Air Traffic Management and Unmanned Aircraft Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Balfe and Baroness Randerson

Report stage & Report stage (Hansard) & Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 21st January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Balfe (Con)]

My Lords, I will not detain the House for long, but this is my application to join the pedants’ club, which was advertised somewhat earlier.

The amendment says

“insert ‘destroy the aircraft or’”.

The clause would then read:

“The constable may destroy the aircraft or require a person to ground the aircraft”.


I thought that this was a sort of “Derbyshire Constabulary amendment”, where they go chasing round after people—a constable cannot destroy an aircraft. What would we have? Would we have Derbyshire police with a popgun? I am afraid that it just will not work.

I can see what is meant but I can also see that we need to think this through a bit more thoroughly, particularly the attendant risks that might arise. The power conveyed in this Act could almost certainly be incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights. I speak as a long-standing alternate member of the Council of Europe, and, indeed, as someone who was for some time a chair of its committee on implementation of judgments of the court. Even if the wording were sound, I am not sure that the principle is. You would need a proper judicial process in order to destroy a drone, and you would not be able to do it as an either/or—we will either destroy the drone or make you land it and then we will talk to you. I suggest that the amendment is well meaning but, unfortunately, defective.

[Baroness Randerson (LD) [V]]

My Lords, destroying a drone or an unmanned aircraft is a vital mechanism, particularly for dealing with terrorism. The incident at Gatwick at the end of 2019 illustrated for us all that dealing with an intruder drone is a highly complex issue. I invite noble Lords to think back to that and to the discussions that took place in the media, and, much more importantly, behind the scenes, on exactly how to deal with a drone that was causing millions of pounds of economic damage. It was damaging the economy and causing huge individual damage to those unable to fly, yet people were paralysed into inactivity, not least because there was a lack of certainty about powers. There was also a lack of certainty about the ability to destroy the drone effectively and the safety of doing it. All those things were being taken into account.

However, there would be circumstances where destroying a drone would be the simple and clear answer to a threat. I welcome this as an interesting, probing amendment. Like the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, I shall listen carefully to the Minister.

Going back to the Gatwick situation, I remind noble Lords that days were spent deciding how to deal with that drone. To this day, we do not know who was flying it. Therefore, the situation was never satisfactorily resolved.

Air Passenger Rights and Air Travel Organisers’ Licensing (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2018

Debate between Lord Balfe and Baroness Randerson

Tuesday 12th February 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

I am sure the noble Lord has noted that the Government have conveniently—from their perspective—translated the euro rate of compensation into pounds using the current exchange rate. The noble Lord makes the good point that that could become distorted if, for example, we have the kind of significant change in exchange rates that the MP David Davies, for example, referred to last week.

[Lord Balfe]

I did not raise that point about the translation, but purely because my noble friend Lady McIntosh had already raised it. I was making the point about the change in regulation, which I am concerned about, not the change in internal things within it.

My second point is on the interpretation of regulation. When the European Court of Justice interprets a regulation, if we are following and providing the same rights, and the CJEU makes a judgment which interprets the regulation so that it is no longer in line, to what extent will we accept the judgment of the court? In other words, how real is this alignment when, not on day one but on, say, week six or month six down the line, things have started to diverge? Presumably we will not have an SI every week; what mechanism do the Government see being used to maintain the alignment between our regulation, which they say will follow the EU statute book—that is fine—and changes in the EU statute book? This question will come up, whether it is on this regulation, if we do not leave, but it will also come up if we leave. How dynamism plays its way through the legislative process will be quite a fundamental point for consumer rights, as it will be for trade union rights, which we will come on to in another debate.

Air Services (Competition) (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019

Debate between Lord Balfe and Baroness Randerson

Tuesday 12th February 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Balfe (Con)]

My Lords, the Chamber is much emptier now than it was for the earlier SI. I am intrigued that we are replacing the air services competition regulations, which apparently have never been used, with an SI which we hope will never come into force. This is almost comedy stuff. The Explanatory Memorandum states that,

“this instrument makes the corrections needed for it to function as domestic UK law after Exit day”.

What is the position regarding the replacement? If negotiations on it are going on at the moment, presumably the Department for Transport is involved in them. I would be interested to hear where they have got to. Are they on the point of producing the replacement or is it some way down the line? If it is on the point of being replaced, do the Government envisage bringing forward another SI to reflect the new regulation? Or will this be the first instance when we are seriously at variance with Europe: in other words, when it adopts a new regulation but we are still working on an old one? This picks up the point I made earlier this afternoon when I asked about divergence between Community and UK law. It needs to be addressed.

