Air Passenger Rights and Air Travel Organisers’ Licensing (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2018
Lord Warner Excerpts(5 years, 10 months ago)
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Lord McNally (LD)
My Lords, as this debate has unfolded I have watched the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, looking pensive. I suspect he has probably been thinking, “When I finish this job, I might go into travel consumer law”. When the Minister comes to read Hansard tomorrow, she will probably find that she can check off almost every known troublemaker in this House as having intervened. However, that is what this House is here to do: to make trouble when Ministers bring forward flawed or defective legislation.
Listening to the various queries and questions makes one think very hard about the process that we are going through. The Minister had a baptism of fire over drones a few weeks ago, but that will be as nothing compared to a situation in which this legislation proves defective when it comes to the test and we find that all the sweet and honeyed words about the smoothness of the transfer from EU to domestic legislation throw up faults and weaknesses. There is nothing that makes the British public angrier than being interrupted on their holidays. Woe betide the Minister who is left holding that particular baby if that comes to pass. Of course, the noble Lord, Lord Deben, is right: we are stronger within the EU, and the protection given to consumers is far stronger when we work and speak from within the EU rather than when the CAA is acting alone.
Has any impact assessment been made on the effect of Brexit on Heathrow as an international hub? We have already heard of the possible British Airways transfer to Spain, but Heathrow is one of our vital assets as a major hub airport of the world. If leaving the EU and operating under CAA rules leaves us open to competition from Schiphol or Paris or others that can give flight operators greater assurances, that is a real downside of what we are doing. The noble Lord, Lord Balfe, made the valid point that EU law is not static, but is developing. We must face the fact that in this case, as in so many others, we will not be at the table to speak up for British interests and consumers when that development takes place—so much for sovereignty.
Given the complexities that have been revealed by this, is there any plan for a public information campaign to explain to the public what has happened? They need to be informed about their guarantees and where there are dangers because—make no mistake—good as our travel industry is, we will find scams, additional charges, problems with transfers from the EU, tax put on holiday costs and so on. There will be a need for some concerted consumer protection during this process. I look forward to the Minister’s reply.
Lord Warner (CB)
My Lords, I had not intended to speak in this debate, and I do not really wish to be added to the Minister’s list of troublemakers. However, I want to emphasise the point made by the noble Lord, Lord McNally, at the end of his speech. I do this as someone who always tries to cheer up his Februaries by reading the travel supplements in the Sunday newspapers. This Sunday’s newspapers were glowing about places where, if I hurried, I could actually book the hotel, the flight or even the two flights that I might need to get to the place. These changes might be in separate countries. I scanned through the travel supplements of both the Sunday Times and the Times on Saturday and could see nothing about whether people’s summers might be disrupted in any way whatever.
Lord Adonis
I am very grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. He probably is not—but he may correct me—a regular listener to Spotify. If he were, he would know that Spotify is now running ads advising people to take precautions in the event of a no-deal Brexit. The precaution that they should take is to log on to the GOV.UK website, where information is available on what arrangements will be made in the event of no deal. In respect of travel, which we are discussing this afternoon, it says that you should check with your carrier. So having gone through the GOV.UK website, you are then expected to go to your carrier. When I logged on to the British Airways website to find out what passengers should do in respect of no deal, it said that you should refer to GOV.UK, on the grounds that the Government are setting up what should happen. I say in response to what the noble Lord, Lord McNally, said about a public information campaign that millions are being spent on a public information campaign which tells the public precisely nothing except to be very, very concerned.
Lord Warner
My Lords, I am an old-fashioned ex-Minister who usually used the media to project messages if I wanted the public to read them. We might do something in a newspaper or we might do something on a broadcaster. The only streaming I am aware of is from my nose, sometimes, during the winter, so I am not a great Spotify fan. I was trying to make the point that any member of the public who had read the Sunday supplements and was thinking about booking a holiday and had then turned on the parliamentary channel and listened to this debate might have second thoughts about doing so. The Government do not seem to have done anything to give the public any serious pause for thought before they took out their chequebook or electronically transferred their money to reserve their holiday for this year.
