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

Debate between Lord Moylan and Lord Grayling

Report stage
Monday 13th July 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to a number of amendments in this group that are in my name. Nearly all of them are technical in character. None of them would make an enormous difference to the Bill, except perhaps the last one. There is not the slightest prospect of the Minister accepting any of them and I do not intend to divide the House on any of them. Therefore, it would be of assistance to noble Lords if I go through them briefly so that they are aware of the good things that the Government are casting aside and taking no notice of.

Amendments 7 and 12 relate to the Government having decided that the relevant aspects of the aviation sector, in particular consumer protection, will be regulated by two bodies—the Civil Aviation Authority and the Competition and Markets Authority. The Government have no way of ensuring that they work together effectively, or who takes the lead on one rather than the other. None of this is vouchsafed to us, but the Minister will have a sort of balancing power at the top to sort it all out ad hoc. We made the argument in Committee that it would be sensible to have one regulator and that dual enforcement is never a good idea, especially where potential criminal penalties arise. We have tabled these amendments to put an end to it, but the Government are not going to pursue that line.

Amendment 15 raises a cause of concern for the many noble Lords who are worried that the only ideas the Department for Transport has continue to come from the European Union. It would put restrictions and limitations on the ability of the Government to use these powers simply to adopt European legislation and continue to be compliant with European legislation as it changes, which indeed they are expected to do, because I understand that the European Union is reviewing some of these aviation regulation areas at the moment. I was moved to table this because I was shocked when I picked up the final version of the impact assessment that the department prepared to go with the Bill—a document that is at least two inches thick, I would think. One has to get only to page 3 to discover that the Government are saying how wonderful it is that this legislation will give us the powers to continue to align with any changes the European Union makes in the future, because those powers expire this month, so we would not be able to align with the European Union, but now we are going to be able to.

We have to have a Civil Service and a Government who actually realise that we are not part of the European Union, that there is no prospect of our being part of the European Union for a very long time—indeed, if ever; I do not think it will be ever—and that we have to come up with some policies of our own that are good for this country. That is the substance of Amendment 15.

Amendments 16, 17 and 29 address some of the many instances in the Bill where the negative procedure for statutory instruments is preferred over the affirmative procedure. There are also two massive Henry VIII powers in the Bill—I will come to these separately in their appropriate cases. I am not going to press these further at this stage, because to give the Minister the credit that is due to him, he has tabled amendments, which in some cases will move negative procedures over to affirmative procedures. Indeed, in one case, he has actually signed my own amendment having an effect on that. So he has come some way to meet the criticism that I tabled in Committee, so I will not press the fact that he has not come all the way, although I would be delighted if he announced, even at this last moment, that he would change his mind and perhaps accept these amendments.

Amendment 32, finally, perhaps has a little more hope of being adopted—I do not know. Under the current approach of the Bill, the only way that someone subject to a civil aviation decision can appeal against it is to the High Court. The courts are chock-a-block with demands on them at the moment. It seemed sensible to seek to create an intermediate mediation stage where someone aggrieved by a particular decision against them would have the opportunity to have an independent mediator appointed to seek to resolve the issue, and an amendment was tabled to that effect.

In Committee, the Minister was very dismissive of the whole idea and obviously believes that the High Court has nothing much to do and will be able to take these things on and that is the appropriate place. But a lot of money and testosterone can be wasted going to the High Court, when some of these matters can be sorted out better through more of a mediative approach, and that was the purpose of the amendment.

Those are my amendments in this group. As with many of the amendments I tabled in Committee, they are all intended to improve the operation of the Bill and the operation of administrative law. With that, I beg to move.

[Lord Grayling (Con)]

My Lords, Amendments 13 and 14 are in my name. I declare again my interest as an advisor to AtkinsRéalis in the UK and Ireland.

