Civil Aviation (Insurance) (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020

Lord Chidgey Excerpts

Thursday 18th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Chidgey (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I confirm my entry in the register of interests as a companion of the Royal Aeronautical Society. I am pleased that the Minister was able to get through to us in the end. It was quite concerning; for those with long memories, she sounded a little like Rowan Atkinson’s famous sketch from outer space. Anyway, she got through.

The Minister mentioned that the EU regulations require a wide range of insurances—obviously so—but can she tell us who oversees the need to demonstrate compliance with these regulations? What is the mechanism for doing this, and who is responsible for doing it? I thought that the contribution from the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, was particularly pertinent in this regard, and I hope the Minister is able to respond to that. My noble friend Lord Bradshaw’s call for assurances that the British insurance industry has been fully consulted is equally pertinent.

Civil aviation insurance is clearly a critical component of the regulatory process, controlling airlines, civil aircraft design and production and operating procedures around the world—and never more so, I suggest, as we stand on the threshold of a new era of civil aviation technology and reduce our reliance on fossil fuels, turning instead to electricity. I recognise that this is a slight diversion from the main essence of the SI, but I hope I might emphasise these points for the general good.

There is an emerging market for green, electric-powered aircraft in the UK and neighbouring Europe. Cranfield Aerospace Solutions, an offshoot of Cranfield University, has aircraft-designing capability and DOA approval, as noble Lords will know. There are reports in the aerospace journal of the Royal Aeronautical Society saying that with this DOA for complex modifications to existing aircraft, Cranfield can also design and create new concept aircraft. It also has production organisation approval, POA, from the UK Civil Aviation Authority and the European Union’s aviation safety authority, EASA—all key requirements in civil aviation insurance for complex design and production changes. The company recently announced its plans to restart the manufacture of complete aircraft in the UK—I pick up the point of the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley. It believes that it can credibly compete in the small, sub-regional nine to 19 aircraft market, where it is not economical to operate aircraft with conventional fuels. It is now looking at converting the Britten-Norman Islander aircraft to a hybrid aircraft, with Rolls-Royce electric engines, as part of a consortium of UK firms.

Over the past 12 months, a lot of attention has been paid to green aviation, and the potential market for these smaller, sub-regional electric aircraft, with electric propulsion in a neglected sector, now makes a lot of sense. What becomes critical, however, is that the UK Brexit legislation must not deny the UK a potential leadership role in this engineering. It is a sustainable, cutting-edge market. Can the Minister give noble Lords an assurance that this no-deal legislation for civil aviation insurance regulations does not do just that, keeping us out of a market that we have a lead in?

Air Traffic Management (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020

Lord Chidgey Excerpts

Wednesday 17th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Chidgey (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I begin by acknowledging that, before entering Parliament, I enjoyed a progressive career in the aerospace and related industries, recognised by my becoming a companion of the Royal Aeronautical Society.

I congratulate the Minister on her courteous introduction to this debate by email and her detailed explanation today. It certainly is a detailed, technical matter. The safety, oversight and network functions are clearly explained, but not necessarily understood. The Minister mentioned that, where possible, roles were being transferred to the UK. Can she provide examples when she responds? She also talked about the 2019 regulations relying on the 2000 Transport Act and that the CAA and NATS were supportive. Can she mention any areas in which they were not supportive? It would be helpful to know. I note my colleague, my noble friend Lord Bradshaw’s telling point about leaving a system in which we have leadership, which we are now abandoning, along with aircraft production.

Hansard records in volume 788 of 17 January 2018 that I asked the Government for their assessment of warnings from the United States Federal Aviation Administration, should out Government fail to negotiate a continuing role in the European Aviation Safety Authority or set up a British regime before exiting the EU. The response from the then Minister was,

“we … have been working with them since early last year on arrangements to replace the EU-US bilateral … agreement … to ensure that … existing arrangements for the recognition of safety certification between the UK and US continue to apply.”—[Official Report, 17/1/18; col 635.]

When we debated the impact of leaving the EU on the aviation and aerospace industry in 2018, we noted that its value to our economy was £32 billion a year; it supported 128,000 direct jobs and 153,000 indirect jobs, many highly skilled and cutting-edge in their technology, and an area in which our economy needs to grow and continue to excel in. The Covid-19 catastrophe has already seen thousands, if not tens of thousands, of these types of jobs lost. Therefore, referring back to the comment of the then Minister in January 2018 that we have been working to ensure that

“existing arrangements for the recognition of safety certification … continue to apply”—[Official Report, 17/1/18; col. 636]

can the Minister confirm that these arrangements between the UK and US were concluded satisfactorily?

In so far as these traffic management regulations will apply and overlap with technology associated with the air-side and on-board aviation, will these arrangements continue to apply should the UK leave the EU without an agreement—which of course these regulations refer to?

Finally, on 25 February 2019, the Government confirmed that NATS would continue to be,

“the UK’s en route air navigation services provider … there will be no difference”.—[Official Report, 25/2/19; col. 68.]

