionate to use.
Lord Kirkhope of Harrogate (Con)
My Lords, we have come to the point in the evening where general aviation wants to put across its case. I will not declare all my interests in aviation, but I fly planes and am an honorary president of BALPA. I am very proud of that and of the fact that I have been flying planes now for over 40 years—with a licence. It is just as well to add that bit on.
Over those 40 years, I have seen how much more onerous the responsibilities and costs have been on those who have participated in general and business aviation in this country and elsewhere. Regulations have in many cases rightly been tightened to guarantee safety. However, the sheer cost of operating aircraft has increased dramatically, as have the costs incurred by those who have established training organisations around the country. The reason for my amendment tonight is clear.
I congratulate the Minister, as others presumably have been doing all evening, on being enormously receptive to the views of myself and others who have been promoting general aviation during this Bill. In my long experience here and in the other place, I can narrow down the number of Ministers who have been as receptive and helpful as he has been to a comparatively small number. He has been very helpful indeed. However, we must test him just that little bit further. Whatever he says in response to my amendment tonight, as the amendment sets out, it is a question of not just the words that we receive here in the deliberations on this Bill but of what happens next. Our wishes are not only that the Government should acknowledge the work being done in general aviation, its successes and its importance, but that the CAA also recognises that and is much more vocal and helpful than it has been in the past.
Many of the pilots who operate today in the commercial world are taught at training organisations on sometimes very small airfields around our country. The value of the contribution of that initial training to the airline business is therefore very difficult to estimate, but undoubtedly many of the people I know who fly commercially started out in training organisations in comparatively small fields around the country. In a way, my amendment is an attempt not only to get a greater acknowledgement on a permanent basis but to look at the economics.
The second part of my amendment asks that there should not be a disproportionate cost to general aviation in relation to air and navigation charges. My noble friend Lord Moylan has just touched on this point in his question to the Minister about the availability of and the charging for these services. My amendment specifically states that there should not be any impediment through
“charges which are disproportionate to the use made … of air traffic”
and navigational services by general aviation. That is quite clear: it is not just a question of availability, but of the actual use. We want to make sure that what has happened so far, which is reasonably satisfactory in that the charges are proportionate to the use, is continued and that there is no extra penalty put on GA and business aviation, to which we owe so much. I beg to move.
Lord Barber of Ainsdale (Lab)
My Lords, I will speak briefly to Amendment 69 in my name. I begin by declaring my interest as the current president of BALPA. This amendment proposes an annual report by the CAA on pilot licence holders. I am grateful for the chance to discuss the issues and the trends lying behind this proposal with my noble friend the Minister.
We know that there are significant numbers of commercial pilots approaching the mandatory retirement age of 65. We have ambitions for real growth in this sector, which could increase the demand for pilots. Yet there are real concerns about the difficulties of potential pilots accessing the necessary training, given the significantly high costs involved, so a careful monitoring of all these issues is justified. This amendment proposes one way of addressing these concerns about trends affecting the whole sector, but I know that the Minister has been thinking about these challenges and I look forward to hearing his thinking on the most appropriate way to respond.
Viscount Goschen (Con)
My Lords, very briefly, I support my noble friend Lord Kirkhope’s Amendment 41. I declare my own interest as the holder of a private pilot’s licence and as the owner and operator of a light aircraft.
I thought my noble friends, both on Report and earlier in Committee, set out very convincingly a compelling case for general aviation. General aviation really is the grass roots and lifeblood of aviation in any country. So much training is done here in the United Kingdom. It is incredibly important that the UK has a strong training sector. It is up against it in terms of cost and regulation to a degree, as well as weather, competition from courses offered in the United States, Europe and Spain, and so forth.
My noble friend is quite right to stress the importance of general aviation. It is not just training; it also encompasses business aviation, aeromedical services, light charter flying, utility operation, helicopters and so forth. It is a vital sector. It is important that we have a strong reservoir of skills, in both ab initio and commercial pilot training, on which the broader commercial aviation sector in this country can be based and which it can take benefit from.
Baroness Foster of Oxton (Con)
My Lords, I support my noble friends Lord Kirkhope and Lord Goschen. This is an extremely important sector. Most people do not know that worldwide GA is actually a larger sector than commercial aviation.
There is a huge amount of hostility to private jets. Very often, when aircraft, aeroplanes and rock stars flying around the world are discussed, people say, “Oh, gosh, they’re doing terrible things to the environment”. Actually, aviation is responsible for 3% of CO2 emissions worldwide and 4% in Europe. It is not dismissive about that. It is hugely important. Sometimes we, as politicians, should be thoughtful about that narrative when we are discussing this important issue because, as my noble friends said, GA is key to so many areas. I just wanted to add that point for information.
Lord Grayling (Con)
My Lords, I will be very brief. One thing that the Government could do for general aviation is to take steps to designate smaller airports that are for general aviation and are important to be retained for general aviation. I am very aware of the pressure to redevelop smaller airfields. There may be a case to support that for a small number of them, but the loss of those which are used extensively by general aviation will do significant damage to the aviation sector as a whole.
Baroness Grender (LD)
My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Barber, is aware, I tabled an amendment in Committee similar to his Amendment 69. However, even as I was speaking then, I recognised and understood that there was far greater expertise on this area in the Room. I have not been disappointed on that this evening.
We support Amendment 69 in principle. We cannot ensure safety in a workforce vacuum. As the BALPA briefing identifies, the sector faces a looming retirement cliff due to the mandatory retirement age of 65—House of Lords, please note. This amendment requires an authoritative annual assessment of future workforce requirements, enabling the industry to address supply issues, particularly for commercial pilots, well ahead of time. By requiring these reports on demographic trends, we would ensure that the move towards agile regulation was supported by a transparent understanding of the human capital required. This mirrors best practice elsewhere, as I think I mentioned in Committee—for instance, the Nursing and Midwifery Council has a similar operation—and it provides transparency to the House.
On Amendment 41, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Kirkhope, we must recognise that general aviation is the front door to the industry. It underpins pilot training and contributes £4 billion to our economy, yet smaller users are too often quietly squeezed out by disproportionate charges. This amendment provides a vital tramline to that. We welcome it and look forward to hearing the Minister’s response.
Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, any debate on aviation is enriched by a contribution from my noble friend Lord Kirkhope of Harrogate. I am grateful to him for what he said.
The House benefited too from the speech by the noble Lord, Lord Barber of Ainsdale. I have some slight concerns about his amendment. I appreciate that there may be a crisis in the supply of pilots, but I would be very anxious if the Government were to become involved in workforce planning in this sector. I understand entirely that his amendment does not quite call for that, but the last part of it points in the general direction that the CAA should be taking an active role in this, and that would be a very bad thing. Aviation is a very successful part of our private economy, and it should be for the industry itself to take responsibility for recruiting and training the people it needs in order to operate. That is the first principle.
However, the noble Lord does an important service in bringing to the House’s attention the cliff edge that is allegedly being faced. I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say.
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
My Lords, I begin with Amendment 41. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Kirkhope of Harrogate, for this and for his kind remarks. I also heard the noble Viscount, Lord Goschen, and other noble Lords clearly on this subject.
General aviation is an important part of the UK’s aviation industry, covering a wide range of public service, commercial and recreational activities. As the noble Lord remarked, it plays an important role in introducing people to aviation and helping to develop the skills pipeline for future aviation careers.
Clause 6 seeks to provide the CAA with greater flexibility as to who can be charged for air traffic services provided under a licence. This will ensure that, as the UK’s airspace evolves, the costs of providing those services can continue to be recovered fairly and proportionately, in line with the well-established “user pays” principle.
As the noble Lord will be aware, these costs are currently recovered primarily from commercial airlines, while general aviation is largely exempt. Any future changes would be subject to the CAA’s statutory consultation process, with affected parties retaining rights of appeal. The Civil Aviation Authority also has an obligation under the Transport Act 2000 to further the interests of operators and owners of aircraft, including in relation to the availability and cost of licensed air traffic services. This would and does naturally include considering impacts on the sustainability and growth of general aviation. Given those existing safeguards, the established charging process, and the fact that there are currently no plans to introduce new charges for general aviation users, I do not believe the amendment is necessary.
I turn to the amendment from my noble friend Lord Barber of Ainsdale, which would require the CAA to report on anonymised demographic trends among commercial pilot licence-holders. Demographic trends among skilled aviation personnel are a matter of interest to the industry, the Government and the Civil Aviation Authority.
The Civil Aviation Authority already collects demographic information on commercial pilots and other skilled personnel. This supports robust regulatory decision-making, enables the CAA to identify relevant trends and allows it to publish data on licence-holders where it considers that useful. Indeed, the CAA has published annual data on different categories of licensed pilots, including commercial pilots, broken down by age and sex, since 1994.
The proposed requirement to publish such statistics and analysis with a particular frequency could impose additional costs on the CAA. These would have to be met from the CAA’s scheme of charges and thus would be a burden on the aviation sector. For those reasons, I consider the amendment unnecessary and ask my noble friend not to press it.
More broadly, I reassure the noble Lord, as well as my noble friends Lord Barber of Ainsdale and Lord Tunnicliffe, of the importance that the Government place on maintaining a robust pipeline of flight crew, particularly pilots. The department is addressing workforce challenges through targeted programmes, such as Generation Aviation, and through evidence-based assessments of skills needs. The department will shortly commission a skills gap analysis across all aviation professions as a follow-up to analysis that was conducted in 2023. This will consider factors including retirements and sector growth, helping to identify emerging workforce pressures at an early stage.
In response to the noble Lord, Lord Grayling, the Government recognise and value the important role aerodromes play in their local communities. That is why the National Planning Policy Framework ensures that planning authorities consider their economic, leisure, training and emergency service roles when making planning decisions about them.
I thank noble Lords for their engagement on this matter and I trust that, as a result, they feel reassured. I ask the noble Lord to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Kirkhope of Harrogate (Con)
I feel that the matter that I brought through this amendment has been well aired. I am grateful for the contributions of my noble friends Lord Goschen, Lord Grayling and Lady Foster. I am particularly happy that my noble friend Lord Moylan, our spokesman, is satisfied with a very slight chastisement of me. I go away humble, of course, but not humiliated. I am delighted that the Minister has responded in the way he has. I am pleased that the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Barber, has been discussed, because it is also important in this group. As a result of that, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
Lord Grayling
“(a) for the allocation of slots at a new airport; (b) for the allocation of additional capacity created at an existing airport, or at a new airport, where the affected air carriers have failed to reach a voluntary commercial agreement within a reasonable period;(ba) securing the availability of such proportion of the additional capacity created at an existing airport, or at a new airport, as is reasonably necessary to maintain or improve regional air connectivity within the United Kingdom;”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment and two others in the name of Lord Grayling confine the Secretary of State's intervention in airport slot allocation to specified circumstances and permit intervention only where commercial agreement cannot be reached after reasonable efforts and preserves the commercial allocation of existing airport slots while allowing limited provision for regional connectivity from newly created capacity.
Lord Grayling (Con)
My Lords, I will speak to a number of amendments in this group that address the future of the slots regime. I had hoped and expected that, in the wake of the decision to leave the European Union, and as the Government now move to change the legislation on the slots regime, we would be taking a light-touch approach to this. Instead, I regard what the Government are doing as unduly onerous and micromanaging. As evidence, I simply refer to Clause 7(4):
“The regulations may make different provision for different purposes”.
That is not the kind of line in legislation that a Government who do not intend to micromanage the slots regime would ever need to introduce.
What I have sought to do in these amendments is, first, to set out specifically what I think the Government should be doing and where the lines should be drawn. Amendments 42 and 43 in particular focus on the key responsibilities: the allocation of slots at a new airport and the allocation of additional capacity created at an existing airport or at a new airport but only where the affected carriers have failed to reach a commercial agreement themselves. Secondly, since these are private businesses dealing with each other, I hope this is not something where the Government should need to have any involvement. It should be for the airport and the airlines to come up with a plan. Where that is not possible, I absolutely accept that there is a need for refereeing, but the first port of call should be to allow commercial businesses to reach an agreement themselves.