I have a lot of sympathy with my noble friend on the Front Bench and his comments about various aspects of the Bill; in particular, his comments about the European Union. We should not be looking simply to match the European Union going forward. Indeed, I am very much in favour of having high standards which are not tied to the European Union. Where we can do better—and we should do better—without doing damage to the commercial viability of the UK industry, we should seriously consider taking that kind of step.

While mentioning briefly the international side, in the light of the easyJet takeover proposals, I urge the Minister and his colleagues in the department to use the most muscular approach on this. It would not normally be possible for a UK airline to buy a US one. We need to make sure that the rules and ownership are properly and rigorously enforced. It is urgent to do that.

My two amendments are designed simply to try to put some limitation on the powers that would reside with the Civil Aviation Authority as a result of the Bill. I always envisaged changes upon leaving the European Union as likely to lead to a degree of deregulation and a relaxation of restrictions. The Minister knows that I raised a number of concerns with him in Committee about the extent of the powers to enforce—to enter premises and to impose penalties. These two amendments are designed to put some limitations around the freedoms of the regulator to take enforcement action, so that it does so only in what are genuinely serious situations. I know the Minister is not going to accept these amendments, but I would ask him to give some thought to how this is applied in regulations. Of course, we need a regulator to have the ability to take serious action in a serious situation, but what we do not want is to create a situation where we have undue levels of enforcement on small matters in a way that is overly onerous on the commercial independence and freedom of businesses. We want common sense; these two amendments are designed to apply common sense, and I hope the Minister will be able to take that principle forward.

Finally, I will just comment on my noble friend Lord Young’s amendment, which I am sure he will be speaking to in a moment. Given the impact on the airlines of the failures, when they do happen, in the air traffic control system, I think he makes an important point that is worthy of consideration by the Government.

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[Lord Grayling (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak very briefly. I raised the issue of consultation in Committee. The Minister gave me a very helpful response, but he very clearly said that, in a case where the Government took a decision, that approach would already have been subject to detailed consultation. That was only one particular approach. In a situation where there could be three or four different options for an airport, what is his view on the Government’s job in explaining why they have chosen one of the different options available?

That is where we get down to the basic principle in the amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Grender: the Government cannot simply take a decision out of the blue without detailed explanation and without some degree of clarification to, and discussion with, the communities affected about why they have taken it out of maybe two or three options. I accept the Minister’s very helpful response to my comments in Committee, but can he now set out for us how the Government will approach a choice between numerous options? What approach will they take to consultation in that situation?

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, some very important points have been made about consultation. I just want to be clear that I understand what points are being made. I believe these amendments are not about airport expansion. On airport expansion, I would say that, especially as it is subject to a process under planning law—namely, the development consent order—there will not be a shortage of consultation as a result of that development consultation order. Certainly, in the case of Heathrow, if it expands, the consultation will take place.

I think that the amendment that the noble Baroness, Lady Grender, put forward is not about expansion but about airspace modernisation. Although I would not want to commit myself to the wording of her amendment in particular, she has a point which the Government need to be quite clear about and they need to reckon what the difficulties are; that is, the reorganisation of flight paths will have winners and losers. It is not simply that flight paths might be moved from one corner, one area or one approach to another; part of the purpose of airspace modernisation is to concentrate flights, so there could be quite a lot of winners but some very bad losers as a result of this. The Government need to take people with them as they do this. There is a strong case for doing it, and we support modernisation, but the Government cannot leave their successor in a position where people have not been given a chance to be brought along.

My Amendment 39A in this group is about charges for air traffic and air navigation services in Clause 6. I drew attention in Committee to the sheer incoherence of the drafting of this clause. The Government have come forward with an amendment which improves it somewhat, but it slightly misses the point—it still leaves it saying something quite incoherent. I offer this only because I like to see properly drafted legislation. There is no politics in this; the Government should be doing their job properly in the first place. Clause 6(3)(c) says:

“Persons may be specified … if the services concerned are available for their use”—


note that phrase—

“or benefit, and it is immaterial whether or not the services are actually used or could be used by … them”.

