Civil Aviation Bill

Lord Hunt of Chesterton Excerpts

Wednesday 13th June 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hunt of Chesterton]

My Lords, this Bill provides a modernising regulatory framework for civil aviation in the UK. However, because of the UK’s international leadership, this impacts across the world. A modern framework is necessary for a world-class aviation industry, including aviation services, and for taking a leading role in ensuring global safety and minimising any adverse environmental impact. I declare an interest as a former chief executive of the Met Office, which still receives funds from the Civil Aviation Authority, and I am grateful to the Met Office for providing me with some up-to-date information. I am also a director of an environmental consulting company that works for aviation in other places. I also provided evidence on behalf of BALPA in the 1970s, so I have worked on both sides of the fence.

This Bill is based on the strategic review of the CAA by Sir Joseph Pilling in 2008 for the previous Government and, as the Minister explained, on other recent studies. Aviation is a great technical achievement of engineering and meteorology, and increasingly environmental science. As a boy in 1953, I flew in a Comet 1 a week before the first one crashed. This is something I learnt about when I was a student at Cambridge, where I looked at extraordinary movies of the Comet 1 fuselage being pummelled by forces until it cracked. As a result, I have a sober view of these matters. Since then, aircraft have become safer and less dangerous than any form of surface transport. At the same time, aircraft have become more technologically advanced, with less fuel per passenger mile, and with better air traffic control. The new planes for the next generation—which were discussed earlier—are now being considered by Airbus. As far as I can see, they will look something like the wing fuselage designs familiar to noble Lords who used to read the Eagle in the 1950s, and familiar to Dan Dare. They should also be quieter.

The development of aircraft and engine design has reflected the increase in demand for smaller environmental impact. Noise has certainly reduced, as anybody living in London knows. In the 1990s, however, a major engine manufacturer asked at the Royal Society why engine design should take into account emissions of gaseous pollutants. That was then and here we are now with huge changes in policy and design. The new Rolls-Royce engines are as good as any in the world; it is a world leader. The Bill needs to strengthen and keep pressure on industry, as my noble friend Lord Davies mentioned in his opening remarks.

The operation of aircraft also depends greatly on accurate weather forecasts. Forecasts help with the safety and economic operation of aeroplanes. The Met Office reckons that the level of error in the estimation of a flight from Los Angeles to London is now 62 seconds, if the issues are solely to do with the meteorology. However, the real problems with aeroplanes are to do with airports, and indeed whether the aeroplanes are in the right place at the right time.

UK airlines have an excellent record of safety, greatly helped by these forecasts, both before take-off and during flight. It is an important responsibility of the CAA to fund the services of the Met Office and to ensure that it and other organisations remain at the highest technical level. For example, new methods of detecting lightning are now available for civilian forecasts. These were formerly secret. Indeed, it was lightning in the Atlantic which brought down the Air France Airbus a couple of years ago. These are still very important issues.

Noble Lords might not know that an aircraft flight above 24,000 feet receives data and forecasts from the UK and the US weather services. The World Area Forecast System provides this information for all airlines in all countries. Independent observers note that the UK forecasts are improving faster than any others. Payments to the Met Office of £30 million per year come from Eurocontrol, to which the CAA contributes.

As my noble friend Lord Davies and the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, reminded us, local weather is very important, and this is the responsibility of local weather services. One of the most difficult problems remains forecasting and advising aircraft in situations of extreme local weather, where there are special local factors. The Met Office and European weather services provided very valuable information about the effects of the ash from the Icelandic volcano, which required a new level of collaboration between the Government, the aircraft industry and environmental services. Indeed, there was a special meeting of the European Parliament to discuss this. This is an example of where science and engineering can provide services around the world.