Baroness Foster of Oxton (Con)
My Lords, I support the comments made by my noble friend Lord Grayling. I reiterate, as we had a very good debate in Committee, that, when the slot regulations were going through the European Parliament, even the Commission at that time, which liked to be involved in all sorts of things, acknowledged that it would not be involved in decisions about slots.
Slots are key to the value of any airline company, and they are regulated by the independent airport slots co-ordinator. We do not want to have, and we do not support, political and other influences that might not work to the benefit of the carriers and, subsequently, the passengers. As I mentioned, I therefore support the comments of my noble friend Lord Grayling.
Lord Empey (UUP)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Grayling, for his amendments, some of which are entirely complementary to what I want to achieve. I have been battling on this for a long number of years. I fully understand the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Foster, about the value of an airline and how the slots are worth a lot of money—many millions of pounds, in many cases, depending on the time, and I can only see those values rising in the short term.
It is not that I would want the Minister to use hobnail boots to interfere with the slots regime, but there could be circumstances where—it is not impossible—given that we are in an international market and most of the airlines with slots at, say, Heathrow, are in effect international, the shareholdings of those could change. Let us suppose, for example, that a group such as IAG was purchased by a Middle East consortium; it might seek to maximise its profits from the use of the slots.
Let us take another example: regional airports. It is not a Northern Ireland issue. Let us suppose that that consortium decides, “We don’t need flights from Manchester to Heathrow; we could get rid of those”. Then the question would be: how would people get to the Cabinet? Would they have to take the bus? This is an extreme example, but the point is that a future shareholder could decide either to stop using a regional airport or to reduce the service to the point that it creates economic difficulties for a region. That requires a certain degree of interference by the state, because having inadequate regional connectivity is not simply a commercial matter. It is a matter that can affect regions. It can affect business. It could make regions less competitive, which has an impact on jobs and quality of life.
I got a Private Member’s Bill through this House twice, but we were then part of the European Union and the Minister said, “It’s a European competence; therefore, there is nothing I can do”, so that was that. But now we are in a different situation; we can do something. All I want the Minister to be able to say is that, in extremis, sufficient power exists—or that we will make sure that sufficient power exists—to ensure that the regions are not disadvantaged as a result of slots being removed from them and given to transatlantic or worldwide routes. This is not a difficult problem. Amendment 67 from the noble Lord, Lord Grayling, would give the Secretary of State a power to intervene, taking certain things into account. Therefore, I would have thought that it would be perfectly possible to have consensus on this, because nobody wants to see regions isolated or disadvantaged.
We have an opportunity now; it is within our own power. I accept entirely that we do not want to be messing around with the economics of a particular airline, but there could be circumstances in which the regions are put at risk. I hope the Minister will be able to satisfy me, the noble Lord, Lord Grayling, and others that this is not going to happen, and that he and the Secretary of State will have the powers to intervene if necessary.
Baroness Grender (LD)
My Lords, I turn first to Amendments 42 to 44. Although we understand the desire for commercial certainty, slot allocation is a strategic lever for regional connectivity, as described by the noble Lord, Lord Empey, and for national health. We strongly support his Amendment 46. Hub airports must provide adequate access for regional destinations. Regional routes must not be casualties of best-profit models.
On transparency, we support Amendments 47 and 48, which would mandate formal consultation and parliamentary statements before reforming the slot regime. As we have talked about in the past, Parliament and the public deserve to see evidence regarding impacts on competition and consumers before the rules of the game are fundamentally altered.
Procedurally, we support Amendments 52 and 53. All regulations under new Section 34A should be subject to the affirmative procedure, in our view. We welcome government Amendments 45 and 49, in particular, as referenced by the noble Lord, Lord Grayling, the removal of imprisonment for slot offences, which we see as a vital move toward proportionality. We welcome the Minister’s change on this.
Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, I have two amendments in this group, and I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Grender, for saying that she would support them. Both would change the making of regulations from the use of the negative procedure to the affirmative procedure. I shall not say anything more about them.
Both my noble friend Lord Grayling and the noble Lord, Lord Empey, have made very important points. I have great sympathy with my noble friend, who is trying to ensure that the Government interfere as little as possible with the allocation of slots. I equally understand, and I do not think there is a tension with, what the noble Lord, Lord Empey, says about the importance of maintaining regional connectivity. In fact, as I recall, not that long ago the Minister was the tsar of regional connectivity and wrote a very important report about it for the Government, so I look forward to hearing what he has to say, drawing on his experience and knowledge of the subject.
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
My Lords, I am grateful to noble Lords for these amendments and for the thoughtful debate we have had on the slots regime. I will deal with the amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Grayling, before turning to those from the noble Lords, Lord Empey and Lord Moylan.
The amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Grayling, seek to limit intervention on slot allocation to specified circumstances. I certainly understand the intention behind the amendments but we believe that they would unduly constrain the flexibility that the Bill is designed to provide. The airport slots regime operates in a complex and rapidly changing environment, and future circumstances cannot be anticipated. Limiting intervention to a prescribed set of scenarios could impede timely and effective action in the public interest, particularly in exceptional and unforeseen circumstances. The Government therefore consider it preferable to retain a sufficiently flexible regulation-making power, subject to the appropriate parliamentary scrutiny of any regulations made under it.
Amendment 47 would require statutory consultation before any regulations on slots are made. The Government recognise the importance of proper engagement before changes are made to the slots regime. I commit that, where new policy is developed under this power, there will be appropriate consultation, including with industry and, where relevant, communities. However, it would not be appropriate to place an inflexible statutory consultation requirement in the Bill. This power may need to be used in response to urgent disruption in the aviation sector, as we saw during the pandemic. In those circumstances, the Government must be able to act swiftly and proportionately.
Amendment 48 seeks to require consultation, transparency and regard to commercial allocation for the slots regime. The Government do not believe that this amendment is necessary. A core principle of the slot allocation regime is that slots are allocated by an independent co-ordinator. In the UK, this role is carried out by Airport Coordination Ltd. This principle is reflected in global guidelines, which require co-ordinators to act independently so that scarce airport capacity is allocated fairly, neutrally and without bias towards any airline, airport or government. That independence helps prevent conflicts of interest, protects new entrants and maintains confidence in a transparent global system.