Will the few members of the Minister’s department who are left after dealing with the problems that the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, spelled out earlier engage in a proper public information campaign using more of the traditional channels, to tell the people who are booking these holidays—who, in many cases, tend to be from the upper age groups with high disposable income—what dangers they may face in the coming months of 2019 if they peak too early in their summer bookings?
Lord Adonis
My Lords, I think it was Seneca who said that anger is a form of temporary madness, which is an injunction that I usually observe, but it is very difficult when wading through these no-deal regulations not to be genuinely angry at what the British state is about to inflict on the British public if this comes to pass. It is not just the known facts about a no-deal Brexit, which are bad enough; it is, as has come through this debate, all of what Donald Rumsfeld called the known unknowns. We do not know the precise litany of catastrophes and problems that there will be down the line, but we know that they will be there. We know that there will be problems with the exchange rate; there will be problems with dodgy carriers which seek to game the system; there will be problems, as the noble Lord, Lord Balfe, said, with changes in regulations over time. It will be no surprise when all this happens; this is what should be expected in the evolution of legislation and behaviour of private and public sector organisations.
We also know, taking the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Balfe, and my noble friend Lord Foulkes, that the state machine, even before no deal has happened, is overwhelmed by preparations for Brexit. I can tell the House as a former Minister in the best department of state, the Department for Transport—I know this because people tell me—that most of the staff at the Department for Transport are being allocated to special contingency duties and units in the case of no deal. They are the units that will be needed to keep the ports operating and to deal with the fact that the M20 will become the largest car park in Europe. Can noble Lords imagine what the switchboard of the CAA will be like once any of these contingencies comes to pass?
That point is important for these debates because from what the Prime Minister said this afternoon, it is clear that she will take this down to the wire. Her strategy is clear: she will present the next version of her deal, with some tweaks to the Irish backstop, to Parliament after the European Council on 21 March, offering a “take it or leave it” vote on her deal or no deal. I hope that Parliament will be strong-minded and realise that there is a third option: seeking an extension to Article 50 without adopting her deal. That is the situation we will face.
Baroness Sugg
Each member state has its own version of ATOL, and the companies which sell in that member state are obliged to follow it. In the event of no deal, there will not be mutual recognition; that is simply one of the consequences of no deal. Those companies will be covered by the EU regulations. I said that no one is affected, but some of the companies which sell into the UK will need to get an ATOL licence. However, for air carriers, airports and passengers, there is no change to the routes on which the regulations apply. After exit day, in the event of no deal, the combined scope of UK and EU legislation on air passenger rights will be the same as under the current EU regulation. I hope that is a slightly simpler explanation than the one in my opening speech.
My noble friend Lord Balfe is right that, in the event of no deal, this simply takes a snapshot in time. I agree with him and the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, that what happens in the EU in future will affect the UK, whether that is a change in currency exchange or EU law. However, that is something for the future; it may well depend on a future aviation agreement, if we end up with no deal. I am afraid I cannot predict the future, so I cannot say how we may respond to any future change in EU law. What I can say is that this statutory instrument does not contain any powers to make further SIs, and any future changes are likely to require primary legislation and would therefore have sufficient parliamentary scrutiny. However, I take the noble Baroness’s point that changes in the EU regime will have an effect on us.
On the issue of confidence in booking flights, we are completely focused on ensuring that there is no disruption of aviation, as this would be in nobody’s interest. In our technical notices last summer, we confirmed that we envisage granting permits to EU carriers to operate in the UK, and we have seen the EU take similar steps to avoid disruption. There were Commission communications on the EU’s preparedness in November and it has said it intends to bring forward measures to allow UK air carriers to continue to fly to the EU. Most recently, this includes its no-deal contingency plan, which was published on 19 December. Detailed EU regulations are being discussed in the Parliament and the Council at the moment. We welcome those proposals, which will ensure that flights between the UK and the EU are maintained. There are a number of pieces of clear evidence that both sides in aviation are determined to ensure we maintain air connectivity.
