Aviation
Lord Trefgarne Excerpts(7 years, 3 months ago)
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Lord Callanan
As someone who uses regional airports regularly, the issue of air passenger duty is, of course, high on my agenda. I am sure the noble Lord will understand that, as a Minister only a couple of weeks into his appointment, were I to start rewriting the Chancellor’s Budget proposals at this stage I would not last very long.
Lord Trefgarne (Con)
My Lords, when the time comes to repatriate the regulation of civil aviation, will that be vested in a revitalised Civil Aviation Authority, as in the past, or left to the European Aerospace Agency?
Lord Callanan
The whole issue of Brexit and how liberalised air transport will go forward will be the subject of negotiation. We want to ensure seamless access to European air transport matters, and I am sure the European aviation industry will want to access UK policy, too.
Civil Aviation Bill
Lord Trefgarne Excerpts(11 years, 11 months ago)
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Lord Davies of Oldham
My Lords, Amendment 2 seeks to amend the government amendment which the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, has commended to the House. I commend his work to the House, too, because he has responded to the pressure exerted in Committee about the failure of the Bill to address significantly the role of aviation and the regulated airports in relation to the environment. Environmental issues are high on the nation’s agenda and the contribution of aviation in this regard is of considerable concern. The Opposition have sought to work constructively to improve the Bill and I am grateful to the Minister for his attempts to do so.
I do not shy away from the fact that, were his amendments carried, they would represent an improvement to the Bill, but not significant enough an improvement for the issue concerned. After all, the Government constantly seek to bask in their green credentials, but in recent months, tensions have been exposed as they wrestle with the practicalities of the green agenda. The nation is conscious of the fact that a certain amount of backsliding has been going on. That showed itself in the support offered to home insulation and in the clash between Ministers in the Department of Energy and Climate Change when the Secretary of State was effectively forced to correct the position adopted by a junior Minister on the issue of wind farms.
Of course, on the issue of aviation, we are all too aware of dither and delay. We all know that the most significant issue of all facing the Government is the future of airports in the south-east and how they are meant to cope with the demand predictions of the future. This issue—I refer in particular to the graphic case of London Heathrow—has been kicked into the long grass of a post-election report. Sir Howard Davies is not to produce his analysis of what needs to be done until after the next general election.
The Bill had its origins under the previous Administration and under that Administration it was clearly indicated that there would be significant concern about aviation as regards the environment and that the Bill would set out to make provisions to meet the necessary responsibilities. We were to expect clarity in the Bill, yet we seem to have the same evasion in the Bill as we have seen with regard to other crucial areas of policy.
Lord Trefgarne
My Lords, my noble friend has moved Amendment 1 and the noble Lord, Lord Davies, has moved Amendment 2. Amendment 2 may have some merit to it but I am having some difficulty in connecting his speech to the amendment.
Lord Davies of Oldham
My Lords, I was coming to that. The noble Lord has anticipated my very next sentence. It was necessary to identify the context because that explains why, on a consensual Bill, on which we have sought to work with the Government to improve the Bill and on which we recognise the efforts of the Government represented in Amendment 1, there is still a crucial area of difference. The government amendment is expressed in terms of the desirability of each holder of a licence. Power does not seek to emphasise desirability; power seeks to define will: what the Government want to see happen, not what they would like to see happen, as if in some way they can rely on a general response of good will. Of course, in many areas they can, but this is an area of crucial aviation policy with regard to airports. Our amendment to the government amendment says that, in place of a fairly wishy-washy concept of desiring that things should happen, there should be an obligation.
That issue is clear enough, and important enough, for us to press this issue despite the good will of the Minister and the efforts to respond. The response is too mealy-mouthed to achieve the objectives that this Bill should achieve with regard to the protection and improvement of the environment. It will become clear during the proceedings today that on many aspects of the Bill we agree with a great deal of what the Government are doing. However, in this area, the government amendment does not stand the test. That is why I have tabled this amendment. I beg to move.
The Lord Bishop of Chester
My Lords, in this House I intermittently find that the words of St Augustine come to my mind: “Lord, make me chaste, but not yet”. This is such an occasion and the use of “desirability” raised my interest, as it did of the noble Baroness when she saw it. When the Minister responds to the debate, I would like him to give us one or two examples of what these words might mean. What are,
“reasonable measures to reduce, control or mitigate the adverse environmental effects”,
when aeroplanes have a major adverse effect simply by being aeroplanes? It would be helpful to know just what obligation is meant, whether it be desirability, a duty or whatever, because I am rather unclear what impact any of these statements will have.
Lord Trefgarne
My Lords, like most noble Lords I think that the amendment moved by my noble friend has gone a long way to meet the concerns that were expressed at the earlier stage of this Bill. However, when the noble Lord, Lord Davies, eventually got to the purport of his amendment it, too, had some merit and I hope that my noble friend will feel able to consider it. Taken together, the two amendments represent a measurable improvement to the Bill and I hope that they can be agreed to.
Lord Soley
I, too, recognise and understand that the Minister has tried to meet concerns. In a way, the noble Countess, Lady Mar, put her finger on the point here: throughout most of Clause 1(3), “need” is used, so to introduce “desirability”, as the right reverend Prelate also indicated, makes its meaning unclear. I have one simple question for the Minister. What impact in law does it have to put in a clause which uses “desirability”? I am not sure that in law it would have any meaning.
West Coast Main Line
Lord Trefgarne Excerpts(11 years, 11 months ago)
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Earl Attlee
My Lords, as for the noble Lord’s last point, the staff on the west coast main line are of course the responsibility of Virgin. I assure the House that I have repeated many political Statements, and I have done so this time again without the opportunity of editing it because I am just repeating a Statement made by my right honourable friend in another place. As to the noble Lord’s substantive point about when my right honourable friend knew that there was a problem, as soon as he was told that the problem could have affected the outcome he cancelled the award of the contract immediately.
Lord Trefgarne
My Lords, I endorse what the Minister has just said. I have no detailed knowledge of these matters, and of course I share the dismay about the very serious difficulties that have emerged. However, I ask the noble Lord, Lord Davies, for example, speaking from the opposition Front Bench as he has just done, to take a little care. What would the reaction of the then Government have been if all this had happened, say, three years ago, when they were still in office? I dare say we would have had a whole lot of dissembling, lack of transparency and flannel and not the forthright and straightforward replies which Ministers have given on this occasion and for which I believe they are to be commended. Of course it is a deeply unfortunate situation but I think that Ministers have acted as best as they can and that they are to be commended for their transparency and forthrightness on this occasion.
Earl Attlee
My Lords, I suspect that the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Oldham, is thinking: there but for the grace of God go I. In defence of the noble Lord, he had to come to this House and explain the problems at HMRC, which, frankly, I think he did.
Aviation: Policy
Lord Trefgarne Excerpts(12 years, 2 months ago)
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Earl Attlee
My Lords, the noble Lord suggests that there would be an advantage in having a third runway. Of course there would be an advantage in having a third runway, which is why the previous Government supported one. However, we also need to bear in mind the interests of the more than 200,000 people who live in west London underneath the flight path.
Lord Trefgarne
My Lords, can the Minister confirm that business aviation and general aviation will continue to play an important part in the Government’s aeronautical thinking?
Earl Attlee
My noble friend makes an important point. At a meeting with my noble friend Lord Rotherwick, I agreed to take forward to my right honourable friend Theresa Villiers the importance of maintaining general aviation airfields.
Civil Aviation Bill
Lord Trefgarne Excerpts(12 years, 2 months ago)
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Lord Trefgarne
My Lords, while the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, makes an interesting case for Amendment 67, I am somewhat neutral on the matter, and look forward to hearing the Minister’s reply. I must say that I am a good deal less enthusiastic about Amendment 68; general, somewhat ill defined duties such as those contained in that amendment are best left out of legislation, and I hope that the noble Lord will not press it.
Earl Attlee
My Lords, I fully agree with noble Lords on the need for the CAA to be efficient in carrying out its functions. Identical amendments to the ones now tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, were also tabled in the Commons both in Committee and on Report, and were defeated in Divisions.
I shall speak first to Amendment 67 on introducing a role for the National Audit Office. In Commons Committee the Minister announced a strengthening, outside the Bill, of the scrutiny to which the CAA is subject. Having considered this issue further myself, I remain unconvinced that there are compelling reasons to believe that NAO scrutiny of the CAA would deliver a different result from the current and new mechanisms by which the CAA’s functions are already audited and scrutinised. Moreover, the CAA is overwhelmingly funded by the aviation industry. Parliament recognised this in removing the NAO’s role from the CAA and certain other bodies in 1984. The issue was considered by Sir Joseph Pilling, in his 2008 strategic review of the CAA, who concluded that there was no need for NAO involvement. The recommendation was subsequently accepted by Ministers under the previous Government, and I have yet to be convinced that they were wrong.
It is true that other industry-funded regulators come under the scrutiny of the NAO but, unlike the CAA, they are generally either non-ministerial government departments or rely on government funding for a significant proportion of their income. The CAA’s situation is very different from regulators such as the Office of Rail Regulation. Although the ORR is funded by industry licences, it is distinct because of the high level of public funding that the rail industry receives.
I reiterate the strength of the scrutiny mechanisms already in place with the CAA. As was said on Report, the Secretary of State appoints the CAA’s external auditors. She presents the CAA’s accounts to Parliament by placing the annual report statement in the Library of the House of Commons; she is involved in the development of the corporate plan; with the Treasury’s consent, she approves the CAA’s borrowing and sets its required rate on return on capital; and she will continue to approve the remuneration of the chair and non-executive members of the CAA board. In addition, the CAA consults on its charges and fees. Clause 100 makes such consultation an explicit requirement. I therefore currently see no reasons why the NAO should audit the CAA, and ask the noble Lord to withdraw that amendment.
On Amendment 68, regarding efficiency, in practice the CAA is already subject to conditions and obligations that ensure that it is efficient. As announced by the Minister in the Commons, from 2013 onwards the Government will include in their annual accounts direction a requirement for the CAA to include an efficiency statement in its annual report. This would be subject to validation by the CAA’s external auditors, and the Secretary of State for Transport will approve the terms of reference for that work. The efficiency statement is likely to include a summary of value-for-money audits and post-project completion reviews, developments in processes and technology and a report on the remuneration and deployment of staff. The external auditors’ published statement in the annual report would contain a summary of their findings on the efficiency statement in the interests of transparency. Industry representatives on the CAA’s finance advisory group would be given an opportunity to discuss the statement before and after the external auditors had completed their activity. This establishes an annual process of scrutiny, with transparency to the industry and to Parliament, to which the Secretary of State will continue to present the CAA’s accounts.
