Airports Slot Allocation (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2021

Lord Tunnicliffe Excerpts

Tuesday 19th January 2021 Grand Committee

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Garden of Frognal) (LD)]

The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, has withdrawn so I call the noble Lord, Lord Naseby. We do not seem to have the noble Lord.

[Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab) [V]]

He has not unmuted himself.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Garden of Frognal) (LD)]

Lord Naseby, are you unmuted? Are you going to speak to us? No? In which case, the noble Lord, Lord Mann, has also withdrawn so we will move on to those winding unless the noble Lord, Lord Naseby, is there.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for introducing this statutory instrument. She related it to an amendment to be tabled to the ATMUA Bill that we will consider on Thursday, which made it all make sense. It is a great shame that that relationship was not brought out in the Explanatory Memorandum, as it would have saved me quite a lot of time in trying to understand it. Just to make sure that I am clear, can the Minister confirm that this SI will effectively be used just once, to permit alleviation for summer 2021? Does it have precisely the same rules as the revised Regulation 95/93 had for winter 2021? Is it effectively a bridge to the powers that the Secretary of State will have when the amendment to the ATMUA Bill is agreed? Is another, negative order necessary to complete the bridge?

Looking to make a slightly longer speech, I alighted on paragraph 10.2 of the Explanatory Memorandum, which is about consultation. I noticed that whereas paragraph 10.1 said what the response was, paragraph 10.2 was silent. I was then lobbied. There is a rule of the Medes and Persians that lobbyists always lobby you the day before you have to make a speech. The institution lobbying me was Heathrow. While I thought that this was a perfectly sensible, uncontroversial measure, it emerges that it is not as uncontroversial as it seems.

Heathrow introduced me to the Worldwide Airport Slot Board, or WASB, comprising the Airports Council International, the International Air Transport Association and the Worldwide Airport Coordinators Group. It raised three questions. It seems that the WASB had put together for summer 2021 an agreement, which was not as simple as the terms of this SI, to better relate the management of slots in the summer 2021. Heathrow claims that this was supported by airlines, airport operators and a number of Governments. So the first question it asks is, if the majority of industry responses to the ongoing consultation do not support a blanket waiver, why are the Government pushing ahead with it? It goes on to point out the value of this general agreement and notes that it has already been accepted by Canada, Cambodia, Malaysia, New Zealand, Taiwan, Vietnam, Japan, Hong Kong, South Africa, Singapore and Mexico. It asks why the Government are looking to be out of step with other nations and not consulting on the industry proposals, as per the number of other countries around the world?

Commenting on the amendment we are to discuss on Thursday—in a sense I give notice of this now—will the Government outline and propose the type and scope of industry consultation, and the timeline to which it should take place, before a policy decision on future waivers is taken?

I hope the Minister can give me some reaction to these points. Some may be fairly straightforward, with respect to this statutory instrument, but I am sure it will be a useful input to our debate on Thursday about the amendment to the Bill.

I hope she will also forgive my making one or two general points about the situation we find ourselves in at the moment. The industry is in dire straits and, at the end of the day, glamorous as it is, it will not survive without increased support from the Government, one way or another. I welcome the Treasury’s business rates relief for airports and ground services; however, this barely makes a dent while the whole sector continues to bleed cash. The Government must do more and, as promised last year, announce robust financial support packages for the industry. The Government must now also set out a clear plan on how they expect restrictions to be lifted with the vaccine rollout.