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

Lord Barber of Ainsdale Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 13th July 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kirkhope of Harrogate (Con)]

My Lords, we have come to the point in the evening where general aviation wants to put across its case. I will not declare all my interests in aviation, but I fly planes and am an honorary president of BALPA. I am very proud of that and of the fact that I have been flying planes now for over 40 years—with a licence. It is just as well to add that bit on.

Over those 40 years, I have seen how much more onerous the responsibilities and costs have been on those who have participated in general and business aviation in this country and elsewhere. Regulations have in many cases rightly been tightened to guarantee safety. However, the sheer cost of operating aircraft has increased dramatically, as have the costs incurred by those who have established training organisations around the country. The reason for my amendment tonight is clear.

I congratulate the Minister, as others presumably have been doing all evening, on being enormously receptive to the views of myself and others who have been promoting general aviation during this Bill. In my long experience here and in the other place, I can narrow down the number of Ministers who have been as receptive and helpful as he has been to a comparatively small number. He has been very helpful indeed. However, we must test him just that little bit further. Whatever he says in response to my amendment tonight, as the amendment sets out, it is a question of not just the words that we receive here in the deliberations on this Bill but of what happens next. Our wishes are not only that the Government should acknowledge the work being done in general aviation, its successes and its importance, but that the CAA also recognises that and is much more vocal and helpful than it has been in the past.

Many of the pilots who operate today in the commercial world are taught at training organisations on sometimes very small airfields around our country. The value of the contribution of that initial training to the airline business is therefore very difficult to estimate, but undoubtedly many of the people I know who fly commercially started out in training organisations in comparatively small fields around the country. In a way, my amendment is an attempt not only to get a greater acknowledgement on a permanent basis but to look at the economics.

The second part of my amendment asks that there should not be a disproportionate cost to general aviation in relation to air and navigation charges. My noble friend Lord Moylan has just touched on this point in his question to the Minister about the availability of and the charging for these services. My amendment specifically states that there should not be any impediment through

“charges which are disproportionate to the use made … of air traffic”

and navigational services by general aviation. That is quite clear: it is not just a question of availability, but of the actual use. We want to make sure that what has happened so far, which is reasonably satisfactory in that the charges are proportionate to the use, is continued and that there is no extra penalty put on GA and business aviation, to which we owe so much. I beg to move.

[Lord Barber of Ainsdale (Lab)]

My Lords, I will speak briefly to Amendment 69 in my name. I begin by declaring my interest as the current president of BALPA. This amendment proposes an annual report by the CAA on pilot licence holders. I am grateful for the chance to discuss the issues and the trends lying behind this proposal with my noble friend the Minister.

We know that there are significant numbers of commercial pilots approaching the mandatory retirement age of 65. We have ambitions for real growth in this sector, which could increase the demand for pilots. Yet there are real concerns about the difficulties of potential pilots accessing the necessary training, given the significantly high costs involved, so a careful monitoring of all these issues is justified. This amendment proposes one way of addressing these concerns about trends affecting the whole sector, but I know that the Minister has been thinking about these challenges and I look forward to hearing his thinking on the most appropriate way to respond.

[Viscount Goschen (Con)]

My Lords, very briefly, I support my noble friend Lord Kirkhope’s Amendment 41. I declare my own interest as the holder of a private pilot’s licence and as the owner and operator of a light aircraft.

I thought my noble friends, both on Report and earlier in Committee, set out very convincingly a compelling case for general aviation. General aviation really is the grass roots and lifeblood of aviation in any country. So much training is done here in the United Kingdom. It is incredibly important that the UK has a strong training sector. It is up against it in terms of cost and regulation to a degree, as well as weather, competition from courses offered in the United States, Europe and Spain, and so forth.

My noble friend is quite right to stress the importance of general aviation. It is not just training; it also encompasses business aviation, aeromedical services, light charter flying, utility operation, helicopters and so forth. It is a vital sector. It is important that we have a strong reservoir of skills, in both ab initio and commercial pilot training, on which the broader commercial aviation sector in this country can be based and which it can take benefit from.

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

Lord Barber of Ainsdale Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 18th June 2026 Grand Committee

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow my noble friend. I shall speak to Amendment 96 in my name. It rehearses an issue that we discussed in Committee on Tuesday, but it is pertinent to this section. Essentially the point at issue is this: we have a Government who have stated that they have no desire to legislate or regulate cross-sector or cross-economy for artificial intelligence and that a domain-specific approach is preferred. I suggest that that is a suboptimal choice, but it is still a legitimate choice.