During the past nine years, the CAA has reduced its workforce by 15%. It employed 1,057 full-time equivalents in 2003 and had reduced that number to 870 in March 2012. The CAA’s strategic plan contains the objective:
“To ensure that the CAA is an efficient and effective organisation which meets Better Regulation principles and gives value for money”.
Clause 1(3) and (4) and Clauses 83 and 84 already build in proportionality safeguards. The CAA is also required to follow the good regulation principles in the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Act 2006 and the statutory regulator’s compliance code requires that regulators,
“should be accountable for the efficiency and effectiveness of their activities, while remaining independent in the decisions they take”.
I am aware that this is very important to airlines represented by the British Air Transport Association.
I will continue to reflect on the matter and consider what further reassurances can be given to your Lordships on Report. In light of that, I hope that, at the appropriate point, the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, will consider withdrawing his amendment.
Lord Soley
I do not wish to delay the Committee for very long because my noble friend Lord Davies and the noble Lord, Lord Rotherwick, have covered a number of the points that I would otherwise have made.
We sometimes think, as the noble Lord has indicated, that this must always involve a cost of some sort to the airlines or other people on the sites. In fact, in the car industry there are some recent examples that might benefit the aviation industry. For example, we have a lower car tax rate, and indeed lower insurance policies, for cars that are fuel-efficient. That policy was brought in by the previous Government but is fully supported by this one. I am not sure that we could not have a policy, or that the CAA could not at least encourage one, where our modern, quieter and more fuel-efficient aircraft could have a different landing charge. Maybe that can already be done, I am not sure.
There are other examples of that type such as the ground operations that are carried out. A number of airports have now got around to doing things like bringing in more environmentally friendly ground operations generally, particularly regarding vehicles. They were a bit slow on the uptake but now they are doing that quite fast. There ought to be awareness of encouraging that—possibly even financially, as I have indicated. I am not talking about government subsidy per se but a recognition that there may be a benefit to bringing in a more efficient system. The examples that the noble Lord, Lord Rotherwick, has just given of being able to fly around the community might be enormously beneficial.
We ought to be quite creative in trying to find ways of encouraging the people who are operating from an airport to carry out their operations in a more environmentally friendly way. That is possible and we ought to look creatively not just at methods that might increase costs but at methods that might also decrease them for some of the operators.
Lord Trefgarne
My Lords, being 110 years old, naturally I am resistant to innovation of all kinds, although I hope not in all branches of aviation. None the less, one needs to take care with imposing duties of this kind upon the CAA in this particular area. For example, if it were to be pressed to incorporate a new kind of material in an engine, perhaps to make it quieter, the cost of certifying a new innovation of that kind can be substantial. My noble friend Lord Rotherwick refers to the desirability of introducing GPS approaches in more airports. One has to remember that GPS systems are outside the control of the CAA, the operators and NATS, and in the past have been subject to interference from hostile agencies, which is much to be regretted. I remember an occasion some years ago when the GPS system in the UK collapsed for a couple of days because there was some technical difficulty about which the CAA and NATS knew nothing.
One needs to take a little care about these things. The ground approach facilities, for example, to which my noble friend referred, are under the maintenance and control of the airport authority and therefore, you may say, more reliable, at least when the shortcomings are more readily known. That said, I do not want to stand in the way of these worthwhile innovations, and the advantages of GPS approaches to which my noble friend referred are very real and important, but one needs to take care. The CAA has taken a careful—if that is the right word—approach to the approval of GPS systems. That was right. It is being slowly convinced of their merit, which is right, too, but it did not jump in their direction as hastily as perhaps some others did. I am not standing in the way of innovation, but I ask the Minister to explain how the costs of all this will be met. Some of them may fall on the operators—to their advantage, no doubt, so that is a good thing—but we should take a little care.
Earl Attlee
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Oldham, for introducing this interesting, probing amendment, because it gives me the opportunity to say something about how innovative the aviation sector in this country already is and the CAA’s role as the regulator. My noble friend Lord Rotherwick spoke about innovation in navigational aids. I look forward to debating his Amendment 73, which will deal with these issues, but his comments were valuable nevertheless. He indirectly illustrated why the CAA should concentrate on regulation.
My view is that market forces should be allowed to drive innovation in industry and the regulator should be responsive to it. This is how things have worked so far between the aviation sector and the CAA. Indeed, just how innovative our aviation sector is is a measure of how well this arrangement has worked.
Let us consider one aspect of the aviation sector, the aerospace industry. Our aerospace industry is the world’s largest outside the USA, with a 17% share of the global market. Its annual turnover is more than £20 billion, and it directly employs more than 100,000 people, supporting a total of 230,000 jobs across the UK economy. Its workforce is highly skilled: 36% of its employees have university degrees or equivalent.
The aviation travel industry is equally innovative. In my opening speech at Second Reading, I paid tribute to this fact, saying:
“In 2010 … UK airports served nearly 400 international destinations. That level of activity is possible because over the past 30 years the aviation industry has changed to meet the needs of the customer. The emergence of low-cost carriers is one example of how the industry has innovated and diversified. There has also been an increase in the number of people travelling by air in this country, from 59 million passengers in 1982 to 211 million in 2010”.—[Official Report, 13/6/12; col. 1364.]
The CAA has its own international consultancy, Civil Aviation Authority International, or CAAi, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of the CAA. It is a leading, globally recognised aviation consultancy company that delivers and promotes best practice in aviation governance and education. CAAi provides technical advisory services across a range of aviation-related activities, environmental consulting, professional training, aviation examination services and certification against internationally recognised quality management standards. CAAi’s work contributes to enhancing safety standards worldwide.
The CAA is also quick to respond to innovation in the aviation industry. I have come across two examples in the past few days. The noble Lord, Lord Sugar, has raised with me the issue of PDAs in the cockpit. The CAA is assisting many UK commercial air transport operators to gain approval for the use of electronic flight bags. An electronic flight bag approval will allow an operator to replace many of its cockpit paper-based processes with an electronic solution such as a laptop or tablet device or with an aircraft manufacturer’s own certificated system. The CAA is working with EASA and ICAO to standardise and simplify the requirements for operational approval of electronic flight bags.
The second example is the CAA’s work on its future airspace strategy, alluded to by the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Oldham. As the noble Lord reminded the Committee, I offered some aviation briefing sessions to Peers shortly before Second Reading. As part of those, the CAA’s Director of Airspace Policy, Mark Swan, gave a presentation on its future airspace strategy. Through the strategy the CAA is modernising how we use our airspace in this country with the aim of achieving a,
“safe, efficient airspace, that has the capacity to meet reasonable demand, balances the needs of all users and mitigates the impact of aviation on the environment”.
Mark Swan explained that this aim depends on the ability to take advantage of technological developments. For example, new communications, navigation and surveillance improve situational awareness of users and controllers; increased navigational accuracy enables closer-spaced routes; and the amount of noise experienced by communities will be reduced as aircraft fly their routes more accurately and consistently. Operators will be able to free route in the upper airspace along the most fuel-efficient track. This is important. The noble Lord, Lord Davies, touched on emissions and the need to tackle them with technology and innovation. The future airspace strategy is an example of how the CAA can facilitate innovation in the civil aviation industry without the need for a new duty.
The noble Lord, Lord Soley, spoke previously about using advanced biofuels in the aviation sector, as did the noble Lord, Lord Davies, today. Today the noble Lord, Lord Soley, talked about quieter aircraft. He will recall that the quota system of regulating noise at Heathrow airport strongly encourages quieter aircraft. Indeed, under the quota system some aircraft cannot fly at all at night. While there are some obvious barriers, the Government believe that sustainable biofuels have a role to play in reducing carbon emissions from transport, particularly in sectors where there are limited alternatives to fossil fuels, such as aviation. The Committee on Climate Change has carried out studies on the potential for biofuels to reduce emissions from UK aviation in the long term. Its latest estimate is that biofuels could supply 10% of jet fuel demand by 2050, suggesting the impact that future innovation might have.
I said that it is my view that market forces, rather than regulators, drive innovation. I believe that the examples I have provided together show that the industry and the CAA have got the balance right.
Lord Trefgarne
My Lords, I have a good deal of sympathy for the amendment of my noble friend Lord Rotherwick. Might the Minister be a little clearer on what the process will be for the fixed penalty notices? I am ashamed to tell your Lordships that I am a veteran of the fixed penalty notice system as applied by Transport for London in relation to the congestion charge. I have on a couple of occasions had to appeal against an alleged violation only for my appeals to be dismissed instantly—no doubt, rightly. I discovered that if you insist on appealing and taking your lawyer with you to the tribunal in relation to your Transport for London penalty notice for alleged non-payment of the congestion charge, you are 90% likely to get off, but if you do not take your lawyer with you, you are not. It struck me as a rather shocking revelation. I do not suggest that there is anything wrong in the process, but amateurs who go on their own to appeal or simply send in a letter of appeal to Transport for London are likely to be dismissed out of hand. However, if you turn up on the day with your lawyer, you are likely to have your appeal allowed. I hope that there will be no such vagaries in the system to be employed by the Civil Aviation Authority. Who will hear appeals from fixed penalty notices issued by the Civil Aviation Authority? What will be the expertise of those who hear them? Can I be assured that the system will be a lot better than Transport for London’s?
Lord Davies of Oldham
My Lords, I have only one brief comment to make, one which I never thought I would make in Parliament or elsewhere. Oh the joys of Opposition for the Minister to reply.
Earl Attlee
My Lords, before turning to the detail of the points made, I must emphasise the importance of the clause that the amendment would alter. My noble friend Lord Trefgarne mentioned the congestion charge. I have been caught by it but I never dared to appeal. I just paid up. That might be because I knew that I was wrong.
The noble Lord talked about the higher success rate if you bring your lawyer. It may be that the appellant brings his lawyer because he is certain that he is right, so not surprisingly he wins his case. The noble Lord also asked about the appeal process. If someone who has been issued a fixed penalty notice is unhappy about that, he can take it to court in exactly the same way as a motorist can take a matter to court—like the McCaffrey case.
Lord Trefgarne
I confess that my memory is perhaps slightly hazy but my recollection is that one cannot take Transport for London to court. If one loses the appeal, that is that.
Earl Attlee
My Lords, the offender will be able to take the matter to an independent appeal tribunal. I will write to the noble Lord with full details of how that system will work.