We work very closely with the aviation industry, which shares our confidence that arrangements will be in place to avoid disruption to flights. I take the point from the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, that many conversations about aviation—those that he has had and those that others will have in future—take place at a European level and, indeed, an international level, at ICAO. We hope to continue our close relationship on aviation with all our European partners, regardless of how we leave the European Union.
On the noble Lord’s point about consultation, the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, was quite right to say that the same text is used here and in the next SI. As you would expect, I meet people from across the aviation sector very regularly, whether from airlines, airports or industry groups such as the Airport Operators Association and Airlines UK. We have not had meetings specifically about single SIs—there are quite a few of them—but we are discussing our SI programme with the aviation sector and sharing our plans with it. Throughout our SI programme, and certainly in aviation, we are replicating the current situation so that there will be no change. The compensation is perhaps not universally popular among our airlines, but they accept that the important thing is to maintain continuity, so that passengers and airlines understand what will happen. That is what we have been trying to do.
On communications, I agree with the noble Lords, Lord McNally and Lord Warner, that it is really important that we keep consumers informed. The noble Lord, Lord Adonis, highlighted one of those adverts on Spotify; there are others. We have a cross-government campaign putting out the information that is available on GOV.UK, and we are also working very closely with airlines and consumer groups to ensure that the right information is available. For example, Thomas Cook has a very good Q&A section around Brexit on its website. We are trying—
Lord Warner
I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. Just to go back to my earlier exchanges with the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, the government website seems to be telling people to be careful about making bookings after 30 March. However, in this debate the Minister is spreading balm and harmony about the fact that people would not have any of their rights and protections diminished. If there is no diminution of rights and protections, why does the Government’s website urge people to be careful about making bookings after 30 March?
Baroness Sugg
I am not sure that the Government’s website uses the word “careful”. As I said, we are confident that flights will be maintained. There is an EU regulation going through the EU Parliament and EU Council at the moment to confirm that. In the same way that this statutory instrument has not yet been passed, that regulation has still not been passed. We are confident that flights will continue, but we say that customers should contact their air carrier and check their terms and conditions in order to ensure they are fully aware of all the information that they need.
On the rights and protections, as I have said, this SI continues them; we are confident that, should noble Lords choose to pass it, we will be able in the event of no deal to ensure that consumers still have the same protections.
While we are working to agree a deal with the EU that is supported by Parliament, we think it is responsible to continue to make preparations in the absence of an agreement so that there is a functioning statute book. This SI, and the others that we will debate later and in the coming weeks, are a key part of those preparations. Both the UK and the EU have set out their clear intention to put in place arrangements to ensure that planes can continue to fly to and from the EU in the event of a no-deal exit. Both sides want to avoid any disruption to flights, as that would be in no one’s interests.
Our contingency preparations, of which these regulations are just one element, should provide reassurance to industry and consumers that, even in the event of no deal, passengers will continue to benefit from the same rights as they currently do. They ensure that our legal and regulatory framework for aviation is set up for flights to continue, whatever the outcome of negotiations. I beg to move.
Local Government Finance Bill
Lord Warner Excerpts(12 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Warner
“( ) In making any change to revenue support grant arising from introduction of any part of this Act, the Secretary of State will ensure that no council with responsibilities for adult social care services is required to reduce their funding of those services in real terms until legislation has been introduced that provides a comprehensive and sustainable solution for the funding of those services.”
Lord Warner
My Lords, this amendment is in my name and that of the noble Lord, Lord Best. I tabled this amendment to probe the Government further because of the unsatisfactory response to my questions that I received at Second Reading. It is to the issues that I raised then concerning the parlous state of funding for adult social care that I wish to return this afternoon with this amendment. I do so because of the implications for that situation of this Bill. While it gives more local discretion to local authorities, it takes further resources away from local government overall when many authorities are in dire straits over the funding of adult social care, which in some authorities can account for 60% of their expenditure.
The desperate situation that has arisen over the funding of adult social care arises to a great extent because the Government have totally failed to come forward with any response to the funding proposals made a year ago in the report of the Dilnot commission, of which I acknowledge I was a member, or indeed with any alternative proposals if they did not like what the commission suggested. The signals that they have consistently given out are that they will not produce any clear funding reform proposals when they publish their White Paper and draft Bill on adult social care, which the Whitehall rumour mill suggests may be next week. Any light that the Minister can throw this afternoon on what the Government’s policy is on funding adult social care would be more than welcome. I wish to encourage some indiscretion on the part of the Minister.