Amendment 50 questions whether criminal offences are needed under the slot allocation regime. I do not believe that this amendment is necessary, as the Government have tabled an amendment to remove the power for any amended slots regime to include provision for new criminal offences. However, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Grayling, for prompting a debate on this matter.
I turn to Amendments 45 and 49, tabled in my name. These amendments provide greater clarity and place a clear limit on the regulation-making power. In particular, they remove any ability for future regulations to create new criminal offences. At the same time, they preserve the effective operation of the existing slot allocation regime and make it clear that, where the existing regulations are restated, any offence already contained in those regulations may also be restated. This strikes an appropriate balance. It avoids conferring an unnecessarily broad power to create new criminal offences, while ensuring that restatement of the current regime does not inadvertently remove or undermine existing enforcement mechanisms. The amendments therefore support legal certainty, maintain continuity in the regulation of airport slot allocation and respond proportionately to concerns about the scope of the delegated powers on slots. For these reasons, I hope the noble Lord, Lord Grayling, will not press his amendments, and that he and other noble Lords will support my amendments.
The amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Empey, seeks to require that
“adequate slots at hub airports are allocated to flights from regional airports in the United Kingdom”.
The Government recognise the importance of strong regional connectivity and are committed to ensuring that people and businesses across the country benefit from effective air links, including access to major hub airports. However, the slot allocation regime gives airlines rights to equivalent slots in future seasons where usage requirements are met. This amendment could therefore require the reallocation of slots currently held by incumbent operators, raising legal and practical concerns. Of course, the slot regime applies only where capacity is constrained.
Lord Empey (UUP)
Can I get some clarification on the Minister’s point about Amendment 46? Let us assume that, at this point in time, regional connectivity is adequate, which I believe it is. Therefore, I am not suggesting that existing slots be removed from an existing airline. What I am concerned about is this: if an airline decides to reallocate its slots for international flights, say, to the detriment of the regions, does the Secretary of State have any power to intervene to ensure that regional connectivity is maintained? I am not talking about new capacity or limiting capacity in existing slots. But, in the event that those slots might be reallocated to the detriment of a region, does the Secretary of State have any power to intervene, or are the Government merely a spectator?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
The answer to that is that the Secretary of State does not have any power to intervene because, as I said, the core principle of the slot allocation regime is that slots are allocated by an independent co-ordinator. There are suggestions from noble Lords opposite that in fact the Government should have less power here, so I am not sure that I see that the Secretary of State can easily intervene in something that is already allocated fairly neutrally and without bias towards any airline, airport or Government.
Lord Grayling (Con)
My Lords, I will pick up that latter point. The Minister has perhaps misunderstood my points. I set out the four areas where I felt the Government did have a role, and I said that the legislation goes much further than that. I cited the example of proposed new subsection (4), which appears to give the Government the power to do absolutely anything they want in this field. The issue is a Government who want to be able to control everything, and we are saying that there are only a certain number of things they should be involved in.
I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Empey, that regional connectivity is one example. I mentioned the easyJet situation to the Minister. A lot of the commentary has been around the value of that business being much higher by breaking it up, stripping out new plane orders and the rest. As we know, slots at Heathrow have huge value, and you could well imagine a situation where slots that were important within the United Kingdom were auctioned off for another purpose. So, yes, I believe in a more constrained slot regime, or more constrained government involvement in the slot regime, but I am not arguing and I have not argued that the Government should have no involvement in that regime. Regional connectivity is one area where the noble Lord, Lord Empey, has made some good and important points.
However, I can see that the Government are not going to concede on this point tonight. I simply ask the Minister to reflect further ahead of Third Reading, particularly on the regional connectivity point. In the interests of progress this evening, I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment 42.
Member’s explanatory statement
This would clarify that the power to restate the Airports Slot Allocation Regulations 2006 includes power to restate the offences created by the regulations.
Lord Empey
“(2A) The regulations must make provision to ensure adequate slots at hub airports are allocated to flights from regional airports in the United Kingdom.(2B) In subsection (2A)—“hub airport” means an airport used as a transfer point for passengers from one flight to another in order to complete a route;“adequate” means at such a level so as to maintain national air infrastructure and regional economic growth.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment obliges the Secretary of State to regulate so that sufficient access to slots at hub airports such as Heathrow is allocated to flights from regional UK destinations.
Member’s explanatory statement
This would remove the power for regulations under section 34A of the Airports Act 1986 to include provision for criminal offences.
Baroness Grender
“(4A) The Secretary of State may not make regulations under this section that would have the effect of facilitating airport expansion unless the Secretary of State has first—(a) consulted persons likely to be affected by the proposed expansion, including communities in the vicinity of the airport,(b) undertaken an environmental impact assessment of the proposed expansion, and(c) undertaken a noise impact assessment of the proposed expansion.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would prevent the Secretary of State from making regulations that facilitate airport expansion unless they have first consulted affected communities, completed an environmental impact assessment, and completed a noise impact assessment. It ensures that proper scrutiny and community engagement take place before any expansion can be progressed through secondary legislation.
Baroness Grender (LD)
My Lords, we are on the home stretch, and Amendments 51 and 63 are in my name. Throughout these proceedings, the Minister has offered various reassurances from the Dispatch Box that the Bill is not intended to be a vehicle for airport expansion, either directly or indirectly. We take those words in good faith, particularly from him, but, as I have argued previously, faith is rarely the same as an absolute guarantee. For the communities who live daily with the noise and emissions of a flight path, verbal comfort is an insufficient shield against the vast, unscrutinised delegated powers contained in this legislation.