Clause 102 amends Part 3 of the Regulatory Enforcement and Sanctions Act 2008 to enable the CAA to make use of civil sanctions where it currently relies almost exclusively on criminal prosecutions, which are not always appropriate for technical infringements. The Bill will enable the Secretary of State by order to give the CAA access to a range of civil sanctions provided under Part 3 of the 2008 Act as an alternative to prosecution. We believe that criminal sanctions are disproportionate in relation to some offences, such as minor breaches or offences of an administrative nature.
I do not agree with my noble friend Lord Rotherwick when he suggests that the CAA will be encouraged to issue fixed penalties. The fines will go to the Consolidated Fund, as accepted by my noble friend. I think that he goes a little too far when he suggests that the CAA would abuse its powers and I totally refute the suggestion that these are revenue-raising powers. I was asked for examples. When the commander of an aircraft fails to produce licences for his or her flight crew in a reasonable time when requested to do so by an authorised person, he or she is guilty of a criminal offence and liable to summary conviction and a fine not exceeding level 3 on a standard scale. Should an offender fail to comply with such rules, a fine or civil penalty for breach may be a more appropriate enforcement action than a criminal prosecution, thus ensuring better compliance. I should point out that offenders will not find themselves in the dock because it is a civil penalty. I can assure my noble friends that secondary legislation will be required to grant the CAA these powers. It will be subject to full consultation and impact assessment. Any order will be subject to the affirmative resolution procedure in Parliament.
My noble friend Lord Rotherwick asked about the expected scope of compliance changes. The appropriate time to consider costs and benefits of the power is at secondary legislation stage. It would not be good use of public resources to calculate extensive options for what may not be the impact until Parliament has agreed the powers. In particular, Clause 102 inserts certain provisions of the Civil Aviation Act 1982 to the list of enactments in Schedule 7 to the 2008 Act. That enables the Secretary of State by order to give the CAA access to a range of civil sanctions in relation to offences contained in secondary legislation made under the 1982 Act. The provisions of that Act include Section 61 which enables the Secretary of State to make provision for offences to secure compliance with Air Navigation Orders. Such orders are key to the regulation of air navigation in the UK. I am sure that all noble Lords in the Committee would agree with that. They set wide-ranging rules that the CAA largely polices.
Turning to the amendment, as described by my noble friend, it would exclude Section 61 from Schedule 7 to the 2008 Act and thereby deprive the CAA of the use of a range of civil sanctions in relation to offences contained in the Air Navigation Order. This would dilute the intended purpose of Clause 102.
My noble friend Lord Rotherwick asked what the provisions will achieve. The inclusion of Section 61 of the 1982 Act in Schedule 7 to the 2008 Act is important, as it could give the CAA flexibility to use civil sanctions to enforce the provisions of the Air Navigation Order. That would be done only in appropriate cases where the application of criminal penalties was not a proportionate response to the offence which had been committed, particularly in the case of minor administrative breaches. The CAA will not automatically impose fixed monetary policies for breaches of the Air Navigation Order; the CAA will have available a range of civil sanctions under RESA, including fixed monetary penalties, variable monetary penalties, compliance notice and acceptance of enforcement undertakings for imposition. The CAA must publish guidance on the use of such sanctions under a duty to act proportionately under the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Act 2006.
In evidence to the Public Bill Committee on the Civil Aviation Bill in another place, a risk was raised that the inappropriate use of new civil enforcement powers could damage the open flow of information between the industry and the CAA. A recommendation was made that the CAA be required to consult on a formal policy before exercising the new powers. I hope that that will give my noble friend some comfort. I do not agree with any suggestion that the CAA would use the new enforcement powers disproportionately. That is because the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Act 2006 requires regulators to carry out their regulatory functions transparently, accountably, proportionately, consistently, and target them only where action is needed. That includes the CAA, and we are confident that the CAA will abide by those requirements. The Department for Transport intends to consult fully on any secondary legislation which will make civil sanctions available to the CAA in respect of relevant offences and to develop a full impact assessment—a point that I know concerned my noble friend.
For those reasons, I hope that my noble friend will consider withdrawing his amendment.
Lord Trefgarne
My Lords, is my noble friend willing to write to me with more detail about the intended appeal processes for the fixed penalty notices? I recognise, as he says, that secondary legislation is likely to be required before these processes come into place, but this is a subject of considerable concern, at least for me. As I explained, the present processes for dealing with appeals against, for example, fixed penalty notices from Transport for London, are unsatisfactory and I hope that they can be improved in respect of whatever the CAA is empowered to do.
Earl Attlee
My Lords, I will be delighted to write to all Members of the Committee explaining the Government’s intent on that issue.
Lord Trefgarne
My Lords, I must confess that when I read this provision originally it seemed to be a rather extraordinary provision to be included in the Bill. I therefore took the occasion to make some inquiries. First, I declare an interest. For a number of years, I held an aviation medical certificate, which has now lapsed owing to my great age. Throughout the 40-odd years that I held a civil aviation licence, I was dealt with with the utmost consideration and skill by the CAA, and previously by the Ministry of Aviation’s medical authorities, including on two occasions having my licence suspended for medical reasons, entirely correctly and properly, by the then authorities.
My concern is confidentiality. I am and always have been very anxious that medical information held by public authorities, whether it is the CAA or anyone else, should remain properly confidential. I accept that there are provisions in these arrangements to keep confidential the information that is to be released to others, but the civil aviation community, the number of those who hold civil licences and air traffic control licences, is comparatively small. There is a risk that, if the information for some unusual medical conditions is published, it will be possible to identify the persons concerned. If the information on, say, half a dozen or so cases of a particularly obscure medical condition is made available to research agencies, it will be obvious who is the holder of that medical information.
I hope that my noble friend can explain in a little more detail than appears in the Explanatory Memorandum why it is necessary to have this new power. Can he give me the necessary assurances with regard to the absolute confidentiality of the information to be provided?
The Countess of Mar
My Lords, I am pleased to see this clause in the Bill. Some years ago, research was conducted on airline pilots who had been exposed to organophosphates. I am sorry but I have a problem with my voice. It was impossible for the CAA to give any details whatever to the researchers and it caused huge difficulties. This will relieve that difficulty, so I am very pleased to see it.
Earl Attlee
My Lords, I would oppose my noble friend Lord Trefgarne’s intention. I believe that Clause 104 should remain part of the Bill. My noble friend said that his pilot’s licence was properly suspended for medical conditions. I currently have the same problem with my HGV licence because my blood pressure is too high—but the Summer Recess is coming soon.
My noble friend was concerned that it might be possible to identify a pilot’s condition because of those small cohorts. It is more likely that medical research would be into large cohorts, such as all pilots with condition X or all class 1 medical certificate holders. Should a smaller cohort be of interest, the data controller would normally look to seek consent first.
There are several reasons to keep the clause part of the Bill, by no means the least of which is that the Government are seeking to enact this change because it was recommended by your Lordships’ Select Committee on Science and Technology in 2007 and this is the first legislative opportunity that successive Governments have had to give effect to your Lordships’ recommendation.
I shall turn to the specific points raised by my noble friend so that I can give him the reassurance that he seeks. First, he has suggested to me—certainly in private; I cannot remember whether he has said this publicly—that the CAA may sell on medical records. I make it very clear that this is not the intention of the legislation and that the CAA has no plans to do this. There is also perhaps the prospect of the CAA requiring even more medical data from pilots and flight crew, because it might be useful for the purposes of later medical research. The CAA cannot ask for more medical information than it needs to consider an application for a medical certificate. The CAA has no intention or wish to ask for extra medical information and no mechanism under which to do so without obtaining individual informed consent. The CAA abides by the data protection principle of keeping the minimal data required for the purpose of medical fitness assessments. If an applicant were asked to provide medical information that appeared to have no relevance to their licence application, it could be expected that they would challenge the need for it.
Clause 104 does not provide the CAA with any further powers to collect medical information. Those powers are already there as part of the CAA’s licensing obligation under the Air Navigation Order. The CAA has no intention to expand the scope of the medical information that it requires of applicants, and this provision would not allow for that. The clause is there solely to permit the CAA to disclose the medical information that it already collects for medical research purposes, subject to the strict safeguards contained in Clause 104(3).
The Committee will note that the CAA does not set out to collect medical data but acquires such data from people wishing to be licensed as pilots, navigators and so on because it has to make a judgment on whether those people are medically fit enough to be licensed. We also think that making this change is a good thing to do. The Civil Aviation Authority receives medical information relating to flight crew and air traffic controllers in the course of its licensing functions. Clause 104 provides for the CAA to be able to disclose this medical information to medical researchers by amending Section 23 of the Civil Aviation Act 1982, subject to the strict safeguards included in the Bill. This information could be used for important medical research into the major functional and incapacitation risks to those individuals—for example, the risks of heart problems. We believe that an increased understanding of the main health risks may in turn lead to an improved understanding of the risk to public safety, which is vital in the aviation industry.
The types of important research envisaged here include the analysis of the electrocardiogram tracings of pilots over an extended period to determine whether small anomalies—that is, differences—seen in the tracings translate to heart problems later in their careers. Given the important benefits of this research, we consider that the provision represents a proportionate response to the legitimate aims pursued. I also remind the Committee that this proposal was supported in public consultation on the Bill, where the vast majority of respondents agreed with making anonymised medical data available for ethically approved research. It is of course vital that in doing this we include strong and effective safeguards to protect individuals’ privacy. The Government are committed to ensuring that medical research will not compromise the rights of individuals to have their confidential medical information protected. I have already answered one of my noble friend’s very good questions, which was about small cohorts.
Individuals’ rights under the Data Protection Act 1998 and Article 8 of the ECHR will be fully respected. The CAA will act as the data controller at all times. We have included strong safeguards in the clause to protect those individuals. First, medical information must be anonymised by the CAA before it is released to medical researchers. Secondly, the disclosure must be for medical research purposes approved by a research ethics committee. Thirdly, the CAA must consider that the research is likely to improve the understanding of health risks to those individuals required to provide medical information to them. Fourthly, the CAA must consider that it would be difficult or expensive to take the steps required by existing legislation to enable disclosure of all the information that is to be disclosed—for example, where the research cohort is particularly large. As the information disclosed by the CAA would be anonymised, any published research would also be in anonymous form. These cumulative safeguards will ensure the appropriate balance between enabling important medical research and protecting privacy rights. I therefore hope that my noble friend will feel able to withdraw his opposition to the clause standing part of the Bill.
Lord Trefgarne
My Lords, I am very much persuaded by the arguments that the Minister has put forward. It is important that this information is kept confidential.