The Minister may not be aware that NATS is located at Bursledon and Swanwick, in the Eastleigh constituency that I had the good fortune to represent. Any reduction in NATS’s role could risk severe implications for local employment. Can the Minister say whether the UK leaving the EU without an agreement would increase that risk?

Brexit: Aviation Safety Regime

Lord Chidgey Excerpts

Wednesday 17th January 2018 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Chidgey]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their assessment of the warning from the United States Federal Aviation Administration that British aviation manufacturers may have to pay the United States to be able to export their products to the United States if Her Majesty’s Government do not negotiate a continuing role in the European Aviation Safety Agency or set up a British aviation safety regime before leaving the European Union.

[Lord Chidgey (LD)]

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper and I declare an interest as a companion of the Royal Aeronautical Society.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Transport (Baroness Sugg) (Con)]

My Lords, we have a very close and constructive relationship with the Federal Aviation Administration and have been working with them since early last year on arrangements to replace the EU-US bilateral aviation safety agreement when the UK leaves the European Union. We are working to ensure that as far as possible, existing arrangements for the recognition of safety certification between the UK and US continue to apply.

[Lord Chidgey]

I thank the Minister for that comforting reply but I wish to stress some points. We should not forget that the UK aerospace industry is a global leader, after the US, with a turnover of more than £32 billion. We have led the development of international safety regulations, under the European Aviation Safety Agency, EASA, and they are fully compliant with the American Federal Aviation Administration. If, on Brexit, we leave EASA, all bets will be off unless we negotiate continued membership of the agency. The alternative, which has been mentioned, of creating a whole new system is not supported by the Civil Aviation Authority, the aerospace industry, the maintenance facilities or the airlines. These are hugely important issues. The Government are on notice. Will they commit, therefore, to establishing a working group with the industry to maintain the regulatory alignment and ease the concerns of EASA?

[Baroness Sugg]

My Lords, we work closely with the aerospace industry and are very aware of their views on both what is needed for the sector and the desire for a speedy agreement. We will be representing these views in our negotiations with the EU and will continue to keep the sector updated as negotiations progress. There is a precedent for non-EU states such as Switzerland and Norway to participate in the EASA system and we continue to examine the suitability of such an arrangement. We have been clear that we seek a close and collaborative relationship with the EU on a range of issues, including aviation safety.

Marine Navigation (No. 2) Bill

Lord Chidgey Excerpts

Friday 1st February 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Chidgey]

My Lords, noble Lords will remember that at Second Reading we had a mutual admiration for the ancient mariners of Watchet. We all seemed to know Watchet very well, to my great surprise. I mention it in the context of this Committee stage because noble Lords will acknowledge the goings-on in Watchet in the past week. There was almost a terrible tragedy when an infant in his pushchair was swept into the harbour in high winds. He was rescued—and the point is about the definition of people’s roles—by one 63 year-old George Reeder, who jumped into what was probably 30 feet of water to rescue the child. He was variously described as a port master, a dock master, a marine dock master and a harbour master. Each of those titles carries a certain responsibility and weight in maritime law. If we cannot get that straight, just imagine what will happen if we do not get this straight.

Marine Navigation (No. 2) Bill

Lord Chidgey Excerpts

Friday 18th January 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Chidgey]

My Lords, noble Lords may be a little surprised to find me straying from my usual area of interest in international development policy to join this Second Reading debate, but I have three reasons for doing so: first, a long association with some major ports and with the Royal and Merchant Navies; secondly, historic family ties with the development of pilotage and coastal shipping; and finally, the content of the Marine Navigation Bill itself. By the end of my speech noble Lords may wish that I had stuck to my preferred policy area. Nevertheless, I shall plough on, or perhaps “sail on” is the right expression to use.

In my younger days, I had the good fortune to win a place with the Admiralty as a student engineer based in Portsmouth Naval Dockyard, home to Nelson’s HMS “Victory” and in its heyday the largest industrial complex in the world. There I spent my formative years studying and training in a naval shipping environment. Noble Lords who are familiar with the south of England will know that just along the Solent lies the commercial port of Southampton, famous for its ocean liners connecting the United Kingdom to North and South America, Africa and the Far East. Cunard, P&O, Union Castle—all the great shipping lines sailed out of Southampton and through the Solent with its two tides a day, mixing with the warships out of Portsmouth, the submarines out of Gosport, the ferries to and from the Isle of Wight, France and Spain and, during the summer months, mingling with literally hundreds of pleasure craft on a daily basis.

The skills you learn during your formative years seem to embed themselves more readily, and the grounding I gained in marine engineering from the Admiralty—when we had an Admiralty, that is—together with an awareness of the procedures of sailing, particularly small craft in busy sea lanes, are not entirely forgotten. I believe that they may have some relevance when it comes to examining this Bill.