Amendment 51 addresses the technical reality of Clause 7 regarding airport slots. While the Government maintain that slot co-ordination itself cannot increase capacity, it is undeniable that slots are the strategic levers that manage how expanded capacity is utilised. If the Government proceed with their publicly stated ambition for a third runway at Heathrow by 2035, the regulatory framework we build today will be the one that governs those new movements. We cannot allow the rules of the game for slot allocation to be rewritten by secondary legislation without a statutory requirement for community consultation and mandatory environmental and noise impact assessments. The Minister points to the forthcoming review of the airports national policy statement—ANPS—as the proper venue for such scrutiny, but scrutiny of a statement is a far cry from a legal duty in the Bill. Without these safeguards, a future Minister could quietly facilitate expansion through the back door of delegated slot regulations without ever returning to this House for a discrete policy debate.
Amendment 63 provides the ultimate safety catch. It specifies:
“No power in this Act may be used for the purposes of, or in connection with, the facilitation of airport expansion”.
This is a necessary boundary, because the Bill’s reach is so broad, touching everything from airspace redesign to the CAA’s new rule-making functions. If expansion is truly not the intent of the Bill, the Government should have no hesitation in accepting this new clause that makes the limitation explicit and enforceable. Indeed, it should be welcomed as a useful and helpful contribution.
The residents overflown deserve the certainty that can come only from primary statute. We must ensure that the redesign of our skies and the reform of our airports are anchored in democratic consent and environmental transparency, not left to the administrative discretion of an unelected regulator or the temporary reassurances of a Minister. I therefore look forward to hearing the Minister’s response to these two amendments and I beg to move Amendment 51.
Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, the noble Baroness makes some important points, and I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say in reply.
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Grender and Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, for their amendments on airport expansion. I addressed the relationship between the Bill and airport expansion in Grand Committee. Having considered the arguments put forward then, the Government’s position remains unchanged.
This Bill is concerned with aviation consumer protection and the aviation regulatory framework; it is not a Bill about airport expansion. The measures in the Bill are needed regardless of whether any airport expansion proposal comes forward and regardless of the outcome of any such proposal. The Government are supportive of airport expansion where it can deliver economic and connectivity benefits and meet the relevant environmental and planning requirements. However, decisions on airport expansion are taken through separate planning processes, not through this Bill.
Indeed, during Committee, the Government published the draft Heathrow expansion national policy statement for consultation. This underlines the fact that airport expansion proposals are considered through dedicated planning processes, with their own consultation, scrutiny and parliamentary oversight. The Bill does not alter those processes or predetermine their outcome.
The Government are concerned about the practical effect of Amendment 63. Its scope is not limited to Heathrow or to any specific airport expansion proposal. By preventing powers being used “in connection with” the facilitation of expansion, it could create uncertainty around routine regulatory functions that are not themselves about approving airport expansion. For example, slots regulation does not create airport capacity; it manages capacity once it has been approved through the planning process. However, the amendment could potentially call into question the use of such powers where they relate to approved airport expansion.
Regarding the consultation requirements on slots regulations put forward in Amendment 51, the Government are committed to meaningful community consultation and robust environmental and noise assessment before any airport expansion proceeds. These requirements are already addressed through the statutory planning process.
As I have said, slot regulations do not determine whether airport expansion takes place. The Bill simply ensures that, where necessary, slot regulations can be updated to make effective use of new capacity at co-ordinated airports. The amendment would therefore add little, as consultation and assessment on airport expansion already take place through the planning system before slot allocation becomes relevant. I therefore ask the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment.
Baroness Grender (LD)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his infinite patience on this issue and for being accessible at all times for discussions on it. I wish to associate myself with all the other comments that we have heard this evening, and I thank the Minister for some of the movement that we have had, particularly in other areas and in earlier parts of the debate. My reason for saying this now is that I do not intend to speak on the next couple of groups, so this is an opportunity for me to say thank you to the Minister and his officials for having been so accessible throughout the process.
I understand the Minister’s objections to this. It will not astonish him to hear that, as with Amendment 46, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Empey, it is possible that we will return to this. I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
“61EA Considerations for exercise of power under section 61A(7)(1) When considering whether and how to exercise the power to make regulations under section 61A(7) the Secretary of State must, in particular, consider whether the Secretary of State should retain responsibility for the following—(a) anything that would significantly affect the public interest, including in particular the public interest in protecting national security, promoting economic growth, protecting the environment and ensuring the efficient operation of the civil air transport industry of the United Kingdom;(b) anything that would involve matters of public policy, or legal issues, of general importance;(c) anything that would involve the imposition of requirements on the CAA in relation to the exercise of its functions;(d) anything that would involve the imposition of significant and unexpected financial burdens on any person;(e) anything that would directly affect the interests of passengers using air transport services, in particular where the passengers whose interests would be affected are or include disabled persons or persons with reduced mobility; (f) anything that would involve changes to other legislation that cannot be made by regulations under section 61J.(2) In this section “disabled persons” means persons with a disability within the meaning given by section 6 of the Equality Act 2010.”Member's explanatory statement
This amendment would set out matters to consider when making regulations under section 61A(7) of the Civil Aviation Act 1982, addressing a concern raised by the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee in their report on the Bill.
Member's explanatory statement
This amendment would require directions under section 61G, and variations or revocations of them, to be laid before Parliament as well as being published.
Lord Moylan
Member's explanatory statement
This amendment changes the power in section 61A(7) of the Civil Aviation Act 1982 to an affirmative procedure, in the light of the recommendations from the DPPRC.
Lord Young of Cookham
“Compensation reimbursement scheme for airlinesAfter section 9 of the Transport Act 2000 (power to exclude services from effect of section 8) insert—“9A Reimbursement of passenger compensation payments(1) A licence holder must establish and maintain a scheme for the reimbursement of the costs incurred by airlines in paying compensation to passengers in consequence of a qualifying disruption.(2) For the purposes of this section, a “qualifying disruption” means a cancellation caused by the fault or failure of the licence holder.””
Lord Young of Cookham (Con)
My Lords, I will be brief. I am grateful to all those who supported Amendment 65 several hours ago. I am grateful to the Minister for replying and I recognise that his hands were tied. My noble friend Lord Moylan said that the Minister played his trump card by quoting my noble friend Lord Harper, a former Secretary of State, in his defence. I do not know if you can overtrump three times, but three former Secretaries of State took a different view from my noble friend Lord Harper so I would argue that was indeed overtrumped.
