Civil Aviation Bill

Lord McCrea of Magherafelt and Cookstown Excerpts

Monday 30th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Norman Baker)]

I welcome the kind comments from Members on both sides of the House in respect of my right hon. Friend the Minister for Transport—she is indeed my friend. If she is watching, she ought not to bother but get some rest.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Feltham and Heston (Seema Malhotra) on an excellent maiden speech, which the House enjoyed. She will be a powerful addition to the House in the years ahead.

I welcome the many constructive comments in the debate, and I am particularly grateful to the Transport Committee for expediting the process of pre-legislative scrutiny when this earlier slot became available for the Bill. The Committee found that both airlines and airports welcome the Bill.

The Bill process has been going on a very long time, as Opposition Members will know only too well. I accept that it would have been ideal to have slightly more time for scrutiny but, on the other hand, in the aviation industry if a slot becomes available, we must take it. It would not have served customers, passengers or the industry well to have let that slip while a number of months went by, because there is a great deal of Government business to fit in.

My right hon. Friend and I welcome the Transport Committee’s response and look forward to the comments of members of the Public Bill Committee. We will listen carefully to members on both sides of that Committee.

Many hon. Members have made the case for the continuing importance of our aviation sector. We have a vital, dynamic aviation industry. The continuing success of that industry is essential to our economic growth. Our reforms have been designed to allow competition to flourish and for our industry to innovate and thrive.

I shall do my best to respond to the many points made in the debate. A number of hon. Members spoke up for their local and regional airports, including Luton airport and Teesside—or is it Durham and Tees Valley?—airport. The hon. Member for Sedgefield (Phil Wilson) asked for a meeting about his particular situation. I am sure my right hon. Friend the Minister of State will be very pleased to see him and other hon. Members on a cross-party basis to discuss that situation when she is back in the saddle.

As the Secretary of State made clear in her opening remarks, most airports in this country are competitive and look after their passengers. Our reforms are designed to protect the interests of passengers, particularly at the small number of airports such as Heathrow that have substantial market power. For all other airports, the main change introduced by the Bill is that the CAA will be able to bring its expertise to the investigation and remedy of anti-competitive behaviour by having concurrent powers with the Office of Fair Trading.

The Bill replaces an inflexible, one-size-fits-all approach based on five-year price controls with a flexible regime under which regulation can be tailored to individual airports’ circumstances so that the CAA can reduce the scope of economic regulation while retaining essential protection for passengers.

At the heart of the new proposals is a single, clear, primary duty to further the interests of end users—passengers and freight owners, now and in the future. The passenger is centre stage. This will enable the CAA to undertake enforcement action in real time when this becomes necessary. The Chair of the Transport Committee, and the Committee’s report, asks whether we might have greater clarity in the Bill’s definition of users of air transport services and suggested the phrase

“passengers and shippers of cargo, both present and future.”

I draw to her attention clause 69, which defines air transport service as

“a service for the carriage by air of passengers or cargo to or from an airport in the United Kingdom”.

Users of air transport services are persons present and future who are or will be passengers carried by such services, and persons with a right in property carried by such services. This will not cover shippers of cargo, unless they have a right in property in that cargo, because we think it is more important to protect the interests of the owners of cargo, rather than the shippers—again, putting the customer at centre stage. I hope that the Chair of the Select Committee will recognise that the clarification she seeks is in that clause.

[Dr William McCrea (South Antrim) (DUP)]

I have the Belfast International airport in my constituency. Under this Bill, can the Minister assure me that Northern Ireland will soon have a proper aviation strategy, as that is essential for my constituency?

[Norman Baker]

I am happy to advise the hon. Gentleman that the Department for Transport is producing a comprehensive aviation strategy, which according to the Department’s business plan will be published in March. He will be able to look at that and see whether it deals with the Northern Ireland situation in which he is clearly interested.

The shadow Secretary of State referred to the issue of future passengers, as against present passengers. I recognise that that is an issue, and clause 1(5) empowers the CAA to determine how to fulfil its primary duty to promote the interests of users when conflicts arise. This is in line with affording requisite discretion to the regulator and taking politics out of regulation. In other words, it would not be helpful for the case the hon. Lady makes to be more specific about the CAA’s powers than the Bill currently is.

One or two hon. Members asked why the airline consultation supplementary duty has been dropped. Stakeholders, including airlines should be consulted by the CAA when it carries out its economic regulatory functions. There is an obligation to consult bodies representing airlines on licence conditions, licence modifications and penalties. Any airline is free to make representations, and we do not believe that the CAA would ignore any relevant representation. Furthermore, whenever a conflict arises between passengers’ interest and those of airlines, the CAA will be bound to act in passengers’ interests, given the primary duty in the Bill. A further secondary duty would not affect that position, which is why we came to that conclusion.

The shadow Secretary of State also asked about resilience. The implication of her comments was that since the former Secretary of State for Transport—with her, it appears—was out at Heathrow, nothing has happened, but nothing could be further from the truth. There have been extensive discussions between the Department and the owners and operators at Heathrow about winter resilience. This winter, I am happy to say that the major airports in London are much better prepared than they were last year. But when the CAA proposes full airport licences, it will of course be required to consult on the content of licences and any subsequent changes to them. It will have to take into account any representations during those consultations when setting conditions, and we will require it to include welfare plans if those are in current and future passengers’ interests. I hope that that gives the hon. Lady the satisfaction she was seeking on that point.

