Civil Aviation (Consumer Protection and Regulatory Reform) Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Bray of Coln and Lord Tunnicliffe

Report stage
Monday 13th July 2026 Lords Chamber

[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.