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

Debate between Baroness Foster of Oxton and Baroness Grender

Report stage
Monday 13th July 2026 Lords Chamber

[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.

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

Debate between Baroness Foster of Oxton and Baroness Grender

Committee stage
Tuesday 16th June 2026 Grand Committee

[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.

--- Later in debate ---

[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.