My question to the Minister is whether it is a role of the CAA to encourage this important area of UK business. I have made the point over and over again that most chief executives of most technical agencies in the UK have no explicit responsibility to help UK industry. Would you believe it? That is the position. Other countries do not have that restriction, as I know from my experience. It was not on my job list at all. I sometimes used to ask about that. The UK does not use its agencies to help its very considerable possibilities for export, and I hope that might be considered in the Bill. Clause 84 refers to the environment of airports, and as the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, said, this is associated with aircraft pollution, noise and surface transport which provide most of the pollutant gases near Heathrow. If you look at a map of London pollution there is a great blob at Heathrow associated with surface transportation traffic.

This is of course being studied intensively. The UK has developed methods, which improve on the standard methods of the United States, for studying aircraft pollution at take-off and landing, as was announced by a Minister in 2007. There is much more that could be done. In Japan the airports are using electricity from solar collectors on their large airport roofs. There are no large solar collectors on London airport roofs. There are enormous possibilities here. The electricity from these solar collectors in Japan goes straight to the aircraft, so you do not have aircraft running their engines, producing pollution and so on. This is the kind of development that the CAA could be pushing.

The climate impact of aviation is serious and growing, but it is still less than shipping. The CAA should have a strong role in pushing the industry in the right direction, and discussing taxation regimes to ensure that aircraft operations have reduced emissions. One of these is to go more slowly, and the other is to use more technology, especially technology on the ground. The noble Earl, Lord Attlee, noted that the CAA will be taking responsibility for the health of passengers, especially regarding air flow. I wonder whether the CAA will also take responsibility in taking an interest in all passengers on aeroplanes. I am informed that the air flow to first class and business passengers is considerably greater than to those in economy class. Some noble Lords travel in economy class and will therefore be very interested in ensuring that there is an equitable distribution of air flow in aeroplanes. It is palpable that it is not equitable at the moment, and it is well known in the industry. Indeed, I am going to Rio tomorrow economy class because it has less environmental impact. Not everybody goes to Rio in economy class, and I do it out of environmental principle.

The overall issue for the CAA, as the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, said, is not just efficiency, which is important, but also effectiveness and excellence, and in promoting to other countries what we do well. That aspect is missing from the Bill, as the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, implied.

The question, then, is not just about the publication and dissemination of data but about the responsibility for action and forward planning. The CAA has no chief scientist or chief engineer. The Department for Transport has a chief scientist but that person’s impact on this whole issue is not particularly obvious. The result is that the CAA must rely on information from other agencies such as the Met Office, the Department of Health, Defra, universities, NERC and so on. However, the pioneer role of the CAA should be promoted in the Bill.

--- Later in debate ---

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, the noble Countess will recognise that these are complex matters. I will write to her on all the points she raised.

The noble Lord, Lord Soley, asked if the Bill will cover military airports and whether they could be exempted under Clause 77. In certain circumstances, military airports can be exempted from economic regulation under Chapter 1 and Clause 77.

My noble friend Lord Bradshaw was concerned about the market power test set out in Clause 6. His specific concern was that unless an airport operator has market power, it should not be regulated. I would like to reassure my noble friend that, under the Bill, where an airport does not and is unlikely to acquire substantial market power, it will not be made subject to economic regulation. It is a specific requirement of the market power test in Clause 6.

The noble Lord, Lord Rogan, talked about the aviation needs of Northern Ireland. The Government and the Civil Aviation Authority have no role in the slot allocation process. EC regulations established a mechanism for the allocation of slots at congested airports. This has been transposed into UK law under the Airports Slot Allocation Regulations 2006, which came into effect on 1 January 2007. Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, Manchester and London City airports are all designated by the Secretary of State for Transport as co-ordinated airports with their slot allocations managed by Airport Coordination Limited, an independent company which has powers under the UK regulations to monitor the conformity of air carriers’ operations with the slots allocated to them, and to take enforcement action against those airlines that do not operate according to the regulations, in particular by introducing sanctions for slot misuse. The ring-fencing of slots at Heathrow to protect regional services, other than where a public service obligation has been implemented, would be incompatible with EU law. The UK has highlighted the issue of regional connectivity with the European Commission in the context of the current reform of the EU slot regulations and is exploring the scope for including measures to help secure the ongoing provision of air services between UK regions and congested London airports. Beginning this summer, Commission working groups will examine the slot proposals, and I commend the work of the noble Lord, Lord Empey, who has been extremely active and effective in Brussels.