I have just one other question to which I suspect my noble friend will not have answer off the cuff, but if he could write to me on it, I would be grateful. Am I not right in thinking that the CAA has access also to medical information on pilots held by the Ministry of Defence? It is important that that information, too, should be kept confidential, but it is also important that the information is available for the researchers if it can be done in a proper way and with proper safeguards. My noble friend may not have that information at his fingertips, but if he could write to me about the MoD position in this matter, I would be greatly obliged.
Earl Attlee
I can undertake to give what information I can. However, we both know a little bit about the Ministry of Defence and I am not entirely confident that it would have the data that the CAA would have.
Lord Trefgarne
My Lords, again, this is a very small point on which I would be grateful for assistance. Am I not right in thinking that, if we move in some respects from prosecutions under the 1982 Act or some other Act to prosecutions under the Air Navigation Order—we have already talked about fixed penalty notices—the penalties under the ANO are less than those under the civil aviation Acts, including the 1982 Act? Is that one of the intentions of this provision?
Earl Attlee
My Lords, if the aircraft was being operated under the terms of the Civil Aviation Act, it is a matter for the CAA to regulate and investigate. It is not a matter for me to comment on. If it was an aircraft of the Ministry of Defence, it is not covered by the Civil Aviation Act.
Lord Trefgarne
My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for explaining all the penalties. Were I still authorised to fly, I should be very careful not to fly dangerously and fall foul of all the penalties he described.
Lord Rotherwick
My Lords, as an instrument-rated private pilot I have been aware for some time that the carriage of an obsolete radio navigation system is still mandated by the Air Navigation Order. Technology moves on: automatic direction-finding, or ADF, equipment was developed in the middle of the last century and in the last two decades has been overtaken by more modern satellite-based and computer-controlled systems, such as GPS. Indeed, it is possible to purchase wristwatches with better navigational functions than those provided by ADF.
I have to revalidate my IR rating once a year, and to do this I fly in a plane with steam-driven instruments. I apologise to my noble friend Lord Trefgarne, whose plane had nothing but steam-driven instruments. Once a year, using this equipment I have to do an NDB.
The one thing that is interesting about an NDB, apart from the fact that it points roughly in the direction of the beacon that you are trying to track, is that in a thunderstorm it can be reliably trusted to point toward the thunderstorm and not the airport. It can do many other things. One will notice that at Oxford when landing on a one line procedure, as the plane crosses a railway track prior to landing, the needle of the NDB will deviate towards the train running across the track if one is so lucky as to fly over it. In short, it is not a particularly reliable instrument but it has served well over many years. However, there are better systems now.
Ground-based non-directional beacons, NDBs, are rapidly disappearing in the United States. About 100 a year go out and there are virtually none left. The associated automatic direction finding, ADF, equipment, mounted in an aircraft remains a legal requirement for instrument flight in controlled airspace, although some limited exemptions are in place. That absurdity makes some flights in modern aircraft that are not fitted with ADF of dubious legality. It is a grey area, despite having absolutely no implications for the safe and expeditious conduct of those flights, or indeed finding the solution for the navigation.
Noble Lords will be as fearful as many owners and operators of light aircraft that when the Government’s Clause 102 comes in, the CAA may be issuing fixed penalty notices like confetti to those who breach the ANO requirement. I am therefore proposing a simple new clause to repeal the relevant requirement in the Air Navigation Order 2009. I have put this point to the Government in the past and while accepting their suggestions and issuing guidance suggesting alternative navigational aids that might be acceptable as alternatives, the legal requirement remains. I understand that primary legislation is required to bring about the change and put the question beyond doubt. Indeed, that was the real reason I am told that nothing has come forward to date. They have been waiting for primary legislation.
This is the first suitable legislative vehicle to present itself, so I move my new clause confident that it will find favour with my noble friend the Minister. I accept that my drafting may not be up to the requirements of parliamentary counsel and am very happy to take advice from my noble friend who may wish to table a more elegantly drafted new clause on Report. In the mean time, I beg to move.
Lord Trefgarne
My Lords, I have some sympathy with my noble friend. He knows that very well. On the other hand, the regulations to which he refers and which he seeks to amend by virtue of this amendment are devised and overseen by considerable experts in this area. It would be a mistake to impose a requirement on the CAA by means of this amendment at this time. These matters should be left to the experts who are within the Civil Aviation Authority and the National Air Traffic Services. They are not all dinosaurs; they are very senior, distinguished, respectable and intelligent people. I am happy to leave it to them and I hope that my noble friend will feel so persuaded.
Earl Attlee
My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Rotherwick for putting forward this amendment. I can appreciate his desire to remove where possible unnecessary regulation and requirements on the aviation industry, which accords with the Government’s intentions on the red tape challenge. My noble friend has rightly drawn the Committee’s attention to whether there continues to be a compelling need for the mandatory carriage of automatic direction finding, ADF, equipment on some aircraft. I did a little research myself: I looked up ADF and it appeared to be Amsterdam Density Functional, which is,
“a Fortran program for calculations on atoms and molecules”.
I thought that that had got nothing to do with aviation and that I had therefore better stick to my notes.
My noble friend has a passion for ensuring that regulation is appropriate and that we take into account technical developments which can often make regulations out of date. The Civil Aviation Authority has advised that it agrees with my noble friend that the existing arrangements are no longer appropriate, given the recent progress in navigational equipment. I am therefore pleased to learn that the industry now benefits from some alleviation in a general exemption issued by the CAA.
I agree with my noble friend Lord Rotherwick that this matter is worthy of further investigation. It is of course an important safety issue and I am sure that the Committee will agree that it needs a proper and thorough safety assessment before we could remove this requirement. A meeting between my noble friend and the Civil Aviation Authority may be the first step to considering how best to proceed, including an assessment of if and when it might be possible to amend the Air Navigation Order. That would be a more suitable approach than through this Bill, as pointed out by my noble friend Lord Trefgarne. If my noble friend agrees, I would be happy to make the necessary arrangements. I note that my diary is already littered with protected dates for such a meeting with my noble friend. Therefore, I hope that my noble friend will withdraw the amendment at the appropriate point.
Lord Trefgarne
My Lords, just before my noble friend withdraws his amendment, perhaps I may point out that automatic direction finding equipment operating on the medium wave is very useful when it is not being used for navigational purposes—for example, for listening to the test match. The noble Lord may or may not use that in consideration.
Lord Rotherwick
I am very grateful for the kind words of my noble friend the Minister and for his offer, which of course I should like to take up. I do not think that there is more to be said than that. I also thank my noble friend Lord Trefgarne who seems to be a little concerned about my amendment. I hope that his noble Dove, which is now out at grass, and its wonderful array of steam driven instruments were being used for the right reason and that he was not listening to the test match as he was making an instrument approach. I know that he has not been in a cockpit for some time but if he would like to come and see a new cockpit, I would be delighted to take him along, although it might come as a shock. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Civil Aviation Bill
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Lord Soley
I will not delay the Committee, and I apologise for missing the opening remarks. Religious groups are very good at co-operating with the authorities. They are just as much at risk as the rest of the population. Indeed, Muslims have often been the victims of bombing attacks. So long as the CAA understands that it needs to work with religious leaders, that is the key to this. If religious leaders agree, we will not have the enormous problems to which the noble Lord refers. They are at least as much, and possibly more, concerned than many other citizens, simply because they are so often victims. We forget that.
Lord Trefgarne
My Lords, I share the views of my noble friend Lord Rotherwick. I wholly sympathise with the objective of the amendment, but it is going a bit too far to write it into the Bill in the form that the noble Lord proposes. I have one question for the Minister: what electronic tests and checks, such as X-rays or ultrasound, are available to examine Sikhs wearing turbans that they do not wish to remove?
Lord Clinton-Davis
Reference has already been made to the problems posed by the Sikh population. I refer also to Orthodox Jews. I am not one of them, but they would look askance at the possibility of being dealt with as ordinary citizens are rightly dealt with. Perhaps the Minister would outline what steps are taken towards people who are especially vulnerable, such as the ones I have mentioned.
Lord Trefgarne
I apologise for not being here earlier. I hope that I am in order in asking the Minister one question arising from Clause 83(1) on the reference to civil airports and all the divisions of the clause that relate to them. He will be aware that some military airports accept civil flights. What will be the position in that case?
Earl Attlee
My Lords, my noble friend has questioned whether Clause 83 should stand part of the Bill without having given notice on the Marshalled List. That does not put me in a very good position to answer his question. However, I am very happy to write to him.
Lord Rotherwick
My Lords, I remind the Committee that I made a declaration of interest earlier on. Clause 83 requires the CAA to provide information about airport services and facilities for air transport users. This is a very valuable aspect of the Bill and it ought to be extended to cover the direct users of the airport operation services and facilities from the general and business aviation sector, the GBA. Now that I say it, that sounds a bit like GBH, but it is not. Amendment 58 endeavours to do that.
By way of introduction to my amendment, I invite the Committee to look at the Bill. It is unambitious because it is so limited in scope. The opportunity was there and the groundwork had been laid for a Bill that would have declared to Europe that Britain was open for aviation business in all its forms and was ready and able to grasp the economic and business opportunities that that could bring, so I feel that I can offer no more than a muted cheer for the Bill.
Where the Bill most needs improvement is in its potential to recognise and make provision for the GBA. However, it concentrates on the economic regulation of a small number of dominant airports and on looking after the interests of airline passengers and owners of air cargo. That is commendable, hence the two muted cheers, but my concern is for the interest ignored in the Bill: the GBA. As I said previously, 96% of UK-registered aircraft are ignored by the Bill’s principal provisions. The Minister has accepted that the Bill is limited in scope. He said that it,
“seeks primarily to provide for better regulation of our airports and is not designed to be a comprehensive overhaul of our legislation”.—[Official Report, 27/6/12; col. GC 143.]
Had the Bill grasped the opportunity to perform that overhaul, it would have deserved three hearty cheers.
With my small number of amendments, I seek to highlight the importance and needs of the GBA, to probe the Government on their attitudes towards this important sector and to introduce some helpful amendments. I feel that I have already made some progress. On day one of this Committee the Minister said that,
“the Government absolutely recognise the valuable contribution of the general and business aviation sector … It also has growing economic importance for the European manufacturing industry”.—[Official Report, 27/6/12; col. GC 144.]
With that recognition placed on record, I am encouraged that I may be able to seduce the Government into bringing forward an amendment that will make a useful contribution to the welfare of the GBA sector.
Part 2 of the Bill includes 10 clauses under the banner, “Provision of information about aviation”. The first of those, Clause 83, is entitled, “Information for benefit of users of air transport services”. My proposition is that there is information that could be of great benefit to the direct users of airport operation services and facilities from the GBA sector. The CAA is best placed to collect and collate that information and make it available. That would be of benefit to the market.
