Civil Aviation Bill

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Monday 9th July 2012 Grand Committee

I can inform the Committee that in the past two years the ANO offences were used in four prosecutions and convictions, and there has never been a prosecution for the Section 81 offence. Accordingly, this clause repeals Section 81 of the 1982 Act as in practice it is redundant. For those reasons, I hope that my noble friend will withdraw his opposition to the clause standing part.

[Lord Berkeley]

Could the Minister explain what Clause 105(5) means in practice? It refers to,

“power to apply certain provisions to Crown aircraft”.

The Minister will know that we debated transport to the Scilly Isles a week or two ago. I heard that Prince Charles visited there last week with great success. However, there was thick fog and the only plane that was allowed to fly was his. I hope that it was safe— I am sure that it was—but in terms of safety of navigation it is odd that only one plane was allowed to fly. Was everybody else banned or did they not have the right equipment? Maybe this is irrelevant to the clause but what is special about “Crown aircraft”?

[Lord Rotherwick]

It may help if I jump in. I suspect that planes landing in the Scilly Isles were under CAT—Civil Air Transport. In certain situations, a private plane can be landed under VFR when a public plane cannot under IFR. I only suggest that that might be the case