My second reason for contributing to this debate is in recognition of my forefathers who for generations earned their living as master mariners on the west coast of England and beyond. The family business was running a fleet of coasters under sail down the Bristol Channel and beyond to Wales, Liverpool and Ireland. They sailed out of Watchet, an historic port on the north Somerset coast. Along that coast the tide rises and falls by more than 40 feet and bars were built across harbour entrances to retain sufficient depth of water to keep ships afloat at low tide. At other times harbour bars created a navigational hazard which added to the constraints that needed local pilotage knowledge and skilled deckhands to bring ships under sail safely into port. Coastal ketches and sloops that my ancestors sailed generally had a crew of four or five when under sail at sea. To sail them into or out of Watchet harbour, however, needed extra hands provided by the local community. They were known as hobblers. “Hobbling” is defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as ad hoc unlicensed pilotage. Some might say, “Those were the days”.

Hobbling was lucrative and thus became a competitive occupation. Hobbling families vied with each other to glean advance information of shipping movements ahead of their rivals and secure hobbling work. They would race out to ships in the channel in their rowing boat, put a pilot aboard if the skipper did not have local knowledge, and then sail the ship into its moorings. Inevitably, violence broke out among the three Watchet hobbling families until, in 1864, the landlord of the London Inn, himself a master mariner—one George Chidgey—brought them together and thrashed out agreements to share the work and responsibilities in a sensible manner; thus was formed the Watchet United Sailors Benefit Society and for the first time the long established Watchet Hobblers’ pilotage was regularised as a precursor to the pilotage system we are debating today. Some time during this period, a family ketch, the “Florrie”, was sunk in a storm off Land’s End with the loss of all hands, who all came from several generations of Chidgeys, and thus effectively brought to an end my family’s engagement in merchant shipping.

That brings me to my third reason for speaking in the Second Reading of this Bill. Alerted by the various depositions from organisations affected by the Bill, I took the time to study what proved to be an excellent briefing pack provided by the House of Lords Library. As noble Lords will know, this is not a new Bill. It started under a previous Administration and has been recycled as a Private Member’s Bill. There is nothing wrong with that. However, reading through the briefing pack, I found that issues being raised now in your Lordships’ House seem to have been raised previously and, to a degree, debated in another place in a previous Parliament. Therefore, I take it that the outcomes then, which involved tweaking of elements of the Bill, particularly Clauses 2 and 5, as the noble Baroness has mentioned, have not entirely laid to rest the concerns expressed. Therefore, I welcome the opportunity to debate this further in this House.

I refer specifically to concerns regarding pilot exemption certificates being awarded to crew members other than masters or first officers, who are, of course, also known as mates. For example, Alistair Singleton of the Liverpool Pilotage Service Ltd, by his own reckoning an authorised pilot with 36 years’ experience in the shipping industry, has written to me about his concerns. He tells me that the proposed amendments to the Pilotage Act 1987 give him a great deal of concern, pointing out that pilotage in the UK is, first, a public service whose development over time should be carefully weighed before making changes. Mr Singleton says that,

“it demands that the highest standards are maintained for the protection of the environment and the safety of life at sea. Their relaxation for profit is not appropriate”.

I cannot help thinking that that is a sentiment with which my ancestor George Chidgey, master mariner and latterly landlord of the London Inn and founder of the Watchet United Sailors Benefit Society, could do nothing but agree.

Noble Lords may well have received a four-page letter from Captain Cockrill, chairman of the UK Maritime Pilots’ Association. In it, he comments on the proposal to deregulate pilotage exemption certificates and, in a covering letter together with a six-page analysis of the impact assessment in the Bill, he argues that Clause 2 should be deleted in its entirety. I noted that, in evidence to the Transport Select Committee, Captain Cockrill was particularly concerned over this issue and by the fact that, as he claimed, no risk assessment statement had been provided.

Furthermore, I have heard from Mr Tim Nuttall, another Liverpool pilot, who has called into question the belief that competent harbour authorities would not issue pilot exemption certificates to unqualified individuals thus compromising safety of navigation. He cites his experience of a case at the port on the Humber, where the services of well over 100 experienced pilots were dispensed with to be replaced with unqualified, inexperienced mariners from around the globe—this is a serious claim. The outcome was claimed to be a litany of serious accidents, collisions, groundings and near misses, keeping the marine accident investigators extremely busy for a decade—something that I am sure can be checked.

Finally, I have received a letter from Gus Lewis, head of legal and government affairs for the Royal Yachting Association. This association is the national body for a whole range of recreational and competitive boating. Its headquarters are in Hamble and were opened by the Her Royal Highness the Princess Royal while I was the constituency MP. In due course, I took as my life peerage territorial title the Saxon village of Hamble-le-Rice. I therefore take more seriously than some the issues that it has raised with me, in particular its concerns that Clause 5, on harbour directions, would effectively grant lawmaking powers to harbour authorities, as it argued in its briefing paper.

While there may inevitably be an element of self-interest in the representations made, safety at sea leaves little margin for error. As my ancestors established, effective organisation and legislation are essential to establishing and maintaining the highest standards in seafaring. They are principles that we must not lose sight of.