Civil Aviation Bill

Earl Cathcart Excerpts

Wednesday 13th June 2012 Lords Chamber

[Earl Cathcart]

My Lords, I am very glad to lend my support to almost all aspects of this important Bill. However, I have one reservation, which concerns an area that has been touched on already by noble Lords: the Bill does not contain any form of environmental duty for the CAA.

The Bill seems to have started life as a result of a 2006 recommendation from the Transport Committee in the other place, which called for a strategic review of the CAA. The Government of the day agreed to take forward that recommendation and appointed Sir Joseph Pilling to carry out that strategic review, as the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, said. The Pilling report, published in 2007, called for a new statutory framework for the CAA to make it clear that,

“the CAA’s responsibility is to safeguard the general public interest, which is broader than the aviation community”.

He recommended that the CAA should have,

“a general statutory duty in relation to the environment”,

describing this as a “notable gap” in the CAA’s statutory framework.

Unfortunately, the Bill, as presently drafted, still has this notable gap because it does not contain a general environmental duty for the CAA. This creates the risk that the CAA will, in future, focus almost exclusively on the interests of passengers and the aviation community, which on occasion may be at the expense of the general public interest and the environment. It is quite right that the interests of passengers should be the CAA’s primary focus but they should not be its only focus. A balance must be struck and the CAA needs a statutory framework that allows it flexibility to strike the right balance. This means a statutory framework that allows it to take account of the impact of airport operations on the environment and local communities.

Shortly after publication of the Pilling report, the Government appointed Professor Martin Cave to chair an expert panel to advise on how best to modernise the way in which the UK’s largest airports were economically regulated by the CAA. Significantly, it was Professor Cave who proposed that the CAA’s primary duty, in its role as economic regulator, should be towards the interests of passengers. Equally significantly, he also proposed a supplementary environmental duty for the CAA to,

“have regard to the effect on the environment and on local communities of activities connected with the provision of airport services”.

I know that my right honourable friend in the other place, the Secretary of State for Transport, has said that she does not consider it necessary for the CAA to have an environmental duty. However, it is significant that the two independent experts who studied this matter in detail both considered it right and necessary to give the CAA a statutory environmental duty. In addition, the Transport Committee in the other place registered its concern, saying:

“Without giving the CAA a supplementary duty on the environment in relation to its economic regulation role, there is some risk that airports may be reluctant to invest in improving environmental performance”.

If the only objection to including an environmental duty is that it is not necessary, presumably it would do no harm to include it and thereby give some comfort to those who are concerned about the risks of a single-minded focus on passenger interests at the expense of environmental and local community considerations. I am encouraged that my right honourable friend in the other place, the Secretary of State, has said that she is open to persuasion on this point. I very much hope that, in Committee, a consensual way can be found to place some form of statutory environmental duty on the CAA. If so, we will have a much improved Bill.