Several hon. Members referred, rightly, to the welcome proposals in the Bill on ATOL, especially my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert). He wanted an assurance that consumers would know when a holiday was ATOL-protected, and I can assure him that that is a key objective of the Government in the changes we are proposing. We are also interested, of course, in the Transport Committee’s deliberations on this important issue.

The hon. Member for Amber Valley (Nigel Mills) asked whether the Ryanair holiday model would be covered by the ATOL reforms. The intention is to ensure as far as possible that any holiday booked with a flight is covered by the changes. The hon. Members for Bolton West (Julie Hilling) and for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) also raised issues relating to ATOL reform. I confirm that we consulted over the summer on proposals to improve clarity for consumers about the ATOL scheme’s coverage. I agree fully that the current situation can be unclear and misleading for consumers, which is why action is needed as soon as possible.

We propose to expand the ATOL scheme to include flight-plus holidays that work like packages but lie outside the narrow legal definition. We also propose that an ATOL certificate should be issued whenever consumers purchase an ATOL-protected flight or holiday, as a further means of providing clarity. We aim to announce a decision shortly on the reforms, which can be implemented by new regulations under existing powers. We are taking steps forward on that. The holiday industry has made strong representations that it is no longer clear whether holidays are ATOL-protected. As I said, we think we can deal with that problem by allowing for the addition of more flight-based holidays.

In her introductory comments, the Chair of the Select Committee referred to impact assessments. The Transport Committee stated that

“licence conditions, and their associated costs to airports, may not be proportionate to the benefits delivered”,

and that was the thrust of her point. Ultimately, where costs are associated with licence conditions, users of air transport services will pay those costs. Where the costs of a proposed licence condition are seen to outweigh the benefits to passengers, it will not be in passengers’ interests to impose the condition, so the CAA’s primary duty would not be met if it did so.

The Bill requires the CAA to consult on proposed licence conditions and states that a licence may not include conditions that differ significantly from those on which it has already consulted. It must set out the reasons for conditions included in the licence, how it has taken into account any representations made, and the reasons for any differences from the conditions initially proposed. I think that that makes the case for the approach that we are taking. The fact that putting the passenger centre stage is the CAA’s primary duty will we hope give the hon. Lady the reassurance that she rightly seeks. I will come to security issues in a moment.

The shadow Secretary of State referred to vexatious appeals. I do not think that they are likely to occur. The Government’s proposed regime has features to deter frivolous or vexatious appeals. In particular, in most cases the appeal will not suspend the licence condition’s coming into effect, although the appeal body will have the power to impose interim relief under circumstances. There is therefore limited incentive to appeal for the purpose of delaying the decision.

The shadow Secretary of State also referred to the consumer panel. We believe that it is a useful innovation in the Bill. As she might know, the successor body to the Air Transport Users Council is being consulted on. It was announced on 18 January this year. The CAA will set up the CAA consumer panel as soon as possible and will immediately seek a suitable chair.

Environmental issues were raised by several Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge, who was concerned, as were some Opposition Members, about the absence from the Bill of an environmental duty. The matter has been considered carefully. One reason why the Bill does not include such a duty at the moment, although the Government fully accept the need to take the environment into account in aviation, as everywhere else, is that it is thought that economic regulation is not the appropriate vehicle for doing so, not least because it enables the CAA to address only airports with substantial market power and only where regulatory intervention is warranted. That currently includes only three airports, but environmental externalities are present at a wider range of airports and need to be factored in. That is why the Government decided to proceed by placing on the CAA an information and publication duty that is considered to be more concrete and of more practical benefit to the public than the previously proposed environmental objective. The CAA is under an obligation to publish such information and can also issue advice and guidance to airport operators.

Coastguard Service

Lord McCrea of Magherafelt and Cookstown Excerpts

Tuesday 14th June 2011 Westminster Hall

[Sheryll Murray]

I am absolutely certain that my hon. Friend the Minister has the best intentions, and that he does not intend to make savage cuts to the best rescue service in the world.

Brixham is the busiest fishing port in England. It has the third highest number of leisure vessels registered on CG66, the voluntary safety identification scheme, at 2,200, and that number is increasing daily. It has a search and rescue area and is a popular holiday destination. Brixham has unique expertise in UK search and rescue. Due to its position along the busiest shipping lanes in the world, it has gained unique search and rescue expertise from incidents such as those that I have listed.

I end with a message that I hope the Minister will accept in the spirit in which it is given. He says that we will not end up with the proposal outlined in his consultation document, and I welcome those words. However, he must accept that by issuing a five-year-old proposal that takes massive cuts as a starting point, he has effectively moved the starting line as well as the goalposts. Coastguards all around the coast have told me that their response would have been different if they had not been working with a proposal to cut MRCC numbers and hours so drastically. That is why it is essential that we start with a blank sheet of paper.

No one knows better than I how dangerous the sea is and how important it is to co-ordinate all rescue services locally when an incident occurs at sea. The proposals remind me of 1994, when two fishermen lost their lives off the Cornish coast, below a recently closed coastguard post, and local people decided to open and restore the visual watch. That could not happen once we lose our marine rescue co-ordination centres around the coast, because they are professional. I make a plea to the Minister to think again about the closures. He has used examples of other nations operating with fewer stations, but has failed to mention that in those countries the coastguards operate in different ways, with different responsibilities. Yes, modernise, and yes, have better equipment, but please do not destroy the best coastguard service in the world.

[Dr William McCrea (in the Chair)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on her courage in taking part in this debate. Several Members have indicated that they want to speak and I would like to get as many of them in as possible. However, we have to commence the winding-up speeches at 10.40 at the latest. I am, therefore, in the hands of the Members that I will call.