The noble Lords, Lord Davies of Oldham and Lord Davies of Stamford, commented on the UK Border Force. It is not covered by the Civil Aviation Bill and is accountable to Ministers and Parliament as a Home Office agency. Queues at airports are caused by many factors, including the border force receiving incorrect flight manifests and early or late airplane arrivals, resulting in bunching. The Minister for Immigration and Citizenship is reviewing what additional data may be published by the Home Office and shared with port operators. Meanwhile, the UK Border Force has responded to recent problems with queues in a number of ways. It is tackling short-term peaks with a pool of trained staff, and working with airports and airlines to ensure that they provide more accurate passenger manifests and flight schedules so that the force can flexibly deploy staff at the right times and in the right places. It is creating a new central control room for the UK Border Force at Heathrow that will use mobile teams for rapid deployment, and it will implement new rostering and shift patterns. It is also working with Gatwick and Heathrow airports to improve passenger flows using more specific measures such as e-gates and other biometric checks.

The noble Lord, Lord Davies, asked why there is no obligation on the CAA to require airports to develop passenger welfare plans. The indicative licence prepared by the CAA included, at the request of the Department for Transport, an example condition that would strengthen an airport’s resilience where appropriate. The proposals contained in Condition 7 require the licence holder to operate the airport efficiently and to use its “best endeavours” to minimise any detriment to passengers arising from disruption. It would also require the airport to draw up, consult on and gain the CAA’s approval for an annual resilience plan setting out how it will secure compliance with its obligations under the condition. The licence holder would be obliged to comply with the commitments it has made in its resilience plan.

The noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Chesterton, mentioned the issue of the difference in the quality of the air between first and economy class. The air is the same throughout an aircraft. First class seats and economy class seats are usually separated by a curtain, which is not an airtight medium.

[Lord Hunt of Chesterton]

I was talking about the volume of air. We know that there is air, but the question is how much of it is circulating. That is a very clear distinction.

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, if I have anything further to add, I will write to the noble Lord.

My noble friend Lord Jenkin of Roding raised the issue of consolidation. We should strive to produce legislation that is comprehensible to those who have to operate it and to those who are affected by it, and the consolidation of statute law can make a valuable contribution to this. Consolidation can take different forms. On the one hand, there can be what we call “formal consolidation”, which reproduces a law on a particular topic without any changes. On the other hand, a Bill may reproduce existing law with amendments. In recent years, fewer formal consolidation measures have been prepared than previously. One reason for this has been the change to the way that Parliament amends legislation. Amendments are now routinely made by textual amendment; that is, by inserting, removing or replacing text in the original statute. The need to consolidate simply to take account of textual changes has therefore largely disappeared. The approach taken in the Civil Aviation Bill is sometimes to make brand new provisions, as in Part 1, and sometimes to textually amend existing legislation, as in Part 2. When drafting the Bill, the changes being made did not appear to call for the rewriting of the law relating to civil aviation or aviation security. The specific textual amendments to other Acts made by the Bill show more clearly the changes that are being made than would a provision which replaced the whole of the legislation being amended, with the changes buried somewhere in the middle.

I have endeavoured to respond to many of the valuable points made by noble Lords, but time does not allow me to respond to all the points that have been made, no matter how good they are. I will read Hansard carefully and write to those noble Lords who have asked me questions that I have not been able to answer. I will also be delighted to have meetings with noble Lords outside the Chamber to look at the detail of these matters. This is only the first opportunity to formally discuss the Civil Aviation Bill in your Lordships’ House, and I look forward to debating it with noble Lords in Committee.