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

Debate between Baroness Grender and Lord Moylan

Report stage
Monday 13th July 2026 Lords Chamber

[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.

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[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.

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

Debate between Baroness Grender and Lord Moylan

Committee stage
Tuesday 16th June 2026 Grand Committee

[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.

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[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.

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[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—