Crime and Courts Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Hunt of Chesterton and Earl Attlee

Wednesday 20th June 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hunt of Chesterton]

I was a civil servant in the Met Office and used to visit other agencies. The variability in the publication of annual reports is quite extraordinary. A Minister visited the National Physical Laboratory and asked, “Why do you publish all these annual reports?”. I am glad to say that the Met Office continues to publish annual reports and they are still very valuable and people refer to them. Therefore, I was very surprised by the Minister’s insouciant response to this whole issue of the publication of reports. As the noble Baroness said, the relevant information is very unsatisfactory. Are the Government looking into this more broadly?

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, in days of old there was only one way of publishing a report, which was in hard copy. Today we can publish on the internet. We can also issue a CD and issue hard copy on a limited circulation. The provisions in the Bill take account of the various ways of releasing the information without being too prescriptive.

Civil Aviation Bill

Debate between Lord Hunt of Chesterton and Earl Attlee

Wednesday 13th June 2012 Lords Chamber

[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.