I understand the part about it being immaterial whether they are used: “It is available for your use, but you did not use it; we’re still going to charge you”. That may be right or wrong, but that is what the law says. That is the situation. How can the services be available for their use, but they could not be used by them? You could still be charged for them even if they could not be used by you. How is that consistent with them being “available”? I do not understand it. I just think it is very poor drafting.

Anyway, I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say. I am glad he has corrected the other part of it that was incoherent; we are getting somewhere slowly. Maybe he will come forward with some sensible amendments at Third Reading so that the Bill makes sense in some key areas.

Sustainable Aviation Fuel Bill

Debate between Lord Moylan and Lord Grayling

Report stage
Tuesday 10th February 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Grayling (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to a series of amendments that I tabled. I have given the Minister advance notice, and I hope he is going to be able to reassure me on them. I will take them in turn.

Amendment 8 is simply to try to avoid the Government pulling a fast one, raising money from air passengers and spending it on something completely unrelated. I am looking for a cast-iron, on-the-record assurance from the Minister that that cannot happen under the terms of the Bill. We know that on occasions government departments try to slip things under the counter, and I am simply seeking absolute assurance that that will not happen in this case. Amendment 9 basically seeks to achieve the same thing.

Amendment 10 addresses what is still the crucial operational point for this legislation: where and how do you actually apply the levy? The Minister knows that I have had serious misgivings, as have many people, about the plan to try to apply a mechanism that relates to market share in the previous year, to do it the year after and the rest, which I think would be completely unworkable and, of course, distorts the market if you have new entrants or people leaving the market.

The one thing we do not want to do is to end up undermining the existing producers of aviation fuel, which are carrying an extra cost. We do not want to have them closing and going elsewhere because we have not got this right. I remain persuaded that the way to do this is to levy a charge at or around the time of delivery—the time at which it is delivered from the refinery or the terminal to the airline. I appreciate that it may be something you do one month in arrears, looking at the previous monthly invoice accordingly. I do not have a problem with that, but I have a problem with anything looser than that.

I am looking to the Minister to explain tonight how this is going to work. I know the Government are still working on all the details, but we cannot have some abstruse mechanism that tries to refer back years in the past. We need something current and relevant that reflects changes in the marketplace and applies the costs in a timely way to those producing the fuel, so that there is no distortion of the marketplace.

Amendments 17 and 18 are really about the timing of the legislation. We know that we are maybe four or five years away, I hope slightly less, from the first significant SAF plant being operational in this country. We cannot have a situation where the levy starts to be applied now and is just piling up in the background with nothing to spend it on. I am looking for an explanation from the Minister as to exactly how the commencement of this legislation will work. I have proposed in these amendments that it should be six months before the first manufacturing facility comes on stream—the Minister may have an alternative suggestion—but we cannot have a situation where commencement is imminent but the operation of the Bill is years away. Again, I am looking for assurance and explanation from the Minister on this, so that we know we are not charging air passengers today for something that is years in the future. I beg to move.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, I have Amendment 11 in this group, which substantially coincides with Amendment 10 in the name of my noble friend Lord Grayling. I will just take a minute to explain, in my perhaps rather more simple terms, what mischief these amendments seek to address. I gave some idea of the mechanism when we spoke on the last group. It will work like this: contracts will be entered into by a counterparty and a fixed price will be guaranteed under a contract for the difference. That means that if the prices are below a certain price, the counterparty will collect money by way of the levy, and if they are the other way around, it will pay out to ensure that the producer receives a fixed price. We know that economically, ultimately, the levy will be paid by the passenger on the flight, but who is going to be charged the levy?

The Government have decided—we are not disputing this—that the levy should be charged at the highest point in the supply chain, which is the producers of standard aviation fuel, essentially kerosene. They have to mix in the SAF to the required amount, whichever type of SAF it is, and they should be the ones that will pay the levy if a levy is required—that is, if prices are such that a levy has to be paid. We do not object to them being the levy payers, but how is the levy calculated and then applied to them?

