Civilian Use of Drones (EUC Report)

Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe Excerpts

Tuesday 8th September 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Lab)]

My Lords, I, too, as a member of the committee, wish to express gratitude to the people who helped. In particular, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady O’Cathain, for her sterling and interested leadership. She was given a task to pursue which she was not initially enthusiastic about, but in the event it has turned out to be a very worthwhile exercise indeed; she thoroughly enjoyed it and we enjoyed working with her. I also thank our clerk, Alicia Cunningham, who worked extraordinarily hard for us, as well as our policy assistants and Tony Henley, who was our adviser.

In particular, I would like to express gratitude to the many organisations and individuals who came not just once before us but several times to give us their evidence and to guide us in particular directions. They were generally a very enthusiastic bunch who are keen to see drones moving forward quickly and expanding, and most of them are very much interested in light-touch regulation—they are real entrepreneurs in many respects—and it was very interesting for us to see how it worked. At the end of the day we produced a report that will be quite influential. When we turn to Europe and see that they are preparing to produce some further legislation towards the end of the year, and as the noble Baroness, Lady O’Cathain, just read out to us, what we have had to say on this will have a fair impact on Europe.

The report demonstrates the value of the House of Lords; when it turns its attention to serious business it produces a very serious and influential report which has wider implications. In addition, the issue before us proves the case for Europe and the single market. I do not know what some political parties will do when they start to see drones not just flying around within sight but flying from France to England and vice versa. This is a case where, because they can cross borders, we need to have regulation across the whole of Europe and not only there but throughout the rest of the world. While a non-appointed, not particularly accountable body is working on much of the regulation at the moment, most people have a general confidence in it. It will produce a report in due course, which will help Europe and which in turn will influence what happens at international level. The United Nations has a body that governs civil aviation, and what we are doing in Europe will be a very big factor in determining what applies throughout the rest of the world.

Our report, as others have mentioned, does not pick up on the defence side. It is quite interesting that the internet came from defence, as did drones in the main, and as we heard yesterday, drones will not be off the agenda.

The pace at which change takes place will be governed to a very fair extent by public opinion. I am not quite sure whether those in the industry felt the Prime Minister’s Statement yesterday helped the industry to move forward at a faster pace. It is appropriate that he made it, but I do not know whether it will help the civil side of it to move faster. A whole range of questions about drones will come to the fore in people’s minds. Yes, they will help the police, but what will they use them for? We could not quite get to the heart of what police forces were doing—different forces were doing different things. There is a case there for an open public debate about how drones will be used by public bodies such as the police in the future. We asked questions about the security industry in this country, which of course takes so much work that used to be done by the police. How will it use this technology, how will it be held accountable and where will the public be able to engage with it? Again, those questions still remain unanswered and need to be addressed.

I was in Richmond Park a week last Sunday, and to my surprise I found notices all over the place saying “No drones to be flown here”. I had never seen that before. I am not quite sure under what regulation that was done, but I presume that because they are the Royal Parks they can say, “Do not come on our patch”. Equally, however, there will be people in this establishment who have quite big patches, who might say, “Why shouldn’t I be able to say that nobody should be able to fly within the area above my lands?”. These are interesting points of development, and I wonder whether some changes have taken place here which now give people the right to decide that they do not want drones coming into their area.

Going back to the defence side, it is very concerning indeed to read reports that the Russians are now moving very quickly into this sphere. According to some press reports, they have now developed technology which will enable them to bring down a surveillance plane which British defence is currently working on. Whether or not the Minister can comment on that, it would be very interesting for us to find out.

I also sense that, with the change I saw in Richmond Park, a general toughening is taking place in attitudes to regulation, even within the CAA. When we saw it in the early part of the year, the CAA seemed to be fairly relaxed about trying to be hands-off and let the industry get on with it. However, I read a couple of weeks ago in the Times that it is now pressing the Department for Transport for legislation which would substantially increase the fines it will place on people if it catches them flying drones in restricted airspace or breaching the rules within high-density built-up areas. Can the Minister say whether some legislation is in prospect, with fines of £7,500?

These are all shifts which will tend to tighten up on the regulatory side and which will, to a degree, slow down the growth of the industry so that it does not progress quite at the pace my noble friend Lord Giddens talked about. As we have seen over the course of the past two weeks, something happens, it is immediately photographed and goes round the world, and immediately we see changes in policy taking place which three, four or five weeks ago we would never have envisaged would occur. Similarly, with drones we can see changes taking place there that could make a very significant impact on public opinion and in turn on the pace at which they will move.

Overall, we have done our best to produce helpful guidance over a very wide area. Again, I thank all those who I have worked with, and in particular the chairman for her leadership on this. We have produced an outstanding report, and looking at reports that go into Europe from the House of Lords, this one will make a change in the future—hopefully for the better, so that the industry will grow, but also so that in turn we get a proper balance with the right regulation that is needed, and that in due course we get that all around the world.