I am sorry to say that GBA users are often at best neglected and at worst positively discriminated against by operators of airports predominantly serving commercial aviation. My amendment would address that failing. In an information age, it seems archaic that there is no single source of advice for the GBA sector. There is no CAA website allowing GBA users to compare facilities and services at different airfields. Ideally, such information should be available on all airfields, but even if the scope of this proposed new clause were restricted to dominant airfields it would still represent a significant step forward in openness and transparency, allowing better informed decisions to be made.
The new clause, cast in exactly the same terms as the Government’s Clause 83, would require the CAA to,
“publish guidance and advice with a view to improving the standard of … services facilities for general and business aviation users of”,
airports. I would like that to include a whole range of airfields, but if that would be a step too far I would settle for its scope being restricted to dominant airports. I beg to move.
Lord Trefgarne
My Lords, like my noble friend Lord Rotherwick and, I think, my noble friend Lord Goschen, who is not in his place, I was much disappointed by the Minister’s replies to amendments about civil aviation earlier in our consideration of the Bill the other day. I hope that he will be a bit more forthcoming in response to the latest amendment from my noble friend, which has my strong support.
Earl Attlee
My Lords, I thank my noble friend for tabling the amendment. We had an informed debate about general and business aviation on the first day of Committee, and I committed to meeting my noble friend Lord Rotherwick and his team to discuss the interests of general and business aviation further. I am sorry that my noble friends were disappointed by my response on that occasion.
The proposed new clause seeks to replicate the information publishing requirements being imposed on the Civil Aviation Authority by Clause 83. However, the Bill already covers general and business aviation interests where the flights include passengers, cargo or both. So, for example, where a corporate flight is carrying business passengers, the proposed duty under Clause 83 will extend to these situations because the passengers comprise users of air transport services. In these cases, the CAA functions will allow it to correct the asymmetric information market failure that I alluded to when we debated Clause 83 in all instances where there are users of air transport services.
The Bill does not include either the part of general aviation that is for non-commercial leisure use or the part that comprises commercial services that do not involve the carriage of cargo or passengers. Examples of these are crop spraying, flight training and surveying—I suspect that that is a concern of my noble friend. The amendment extends a duty to publish information beyond passengers and cargo. However, the market for general aviation is more transparent than that for the ordinary consumer. General aviation users comprise trained and licensed pilots with ready access to networks and sources of information. Comprehensive information on what facilities are available to pilots at each UK-licensed airport and airfield is already freely available online from, for example, the UKGA website. Much more information is also available through published flight guides or from the relevant aerodromes.
A further duty on the CAA, as the amendment proposes, to take into account the reasonable interests of general and business aviation is therefore unlikely to make a material difference to the information that is available to those airport service users. Against that background, we do not think it appropriate to give specific prominence to the interests of general and business aviation or, indeed, to any other specific sector. Moreover, we consider that such a duty would impose an unreasonable financial burden on the CAA and the aviation industry. The burden would fall either on the aviation industry generally, which would not be equitable, or on the general aviation community, which as I have explained has access to the information that it needs. For these reasons, I hope that my noble friend will consider withdrawing his amendment.
Lord Trefgarne
My Lords, I am not without sympathy for the noble Lord’s amendment. It would be a bit much to ask the Civil Aviation Authority to produce a separate, free-standing annual report on this matter, but might it be possible to require it to put a relevant passage into its general annual report, which is already published regularly?
Civil Aviation Bill
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Lord Davies of Oldham
My Lords, the Minister made the best fist that he could of a fairly weak argument. Of course, I recognise the merits of the clauses, in that he made it clear that it is important to define the operator and to know whom we are talking about. Who could possibly gainsay that proposition?
In objecting to the clause, I am not objecting to the sense that lies behind the elements within the clause to which the Minister addressed some of his remarks. I indicated that in opposing the clause I recognised this to be a fairly blunderbuss approach and that we have not refined our opposition in amendments—something that we may do in due course, perhaps on Report. However, I say to the Minister that in this general debate anxieties have been expressed across the Committee, and he has not allayed those anxieties at all, apart from—
Lord Trefgarne
I am afraid that the noble Lord is mistaken. The Minister has very much allayed my anxieties about this matter. I see these clauses as facilitating competition between terminals at a particular airport. What is the matter with that? When the operator comes to choose the terminal from which he wishes to operate, he will select the one that offers him the best deal—maybe it has the best duty-free shops or is the cheapest—and these benefits will be passed on to the passengers. I am very much in favour of these clauses and I hope that the noble Lord will not press the question of whether they should stand part of the Bill.
Lord Davies of Oldham
I am delighted that the noble Lord had his anxieties allayed. They are obviously not as acute as those on this side of the Committee. In particular, if the noble Lord is all in favour of inter-terminal competition, perhaps he will ask the Minister to identify just where this is a raging success that we would want to encourage. The only specific example that we have so far is subject to considerable criticism. As the noble Lord indicated, airport operators are accurately defined in the legislation; I will not gainsay the necessity of that. None of them speaks well of future-proofing what they regard as a disadvantageous element of the Bill, which will introduce the possibility of inter-terminal competition. In particular, by putting it in the Bill in the way that they have, the Government limit parliamentary debate to secondary legislation. We know the limitations of that.
However, I seek to identify that this concept is a significant departure from how any British airport is run at present, and from how any successful airport is run elsewhere. Unless the Minister produces some evidence of how competition works to the benefit of the passenger—which he signally failed to do in his earlier contribution—the Committee will recognise that, far from my anxieties being allayed, they are more pronounced. Of course, I recognise that objecting to a clause standing part—or three clauses in this case, which is the first time that I have engaged in such an extensive operation—is something from which I shall have to resile fairly promptly. However, I do so to air a significant aspect of this debate. I say to the Minister that we are so dissatisfied with the response at this stage that he must assume that we will take this issue further on Report.
Lord Davies of Oldham
Of course, I recognise the role of the Competition Commission and we applaud a great deal of its work. However, when it makes recommendations, one must also consider the industry’s likely response to the proposal that is being put forward. All I say is that the noble Earl has not identified any aspect of British industry that considers this to be an intelligent and sensible development. Nor is he able to identify any example from elsewhere in the world where this form of competition has redounded to the benefit of the consumer.
Lord Trefgarne
With the noble Lord’s permission, I will cite an example. Many years ago, I landed my aeroplane at Miami International Airport. I had not chosen the terminal at which to land. I negotiated with three different terminals over the radio, found the cheapest and in I went—very good, too.
Lord Davies of Oldham
My Lords, that is a very good illustration. If the noble Lord had also indicated that hurricanes were raging at the time and he was able to put down with the help of the airport, I have no doubt that we would all regard that as an extreme benefit.
However, airports always adjust to emergencies, so if the noble Lord is saying that as the pilot of a private plane he can see stupendous advantages in inter-terminal competition, how many people do I have to count in order to introduce into legislation a very significant development? Is it is the number of people who own and fly private aircraft? Our consideration of government legislation ought to be undertaken on a wider perspective than that and the Government’s defence of it ought to be a jolly sight wider too. But, of course, I shall withdraw my opposition to the clause standing part.
Lord Trefgarne
My Lords, while I am sympathetic to the noble Lord’s wish to ensure that there is no corruption through people buying their way through the airport, there are some people whom I would wish to have preferential treatment—for example, members of the Royal Family and the heads of state of other nations. How does the noble Lord think they should be accommodated if the restrictions that he proposes are put in place?
Lord Davies of Oldham
My Lords, I do not think that the issue of payment is likely to arise with members of the Royal Family or diplomatic staff because the arrangements for how they should be treated are agreed with the airport authorities. That is very different from saying that you can enhance the value of your ticket with extra money to get through the queue quickly. That is the practice to which I object. I am not saying that the Royal Family fit into that category. I imagine that it is also not the case for diplomats. We also have control over the process of entry to the country for air crews, but we do not expect them to take their turn in the queue because we recognise that special arrangements should be made for them. I do not want to exclude some special arrangements; I object to a scheme that enables those who are wealthy enough to purchase privilege.
Lord Jenkin of Roding
I should like to be reassured that the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Oldham, does not seek to insist that everyone must stand in the same queue for check-in. If you buy a first-class ticket, many airlines have special check-in counters for such travellers. That seems entirely appropriate and entirely different from going through immigration, either outwards or inwards. The amendment specifically mentions check-in. However, it seems entirely appropriate that if you buy a first-class ticket you can go to a first-class check-in desk and not wait as long as you would if you had bought a standard fare.
Lord Trefgarne
Perhaps the noble Lord will tell us how he proposes that disabled people should be handled. They often have special provision at airports, which is necessary and very proper.
Lord Davies of Oldham
On the latter category, we are shortly to debate the arrangements for the disabled, and I hope to provide reassurance. I accept what the noble Lord is saying; of course there are special arrangements for the disabled. We all know why it is necessary for the law to be strengthened in that area, and I shall be proposing an amendment to deal with that matter.
The situation that I have identified is not concerned with people going through different routes according to their ticket, but the question of how one goes through the state’s immigration controls. The contention that you are less of a security risk because you are wealthy is dubious. After all, I seem to remember Bin Laden did not come from a totally impecunious family. It is not the case that those who have a great deal of money are better security risks. Why on earth should everyone else, for the necessary security of the nation, be obliged to suffer some of the privations that occur from time to time? I fail to understand how one can market a package that guarantees that one is whisked through security.
Lord Trefgarne
My Lords, I shall not detain your Lordships for more than a moment. I very much support what my noble friend Lord Jenkin of Roding has been saying on this matter. There is a serious problem here. As my noble friend explained, it is a very unlikely circumstance but, if it did happen, it could be catastrophic, and I do not think that the Bill can be allowed to proceed to the statute book with this difficulty identified.
Lord Soley
I shall be similarly brief and just wish to add to what the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, said. The figure involved for investment at Heathrow alone is £100 million a month. Putting that into context, you raise that on the bond market and you secure it against the airport in just the same way as someone buying a house secures a mortgage against the house. If there were appeals of the type indicated by the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, they could have a very disruptive effect on the financial markets. I think that there is a question about whether the bankers entirely agree with BAA about the risk involved but the point is that, if the risk is there and we can deal with it fairly easily, then frankly we should. If there were an appeal, it would be a severe and difficult embarrassment, particularly if the fight became bitter. The risk of a challenge to £100 million a month investment at our major airport is not funny. I suspect that the CAA would not allow an appeal but, again, this is a case of being sure that we have the safeguards in place, as the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, indicated, and I certainly support his amendment.