The Government’s proposal is that the levy should be calculated a year in arrears and then applied to them as a charge which they have to pay in arrears at that point according to the market share that they had in that year. That is all very well, you might say, and very convenient from the Government’s point of view, because at that point they know exactly how much they have to charge, so there will be no difficulty and no question of having the wrong charge paid and having to make up bits later, or of the counterparty being out of funds by a penny. They will know exactly by the end of the year what should be charged and they will distribute it to the producers according to their market share during that year, which will also be known by that point.

The difficulty for the producers is that they will not know during the year in which they are selling the fuel what they should be charging the airlines to cover the cost of the levy. It is accepted that they should charge the airlines, because that is the way it trickles down to the passenger. They will not know during the year how much levy they are going to have to pay at the end of the year, so they will not know how much they should be charging per litre of fuel that they sell.

They would prefer, as it is easier for them and avoids this complexity, if they were told a price per litre which they should charge. The charge of the levy in addition to the base kerosene fuel could even be apparent on their invoices. Of course, if the Government were to do that, it would expose the counterparty to some financial risk—I see that—because they would have to work on the basis of estimates. They would have to estimate the prices during that period and therefore would be exposed to some financial risk. I imagine that, behind the Minister, there is a middle-ranking official in the Treasury saying, “You cannot take any financial risk that will fall upon the Government or any entity associated with the Government”.

What the Government are proposing is fundamentally unworkable, because the only way the producers can handle this is to protect themselves by overcharging. They will overcharge to compensate themselves for the levy, and so the transparency of the levy travelling through the chain of command, so to speak, down to the ticket payer will be obscured. The producers leave one in no doubt when one speaks to them that this is the only mechanism they will have. There is a real point of workability about the Bill which has not been addressed.

I imagine the Minister will respond by saying, “Oh, but we are having a consultation”. This is a futile protest, but I want to raise this point of protest as I have the opportunity: would it not have been better if the Government had done the consultation and then brought forward the legislation? Why is it that we have to have the legislation before we know the results of the consultation with the industry, so that we do not actually know what is workable? I suspect the Minister will say that, but I am afraid it is not satisfactory that we are asked to pass this legislation with that important question of workability still outstanding. I may be wrong, and it may be that the Government can explain that it is perfectly workable, but nobody has been able as yet to establish what that workable solution is.

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[Lord Grayling (Con)]

My Lords, I rise both to support what my noble friend Lord Harper has just said and to add a caveat. I have great respect for the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, and I find we agree on a lot of things, but it worries me more broadly—and this is not specifically just about this amendment—that when one passes an amendment like this, one creates huge bureaucratic demand. If we look at the practicality of what will be needed, as my noble friend Lord Harper has just described, we are talking about putting together, in effect, an inspectorate, because that is what this would entail—an inspectorate to talk to airlines, an inspectorate to talk to producers, and an inspectorate to have a pretty close watch on the flow of feedstuffs, the supply chain of feedstuffs and the sourcing of feedstuffs.

What we are looking to achieve here is to build a UK industry so that we do not simply end up buying SAF from abroad. The truth is, right now, the limited amount of SAFs used in this country are coming from United States and potentially elsewhere. We do not want that to happen; therefore, we want to create as investor-friendly an environment as possible in the United Kingdom. That is what this Bill is all about. It is what the purpose of the revenue certainty mechanism is, and I am very glad that the principle behind the Bill has attracted cross-party support. To try to put together now a mini-inspectorate—and maybe not that “mini” an inspectorate—to look at all the things covered by this amendment would cost taxpayers’ money and push up the cost of the revenue certainty mechanism.