The Minister produced three arguments in defence. First, he said safety was pre-eminent and that was why NATS should not be fined. Safety is pre-eminent. It is pre-eminent for the National Health Service, rail, water and power—all those utilities are subject to penalties if they underperform, so there is no conceivable reason for exempting NATS from the same regime. Secondly, the Minister said that any fines on NATS would result in higher charges for the airlines. I could not have been clearer in my speech that any fines should come out of NATS’ profits and not be added to the base for charging for the airlines. The biggest fine it could have had so far was £63 million and its profits for the last two years were £200 million.
Thirdly, the Minister said that my amendment was not appropriate. The Liberal Democrats indicated that they were going to listen to the Minister before deciding what to do. I hope they share my disappointment at the Minister’s reply and that such Lib Dems who may be still in the House will support my amendment. I beg leave to test the opinion of the House.
The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Morris of Bolton) (Con)
My Lords, the next amendment is long but it has been circulated. Normally, everything is read out for a manuscript amendment but, with the leave of the House, if it is moved, it will not be read out in full.
Amendment 69A
Lord Berkeley
“Report: access to the EGNOSWithin three months of the day on which this Act is passed, the Secretary of State must publish a report setting out— (a) plans to improve regulatory capability for Instrument Flight Procedures including UK access to the European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service (EGNOS), and(b) a timeline for switching on the EGNOS in the UK by the end of 2026.”
Lord Berkeley (Lab)
My Lords, I apologise for this manuscript amendment; something went wrong with the Public Bill Office. I shall be very brief at this time of night. I just want to emphasise that we have been talking about general aviation for much of the day. There have been some really useful comments from the noble Lord, Lord Kirkhope, my noble friend Lord Barber and the noble Viscount, Lord Goschen, and some good answers from the Minister, for which I am very grateful. However, general aviation still needs one thing that has not been mentioned so far: the global navigation satellite system, which enables people to train and do whatever they need to do in places of bad visibility.
My reason for tabling this amendment was that I received, at the end of last week, an interesting paper from the Royal Aeronautical Society called GNSS Services Supporting Civil Aviation in the UK. It is eight pages long—noble Lords will be glad that I am not going to read it all out. It gives the history of the GNSS from when we left Europe, and therefore left EGNOS, to where we are now.
Basically, it says that since then the Cabinet Office and a lot of other departments have been looking at alternative systems to EGNOS, one of which was Inmarsat, which I have visited. The House of Commons Select Committee took evidence on the UK space strategy and UK satellite infrastructure. It said:
“We urge the government to publish a National PNT Strategy and set out what ground and space-based components will be used”.
Nothing much seems to have happened, and the conclusion of this paper is that we have lost 15 years’ development by not going ahead with EGNOS.
EGNOS is still there. I am told that it can be reinstated very cheaply—somewhere between £30 million and £40 million—whereas the alternative, according to this paper, could be somewhere between seven and 10 years away. We really need this for training pilots and other people involved in navigating when the visibility is bad. It is not just for people having joy rides; it is for business, passengers and training, so why not do it? That is why I put this amendment down, in the unlikely hope that my noble friend the Minister will say yes. I hope it gives food for thought and I shall send him this paper so that he can study it in more detail. I beg to move.
Baroness Foster of Oxton (Con)
My Lords, I support this amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, co-signed by the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Gower. We have had discussions on this over the last couple of years.
When I was a member of the European Parliament, I was a rapporteur on GNSS—global navigation satellite systems. That was key when we were looking at how we were covering airspace and airports, et cetera. Switching off EGNOS when we left the European Union affected somewhere in the region of 27 airfields around the United Kingdom, including areas such as the Highlands and Islands, and the Scilly Isles, not just where fixed-wing aircraft go but where helicopters fly in. Therefore, it has reduced the landing limits—for landing and take-off—and the operational aspect, not just for passengers but when they are taking in goods or freight. It is an extremely important issue.
Under the last Government and this one, we have not got very far on this. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, that we need to seriously look at this and reintroduce something like EGNOS, because it is important for the United Kingdom. To have done this and then just left it has not been helpful at all. I certainly support what the noble Lord said and I hope that the Minister will seriously look at this again, because we need to reinstate this system.
Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, I have listened carefully to the debate. We do not support the amendment.
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
I thank my noble friend Lord Berkeley and the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Gower, for this amendment. The Government are actively reviewing the case for access to the European geostationary navigation overlay service, or EGNOS. This includes engagement with organisations that have been affected by the loss of the service, as well as those who could benefit from it in the future. I noted in Committee the importance of the service to connectivity; for example, for outlying islands and throughout all seasons of the year.
The output of the current work is expected later this year, but any move to rejoin EGNOS would in any case require agreement with the European Union. It would not be appropriate to pre-empt that review by accepting this amendment. For these reasons, I am unable to accept it. I hope that my noble friend will withdraw it.
Lord Berkeley (Lab)
My Lords, I am very grateful for that short debate and for my noble friend’s response. I did not expect anything else, but he will get a copy of this paper and I hope—indeed, I am sure—that he will be true to his word and follow it through and that we will have one or two more debates on it in the future.
Lord Moylan
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment deletes a Henry VIII Clause.
Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, very briefly, or perhaps at length, Amendment 70 would remove a Henry VIII power that allows the Government to rewrite primary legislation. It would do so on the grounds that the Government—or the department—have said in their memorandum to the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee that they have identified all the legislation that is affected by this Bill. Therefore, they do not need a Henry VIII power to make amendments to Bills that may yet appear, because they have already identified all the Bills. Indeed, I must say, they have not just identified them but made the corresponding adjustments to ensure that this Bill is in conformity with existing legislation, or that amendments are made to it through this process.
The power is entirely redundant. It is also offensive in general to your Lordships’ House that Henry VIII powers should exist. The Minister has been so good about accepting, at least in part, many of my suggestions in Committee and today on Report. However, it would be the cherry on the cake and would seal his reputation with all Benches in this House if just at this last minute, before we conclude, he were to rise to his feet and simply say that he accepts the amendment. I beg to move.