Earl Attlee
I absolutely agree with the noble Lord, Lord Soley. It is my duty to point out a drafting error in case my noble friend wants to run the amendment on Report. If I had not identified the problem in Committee and suddenly jumped up on Report and said, “Actually, the amendment is defective”, I think I would be a little unpopular.
The Government remain of the opinion that the broad rights of appeal provide an effective means of improving the accountability of key regulatory decisions. The process enables the interests of both airport operators and materially affected airlines to be taken into account. We therefore believe it is correct that this right of appeal should extend to licence conditions that relate to financial arrangements. An airline seeking to appeal a financial resilience condition, or the absence of such a condition in the first licence granted to an operator, will need to satisfy the Competition Commission that it is, in this context, a person whose interests are “materially affected” by the decision.
Any dispute over whether a derogation would cause a breach of existing financial arrangements would be most likely to arise from legal questions about the true construction of the loan agreement and/or the licence condition. These could ultimately be resolved through judicial review and, in the mean time, an airport operator could seek an injunction to preserve the status quo. Further comfort may be drawn from the fact that, subject to a government amendment that has been tabled being agreed, the Competition Commission, in deciding an appeal, will be obliged to have regard to the duties imposed on the CAA. Markets should therefore be reassured that the risk of existing creditor protection in an airport operator’s funding structure being unintentionally removed and triggering an event of default is extremely small.
We acknowledge that there is a possibility that the uncertainty created by an airline making an appeal to the Competition Commission on a licence condition relating to financial arrangements could affect an airport operator’s ability to access capital markets to raise finance while the appeal is being considered. However, as the timing of an application for leave to appeal is predictable, we consider that this is something an airport operator could successfully manage by pre-funding its financing requirements. We remain of the opinion that the right of appeal for airlines would not have significant negative consequences for an airport operator’s ability to raise debt in the capital markets.
Lord Trefgarne
Will the noble Earl say how long the appeals will take? He said that they would be of no consequence and could be temporarily ignored while the appeal process continued, but how long would that take?
Earl Attlee
My Lords, it may be helpful to the Committee if I outline the process. The initial consultation stage is a reasonable period set by the CAA. The period to bring an appeal, and the earliest date that licence modifications could come into force, is six weeks. For regulated representations the length of time is eight weeks. The appeal period is 24 weeks. Therefore it could be quite a long period. However, the appeal can be rejected because it is frivolous, vexatious or unlikely to succeed. The Competition Commission can make that determination quickly—but if it thought that there were good grounds for an appeal, the process would take longer. Frivolous or vexatious appeals, or those unlikely to succeed, could be determined quickly.
While the government position is clear and we have already communicated it to BAA, I have listened very carefully to noble Lords’ concerns and will communicate them to my right honourable friend the Minister of State for Aviation. I do not see that it would be in the airlines’ interests to attempt to overturn financial derogations determined by the CAA to be in passengers’ interests, where to do so would cause an event of default. The appeals regime has been designed to deter frivolous or vexatious appeals, as I mentioned. Furthermore, where the CAA proposes to grant a licence, including a condition furthering a financial derogation, or proposes to modify a condition containing a financial derogation, special conditions will apply.
Earl Attlee
My Lords, noble Lords suggested that the appeal process would take six months. I am suggesting that the Competition Commission will very quickly be able to determine whether the appeal is frivolous, vexatious or unlikely to succeed. I do not believe the CAA would grant a derogation unless it was absolutely certain that it would pass scrutiny from the Competition Commission. There is also the point that the licence condition does not come into effect until the appeal is heard.
I reiterate that I am not taking this away and I am not reflecting on it. I will, however, discuss the matter in detail with my right honourable friend.
Lord Trefgarne
I am bound to tell the noble Lord that his answer has been wholly unconvincing on this matter. I hope he will undertake to reconsider and bring forward amendments if he thinks fit at the next stage.
Lord Jenkin of Roding
When my noble friend started his reply by talking about the amendment being too extensive, I thought he was going to move on to say that a redrafted one that was not quite so widely drawn might meet with his approval. As my noble friend proceeded, however, that possibility seemed to disappear over the horizon until we got to the end when he said that he will continue to discuss this with his right honourable friend the Minister of State at the Department for Transport. I hope that will be a serious reconsideration. This is not a frivolous point and it is not covered by saying that the Competition Commission could dismiss appeals as being frivolous or pointless.
Of course, the financial markets would be totally spooked by the threat of an interruption which, as the noble Lord, Lord Soley, said, might last for more than six months. They would not be prepared to go on lending and the whole investment programme would be threatened. This could not be in the interest of passengers. I understand that my noble friend has to be cautious about what he says, but when he said at the end that he would not reconsider it but would discuss it with the Minister of State, I paid more attention to the second point than the first. Perhaps we are making progress. If it is a question of drafting something that removes the risk only so far as is necessary, I am sure that the lawyers working for BAA—perhaps with the department lawyers or parliamentary counsel—would be able to find a form of words. In the mean time, Ministers must be willing to recognise that this problem has to be dealt with and cannot be put off.
Civil Aviation Bill
Lord Trefgarne Excerpts(12 years, 3 months ago)
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Lord Trefgarne
I apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, for not being in my place when he began his remarks. I missed about 90 seconds.
I recognise the importance of surface access to the major airports and I acknowledge that to Stansted, for example, it is not as good as it should be. I hope it can be improved. However, I am reluctant, for the reasons expressed by the noble Lords, Lord Soley and Lord Berkeley, to impose this duty on the Civil Aviation Authority. I hope the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, will not press his amendment.
Lord Hunt of Chesterton
My Lords, I support the amendment as part of my philosophy of more than 20 years of noting that public servants in Britain who work in agencies—I used to run the Met Office in civil aviation—do not have as part of their job description a requirement to help British commerce and industry. The leader of the Conservatives today said that growth in this country will only come about from businessmen and entrepreneurs. He is wrong. It will also come about from civil servants working with industry to create environments in which these things happen.
It is quite extraordinary that in no case is the job description of any civil servant such that he is judged at the end of the year on how he has done in his service and also promoted industry. This is a good example. The role of the CAA is enormously important for industry. Surely part of the role of the Secretary of State will be to define the terms of reference of the director of the CAA in that direction. The amendment takes us in that direction.
Lord Trefgarne
My Lords, I strongly support Amendments 3 and 9, and perhaps Amendment 11 as well. Like my noble friend Lord Rotherwick, I have a connection with what used to be called the Popular Flying Association, of which I was once the president. Indeed, in that capacity, on one famous occasion, I was lucky enough to fly the then Aviation Minister to open the PFA annual rally. Who was the Aviation Minister? He was none other than my noble friend Lord Goschen, and I am glad to say that we were met with tumultuous applause. As I recall, the only problem was some very nasty weather, about which I had to go to see the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, at the Met Office because we felt that we had not really had proper warning. Happily, all the matters were properly resolved eventually.
General aviation is a very important part of the aviation industry and of aviation activity as a whole. It is quite properly regulated by the Civil Aviation Authority, including the hot air balloons to which the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, referred. Indeed, a few months ago, I had the privilege of flying in one. I must warn your Lordships that it is very exciting and great fun, except the landing. You usually end up in a heap on the grass, but that is for another time. However, general aviation is crucial. Amendments 3 and 9, which were tabled by my noble friend Lord Rotherwick, are important and relevant, and I hope the Minister will be sympathetic, at least, to the aspirations of those amendments, or perhaps will even agree to them.
Viscount Goschen
My Lords, I support the thrust of the amendments tabled by my noble friend Lord Rotherwick. I should also make a mildly spurious declaration that I hold a private pilot’s licence and am the operator of an aircraft, although I can assure the Committee, much to its relief, that I have no intention of going near an economic regulated airport, any more than a hot air balloon would.
My noble friend is right to draw attention to the economic importance of the heavier end of general business aviation. A great deal of economic value is tied up with the importance of being able to move business leaders around the country quickly and, indeed, between countries. To do that, access to major airports is required. My noble friend also drew the Committee’s attention to important areas, such as medevac or ambulance flights. One can also think of traffic monitoring flights, the importance of the maintenance sector and so forth. It is true that general aviation, in particular, business aviation, has been squeezed out of the major airports.
My noble friend is not trying to do anything prescriptive. He is not trying to ensure that a certain share of slots or capacity is accounted for by business aviation. That would not be appropriate. All he is trying to do in his carefully worded amendments and in his remarks in support of them is to draw the Government’s attention to the economic importance of this specialist field. It is easily overlooked. It is not a populous field. Most members of the general public are not going to come across general business aviation flights, but that is not to say that they are not extremely important. My noble friend was right to draw the Committee’s attention to its notable scale. I think he said that this sector is worth £3.7 billion to the economy and employs 50,000 people, so it is important that in determining its regulation the CAA should at least take account of the important interests of this field. It is very easy to portray it as cigar-smoking fat cats coming to appear on television game shows including, perhaps, Members of your Lordships’ House, but in fact we are really talking about the ability for business investment to be drawn into the country. Many business leaders travel by executive aircraft to access our centres of commerce around the country as efficiently as possible. I support my noble friend’s amendments, and I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response.
Civil Aviation Bill
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The Countess of Mar
My Lords, I feel I have been here before. During the passage of the previous Civil Aviation Bill in 2006, I recall long discussions on Clause 8, relating to health—the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Oldham, may recall our exchanges then. These included my concerns, and those of injured pilots, over the effects of breathing what is known as “bleed air”, which could contain organophosphates, on the health of both airline crew and passengers.
The Civil Aviation Bill before us today includes the requirement under Clause 84, “Environmental information”, that:
“The CAA must publish, or arrange for the publication of, such information and advice as it considers appropriate relating to—
(a) the environmental effects of civil aviation in the United Kingdom,
(b) how human health and safety is, or may be, affected by such effects, and
(c) measures taken, or proposed to be taken, with a view to reducing, controlling or mitigating the adverse environmental effects of civil aviation in the United Kingdom”.
This is to be welcomed, but I would suggest that there is one environment in particular where this duty is avoided: the cabin environment. Despite growing evidence, contaminated cabin air continues to be a very serious threat to the safety and health of air crew and passengers of all ages. This has been known since 1954. Indeed, a year later, an engineer from the company that is now part of Boeing recommended that,
“in light of the risk of exposure to oil fumes in flight, airlines should either operate non-bleed ventilation systems or filter the engine bleed air before supplying it to passengers”.