The amendment is intended to prevent a bad situation getting worse. It will have no impact whatever if the Government get their act together and come forward with proposals that can be implemented to place the funding of adult social care on a sound and sustainable basis. Much of that soundness and sustainability would come from service users paying more if they had the resources to do so, as the Dilnot commission proposed, so this is not simply a matter of ratcheting up public expenditure. The amendment would prevent making any changes to the revenue support grant arising from measures in the Bill for those local authorities with responsibilities for adult social care if that would mean a real-terms decrease in funding to those services before the Government have introduced legislation that provides a comprehensive and sustainable solution for funding those adult social care services.
The solution to whether the amendment has real impact is totally in the hands of the Government. All it does is give them a pause for thought before services for the poorest, vulnerable, elderly and disabled people and their carers are reduced further. Let me briefly say why this pause is necessary. I am relying to some extent on figures produced from a parliamentary Answer on local government expenditure provided by the Minister’s own department. I have to say that the information was not provided in the most helpful format, which is hardly surprising given the story that the data tell. However, with the help of the Library I have managed to explore the data in a way that is reasonably intelligible.
The data establish the rapid decrease in adult social care expenditure by local authorities under this Government, even though service demand is going up rapidly because of demography and local authorities are doing their utmost to protect adult social care services by cutting other services. I pay tribute to them, across the political spectrum, for their political courage on this issue.
The data show that at constant 2011 prices, local authority expenditure on adult social care went up from £15.46 billion to £16.4 billion between 2008-09 and 2009-10. Noble Lords will recognise that 2009-10 was the expenditure for the last year of the previous Government. It then fell back to £15.54 billion in 2010-11, declining again in 2011-12 by another £0.5 billion, although there are some technical changes that slightly confuse the picture. The evidence available to me and other noble Lords who are close to local government suggests that expenditure will fall again significantly in real terms in the current year.
There is the very real possibility that expenditure on adult social care will be some £2 billion less in real terms when the Bill takes effect next year compared with 2009-10, despite the best efforts of local government to make amends and try to cope with that set of problems. The knock-on effect of this for the NHS is considerable. When I was a Minister, the Department of Health formula was that for every pound you cut from adult social care, you spent £1.30 on the NHS. You can do the arithmetic for the implications of all this for the NHS as well as for users of adult social care services.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
I have not put them to the Labour Party Front Bench.
Lord Warner
It might just help the Committee to say that there are plenty of suggestions around, which the Government are well aware of, that enable you to implement the Dilnot proposals without any increase in public expenditure. What you are required to do, though, is reprioritise, which the Government are unwilling to do, as far as I can see. Starters for 10 would be not just the creative proposal of my noble friend but means-testing generous winter fuel payments, free TV licences and bus passes for people who are higher rate taxpayers. Plenty of proposals have been put forward for using inheritance tax to pay for that. All these proposals could be put into play if the Government were prepared to enter objectively into a discussion with the Labour Front Bench in the other place, with whom they are having so-called cross-party talks, but very little creativity seems to be coming from the government side.
Lord Beecham
My Lords, I am not empowered to commit the Labour Party to a particular policy stance on this, although I find some of the arguments and options advanced by my noble friends quite interesting. What I do know is that the Conservative Front Bench walked away from joint-party discussions two and a half years ago, have done nothing so far about Dilnot and, by all the auguries that we are hearing, do not propose to do very much about it. We will see in due course, if and when we get some proposals that may come before the Recess.
In what has been a long—perhaps inordinately long—municipal career, my most rewarding period was when I served as chairman of the social services committee of my council for four years in the 1970s. We managed to transform the provision of social services, at that time including children’s social services, since hived off—in my view, perhaps rather unfortunately —in a way that would now be impossible, given the financial situation. This is therefore a matter that is very close to my heart and, of course, to the hearts of many others.
