Air Travel Organisers’ Licensing Bill

Andy McDonald Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Monday 3rd July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Lab)]

It was all going so well until that last comment! The Minister has it right, however, when he says that the Bill is to be welcomed. The events of failure are rare, but it is imperative that this market and the response to it should develop so that people who experience those failures have recourse to a remedy. He will find a great deal of support on this side of the House for what he has said and for the Bill. I thank him for his summary and his account. He is right to say that matters in the related Bill were conducted with a great deal of conviviality, courtesy and humility, and he is to be credited with ensuring that that was so.

As the Minister said, it is with a sense of déjà vu that we are debating these changes to the air travel organisers’ licensing system. It has been only four months since these self-same clauses received their Second Reading when they made up part of the Vehicle Technology and Aviation Bill—or VTAB, as we liked to call it. It ought to be an Act by now—VTAA—but sadly we must still refer to it as VTAB. The Prime Minister’s decision to call an early election meant that VTAB, along with a whole host of other legislation, had to be dropped.

Given that we had wasted a great deal of parliamentary time and effort, it was quite a surprise to see that there was no reference to VTAB in the Queen’s Speech. Instead, the Government have decided to fragment the legislation, splitting it between the Bill we are debating today and the automated and electric vehicles Bill that will be introduced later in the Parliament. It is interesting to note that 50% of the legislative programme relating to transport for the next two years of this Parliament will merely be clauses that have been copied and pasted from VTAB, a Bill that should have already been passed into law. This surely highlights how this minority Government are out of ideas and have very little new to offer the country as they focus their attention on a desperate attempt to cling to power.

[Mr John Hayes]

With the greatest respect, I think that the hon. Gentleman is underselling himself. The progress we made in Committee and on consideration of the previous Bill meant that, when the Government came to look at the model of what good legislation should look like, they needed to look no further than the work that he and I had done. I take most of the credit for that, but I think he should take some too.

[Andy McDonald]

As ever, the Minister is extremely generous in his praise. He is right, however, to say that we made a lot of progress. I just hope that we do not have to do it all over again. That is the point.

The Government do not have a plan to reintroduce VTAB in its entirety, even though it should already have been taken through. Madam Deputy Speaker, you could be forgiven for asking why the Government do not dare to try to pass legislation that has already passed through this place and received support from both sides of the House. Indeed, it is a matter of considerable concern that a number of important clauses from VTAB appear to have been left out of the Government’s forthcoming legislative programme. They include the clauses in part 4 of VTAB that related to vehicle testing, the shining of lasers—which the hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Alan Brown) mentioned earlier—and diversionary driving courses. The clauses in part 3 relating to air traffic services also appear to have been axed. Perhaps the Minister can offer some explanation of why he previously deemed it a necessity to legislate on those issues, as they are not being reintroduced now.

Moreover, during the progression of VTAB, Labour Members raised concerns over the absence of legislation to create a regulatory framework to deal with drones. With the proliferation of drones in recent years, we have seen a sharp increase in the number of near misses with planes. The latest figures show that there were 33 such incidents confirmed in the first five months of this year and 70 last year, compared with only 29 in 2015 and just 10 in the five years before that. Representatives of the aviation industry have expressed their concern over the Government’s failure to bring in legislation to tackle this worrying trend.

[Iain Stewart]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way; I enjoyed our exchanges in the Committee stage of the previous Bill. I may be wrong, but given the intervention I made on the Minister earlier, I believe that it is important to get this Bill on to the statute book as early as possible so that the subsequent regulations can come into effect in an industry that has to plan 12 to 18 months in advance. The other measures that the hon. Gentleman mentioned are important, but they could be put into a different Bill. Perhaps that is the reason they are not in this one.

[Andy McDonald]

The hon. Gentleman makes a reasonable point, but those matters were considered an important part of VTAB, as were the bits relating to ATOL. It is a gross omission for us to come this far and not deal with such important matters now. Certainly, if the roles were reversed, we would want to introduce legislation before a near miss turns into a catastrophic incident that could have been avoided. We have heard about an incident at Gatwick airport in the past 24 hours, and this matter should concern everyone in the House. I make a genuine offer to the Minister that we will be nothing other than wholly supportive if the Government wish to bring forward legislation and regulations better to protect our airports and other places of great sensitivity. This is a huge issue, and the drone industry and others who support such legislation believe that the freedom to indulge in this activity is coming ahead of safety at the moment. I put it gently to colleagues that we should really be looking closely at this.

[Mr John Hayes]

The hon. Gentleman does the House a service in raising this matter. The hon. Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood) challenged me on it in an earlier intervention, and I made it clear that we had consulted on it—the hon. Gentleman will be familiar with the consultation exercise that we have been engaged in—precisely because we agree that the matter requires further consideration. I am happy to engage directly in discussions with him so that we can find a way forward on drones. He is right to say that this a changing and potentially challenging matter, and we need to work not only as a Government but as a Parliament to address it, so I am happy to take up his offer of discussions on the back of that consultation and our response to it.