One always learns things in these debates. I was fascinated to learn that my noble friend—and good friend—Lady McIntosh began her romantic life by talking about cabotage. I found something else to talk about when I first met my wife, but we do not need to go into that. Looking at the slot allocation regulations, the question that keeps coming to me is: why should any airline stay based in the United Kingdom at all? What advantages are we going to offer them? I can see the advantage in being in a union of 27 countries where there is a common base and common legislation, but what will be the advantage of being a UK airline? I can see none at all. Britain cannot do without airlines. We are not going to stop them flying here, but at the same time we have nothing to offer them that will be better, in any way, than what they will be getting from the EU. The Commission will no longer have a role in relation to airports.

According to the explanatory statement, article 9 says:

“Instead of any invitation to tender to operate a”,


public service obligation,

“route being open to Community air carriers only, this will be open to all air carriers with traffic rights to operate services within the UK”.

Is not the logical corollary that our rights to bid for public service obligation slots in the rest of Europe will be withdrawn? If we are going to open up and say that non-EU airlines can bid for these slots, surely the natural reaction would be to say that we are changing the whole basis of things. So this is not bringing EU law into UK law; it is bringing it in with one quite fundamental change, by opening it up to all air carriers with traffic rights to operate services within the UK. What is the thinking behind this? Why have we inserted this into a regulation that is supposed to bring EU law into line with our law, while making a big divergence by letting non EU-registered airlines bid for these slots? I would welcome the Minister’s observations on why this has been done.

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, the services SI is about unfair practices. It allows penalties to be imposed on air carriers guilty of unfair practices against the UK industry. Since these powers have apparently never been used at an EU level, it is probably right, just for once, to say that this is purely technical—although the Minister forbore to say so. However, the concept of an EU-wide approach, which is what we are abandoning here by replacing “EU” with “UK”, would be much more likely to be an effective deterrent against such practices than the UK operating on its own. The noble Lord, Lord Balfe, has just wondered out loud why an airline would base itself in the UK in future. This is another example of how we are opening ourselves up to being in a much more vulnerable position through our future isolation.

In her introduction, the Minister said that these EU regulations were being replaced. Will she clarify whether the Government intend, in due course, to replace this SI with an updated version when the EU has updated its regulation—or are we going to be stuck in a time warp with outdated legislation?

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Lord Balfe and Baroness Randerson

Committee: 6th sitting (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Monday 12th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Randerson]

My Lords, I first raised this issue in the autumn of 2016 and have done so repeatedly since then, even in a Private Member’s Bill on the Single European Sky. It is important because there is no fallback position for aviation; there are no WTO rules that we can rely on. If things do not go right, there is simply a blank in which planes will be grounded. Along with them will be the passengers and very high-value freight which goes by air.

I do not mention these concerns on my own initiative; they have been put to me by people in the aviation industry from across the world, because our whole economy stands on the shoulders of our air transport industry.

All along, the Government have expressed confidence that this will all work out fine on the night, but there has not been any official commitment either to remaining in EASA or the Single European Sky. Despite the commitment made by the Prime Minister last week there has been no official commitment, so these amendments give the opportunity to provide that. With the best of intentions, we could find ourselves at an impasse, and this is not just a little local difficulty between the UK and the EU; it is also very much about the US. We rely on the EU/US open skies agreement as a member of the EU, and we will cease to be a member of it when we cease to be a member of the EU. It cannot just slot into place later because airlines sell tickets a year in advance. Indeed, they are already selling tickets for a period of time when they cannot be absolutely sure that the planes are going to fly. There will be an awful lot of airline tickets on sale from next month for a year hence—some have already been sold, as I say.

There are already stories—for example, in the Financial Times last week—that early talks have not gone well. The Minister denied that and I am very pleased to hear those words, but in the past the United States has not been easy to make aviation agreements with. Opening up US aviation to both EU and UK flights has been a problem in the past. There are potential issues over the continuation of anti-trust exemptions, which allow airline alliances to set fares and share revenue. Any new deal has to allow for the pattern of ownership of our own major airlines, which have very big foreign shareholdings, especially IAG, of course. In the short term it is important that we remain in the open skies agreement during transition, or at least that we are treated as if we are within that agreement. In the longer term it is clearly best if this continues beyond transition.

