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

Debate between Lord Barber of Ainsdale and Lord Holmes of Richmond

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.

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

Debate between Lord Barber of Ainsdale and Lord Holmes of Richmond

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.