The difficulty is that every time we come to some such domain—this Bill is about aviation—the Bill is silent on AI. I appreciate that there are data protection provisions in other legislation, but that is but one specific element of artificial intelligence. I believe that when one considers the role and functions of the CAA and the positive role it could take when it comes to artificial intelligence, all the people who are subject to the CAA’s powers would greatly benefit from an AI aviation standard to deal with transparency, explainability and bias and to look to the systems that not only the CAA uses, may use or, indeed, it could be said, must use in the very near future and to AI systems that are already in use across the aviation sector.

A specific AI aviation standard could bring clarity and coherence across this industry, across the roles and powers that the CAA is responsible for and across actions. It is imperfect because it would be far better to have AI legislation and regulations that could be understood by the public, business and all of us wherever we happen to come across AI, because those flexible, agile regulations would be cross-domain, cross-sector and cross-economy, so they would deliver the clarity, consistency and coherence that you require whether you are an aviator, an investor, an innovator or a citizen. However, that is not the choice the Government have made, so I suggest it would be worth considering an AI aviation standard at least to deal with this domain. The issues go far beyond data protection, which is but one part, albeit an important part, of this, but AI is already impacting in this sector. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

[Lord Barber of Ainsdale (Lab)]

My Lords, I begin by recording my registered interest as the president of BALPA. I strongly echo the point made so clearly by the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, about the importance of engagement with the pilot community on many of the key issues in the Bill. I very much welcome the recognition that I have heard from just about everyone in the Room of the vital expertise that BALPA members can bring to the consultations required by both the Government and the CAA in key provisions in the Bill.

I will speak briefly to Amendments 89 and 95 in my name, which are supported by the noble Lord, Lord Kirkhope. Amendment 89 seeks to remove the apparent veto given to the CAA over the document to be issued by the Secretary of State setting out their priorities and objectives for the exercise of the CAA’s rule-making functions; the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, touched on this point in his remarks. It seems a curious piece of drafting in this part of the Bill. The amendment also strongly emphasises the importance of consultations on these issues with organisations and persons with relevant interests and expertise who would be affected by the new or amended proposed rules; that will clearly include pilots.

Amendment 95 would require the Secretary of State not only to publish any directions issued to the CAA, as the Bill currently requires, but to lay any such directions before Parliament, thus allowing parliamentarians the opportunity to probe and scrutinise them. This would provide greater openness and transparency without being overly burdensome. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

[Lord Empey (UUP)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, has conducted a forensic examination of many parts of the Bill, to which I am sure we will return at a later stage.

I shall commence by referring to Amendment 78 from the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe. I agree entirely with the substance and strength of it but I will apply the same remarks to it as I did to a previous amendment he tabled, in that it is not appropriate to specify a particular trade union when it does not necessarily have a monopoly—never mind now; who knows whether it would in future. However, the sentiment is right, and I support it.

I have tabled Amendment 118. Perhaps the Minister could write to me on it before Report. We have here a situation where the CAA is getting a lot of powers and, if I interpreted one part of the Bill correctly, is almost in a position to veto a decision made by the Secretary of State. I might have picked that up wrong, but it seems to be accruing an exceptional amount of power.

One issue—it is a health and safety issue, apart from anything else—is flight-time limitations. A number of years ago, there was a major change to the relevant European directives that apply here, but, of course, flight-time limitations apply not only to airlines that operate or are based in the United Kingdom but to airlines in other jurisdictions that carry UK passengers and use our airspace. That is important. There are international agreements but, with all the changes taking place around who is regulating this area, it would be most helpful if the Minister could write to me before Report clarifying what his department believes the situation to be. This is one of the most difficult issues to deal with because safety is vital. At the same time, there is competition between the desire to have the safest possible environment and airlines pressurising for the maximum amount of efficiency. There is an in-built tension there.

Circumstances arise, be they weather-related or incident-related, in which an airport has to close and crews overshoot their time. We understand the practicalities of flying, but I want clarity on who is setting the rules for the operation of flight crews of not only UK-based airlines but airlines that use UK airspace. Those of us who fly have an investment in ensuring that the right conditions apply. We know that fatigue is a regular cause of accidents and fatalities: it has been well documented in reports, and air crash investigations frequently come up with it as a major issue. So it is important to know precisely where we stand now, given that our rule-making regime is undergoing so many changes and the CAA is accruing so many powers. We had a European arrangement prior to our departure from the European Union. I would be grateful to ensure that we have clarity on who does what and who sets the regulations.

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

Lord Barber of Ainsdale Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 16th June 2026 Grand Committee

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to move Amendment 31 in my name and to speak to Amendment 32 and the other two amendments in my name in this group. It is worth reflecting that we have now been in Committee since 3.45 pm. We could have flown to Athens in that time, but who would want that when you can have the warmth of the Grand Committee together?