Briefly on EASA, at any one time half the aircraft in the skies above Britain are not UK registered, so we need to remain the dominant influence over aviation security and safety in the EU and beyond. We have been a major force so the Prime Minister’s words, as I said earlier, were welcome last week. We need full, official government commitment here in legislation: not just to being associate members of the EASA or observers, but to being full members because there is consensus in the sector that it makes no sense to create a national regulator. It is essential that we remain fully integrated with EU rules and systems. The EU has brought huge benefits to passengers—lower fares, more destinations and greater passenger rights and compensation. We must remain part of that scheme. We must also maintain the environmental benefits it has brought.

[Lord Balfe (Con)]

My Lords, I shall make a brief intervention and ask a couple of questions. I realise that it is the Minister for DExEU replying to the debate rather than the Minister for Aviation and I declare my interest as vice-president of BALPA, the pilots’ union. There is a lot of concern and it is felt that it would be helpful if we could have a clear commitment to retain membership of the single sky agreement and the aviation safety agency. I ask the Minister, possibly through his colleague, to write to those of us who are taking part in this debate to tell us whether it is government policy to continue with this membership. If it is, what steps have they taken up to now and can they arrange some way of keeping those of us who are interested abreast of the issue, other than by intervening on Bills? I know that this issue moves ahead. We have had very good relations with the Minister. This is in no way a criticism but rather a request for dialogue to be opened, possibly in writing and possibly with the letters to be deposited in the Library for anyone else who is interested.

Space Industry Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Balfe and Baroness Randerson

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 16th October 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Randerson]

I rise to say briefly how pleased I am that the noble Lord has raised this issue. I have already referred to drones several times this afternoon. The Minister probably thinks that I think of little else in transport terms, because I raise it frequently. In the previous Parliament the Government said they were thinking about what to do about drones. At the beginning of that Parliament, we were told they would be doing something along with the rest of the EU. Now, of course, it is something on which we have to take the initiative ourselves. The Government now say they have consulted on the issue, so I too would greatly value the clarification that the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, has asked for—exactly the timescale the Government are working to. There is a real urgency about this. Thousands of drones are being sold every month, and there is little control over how they are sold and virtually none over how they are flown. Day by day, it is becoming increasingly urgent that something be done. I will listen carefully to the Minister’s response.

[Lord Balfe (Con)]

My Lords, I begin by reminding the Committee that I am the vice president of the British Airline Pilots Association, as declared in the register. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, for tabling this amendment, which has enabled us to mention this subject. Like him, I was advised that it was not appropriate to table an amendment to the Bill. He has been more ingenious than me because he has found a way of at least debating the subject as part of the Bill, and I thank and congratulate him for that.

I shall try not to duplicate what the noble Lord said. The Minister and I have now met on two occasions—once last week in the general consultation and once in a private meeting—to talk about this issue. Like other noble Lords, I am seeking something quite specific in this debate on where we will go in the legislative process. Since the last time I spoke on this subject, we have received the report by Department for Transport, the British Airline Pilots Association and the Military Aviation Authority on drones and the mid-air collision survey. Probably the most important thing to come out of it is the threat to helicopters from drones. Obviously, any mid-air collision is not a good thing, but the report clearly showed that there is a specific danger to helicopters, at a time when literally hundreds of flights are going back and forth across the North Sea every day. This issue is of concern not only to pilots but to the Scottish Government and the wider aviation industry.

The Government followed up with a news story press release saying that drones were to be registered and users were to sit safety tests under new government rules. That was on 22 July, so I am sure the Minister will understand why, in the middle of October, we are seeking assurances about how far we will progress and at what speed. Since the last debate, we have had the tragedy of Grenfell Tower. Of course, if there were a tragic accident, people would be looking very carefully at the Minister, his department and others, saying, “You had warnings. You had a report. What is going to be done, and when?”. It is an urgent matter.

Two issues need to be dealt with. One is the police authorities and enforcement, which I understand needs primary legislation. When is that likely to happen? How will the rest of the changes be implemented? Will they be by statutory instrument or under powers the Minister has already delegated to the department? What will be done and when? If it is not being dealt with urgently, why not? In other words, how long do we have to wait to get this very important matter dealt with? A rogue drone could bring down a helicopter and cause tragedy and great unhappiness for families. The Minister is well aware of this. He is not a hard-hearted person saying that there is no need for legislation. What I am aiming for, like my noble friend Lord Moynihan, is for this debate to at least be in Hansard, our parliamentary record, showing a clear demand, and giving the Minister the opportunity to respond in, I hope, an extremely positive manner.