General Aviation (Persons on Board, Flight Information and Civil Penalties) Regulations 2024

Debate between Viscount Goschen and Lord German

Tuesday 30th January 2024 Grand Committee

[Viscount Goschen (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as a private pilot and an aircraft owner and operator. I welcome the regulations that the Minister has outlined. Looking at the consultation response document that was published, it seems that very few issues caused any sort of concern, and that this comes under “common sense”. I emphasise that the general aviation sector is acutely aware of the privileges that it enjoys and hence is a highly law-abiding section of the community that is keen to play its role in the policing of our borders.

There is broad support for the regulations, which are not hugely different from those currently in force, as far as I can see. Pilots are used to completing a general aviation declaration, which has not caused any problems. The systems that are used are so much better than they were previously. Technology has really helped. Commercially available applications have a strong interface with flight planning systems. I trust that the Minister can reassure the Committee that this will be the case for the new general aviation declaration format—that commercially available apps will be able to interact successfully and seamlessly.

I have only one substantive question for the Minister and I am sure I know the answer, but none the less it would be reassuring to have it from him. The regulations are cast, as they should be, around the expected arrival location. As we know, aviation, particularly general aviation, can be affected by weather, and we do not want to put in place any regulations that create a perverse incentive to carry on—not to turn back or divert to alternative fields. There can also be technical problems with the aircraft. I would like my noble friend the Minister’s reassurance that nothing in these regulations will affect the ability of the pilot or captain of the aircraft to divert for genuine safety-related reasons, and that we are not baking in any perverse incentive. I know that the Government have consulted widely, and I am quite sure that it will not be the case. None the less, this is a good opportunity for the Minister to make that point.

[Lord German (LD)]

My Lords, these are sensible regulations, but they raise a significant number of questions, including one that the Minister talked about at the outset: moving online from fax. I wonder, do we still have people doing this on the telephone or even by post? Moving into the modern age seems critical to me.

My first question is about the form, which I have just printed out. It is substantially more information than I would give as a passport holder on a regular airline when I go outside the United Kingdom. I presume, but perhaps the Minister can clarify, that that is because of the ability of major airlines to get instant information back from the system. I wonder whether the level of information now available to anybody online is still available to people in this sector, in which case it would shorten the whole form-filling regime.

I will come back to form-filling in just a moment, but the real question that struck me in reading the regulations and information provided to the general aviation sector was the relationship between Border Force’s work and that of the CAA. It is clear to me that flights can be detected and are being tracked by those who control our airspace. I am not certain whether that is because every major airline has transponders, which then indicate exactly where those aircraft are. I do not think that is the case with the general aviation sector but, where it is, that will enable the Civil Aviation Authority to know where these aeroplanes are in the sky and will help detection of flights not designed to land in the United Kingdom. Perhaps the Minister can tell us a little about the relationship between the two.

The second issue is about awareness raising in the sector. I went online to see whether I could join an event, simply to find out whether and how it was taking place. It said on the Home Office website that 20,000 people had been hosted for an awareness event. That sounds to me an extremely high number. If that is the case, that is really quite substantial, but there may perhaps be a fault in the way this information is recorded. So how many people have engaged in the events that have taken place to raise awareness of this change, where presumably they are advised not to use post, fax, telephone or emails but to use the online system?

Paragraph 7.9 of the Explanatory Memorandum talks about 10% of non-compliant people. Can the Minister give a figure for that? That would help me with the first figure about awareness raising and give a sense of the size of the sector we are talking about.

Clearly, these regulations are simply changing the method by which this information is provided, but you have to provide it when you leave and when you come back. Presumably, for the other way around, people in this sector in France, Belgium, the Netherlands and so on are having to do exactly the same thing for us. Are we matching their requirements? In other words, it would seem sensible that, if I were required to provide this information to the UK, I would need to provide that information to France as well. Sharing the data, which I am coming to, would make life a lot easier for people if there were simplification of those procedures.

Finally, I have two technical questions. I note that ICAO or IATA-designated airports or airstrips are permitted to use only the online version. If I have that wrong, I would be grateful if the Minister could tell me, but why is that the case? If it is the case, as I read it in the information pack, it seems to me that we are not capturing all the small airstrips in this country.

My final question is about the requirement to record passport information if you fly to the Republic of Ireland. I have gone across to Ireland, our next-door neighbour, quite frequently, and I often use my parliamentary pass to get across the Irish Sea both ways. If I cannot use it to go to Ireland in the general aviation sector, I would like to know why. As I understand it, that applies to the whole of the common travel area.

I would be grateful if the Minister could answer those questions, but in general terms these regulations seem sensible.