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

Baroness Finlay of Llandaff Excerpts

3rd reading
Monday 20th July 2026 Lords Chamber

[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.

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

Baroness Finlay of Llandaff Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 13th July 2026 Lords Chamber

[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.

Drink-Driving

Baroness Finlay of Llandaff Excerpts

Wednesday 1st July 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

The noble Lord is absolutely right: drug-driving is, as he said, on the increase. We are consulting on better detection of drug-driving, because it is a complex issue: there are many different sorts of drugs and not all the methods of testing will currently stand up in court. But he is absolutely right and we are on the case for this. We publicise the huge dangers of doing it, but we need to get through the operational and forensic challenges of detecting different sorts of drugs through alternative forensic testing procedures, including oral fluids, saliva and sweat.

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

My Lords, given that somebody with a blood level of 50 to 80 milligrams of alcohol has a six times greater chance of dying in a road accident and, on top of that, of killing other people, when will the Government finally implement a lowering of the limit? They are aiming to have an overall decrease in road deaths of 35%, and this would significantly contribute to it.

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

The first comprehensive road safety strategy for some time was published a few months ago, and part of the consultation is indeed to look at lowering the limits for drink-driving. All the statistics the noble Baroness quoted are of course correct. We need to do something about it, and one of the reasons for the publication of the road safety strategy was that the number of deaths and serious injuries on the road has plateaued and it should be going down.

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

Baroness Finlay of Llandaff Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 16th June 2026 Grand Committee

Obviously, you know that, if you are working in an aircraft, you are exposed to higher levels of radiation. That is inevitable, because you are further above the ground, and that is something that airlines are very conscious of. While there have been celebrated incidents where obvious ingress and fear of fire was experienced in an aircraft, the question is what exactly we are doing, what the regime is, how resilient that regime is and whether it really protects the passengers and the people who work in the airline industry. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

[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.

--- Later in debate ---

This is resolvable and it is not even in the top 100 complex issues in the Department for Transport. All the amendments in this group speak to that potential. Would it not be a phenomenal thing to finally put these principles into a Bill? The detail of the statutory regs, guidance and codes can then flow from that, but it is critical to have the principles in the Bill. That is the only way to have a guarantee for disabled people on the travel experience they not only will receive but have a right to receive. They will be able to have more than reasonable confidence that they will receive it. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

[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.

Drink-Drive Limit

Baroness Finlay of Llandaff Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd October 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

The noble Baroness makes a strong point. Drug-driving is as lethal as drink-driving. She will know that there has been some recent publicity about that particular method of drug-driving in London. I am confident that the police and enforcement authorities are working their way through that particular episode. The Government are looking carefully at all the methods of enforcement for driving under the influence of a variety of different drugs.

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

My Lords, do the Government recognise that young drivers in particular with any alcohol in their bloodstream at all are at greater risk of other dangerous behaviours, such as not using seatbelts and speeding, and that in their accidents it is very often young people or children who are killed or receive life-changing injuries? Therefore, we should have a message that if you are drinking, you do not have the car keys.

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

The noble Baroness is right. The primary audience of THINK!, the flagship road safety campaign, is young men aged 17 to 24. The campaign targets priority issues, such as drink-driving and speeding, as well as communicating key policy interventions. There is, of course, a form of restricting novice drivers through the Road Traffic (New Drivers) Act 1995. On acquiring their first full licence, a new driver is on probation for two years and subject to a limit of six penalty points.

Bus Services (No. 2) Bill [HL]

Baroness Finlay of Llandaff Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments and / or reasons
Monday 13th October 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I beg to move.

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Finlay of Llandaff) (CB)]

I should advise the House that if Motion 8A is agreed to then I will not be able to put the Question on Motion 8B on the grounds of pre-emption.

Motion 8A (as an amendment to the Motion on Amendment 8)

Moved by

Carbon Emissions: Bus Fleets

Baroness Finlay of Llandaff Excerpts

Tuesday 12th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

The noble Lord refers to a vehicle built in 1962 that has Euro 6 emission standards. I have not yet quite got to the stage of fitting one of those vehicles with batteries, but you never know. The serious point here is that these vehicles last an average of 15 years, so taking steps for most or all new vehicles in the fleet to be zero emission is obviously the way of converting the entire fleet within a reasonable time.

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

My Lords, as the diesel bus fleet gets older, the risk of leakage from the exhaust into the cabins of those buses goes up. Are the Government giving any guidance to bus companies that have old buses on carbon monoxide monitoring to protect their drivers and passengers from low-level carbon monoxide exposure, given the evidence of harm from that over time?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

The Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency inspects annually and on a random basis all types of bus and coach to make sure they comply with the correct standards. One of those standards is no leakage from the exhaust. I will take away the point that the noble Baroness raises about carbon monoxide monitoring to check that it is being considered across the country and write to her on it.

Disabled Air Passengers

Baroness Finlay of Llandaff Excerpts

Monday 4th December 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

With great respect to the noble Lord, I think this Government do take it seriously. The department certainly takes it seriously; I take it seriously. Within my ministerial role, I have responsibility for disabilities within the maritime sector, and I take that very seriously—and I know that my colleagues in the Department for Transport do.

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for pointing out that not all disabilities are visible. The use of the sunflower lanyard can be useful, but some people feel that it is stigmatising to wear such a lanyard. Is there a date fixed for a follow-up to that round table discussion? Has there been a request to airport authorities to report, at such a meeting, an audit they have undertaken of the different aspects of disability, which might also include access to toileting for people in some of the larger airports?

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

I thank the noble Baroness for that question. I am not aware of a date as I stand here, but I will inquire into it and write to the noble Baroness.

Health Protection (Coronavirus, Wearing of Face Coverings on Public Transport) (England) Regulations 2020

Baroness Finlay of Llandaff Excerpts

Wednesday 8th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB) [V]]

My Lords, mask wearing must accompany ongoing respect of social distance. Many people emerging from shielding depend on public transport to resume their lives—hence our campaign for a universal prompt symbol. As masks aim to decrease droplet spread, a public education programme is needed to raise understanding of hygiene and infection control, particularly in public areas and touching surfaces. Touching the face or fiddling with the mask is just as risky with gloves on. No-touch techniques and social distancing must be normalised long-term. Probable airborne infection of Covid-19 has implications for air-conditioned transport units, and UK manufacture of washable, recyclable, suitable masks must be stimulated. Is such infrastructure development in the wider national plan, as this will probably be needed long-term?

Covid-19: Public Transport

Baroness Finlay of Llandaff Excerpts

Tuesday 7th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton [V]]

I agree with my noble friend that we must diminish any perception of fear. It has never been the Government’s intention to scare people off public transport. We have encouraged them to avoid it and to use other methods because of the capacity limits that are in place with social distancing. I reassure my noble friend that people are returning to public transport. Demand is varying significantly by mode and location, which, as I am sure noble Lords will understand, presents its own challenges, because a one-size-fits-all solution cannot help in those circumstances.

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB) [V]]

As people who completely depend on public transport emerge from shielding themselves or others, their risk of infection increases as distancing lessens in public areas even with masks. Do the Government recognise the urgent need for a clear UK-wide symbol, such as the one NHS Wales endorsed, to prompt distancing? Will she meet me to take this forward, as this costs next to nothing and can save lives?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton [V]]

I would be very happy to receive further information about the scheme to which the noble Baroness is referring. I am not aware of it, but we are looking at all sorts of schemes to make it easier for people to travel on public transport. For example, those exempt from face coverings can get themselves an exemption card which can be very helpful to show people who might otherwise try to enforce their use.