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

Debate between Lord Holmes of Richmond and Lord Harper

Committee stage
Thursday 18th June 2026 Grand Committee

[Lord Harper (Con)]

My Lords, I will primarily speak to my Amendment 73, which was suggested by IATA. I tabled it because I read it and thought it raised some important issues on which I want to test the Government’s thinking.

When I was Secretary of State, this process worked very smoothly and, as my noble friend Lord Grayling said, this is largely a commercial exercise. Slots have economic value. They are allocated independent of government and that usually works very well. There are circumstances, as the Minister set out at Second Reading, where there are challenges to how the system works because of outside circumstances. The Government then step in and make some changes which work in the interests of consumers and the industry.

It is also the case that the slot co-ordinator, Airport Coordination Limited, a private company, exercises a considerable amount of power and influence. At airports with a constrained supply of slots, that gives it significant economic power. At the moment, it does not have any regulatory oversight. It is effectively exercising what could be argued to be a quasi-regulatory function, but there is no formal oversight.

The amendment I have tabled is quite narrow but would bring the co-ordinator under the oversight of the CAA, which would give it the ability to scrutinise decisions and its governance. It would, importantly, preserve the independence of the UK slot co-ordinator, which is important and required by our international agreements. It would also introduce a proportionate independent mechanism to challenge decisions. At the moment, if anybody wants to challenge a decision, they have to go through a judicial review process, which is very costly, time-consuming and almost never happens. If you had CAA oversight, it would mean that either the airlines or the department could refer decisions to the CAA and have them looked at independently. It is important that the Government do not have the power to do that, but we should have some sort of process in place.

What I seek from the Minister is the Government’s view on whether the system works well at the moment. Do the Government believe the slot co-ordinator, effectively, has powers which should be better regulated or are they perfectly content with the system as currently set up? Do the Government think it need any changes? I thought the amendment was a useful way of testing the Government’s view. I was therefore very happy to table it and to make the case for it. I look forward to the Minister setting out the Government’s position when he responds to this group.

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)]

My Lords, I am delighted to follow my noble friend Lord Harper. I intend to speak to Amendments 74 and 75 in my name. It would be only slightly reductive to say it is all about the slots. In many ways, this part of the Bill is the very heart of the industry.

To that end, it would seem to make sense, under Amendment 74, to have greater clarity and transparency for all those who should be involved, should be concerned and should have a role in this. They would have that clarity through such a system as set out in Amendment 74. Again, I accept the specificities around blockchain and DLT and would insert mid speech a criteria-based approach so that other technologies which could achieve this aim are equally beneficial to the purpose of the amendment.

Amendment 75 moves that on somewhat to test how much the Government would wish not to overly interfere with slot allocation but, where all things remained equal, they would want other provisions to be brought in. In Amendment 75, I cite the example of environmental concerns, but the principle would work equally well for regional connectivity being higher up the agenda or other issues the Government may wish to push through. As has been rightly set out by my noble friend Lord Grayling, this is largely a commercial matter and there is a market but, like all good markets, that does not mean there is no role for government in it.

It is clear that the Government need to get the right level for that role and not overstep, but it is critical because in many ways the essence of that element of the industry is all about the slots. I am interested to hear where the Minister believes that line should be drawn and whether there is potential to bring other factors to bear, which would fit very well with some of the Government’s other key objectives, such as environmental issues, growth, the nations and regions, and connectivity. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

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

Debate between Lord Holmes of Richmond and Lord Harper

Committee stage
Tuesday 16th June 2026 Grand Committee

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)]

My Lords, before my noble friend responds, far be it from me to get between two former Secretaries of State for Transport before a Transport Minister comes to respond to either of them, but I want to check something with my noble friend Lord Harper. Is he suggesting, as a point of principle, that for any wholly or partly owned entity where the state has even a minor share, there should never be a question of compensation or liability for redress to be made by dint of whole, partial or even minority public share ownership of that entity?

[Lord Harper (Con)]

No, I do not. The question I had to answer was that if you have a status quo and if you are going to make a change, you have to ask yourself, does the change drive an improvement in behaviour or outcomes? I simply was not persuaded that it would.

Picking up my noble friend’s point about perhaps having saved the Minister a bit of bother, I thought, when I was listening to him make his case, that there is, of course, the opportunity, when one is now both in opposition and on the Back Benches, to let the Minister do all the work. But since the event happened on my watch, as it were, and we put quite a lot of thought into whether we should make the change that my noble friend set out, and since the answers that he received from our noble friend Lady Vere of Norbiton when she was Aviation Minister were effectively on my behalf, I thought it would be a bit slopy-shouldered of me to sit here quietly, not say anything and not give the Committee the benefit of the thought process at least. Being slopy-shouldered has never really been my style, so I thought it was at least worth giving the Committee the benefit of the effort that went in on behalf of aviation consumers who were disadvantaged by this, the work that went on by the industry and the work that the Government did to try to put things right.

My final point is just to say that the industry—NATS, the airlines and the airports—demonstrated a remarkable ability to work together to serve the interests of consumers. The industry has a lot to be proud of in the way that it comes together when there are these difficult circumstances to serve the people who pay their wages.