We talked earlier about how the funds would be used. Certainly, the funds would be eligible to be used for the monitoring of all this, so that is an extra cost on the revenue certainty mechanism and an extra cost ultimately therefore to airline passengers. It is an extra level of complexity for investors, putting a whole range of bureaucratic requirements on them. And, of course, for government, it opens the doors to judicial review. Very often, a broad-ranging amendment that seeks reports and clarifications ends up in the courts, being used by somebody who has a particular point to prove against government. It opens the door to too much activity within the courts and not enough freedom for government to get on with the job. That would be a negative step for the legislation, given that we all want this to happen, want it to work well and want the investment to flow in the country. To create a monitoring mechanism on this scale would not in any way be the right thing to do.

As my noble friend Lord Harper rightly pointed out, simply monitoring the impact on the cost of an airline ticket is one thing, but covering the range and dimensions of activity in this amendment would create too much extra cost and too much complexity and it risks being a deterrent to investment in the UK. So, with apologies to the noble Baroness, I cannot support her amendment.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, perhaps I may welcome the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, to this debate. She is much missed. Normally, when there is legislative matter that calls the noble Lord, Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill, to the Dispatch Box, there is a well-established team that assembles opposite him, consisting of me in my humble capacity and the noble Baroness. It has been a puzzle to me in the course of this afternoon why she appears to have been elbowed aside by the dour but noble Earl, Lord Russell, whose mantra appears to be “Mr No” throughout, whereas now that the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, has landed, if I may say that, at this very late stage in the debate, we find that she is here with her customary positivity and proposals for something useful that the Government might do.

The noble Baroness’s proposal is that the Government might usefully produce a report which tells us what the effects of this measure in front of us are. It would not be an easy report to assemble, and I am sure the Minister will explain its impossibility. It would, however, be no less easy for the Government to produce the report I was asking for, to say what the effect would be on ticket prices, but, as my noble friend Lord Harper so clearly explained, that was ruled out completely by Mr No sitting at the other end of the Bench. It has been most entertaining and instructive this afternoon listening to what the Liberal Democrats have had to say, but we are now in a position where splits within the Liberal Democrats are apparent. I say this to offer some consolation to noble colleagues on the other side of the Chamber to know that it is not only the Labour Party that is riven by dissension and uncertainty about the future and that these qualities can be found among the Liberal Democrats as well. I am delighted—

Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Debate between Lord Moylan and Lord Grayling

Committee stage
Thursday 24th July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, we come to a series of amendments that relate to transport and the Department for Transport. If I may, I shall begin with a few preliminary remarks. The first is to apologise to noble Lords that I did not speak at Second Reading on the Bill—I was not able to. The second is to thank the Minister and his officials for the engagement and the helpful meetings and briefings that I had in preparation for today. Thirdly, as a class, the amendments relating to the transport section of the Bill are generally very trivial and minor indeed. If this is the Government’s engine for growth, there is not a great deal of puff in it. One of the amendments—I doubt we will discuss it—is so bold as to repeal a redundant clause in the Transport and Works Act. For those of us with a tidy mind, that is not a bad thing to do, but it will hardly shake up the economy. None the less, the Government’s amendments deserve a degree of scrutiny and we shall attempt to do that in the course of the next few hours.

I turn first to amendments relating to Clause 29. As well as moving Amendment 53C standing in my name, I will speak to Amendments 53D, 53E and 53F. I shall also speak to Amendment 53M, which relates to a later clause in the Bill. What these amendments have in common is that they relate to charges. Clause 29 creates a category of legal person known as “prescribed authorities”, which are not named. These prescribed authorities will be able to charge highways authorities for their services, but the services that they will be charging for are not specified either. All this is to follow in regulation. One can hazard a guess that the sort of body that might be a prescribed authority for this purpose might be Natural England or the Environment Agency, or whatever.

My first question, and the purpose of the first few amendments, is to elicit from the noble Lord what these bodies are. The second is to try to establish what range of services they are going to be able to charge for, and whether services that are currently regarded as routine and freely available will now become a charge on highways authorities. I would also like to know whether, in setting the charges, they will be limited by the very common principle among public authorities that charges should be set only so as to cover costs, and that taking one year together with another they do not generate a surplus. Will that be the case in relation to these charges or not, and if not, what limit will be placed on their ability to set those charges?