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
How disappointed the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, is going to be. Without Clause 10, any amendment to existing legislation which is consequential to this Bill, however minor or technical, would require further primary legislation. That would be an unnecessary and disproportionate use of parliamentary time and that of your Lordships’ House. This clause is needed to ensure that the statute book appropriately reflects the changes made by this Bill and to avoid any potential inconsistencies following the Bill’s enactment.
Powers of this nature are a well-established feature of legislation. They ensure that the statute book continues to operate coherently once Parliament has enacted new legislation. This clause is drafted no more broadly than is necessary. I reassure the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, that the clause is both necessary and appropriately limited. It cannot be used to make substantive policy changes or revisit decisions taken by Parliament in the Bill. Where it is used to amend or repeal primary legislation, regulations are subject to the affirmative procedure, ensuring scrutiny by both Houses. For those reasons, the Government remain satisfied that Clause 10 strikes the right balance between ensuring a functioning statute book and providing appropriate parliamentary oversight where primary legislation is affected. I therefore invite the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, you can always tell whether the Minister is speaking in his own voice or merely as a tool of departmental officials. I will leave it to noble Lords to decide which category that speech fell into. For the moment at least, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would provide for the consultation requirement, duty and principles relating to regulations under clause 1 to come into force on Royal Assent.
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would provide for the removal of the limit on damage to wheelchairs etc on non-international flights to come into force 2 months after Royal Assent.
Civil Aviation (Consumer Protection and Regulatory Reform) Bill [HL]
Monday 20th July 2026
(1 week, 5 days ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Civil Aviation (Consumer Protection and Regulatory Reform) Bill [HL] 2026-27 Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 40–I Marshalled list for Third Reading - (17 Jul 2026)
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill
That the Bill be now read a third time.
The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill) (Lab)
My Lords, I will now make a short statement on the position regarding legislative consent on the Bill. The Government accept that legislative consent from the Northern Ireland Assembly would be required for Clauses 1, 5 and 11. These clauses cover areas that aim to modernise air passenger rights, strengthen consumer protection enforcement and enable updates to airport slot allocation. The Government have written to the Northern Ireland Executive on this matter, and my expectation is that these issues will be fully addressed during the Bill’s passage in the other place. We remain committed to sustained engagement with the devolved Governments for the remainder of the Bill’s passage. I beg to move.
Schedule 1: Direct enforcement of consumer protection legislation by CAA
Amendment 1
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would remove provision that is unnecessary because the statement of policy prepared by the CMA under paragraph 16F of Schedule 5 to the Consumer Rights Act 2015 will apply to all direct enforcement authorities.
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
My Lords, the Government have brought forward a minor and technical amendment. Schedule 1 to the Bill currently amends Schedule 5 to the Consumer Rights Act 2015 to refer us to a statement of enforcement policy prepared by a direct enforcement authority. However, under paragraph 16F of Schedule 5, the statement will always be prepared by the Competition and Markets Authority and not a direct enforcement authority. The amendment therefore removes this provision to correct the drafting accordingly. I assure noble Lords that this is a very minor technical amendment that tidies the Bill without changing policy intent.
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
My Lords, I am pleased that we are reaching the departure gate for this Bill’s passage through your Lordships’ House.
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
I know—sorry. There is only one more like that. The Bill is focused on strengthening consumer rights and protections, reforming aviation regulation and enhancing aviation safety. Your Lordships’ contributions have ensured that the Bill leaves this place in a stronger shape. This is particularly true with regard to improving the experience of disabled people and those with reduced mobility while flying. I hope that in turn the Government have shown that we are willing to listen to and work with your Lordships.
Moving to thanks, I first give my gratitude to my noble friend Lord Katz, who supported me on the Front Bench. I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Moylan; throughout the Bill’s passage, he has consistently assured the House that he supports its objectives. Indeed, he was so supportive that he felt obliged to test, challenge and interrogate almost every mechanism for achieving them. His contributions have, however, been thoughtful and constructive, and I thank him for that.
I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Grender, and the noble Earl, Lord Russell, for the prudent and measured perspective they brought to our debates—particularly on consumer rights and the importance of ensuring that the Bill commands public confidence. Although we have not agreed on every point, their contributions have been consistently informed, probing and constructive. I am grateful for the spirit in which they have engaged with both me and my officials during our consideration of the Bill.
The noble Lords, Lord Holmes of Richmond and Lord Blencathra, the noble Baronesses, Lady Brinton and Lady Grey-Thompson, and my noble friend Lady Kennedy of Cradley all campaigned effectively to improve accessibility and highlight the importance of inclusive transport, for which I give my thanks. This has resulted in the Government tabling a package of amendments that I believe will really improve the experience of flying for those with disabilities or reduced mobility.
There have been other contributions. The noble Viscount, Lord Goschen, the noble Lords, Lord Harper, Lord Grayling, Lord Young of Cookham and Lord Empey, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Foster of Oxton and Lady Finlay of Llandaff, have provided wise words and, as ever, I am grateful for their contributions. I have enjoyed discussing the merits of general aviation with the noble Lords, Lord Kirkhope of Harrogate and Lord Davies of Gower, and my noble friends Lord Barber of Ainsdale and Lord Tunnicliffe, who raised issues of importance. Finally, I extend my personal thanks to all the officials who supported me, especially the Bill team, policy and legal colleagues, the drafting team, parliamentary counsel and others.
In conclusion, the Bill has completed its passage through your Lordships’ House. It now takes off for the other place, and I would expect any return journey to involve only limited turbulence. I beg to move.
Baroness Grender (LD)
My Lords, I am grateful for the opportunity to speak at Third Reading. I begin by thanking the Minister for the constructive way in which he and his officials have engaged with this House throughout its passage. I also record my gratitude to noble Lords across the House for the contributions they have made to the Bill at every stage. The scrutiny that this House has brought to bear, often from very different perspectives, has strengthened this legislation. I do not think that improvement would have happened without it.
I particularly welcome the Government’s agreement to bring forward a consultation on the experiences of disabled passengers—an addition to the Bill that I hope will make a real and lasting difference. For too long, disabled passengers have been left without the convenience or dignity that ought to be a basic expectation of air travel. I am glad that this House has secured a firm commitment embedded in the legislation to examine and address that failure properly.