[Andy McDonald]

I am again grateful to the Minister for his consistent, collegiate attitude and for his co-operation. His approach to this Bill is exactly the same as it was with the previous Bill, and that should be acknowledged. The Labour party shares his objective of making this Bill and the forthcoming transport Bills relating to automated and electric vehicles and to the space industry the best possible pieces of legislation as they pass through the House. We only wish that the Government were prepared to respond to the rapid technological advances of recent years and to bring forward legislation in the areas that I outlined, which are in urgent need of a regulatory framework. It has become quite clear in recent weeks that inaction can risk lives.

As we stated when the measures in this Bill were first laid out in VTAB, the broad substance of the changes to ATOL are necessary and, for the most part, welcomed. The changes will harmonise UK law with the latest EU package travel directive, leading to many benefits for UK consumers and UK travel operators. A wider range of operators, including more dynamic package providers, will likely be covered under the changes, bringing protection to many more UK holidaymakers not covered under existing ATOL provisions. The requirement for travel companies to be in line with standards at “place of establishment” instead of “place of sale” will now mean that UK companies can sell far more seamlessly across Europe by simply adhering to the widely respected ATOL flag.

However, the EU-level changes do bring about something that could have adverse effects for some UK consumers purchasing from EU-based travel companies. The changes made through the directive will now mean that EU-based companies selling in the UK have to adhere only to an ATOL-equivalent insolvency protection laid out in the member state where the business is based. In practice, that could have unintended consequences and, more significantly, costs for UK consumers. Processes and timescales for recompense may be distinctly different to what many travellers would expect under the gold standard of ATOL. The impact assessment warns:

“If consumers purchase a trip from a business established elsewhere in the EU and the company becomes insolvent there may be some costs to the consumer of processing a claim with a non-UK insolvency protector.”

Based on the latest CAA figures, that is not just something that will impact on a relatively small number of holidaymakers; it would currently compromise over 500,000 passengers. It is therefore important the Government take appropriate steps to anticipate and prepare for any negative impacts. As suggested by the Opposition when the Vehicle Technology and Aviation Bill was in Committee, making it a requirement for the Government to monitor the impact for UK consumers using EU-based companies would help inform the Government about whether they should consider further guidance or co-operation with consumers and EU member states to ensure that adequate protections are in place.

[Mr Hayes]

The hon. Gentleman will know that the existing legislation contains an obligation to review it after five years. He is making an argument that he has made previously, and it seems to have some weight. I am open-minded about how we consider such things, and I will certainly reflect on his point about our need to consider the impact of the changes that he describes. I am more than happy to include that in our discussions about drones.

[Andy McDonald]

I am grateful to the Minister for that clarification.

The Bill’s second clause is not directly relevant to harmonising UK with EU regulation, but it contains a dormant power that the Government will retain, enabling them to make considerable changes to ATOL with regard to air travel trusts. During an evidence session when VTAB was in Committee, we heard from Richard Moriarty of the CAA, a trustee of the current air travel trust, who recognised the possible merits of separating the trust to reflect the variations of products in the market. However, he explained that we simply are not there yet and that it would be wrong for the Government to use this Bill as a means of making wholesale changes without due consultation. The Minister made it clear in a letter to me that changes would be made only through the affirmative procedure, yet the Bill does not account for any further consultation as part of this measure. Labour will therefore be again seeking a commitment from the Minister, which he gave in Committee during the progress of VTAB, that the Government will conduct a thorough impact assessment and consultation before implementing the power. Mr Moriarty said at the evidence session that he hoped that the Government

“will follow the practice that they have followed today: consult with us, consult the industry, do the impact assessment, and so on.”––[Official Report, Vehicle Technology and Aviation Public Bill Committee, 14 March 2017; c. 30, Q150.]

Accordingly, if the Government were to undertake a full impact assessment and consultation before bringing forward regulations to create any new air travel trusts through the affirmative procedure, that would be fair and reasonable and would guarantee scrutiny of any further changes to ATOL.

To conclude, while the Opposition are frustrated that the general election meant that the Vehicle Technology and Aviation Bill was dropped and, moreover, we are concerned with the Government’s decision to omit a large proportion of the legislation as it is reintroduced in this Parliament, Labour none the less broadly supports this Bill. We welcome the changes that will harmonise UK law with the latest EU package travel directive, which will have many benefits for UK consumers and UK travel operators. However, we have concerns about the levels of protection given by EU-based companies selling in the UK and about whether UK consumers could lose out following the change. We will be pressing Ministers for reassurances on that during the passage of the Bill. As we did with the Vehicle Technology and Aviation Bill, the Opposition will seek further detail from Ministers on the assimilation of the directive, the impact of Brexit, and Government accountability as the Bill progresses through this House.