The Civil Aviation Act 2006 clearly sets out the responsibility of the Secretary of State and the Civil Aviation Authority for,
“organising, carrying out and encouraging measures for safeguarding the health of persons on board aircraft”.
Five years ago, the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, welcomed the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee’s 2007 report on air travel and its call for urgent action on contaminated air, saying that this was a,
“very serious matter of public safety”.
Since that time, some research has been undertaken by the Department for Transport-sponsored Institute of Environment and Health at Cranfield University—more of which later.
I believe that more rigorous action is required and this duty cannot be abdicated in favour of the European Aviation Safety Agency—EASA. In 2007, the House of Commons Transport Committee’s report on the work on the Civil Aviation Authority stated that EASA was,
“not yet ready to do its job and it is vital that the UK transfers no further responsibilities to it. I see no evidence that the position has changed”.
Apart from the new Boeing 787, passenger aircraft use unfiltered, heated air drawn directly from aircraft engines and auxiliary power units for cabin air conditioning. This is termed bleed air, because it is bled from the compressor section of the engine. This system has been used since just after World War II, when engine temperatures and pressures were considerably lower than today. The use of compressed air for ventilation was described in 1946 as “fortuitous”. With rising oil prices, the aviation industry was faced with huge commercial challenges; since the initial introduction of bleed air, both performance and efficiency have become critical. As a result, it is normal for the temperatures to which oils are now exposed within the engine to be far higher. This is a serious toxicity concern because the base stock of the oil is known to thermally degrade when exposed to extreme temperatures. Combine this with the known design fault in engine oil seals and you have the perfect conditions for low-level oil leakage that can expose passengers and crew to toxic fumes through the unfiltered air they are breathing.
As highlighted in the recently published Australian Civil Aviation Safety Authority—CASA—report:
“Exposure to … fumes and vapours can result in acute short-term symptoms”.
The report stated that the organophosphate family of TCP includes TOCP, which is a known substance in engine oils and can cause adverse health effects. In some individuals, long-term disability and forced retirement have resulted from long-term exposure. Pilots and air crew are particularly vulnerable.
It was also proven in the 1950s that other parts of the TCP family in the oil were even more toxic than TOCP, and these were later acknowledged to be in the oil at far greater levels than TOCP. Even more concerning is the recent research undertaken by the University of Washington, which has found that the entire family of TCP chemicals is toxic. I am sure that I do not need to remind your Lordships that organophosphates are neurotoxins—also commonly known as nerve agents. A small ongoing study undertaken at the University of Nebraska has recently published an astonishing finding that 50% of airline passengers tested positive to exposure to TOCP. This was one flight only with a wide spectrum of people on board—it could have been you or me, or a member of our families. There have been many reports of contaminated air incidents for many different airlines. I can provide details if any noble Lord is interested.
A report from the German air accident investigation bureau, the BFU, showed a serious incident late in 2011 in which a Boeing 737 co-pilot was partially incapacitated shortly after take-off and again on descent after smelling a pungent smell. Blood tests undertaken at the University of Nebraska found,
“that the blood sample (was) positive for exposure to TOCP”.
Recent PhD findings by Dr Susan Michaelis, specifically investigating this issue, found that 32% of the UK pilots in the survey population experienced medium to long-term ill health, 44% reported short-term effects and 13% experienced such chronic ill health that they were no longer able to fly. What we have here are threats to flight safety combined with a public health issue that can no longer be ignored.
The United States Air Force’s newest fighter aircraft has been having major problems with the oxygen system, with pilots reporting a range of hypoxic-like physiological symptoms. With a growing number of in-flight incidents, the United States Air Force grounded its F22 fleet for several months from May until September 2011. Several investigations failed to find the root cause of the problem and the US Secretary of State for Defence recently limited the aircraft’s operational capabilities and required NASA to resolve the issue. The F22 on-board oxygen-generating system takes some of its supply from the bleed-air system, and contaminated bleed air is one of the two issues considered to be the potential cause of the problem.
While attention is often focused on certain aircraft types, such as the BAe 146 and the Boeing 757, in fact the bleed-air system suffers from a flawed design affecting all aircraft using bleed air to supply cabin air for breathing. These fume events are alarming, both in their severity and their frequency. However, many sources—including Dr Susan Michaelis, the European Aviation Safety Agency and the Federal Aviation Administration in the US—have shown that these dangerous events are actually being underreported. What we have is a failed reporting system.
A survey for BALPA undertaken in 2001 and later published in a leading occupational health journal showed that less than 4% of the contaminated air events experienced by pilots in aircraft were recorded on the CAA mandatory occurrence report database. Pilots and cabin crew are too often unaware of, or complacent about, the health and safety implications and come from a culture that accepts fume smells as normal. Worse still, too many are too frightened to report such incidents for fear of losing their jobs. They are aware of the commercial pressure on airlines as, once a defect such as contaminated air is reported, it must be investigated before the aircraft can fly again. I am aware that DHL instructed its pilots not to report selected fume events, confirmed by the CAA in the House of Commons, because these are “acceptable”. This is in direct contradiction of European regulation 859/2008, which states that incidents that could endanger aircraft safety should be reported to the regulator and recorded in the aircraft technical log. Furthermore, European Directive 2003/42/EC requires all suspected oil fume or contaminated air events to be reported to the national authority. I know that the Minister is aware of this because he has given me that answer in reply to a Written Question.
Pilots can also be reluctant to report any symptoms experienced for fear of exposing themselves to a medical that could, ultimately, lead to their licence to fly being revoked. This is acknowledged by the Department for Transport, which notes in its FAQs on cabin air quality that a UK study is unlikely to be successful as,
“pilots … would be legally obliged to report any health impairments found ... to the CAA, who licenses them”.
A recent example of two British Airways pilots who were cited by the airline to be filing a higher than average number of contaminated air reports illustrates this point: one had his medical certificate withdrawn after TCP was found in his blood, while the second pilot died in his mid-40s of a brain tumour after repeated exposures which were in many cases reported, but clearly ignored. The British Airways head doctor, however, is quoted in the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee’s 1st Report of Session 2007-08, entitled Air Travel and Health: an Update, as saying that he had,
“no evidence to suggest there is a serious medical problem”.
It is against this background of underreporting and an industry eager to avoid the commercial implications that the research by Cranfield was undertaken. In the House of Lords 2007 report, it was noted that as the original proposal was to sample “around 1,000 flights”, the size of sample offered only a,
“remote chance of capturing an event”,
if the incidence of contaminated air events is as low as the Government claim. In fact, the sample used was just 100 flights, yet the presence of TCP was detected in 23% of flights. Additionally, 38 reported fumes of which the majority were described as oil or oily-type smells. A mandatory occurrence report, or defect report, was not triggered on one single flight despite this being a requirement under the European directive and regulation. Clearly, the Government’s accepted estimate of the frequency of fume events is flawed and, despite government denials, this problem is being seriously underreported. Indeed, despite censuring the Government while in opposition for their dithering on air cabin quality, with secret studies behind closed doors, putting air crews and passengers at risk, when in office, the Secretary of State for Transport, Theresa Villiers, appears to have done an about-face. Ms Villiers’ interpretation of the Cranfield report was that,
“there was no evidence of pollutants occurring in cabin air at levels exceeding available health and safety standards and guidelines”.—[Official Report, 10/5/11; col. WS37.]
I was told in 2005 that there are no safe levels set for exposure to the mixture of substances from heated synthetic oils or for the organophosphate TCP. Peer reviewers for the Cranfield study used descriptors such as “very serious deficiency”, “very varying quality”, and “serious weaknesses in sampling”. Interestingly, earlier research by the same establishment on behalf of the Government concluded that because,
“current risk assessment practices are largely based on evaluating the toxicity of single chemicals at high doses”,
and because humans are exposed to a mixture of chemicals on a daily basis,
“there could be many uncertainties in the hazard assessment”,
particularly related to low-level exposures. It would appear that we are making the science fit the policy, not the policy fit the science.
As long ago as 1997 I used the term “intellectual corruption” in a speech in your Lordships’ House on the subject of organophosphates. I was not in the least surprised to learn that the second and final Department for Transport-sponsored air-monitoring swab-sampling study by the Institute of Occupational Medicine, in Edinburgh, recently found TCP in aircraft at low levels, with estimated airborne concentrations of TOCP found to be very low.
Lord Trefgarne
My Lords, I apologise for interrupting the noble Countess, but if she could move one pace to her left, we could hear a little better what she is saying.
The Countess of Mar
I have a chest problem caused by organophosphates.
The Department for Transport publicly states that,
“it would be proper for DfT to be alerted of any findings out of the ordinary. Should that happen the DfT will consider what action might be appropriate to ensure that people can continue to fly without risk to their health”.
However, I must remind noble Lords that, as with the Cranfield study, no fume events were reported, and yet TCP at higher levels than TCP found elsewhere was detected, indicating that the substance originated from the aircraft. Of great concern is that the levels of the neurotoxic parts of the TCP stated to be in the oil are a direct contradiction of what Mobil advised in 2000. While ExxonMobil, formerly Mobil, the manufacturer of the oil, stated at the Australian Senate inquiry into this issue that the levels of the most toxic part of the TCP were over 600,000 times higher than the TOCP part, this Department for Transport-sponsored study has stated that the difference is only three times higher. One might ask who would know better. Making science fit the policy provides a wonderful excuse for inertia.
TCP has clearly been found in all aircraft surveyed. Controversially, the Institute of Occupational Medicine study states that there are government-set exposure standards available for the neurotoxic parts of TCP, but this is not the case. TCP as a whole and the most toxic parts do not have established exposure standards and, as we know, there are no exposure limits set for the mixture of ingredients in the aircraft environment. How can the researchers compare the enclosed environment of an airline cockpit with a normal office environment?
As well as organophosphates, there is a chemical known to be in the oil as an antioxidant at 1%, N-phenyl-alpha-naphthylamine, which is quite a mouthful, or PAN, which is much easier. It has an acknowledged contaminant as a by-product, beta-naphthylamine, or BNA. This is a prohibited schedule 1 category 1 carcinogen that has long been known to cause human bladder cancer. While oil certification standards used to say that suspected human carcinogens are prohibited in the oil, here we have a known human carcinogen in the oil as a contaminant totally ignored. The levels might be low, but repeatedly exposing people to human carcinogens is not acceptable. The new certification standards have removed this prohibition and simply say that all the regulations must be met. The other phrase that has been removed by the Civil Aviation Authority stated that,
“the lubricating oil shall have no adverse effect on the health of personnel when used for its intended purpose”.
