Republic of Ireland: Aids to Navigation

Lord Lexden Excerpts

Monday 25th February 2013 Lords Chamber

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, throughout this process, all GLAs have managed to reduce their operating costs, which is a great benefit to the shipping industry. We will shortly determine the light dues for 2013-14, but there is already a commitment from the Government that in cash terms they will not go up. One of the beauties of light dues is that they are quite a difficult tax to avoid. It is pretty obvious when you take a big ship into a harbour.

[Lord Lexden]

The Atkins report, to which the Minister has referred, although written largely in impenetrable jargon contained at least one clear recommendation. It stated:

“The UK and Irish Governments should consider additional sources of revenue including a charge on leisure sailors, charges on passengers, cars landed and cargo”.

Are such changes being considered?

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, one obvious target for increased revenue for the General Lighthouse Fund would be small pleasure craft. The difficulty is that it would be uneconomic to collect that revenue because the amounts would be relatively small, whereas a large merchantman would pay several thousand pounds on each visit to a port.

Airports (Amendment) Bill [HL]

Lord Lexden Excerpts

Friday 9th November 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lexden]

My Lords, I was among those who declared their full support for this Bill when my noble friend Lord Empey brought it before us towards the end of the last Session. The Bill continues to deserve the fullest support.

My noble friend has shown tenacity and great skill in seeking to secure acceptance of the proposals embodied in his Bill. He has made the case for them in effective and convincing terms, both here and in the institutions of the European Union. It is, as he has explained again today, the EU which holds the principal key to progress. Without the revision of existing EU law it will be impossible for our Government, well disposed though they are to my noble friend’s proposals, to acquire the power they would need to give effect to them and so protect fully vital air services between Heathrow, our one major national hub, and all the regions if at any point the Government’s intervention should be required to prevent regional air services losing crucial landing slots at Heathrow.

Our discussions on this Bill have brought out its particular importance to Northern Ireland where satisfactory alternatives to air services simply do not exist in today’s fast-moving world. Ulster’s economic future depends on very substantial private sector growth and the concomitant reduction in the size of the very large public sector. If enterprising businessmen and women are to bring about that growth and the new jobs that will accompany it, they must be able to travel swiftly between the Province and our national hub at Heathrow as need arises. Those of us to whom the affairs of Ulster are especially important are bound to feel that point acutely. However, as my noble friend has emphasised, this is not a Bill for one particular region: it is a Bill for all regions and all parts of our country because it would confer on the Government, and through them the Civil Aviation Authority, the power to safeguard their slots at Heathrow if threats to them should arise.

Nothing is more important in our economic life today than preventing the emergence of impediments to the progress of the Government’s growth strategy. One such impediment would be the diminution or disruption of air services between the regions and Heathrow. This Bill would provide the means to deal with any such threat to our overall economic well-being and ensure that the regions retain adequate connections to Heathrow.

Incidentally, “connection” is clear, long established and well known, so why has the new, unnecessary and unattractive “connectivity” been inflicted on us in recent years? Can we not abandon it? I am sure the grandfather of my noble friend the Minister who loved short, sharp words would have disliked it profoundly. More seriously, as my noble friend has made clear, there is increasing recognition within the European Union that its existing law which constrains our Government so severely ought to be reconsidered. As he has said, this Bill coincides most fortunately with the review of EU slot regulations. It is extremely encouraging that the European Parliament has recently adopted a report on the future of regional airports and services, to which my noble friend Lord Empey alluded, produced by the Conservative MEP, Phil Bradbourn, with whom I worked some 20 years ago in a truly august body, the Conservative Political Centre where new policy ideas are brought forward for the benefit of the Tory party. He has backed an admirable policy idea in his report. It strikes exactly the right note in stating that it is,

“essential for regional airports to have access to hubs”.