I also welcome the corrective amendment the Minister has tabled for Third Reading, which addresses a technical deficiency identified by the Minister since Report. That kind of responsiveness does not always attend legislation of this kind, and it should be acknowledged.
I return to the principle that has guided my and my colleagues’ contributions throughout the passage of the Bill: that reform of aviation regulations should be directed first and foremost towards improving the passenger experience. The protections we have secured for disabled passengers and the standards the Bill now sets are what I will be watching for closely as it is implemented. Passengers do not experience aviation policy as clauses and statutes. They experience it as to whether they are treated with courtesy when a flight is delayed, whether they can travel with the support they need and whether the system as a whole is built around their interests rather than around convenience for everyone but them.
Too often in the past, passengers have been an afterthought in regulatory design. The Bill is an opportunity to correct that imbalance. I hope the Government will treat this not as the end of that work but as a foundation on which future improvements can and should be built. I close by expressing my thanks in particular to my Liberal Democrat Peer colleagues who have contributed to the Bill. My particular thanks, above all, go to Adam Bull in our Whips’ Office, for his diligence and unwavering support throughout its passage, for which I remain deeply grateful.
Lord Empey (UUP)
My Lords, I thought we were going to end on a positive note, but the departure gate gag has probably set us back quite a bit this afternoon.
I thank the Minister for his engagement and also thank the Bill team and the Public Bill Office. On Report, he indicated to me on the record that the Government did not have power to deal with the issue of slots. Subsequently, the Minister has indicated that he would like to clarify what he believes now is the position, and he promised he would put a letter in the Library of the House to confirm that. I thank him and all his team for their engagement. It was very nice to be dealing with a Minister who knows how to be a Minister.
Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)
My Lords, I also thank the Minister, in particular for the exemplary way he has engaged with those of us who are Back-Benchers and on the Cross Benches over specific issues, and how he has facilitated moving forwards. If I may inform him, I have managed to secure a meeting with the CAA tomorrow morning, thanks to his intervention. I know that those who are disabled are also greatly relieved to know the seriousness with which he took the appalling situations in which they have often found themselves when travelling. I hope that he will continue, not only in his role but also in the way he has behaved towards all of us, because that personal contact has made it very easy to have very open discussions.
Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, this was a pretty dreadful Bill when it was introduced to your Lordships’ House, in terms of its conception but also its drafting. It leaves it in somewhat better shape, which is very considerably due to the fact that the Minister paid attention in Committee to the many amendments and proposals that were made, and came forward on Report with an astonishingly large number of amendments to change the Bill—all of which, it is fair to say, noble Lords felt responded to their concerns, and which they were willing to support. I thank him for that.
Also, as was just referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff, a large part of Committee was taken up with discussions of the treatment of disabled people in the course of flying. Amendments brought forward by the Minister characteristically represent an improvement in the approach that government will take to those issues in the future, for which I thank him.
I also thank his officials for their engagement and the Public Bill Office for its support in drafting the amendments we put forward. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Grender, for her important contribution to the debate. I am sure I will have forgotten some, but I also thank my noble friends Lady Bray of Coln, Lord Grayling, Lady Foster of Oxton, Lord Harper, Lord Young of Cookham, Lord Reay, Lord Redwood, Lord Davies of Gower, Lord Holmes of Richmond, Lord Goschen and Lord Kirkhope of Harrogate for the experience and scrutiny they brought to our proceedings.
This is fundamentally an administrative Bill. As I say, it changes decision-making processes in the wake of our departure from the European Union. But we remain concerned that the Government have chosen to use the legislation to transfer not only those European Union powers but also powers that the Government themselves possessed to the Civil Aviation Authority, to be carried out in many cases—fewer now, as a result of the Minister’s amendments—with no external scrutiny, certainly no scrutiny from Parliament, that would indeed have occurred under the previous system. This is a retrograde step in terms of parliamentary scrutiny.
We are also concerned that the Government have said, quite explicitly, that they want to use their new freedoms in order to align more closely with the European Union. It is a very strange conception of Brexit that the Government seem to have developed. British aviation is a world-leading industry, and it succeeds because of innovation and competitiveness. It needs to have regulations made for it that are suitable for the success of British aviation.
There was also one amendment passed by your Lordships’ House on Report that did not have the Government’s favour. Naturally, one suspects, the Government will use the passage of the Bill through the other place to try to remove it, but I hope very much that they will not. I wish to thank the noble Lord, Lord Empey, in this regard. Although it was my amendment that passed, that was as a consequence of the numerical placement on the Marshalled List. He had an amendment achieving a similar effect, which related to the drop-off charges made at airports that have now become scandalously excessive. Families and other travellers are charged simply for trying to pick up or drop off somebody, very often with no feasible alternative for doing so. There may be a lack of public transport or it may be unsuitable for somebody to seek to travel to an airport other than by car, for example, because they are wheelchair-bound or have some other mobility impairment that prevents them travelling on ordinary public transport, even where it exists. The amendment that was passed calls on the Government to conduct a thorough review of airport drop-off charges. It is as simple as that; it requires nothing more legally. We will look at that at ping-pong—or perhaps we will never get to ping-pong because the Government will take the advice of your Lordships’ House and accept the amendment that was passed.
With that, I am sad to bring an end to my involvement with this Bill. I hope that it becomes a route—I will not make a silly pun—or path to better regulation of aviation. If it does, it will be very much because of the efforts of Members of your Lordships’ House.
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
My Lords, no more puns. I have two brief points. First, the noble Lord just referred to the new Clause 7; we will see what happens in the other place on that.
I am particularly pleased that the noble Lord, Lord Empey, spoke this afternoon. I am quite clear that what I said to him when he raised the point about the Secretary of State taking action to support regional connectivity was not in fact correct. I am very happy to correct the record on that and am pleased to confirm that the Bill’s powers on airport slots and schedules would enable the Secretary of State to take action to support regional connectivity if that were considered necessary. The Government’s current assessment is that such intervention is not required, but I am happy to put the record straight for the noble Lord. I thank all noble Lords.