Lord Davies of Stamford
My Lords, I thoroughly agree with the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Rogan. When I was Shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, and therefore about twice a month a regular customer of Belfast City Airport, I realised how enormously important for the economic self-confidence of the Province is that link to Heathrow and, through it, to international networks. I also very much agree with my noble friend Lord Clinton-Davis, who spoke of course, on the basis of very considerable personal experience in having held two immensely important positions in civil aviation. I will follow very much the logic of what he said.
Of course, as always, I listened with great attention to the Minister. He started off by saying something that we would all agree with, which is that aviation is “vital to our economy”—I think I noted down his remarks correctly. To my amazement, he did not say anything at all about the fact that the aviation industry is in fact facing a major competitive threat at the present time and is extremely worried about the future. You might hope that a Government of the day would take that on board and do something about it. Far from it, unfortunately. That is a very troubling situation.
Most of us were brought up thinking complacently—perhaps we always were very complacent about this—that Heathrow was the biggest airport in Europe and so we were quite safe as we had the centre of at least the European aviation industry right here in our country. That is no longer true and is becoming less true all the time. Already two of Heathrow’s rivals, Roissy Charles de Gaulle and Frankfurt, have more aircraft movements than Heathrow. By the end of this decade, which is only eight years away, they will almost certainly have more passengers, as will Schiphol, so Heathrow will be number four and going down.
Heathrow is enormously important and I make no apology for focusing on it. I fear that the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, was completely wrong to say that it is all right because although there is not enough capacity at Heathrow there is enough capacity at Birmingham, Luton or somewhere else. People who want to come to London want to get there as quickly as possible. That is particularly important in the business world. Frankly, the noble Lord did not focus at all on the enormously important economics of the hub and spoke system—what an economist would call the networking effects, which are so important in the aviation industry. If Heathrow is not allowed to become a hub, somewhere else will and it will not be Luton or Birmingham. It will be Schiphol, Paris or Frankfurt. I illustrate that by means of a brief personal anecdote.
In February I was lucky enough to be part of a parliamentary delegation to Mexico. The IPU was rightly concerned to save taxpayer funds and got the best deal that it could, which involved us flying via Schiphol. We went to Schiphol and changed, which meant that we flew 300 kilometres in the wrong direction and 300 kilometres back over the United Kingdom again. That is 600 kilometres more than we needed to fly. We took off twice rather than once. As we all know, most carbon emissions occur on take-off and early altitude gains. I should think that we emitted twice the carbon that we would have done had we been able to fly directly from Heathrow to Mexico City. I witnessed some colleagues taking advantage of Schiphol Airport’s fine duty-free shopping facilities. That, again, is very good news for the economy of Schiphol and of the Netherlands but very bad news for this country. I say to the Government and to the Liberal Party—they should be aware of that and focus on it but they simply are not doing so.
The Bill sets out the obligations of the Secretary of State. I am, of course, totally in favour of the Bill, which was conceived by the previous Labour Government, as has already been pointed out. Clause 2 is headed: “Secretary of State’s general duty”. Clause 2(1) states:
“The Secretary of State must carry out the functions listed in subsection (3) in a manner which the Secretary of State considers will further the interests of users of air transport services regarding the range, availability, continuity, cost and quality of airport operation services”.
The Secretary of State is doing nothing of the kind at present, nor did her predecessor. That is precisely why we have the current problem and why it is cheaper to fly to Mexico City via Schiphol than it is to take off directly from Heathrow—that is, taking off from Heathrow to Schiphol, and then flying from Schiphol to Mexico. Why is that the case? It is because there are not enough slots at Heathrow. Therefore, airlines that want to put on more flights cannot run them from Heathrow. They have to reserve the slots at Heathrow for the high-margin flights going to destinations such as New York, Chicago and Washington DC, where there are lots of first class and club class passengers. The other aircraft with a greater proportion of discounted passengers have to go elsewhere, and so they go to Schiphol, Roissy or Frankfurt. That is the simple logic and the Government must face up to that fact.
The key issue is not just the importance of the aviation business as regards employment. As has been said, it generates nearly half a million jobs in this country. However, it is important for two other reasons as well. First, it is not the only factor or the leading factor but is certainly a factor in location of business decisions. If you decide that you want to locate an international headquarters in a particular city, one of the things that you undoubtedly take into account is the air communications. If you put your office in London and you have to go via Birmingham to get there, that is a very major disincentive to coming to London at all. The aviation business is very important as regards business traffic. It is also important as regards tourism. If you ask the Government whether they care about tourism, they will say, “Of course, we care very much about tourism. It is a very important industry”. However, in practice, they are handicapping tourism over and over again. We have the problem that we are not part of the Schengen visa system so people coming to this country as part of a European tour—the bulk of private tourists from outside the EU coming to the EU come on organised tours—often will not take the trouble, time or additional cost involved in purchasing a British visa. That is a big handicap. We now have the longest delays at our border controls of anywhere in Europe as a result of mismanagement by this Government. That is also a handicap. If we now have shortages of airline slots and people are diverted to Birmingham—I again take the example put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw—that will also be a considerable deterrent to tourism. Therefore, it is no use the Government saying that they care about tourism if their policies have the effect of weakening British tourism’s competitiveness worldwide. That is exactly the situation.
Lord Trefgarne
Everything the noble Lord is saying is directed towards more operations, more slots and more flights from Heathrow. What was the policy of the Government, of whom he was a distinguished member, between 1997 and 2010?
Lord Davies of Stamford
Our policy was to expand Heathrow and build a third runway. That was the policy which I supported then, which I support now and which I trust my party will support again at the next election. It is the only policy that seems to make any sense. As regards the third runway that we were planning to build—the BAA third runway—I read an interesting proposal the other day which I recommend to the noble Lord, who knows a lot about this subject. It was produced by the Institute of Directors. Noble Lords may be surprised to hear a member of the Labour Party referring to the Institute of Directors but I thought that it came up with an interesting proposal for a third runway to be built within the existing perimeter of the airport to the south, which would be something like 2,600 metres in length and would greatly improve the situation. The scheme has been well documented and the noble Lord may like to look at it. However it is done it is clear that all the airlines and BAA are of one mind on this—the solution is the one that, had we won the previous election, we would have implemented, I am proud to say.
Of course, the whole of this is against the background of the present Government’s neglect of infrastructure generally. We have had the postponement of the high-speed rail project.
Lord Trefgarne
My Lords, I start by declaring an interest. I am chairman of Fairoaks Airport Consultative Committee—a small privately owned aerodrome only about 10 miles from Heathrow in Surrey, but not a candidate, I can assure your Lordships, for the third London airport.
I start by saying that I, too, accept the broad thrust of the Bill. The great issue before civil aviation and the Government is the provision of sufficient runway capacity in the south-east. At the moment as everybody knows, Heathrow, if not full, is close to it, and there is much speculation and discussion as to where the additional capacity should be provided. I listened with interest to the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Soley, who was, I think, saying that he is in favour of a third runway at Heathrow. He was once the distinguished Member of Parliament for Hammersmith, as I recall. Indeed, I remember it only too well, because for a while I was the junior Aviation Minister while he was the MP for that constituency. I seem to remember him coming to represent the views of his constituency about flights in and out of Heathrow, as they passed over his constituents, in a fairly critical manner. But perhaps the world has changed. In truth, it has changed, and I must be fair to the noble Lord, because the impact of civil aviation on the population underneath is less now than it was 10 or 20 years ago. He is entitled to take that view and therefore perhaps to now accommodate the idea of a third runway at Heathrow, although that is not a popular view among those who live a little nearer to the airport than do his former constituents in Hammersmith.
Lord Soley
I think I remember the meeting the noble Lord is talking about. It would have been in the very early 1980s. Actually, it was about night flights. I have been in favour of a third runway since 1989 or 1990, and I spoke in favour of it in the House of Commons. However, night flights are different, and I would not go back on that. We have to be very careful about night flights.
Lord Trefgarne
I agree with that. Indeed, I recall that one of the very first issues I was asked to deal with as the junior Aviation Minister—I was there for only nine months, I think—was the numbers of night flights permitted from Heathrow. I dare say the noble Lord came with other Members of Parliament from local constituencies to make their representations to me.
If a third runway is not to be provided at Heathrow—and the Government seem to have set their mind in that direction—then where is it to be provided? Of course, I listened with interest to the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Patten, about a sort of mega-airport, as he seemed to be saying, with two runways at Gatwick and two at Heathrow, connected by some wonderful new interconnecting railway. I must confess I have not heard that proposition before, and no doubt the Minister will want to consider it very carefully.
I also listened with interest to the speech of the noble Countess, Lady Mar. She has, of course, made her representations on these matters to your Lordships on several occasions before. They ought to be considered carefully, but it is also fair to say that very few, if any, of the major air-worthiness authorities take a similar view to her. For example, I would have thought that if there were a real issue along the lines that the noble Countess was predicating, presumably the Civil Aviation Authority would have taken some steps to move in that direction. Perhaps it will one day. Perhaps she is a voice crying in the wilderness; perhaps she is a sort of John the Baptist, who will in due course convert us all. But she does, at least, deserve the courtesy of a proper consideration of what she has said, so I shall read it with care. Like almost every noble Lord, I have been a passenger many times in my life, but I was also a pilot for some years, so I am no less interested than she is in these matters.
My noble friend Lord Jenkin of Roding referred to some of the important considerations that arise from Part 1, particularly the ring-fencing of the assets of BAA and any other airport operator which finds itself in a similar position, and the question of the right of appeal when those assets are ring-fenced. He makes an important point that will need to be considered carefully when we get to Committee. My noble friend can count on my interest at least, if not support, in these matters when that time comes.
Further provisions of this Bill which are not sufficiently covered are those for general aviation, in which I have played a small part over the years. General aviation is now largely excluded from Heathrow, for obvious reasons, and is almost totally excluded, though not quite so, from Gatwick. It is therefore required to operate from places like Farnborough, and indeed Fairoaks, to which I have already referred. That presents difficulty, particularly for interconnection with other flights, but I do hope that some provision for general aviation can continue to be made, if not at Heathrow then at least at Gatwick and Stansted.
The time marches on. I certainly intend to play a detailed part when we get to the Committee stage of this Bill. I support the broad thrust of what is proposed, but there are a number of detailed matters which will need further consideration.
Aviation Policy
Lord Trefgarne Excerpts(12 years, 4 months ago)
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Earl Attlee
My Lords, the Government have recently set up a Cabinet sub-committee to look at transport infrastructure.
Lord Trefgarne
My Lords, are the Government prepared to reconsider the possibility of a second runway at Gatwick?