Within the past few days, the issue has again come into prominence, as my noble friend Lord Empey has pointed out, with the adoption of two amendments to a Commission document moved by Jim Nicholson, a dedicated and long-standing Conservative and Unionist MEP from Northern Ireland. It is worth repeating the second, which declares that,

“it is important that access to hub airports from regional airports should be maintained where such routes are essential to the economy of that region”.

These welcome developments indicate that serious interest in change is growing within the European Union. In replying to this debate, my noble friend will no doubt tell the House what the Government are doing to encourage and foster the re-examination of existing European law by the Commission as the European Parliament continues to consider the issues. Every effort should be made to secure the revision of European law in order to create the circumstances in which the provisions of this important Bill, on which my noble friend Lord Empey has worked so hard, could be put successfully into effect. The Airports (Amendment) Bill should be given all possible support.

Airports (Amendment) Bill [HL]

Lord Lexden Excerpts

Friday 16th March 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lexden]

My Lords, I am very glad to lend my support, in the most emphatic fashion, to this important Bill, which my noble friend Lord Empey has brought before us. In this, as in other aspects of his wide-ranging work in your Lordships’ House, he draws on his great experience as a former Minister in the Northern Ireland Executive and places that experience at the service of our country as a whole.

We must have reliable and efficient transport services between all parts of our country, especially the more distant parts and London, particularly Heathrow with its multitude of links with the wider world. Without first-rate services between London and the regions, the many important initiatives that the Government are taking to make the United Kingdom a truly excellent place in which to do business will not lead to the increase in sustained investment that we need so badly.

It may be that we face a future in which for many domestic purposes air travel is replaced by railway travel, but this will not be universally true. In one part of our country above all—Northern Ireland—air links with London cannot readily be replaced by other forms of transport. The provisions of my noble friend’s Bill are particularly important to the people of Northern Ireland and are critical for their economic success, as my postbag has recently reminded me. Parliament must always seek to protect and safeguard the interests of Northern Ireland, a part of our country that, despite having its own devolved institutions, must never be forgotten here, in better times as in times of internal crisis.

London, Edinburgh and Cardiff are all relatively easy to reach by train—though there is plenty of room for improvement in these railway services—but Belfast would be cut off from the kingdom’s other capitals without regular air services. This must not happen, particularly under a Government who attach the greatest importance to rebalancing the Northern Ireland economy through greater private sector growth. I will not labour the point. Nothing could be more obvious than that Northern Ireland will remain more dependent on airport links to London than any of the other constituent parts of our country.

There is deep concern, as the House has been told on several occasions recently, and again by my noble friend Lord Empey this morning, that Lufthansa’s sale of British Midland International to the IAG Group, of which British Airways is the principal member, increases the chances that the pairs of daily landing slots now allocated to BMI flights, of which there are up to 56, will be handed over to external flights whose origin or terminus is outside the United Kingdom.

The reason is obvious: each landing slot that can be taken up by a long-haul intercontinental flight yields far greater profits than a short-haul flight from Belfast would bring. Businesses can hardly be blamed for acting in ways which best serve their interests, particularly in such a low-profit-margin business as aviation, but we must keep constantly in mind the British Government’s overriding duty to ensure adequate transport arrangements for all parts of our country.

Where the replacement of one method of transport by another is not feasible for economic or geographical reasons, we should seriously consider whether it would be appropriate to give the Transport Secretary modest additional powers, as the Bill seeks to do. The aim would be to ensure that where corporate and national needs conflict, national needs are not subordinated to such an extent that great damage is done to the interests of some of our fellow country men and women. This is precisely what my noble friend’s Bill seeks to do while acknowledging that circumstances will differ and that each application will need to be judged on its merit.

I emphasise again that air travel between London and Belfast will remain essential, not least to ensure that Northern Ireland’s private sector growth is not impeded. That is why organisations such as the Northern Ireland division of the Institute of Directors, CBI Northern Ireland and the Northern Ireland Tourist Board support this short Bill. It also deserves the full support of this House.