My final question is a slightly detailed one for those who are involved with local authorities that are also highways authorities. Could the payment of these charges by highways authorities fall upon a parking revenue account and be drawn from a parking revenue account, or would it fall on the general fund? It would be helpful if the Minister could tell us that as well.

Briefly on Amendment 53M, this relates to a clause which allows highways authorities to charge applicants—this is, if you like, a mirror image, or may be to some extent a pass-through clause. It is not objectionable in itself, but there is again the question of whether these charges will be set so as to cover costs and so that a surplus is not generated, taking one year with another. I think it would be very helpful to all noble Lords if the Minister could answer those questions. I beg to move.

[Lord Grayling (Con)]

My Lords, very briefly, I support my noble friend in this probing effort to establish what the intention of the Government is. He is right to highlight the risk that this becomes a revenue-raising mechanism as opposed to a cost-offsetting mechanism. There have been many examples over the years where different public bodies have sought to do that, and he is right to seek clarification.

The one caveat I would add is that there may be some cases where it is right to levy a punitive charge, where there has been a failure on the part of the third-party body that is being charged, but that should be under only very limited circumstances and where there has been a palpable and measurable failure in what that organisation has done; for example, a lane rental that has been put in place to carry out works that have been done inadequately, leading to disruption afterwards. My noble friend is absolutely right to ensure that the Government are clear about whether these measures will allow profits to be made or whether they are simply to offset costs. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s answer.

Bus Services (No. 2) Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Moylan and Lord Grayling

Committee stage
Tuesday 28th January 2025 Grand Committee

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak briefly to Amendment 13 standing in my name. I can see the role of direct awards as a matter of principle in certain cases. They have the effect of removing from the process competition between potential bidders for a contract, but there are benefits to competition. I know the Minister wants me to imbibe and regurgitate great chunks of Lord Ashfield’s writings from the 1920s and 1930s, in which he could barely tolerate the word “competition” without using the adjective “wasteful”, but there are some benefits that might arise from competition that even the Minister might admit to.

I am willing to accept, if the Minister gives this assurance, that taking competition out of the process can be consistent with existing procurement legislation. He started to make that argument at Second Reading. I will not challenge him and say that this is contrary to procurement legislation—possibly it can be made compatible with procurement legislation, but he needs to explain how. However, I am concerned, in cases where there is more than one incumbent operator—which may well be the case, especially where local transport is for more geographically dispersed areas—about how a direct-award process might work in a way that was seen to be fair and did not expose the process to potentially awkward, difficult and unpleasant legal challenge and things of that character.

Essentially, I am trying to get more clarity from the Government about how direct awards will work in the more difficult and complex circumstances. I am seeking explicit assurances about the compatibility with procurement legislation, which I suspect the Minister can explain convincingly, but it needs to be put on the record.

[Lord Grayling (Con)]

My Lords, I support my noble friend’s comments. The difficulty with direct awards is that sometimes they are genuinely necessary. We experienced that on the railways—where circumstances change, a business fails or there is simply a need to take greater control for reasons that come along unexpectedly. The danger is—I go back to what I said earlier about ideology —that the requirement for a direct award caused by circumstance is overtaken by direct award driven by ideology.

I am afraid that that is at the heart of the noble Lord’s amendment. I understand the principle he represents, but it would not be right to have a situation in which a local authority was able, unfettered, to set up its own bus company and make a direct award to it, regardless of whether it was any good or not—there have been many occasions in history where the local municipal bus company has not been good at all.

In the world the Government seek to create, where in my view there is a role for direct award, on occasions, when it is necessary, I too would like to understand how the Minister would ensure that that power is used in a way that is right and proper, and, ultimately, as I said earlier, beneficial to the passenger.