To take a step back, it is interesting that the aviation sector has often been at the forefront of technological advancement. Just two examples are Sir Frank Whittle’s jet and the elegance of Concorde, which also speaks beyond technology to what we can achieve when we work internationally and collaboratively—something unrivalled in commercial aviation since and that is still a marvel. Bearing that in mind, it is extraordinary that this Bill is silent on the possibilities of technology, not least emerging technologies and the powers they could bring to support the intentions of the Bill. That is the purpose of these amendments.

Amendment 31 looks to how AI could be used to assist the CAA in its endeavours. Amendment 32 looks at all the questions around cyber, particularly given the legacy systems at UK airports. The Bill’s provisions will bring a lot of new data into play. It is imperative that this data is subject to stringent levels of cyber security and protection. It would be positive for all concerned if this were set out in the Bill. Harking back to those days of innovation and endeavour—the white heat of technology from the Labour Government under which Concorde came into being—it would be extraordinarily positive to have a technology horizon-scanning requirement for the CAA. That would make a difference not just for airline businesses, as it sits squarely with them, but to how emerging technologies could assist and transform the operations of the CAA for the benefit of airlines, passengers and everybody involved in aviation.

Finally, to turn to the governance that should sit around these technologies, there is clearly an assistive, enabling and supportive role that the CAA could play in terms of guidance and support. The Government have clearly stated their approach to artificial intelligence: to not bring forward cross-sector and cross-economy AI legislation. There is nothing party political in that approach; it is the identical approach to that which was taken by the previous Government. It is a sub-optimal approach, because it fails to give the UK the best opportunity really to realise and optimise the potential from this constellation of technologies that we call AI and go to the heart of the attendant risks, which will otherwise go unaddressed, and oftentimes it will be those at the sharp end who suffer the most.

The Government have stated that they do not want to do cross-sector AI regulation and that they will take a domain-specific approach. Here we have a specific domain—aviation—yet the Bill is silent with regard to AI. Is it the position that the Government are simultaneously not bringing forward cross-sector AI legislation while also not doing anything domain by domain, sector by sector on AI legislation and regulation? That is the position with regard to this domain, as set out in the Bill. This is about the transformational power, and the potential for the CAA to transform how it goes about its operations to enable better services to airlines, and its role in transforming the passenger experience and optimising it, with a far more efficient use of all the resources that are currently in play. That is the current situation, and it seems at least curious if not somewhat unfortunate. I look forward to the Minister’s response and I beg to move.

[Lord Barber of Ainsdale (Lab)]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 101A. I declare an interest as I am currently president of the British Airline Pilots Association.

It is clear that we have ambitious targets for growth in this sector. It is a sector with tremendous growth potential. That will need an appropriate number of pilots to be available in the coming years, but it is clear that there is a rising number of licensed pilots who will leave the workforce in the next few years. There is a compulsory retirement age for commercial pilots of 65. In a recent answer to a Parliamentary Question, the Minister reported that, of the CAA-registered pilots reaching that age, more than 1,300 will leave the sector within the next five years. That is at a time when we have ambitious plans for airport expansion, to promote growth in the sector.

This amendment would require the CAA—and it would engage the sector—not to sleepwalk into difficulties with shortages of pilots by publishing an annual report, with three key issues to address. First, there is the availability of pilots in the coming period. Secondly, there is the capacity of training provision in this area. Thirdly, there are the factors affecting access to the profession of pilot, including the cost of the necessary training.

On that final point, there are currently real financial barriers to pilot training. The cost is something of the order of £100,000 or more, and there are only two airline-funded schemes to train new pilots—British Airways and Jet2. For every successful applicant to the BA scheme, there are around 100 unsuccessful applicants who would like to make a career in the industry and who potentially have the skills and adaptability to undergo the training successfully. In terms of availability of finance, unless you have the bank of mum and dad, there is no real alternative provision available. There is no student loan scheme for people wishing to access the profession, and there is no readily available commercial loan offer from the banks either.

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

Lord Barber of Ainsdale Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 2nd June 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Barber of Ainsdale (Lab)]

My Lords, I first declare an interest, as noted in the register, in that I am the current president of BALPA, the British Airline Pilots’ Association. BALPA is strongly supportive of the Bill’s objectives to modernise aviation regulations and to enable airspace reform. The Bill offers an opportunity to create a more responsive and agile framework. In such a safety-critical sector, this flexibility must be matched by clear expectations on effective oversight, better visibility of future workforce needs, and consultation with professional pilots.