It is disturbing that, as we have heard from my noble friend Lord Warner and the noble Lord, Lord Best, the financial situation is deteriorating really quite rapidly in the face of substantially rising demand, produced in part by demographic change, and in part by the advance of medicine and care. Younger people with physical and learning disabilities are living longer and elderly people are living longer, and we must be glad of that but, as we have heard, it imposes considerable pressures on services and budgets. We have heard some of the data on that this afternoon.
It is often assumed that we are talking largely about the older population. That is not the case because younger people with learning disabilities are growing fastest in terms of numbers and in terms of the costs that have to be met to care for them. The Local Government Association’s projections are that the percentage of expenditure on younger people will rise substantially—indeed, more than for the elderly. The cost of care for that particular group is expected to rise by 42% by the end of this decade. As the noble Lord, Lord Best, has pointed out, that ultimately could lead to virtually the entirety of local authority budgets being devoted to adult social care of all kinds. In any event, the LGA estimates that if current demand, which is likely to develop, were to be met in full, funding for all other services would drop in cash terms, assuming a level playing field, by 66% or 80% over that period, so we are talking about a very large potential gap. The consequences of some of the savings that have been referred to by my noble friend and the noble Lord, Lord Best, are rather worrying. The financial pressures on providers of residential care are causing considerable difficulties.
Baroness Hanham
My Lords, the problem of adult social care does not rest with the local authorities alone. The noble Lord, Lord Beecham, has already pointed out that there is a similar responsibility on the National Health Service. If this problem had been capable of being resolved, it would have been by now. I recognise the noble Lord’s frustration coming to this Bill as a result of his work on the Dilnot commission, and I understand it fully. However, everybody here will be aware of the ongoing discussions every time you turn on the radio or television. There was another discussion last night on “Newsnight” on these serious problems, which are, at the moment, more or less intractable. The last thing I want to do is to try a light touch on this. I appreciate fully that this is a very serious matter, but so do the Government. The Government are wrestling with this, like previous Governments did. If the noble Lord was dealing with social services in 1970 and was then leader of a council, he and I at both stages were dealing with having to reduce expenditure and increase and toughen criteria.
This has long been a problem and it has gradually got worse because of the demographics and the general increase in costs. We are now against the background of an enormous deficit—which was not the responsibility of this Government but which we are having to deal with—which is not helping the situation either. As I said at Second Reading when the noble Lord, Lord Warner, brought this up, the Government—as he and others know—are committed to publishing a White Paper shortly that goes across both departments. I confirm that my department is in regular touch with the Department of Health about it. The White Paper will set out the plans to transform care and support. I recognise very clearly that this is beginning to absorb an enormous amount of public funding.
Clearly, the battle is to decide whether any personal contributions have to be made or whether there are other routes. If you are forcing people to sell their houses, you are in very difficult territory. I understand the reason the noble Lord, Lord Warner, brought this up. I am not going to accept the amendments for the reason that this is not solely a part of local government and it is certainly not a part of what we are discussing at the moment. I only add that the Government have already allocated an additional £7.2 billion over four years to adult social care, so we are not pulling back on our commitment to it. We are very much committed. We now have to wait for the White Paper. I very much hope that the noble Lord will not return to this at a further stage.
Lord Warner
Well, my Lords, that was all very interesting from the Minister. I suppose I thank her for it. I am not sure that I was very convinced by any of it. To get it on the record, this Government set up the Dilnot commission. They encouraged us to produce a report within 12 months, which we dutifully did. It is now 12 months since we reported, and there has not been a peep out of the Government about what they want to do. I do not mind if they do not like it, but they might have had the decency to suggest another approach that they would like. However, what we have had is silence and all the signals—from the cross-party talks and elsewhere—are that what we will get next week is a White Paper and a draft Bill that will be extraordinarily silent on the subject of money. I am a very patient sort of chap. I am very happy to wait until I see this document and what the arguments are and to consider it over the Summer Recess. I do not approach that with any great optimism. I am happy to withdraw the amendment on this particular occasion but I do not give any assurances to the Minister that I will not come back to this on Report, refreshed after the Summer Recess.