First, on the issue of airspace change, modernisation has the potential to deliver more efficient routing and better use of UK airspace, contributing to the long- term sustainability of the sector. My noble friend Lady Antrobus’s references to the drone revolution provided a compelling illustration of the scale of the impending change coming our way. Given its direct impact on flight operations, it is essential that pilots and their representatives are engaged throughout this process, from design through to implementation. I hope the Government will ensure that there is a structured and ongoing consultation with front-line professionals as airspace change proposals are developed, delivered and reviewed once new arrangements become operational.

It should be recognised from the outset that airspace modernisation, alongside possible expansion of major airports such as Heathrow and Gatwick, is likely to lead to significantly increased traffic levels in UK airspace over the coming years, and that any material uplift in both flight movements and passenger numbers could lead to an increase in demand for pilots. This opportunity to build a growing, highly skilled, UK-based workforce needs to be understood and positively planned for if we are to avoid facing critical skills gaps at a moment of real and much-needed opportunity and growth.

Of course, airlines operate in the private sector, but there is a strong case for the Government and the Civil Aviation Authority to monitor, for example, the make- up of the pilot workforce, including the number of commercial airline pilots approaching the mandatory retirement age of 65. They should consider whether the training pipeline is adequate for future demand, which itself is being driven by public policy decisions such as airspace modernisation. The CAA already publishes a range of key aviation statistics. Should it now also be required to provide a more regular analysis of trends within its licence register data to improve the visibility of workforce dynamics and support more informed planning across the sector? Looking at a very different sector, I note that the Nursing and Midwifery Council publishes regular such assessments of the workforce on which it holds data. Could we not do that in this sector?

On the wider role of the CAA, Clause 8 transfers responsibility for setting detailed aviation safety and operational rules from Parliament and Ministers to the CAA. While this may improve regulatory agility, it represents a significant shift in where practical control of the aviation rulebook sits, with reduced opportunities for parliamentary scrutiny. This gives rise to some key questions. How will the Bill ensure meaningful consultation with pilots and other affected groups as rules are reviewed and before rules are created or amended? What mechanisms will allow Parliament to exercise effective oversight of significant or perhaps more novel regulatory changes? How will the CAA be required to provide transparency around decisions, including on the rationale and operational impact of new rules? I hope that we will be able to probe these points in Committee to ensure that the proposed flexibility in rule-making will be balanced with appropriate accountability and expertise to maintain confidence in the UK’s aviation safety framework.

Finally, on the CAA’s role in providing accountability to consumers for the effective enforcement of their rights in aviation, this could be a positive alternative to lengthy, expensive litigation that supports precious few people with legitimate grievances about failures in the sector. But can the Government examine how the CAA will discharge these responsibilities in practice to ensure that it can and will deliver a step change for the better over the current defective arrangements, and address in particular the powerful challenges expressed today by the noble Baronesses, Lady Grey-Thompson and Lady Ramsey, on the difficulties faced by disabled people and others with significant accessibility issues? I look forward to the further stages of this important Bill.

Great British Railways: Industrial Action

Lord Barber of Ainsdale Excerpts

Tuesday 18th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

The primary activity that needs to take place is good industrial relations, so that the instances of disputes that affect the train service are much reduced. A feature of good industrial relations is dialogue between the employees, their representatives and the employer, which is very much in the mind of the Government as we go forward with Great British Railways. In addition, as I have said to the House before, I want to see managers at route and train operating company level who can co-ordinate how the railway behaves and how it serves customers. By those means we will offer a better service and have less industrial action.

[Lord Barber of Ainsdale (Lab)]

My Lords, I welcome the focus that the Question from the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, has put on the negotiating arrangements in the railway sector. This was highlighted in the dispute that has been referred to before the general election, in which a point was reached where, after very intense and prolonged negotiations, a potential settlement had emerged that the negotiators were prepared to support from all sides. Unfortunately, that settlement was not approved because the Government Ministers decided to veto the possibility of that agreement being reached, bringing into serious concern the integrity of the whole process. Let me now turn—

[Noble Lords]

Oh!

[Lord Barber of Ainsdale (Lab)]

Let me now turn more directly to my question that arises from that. It is of course absolutely right—

[Noble Lords]

Question!

[Lord Barber of Ainsdale (Lab)]

May I ask the Minister whether he agrees that, yes indeed, careful attention needs to be paid to producing the right negotiating machinery as GBR takes shape? Can I also ask him—

[Noble Lords]

Oh!

[Lord Barber of Ainsdale (Lab)]

Does he agree that it would be better at the same time to reset relations with the workforce and the trade unions?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I agree with my noble friend, but I will add one point. The Government are responsible for the cost of the railways to the taxpayer and, because of that, Governments need to make clear before the commencement of negotiations what the envelope is for the employers to negotiate. It is most unhelpful for a Government to intervene part or nearly all of the way through.