Air Traffic Control Disruption

Baroness Butler-Sloss Excerpts

Monday 14th September 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

The noble Lord is of course echoing the case he made during the passage of the civil aviation Bill, which the Government disagreed with. Of course the event is unacceptable and we need to get to the bottom of it. The noble Lord, Lord Moylan, said it was another event and of course it is, but it looks, certainly at the moment, as though it is not the same event as in 2023. The Secretary of State and the department are relentlessly focused on finding out what the cause was and on preventing it happening again, which is the way to avoid costs such as the ones the noble Lord referred to being incurred.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

In the absence of any back-up, as I understand it, is it sensible that eight airports were operated by only one system?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

The noble and learned Baroness is certainly right that these systems have to be and should be more resilient than they are. The Secretary of State has recently written to the Civil Aviation Authority with its priorities for the next period of time, and top of the list of priorities for National Air Traffic Services is making it more resilient, for precisely that reason. How it is organised and how many airports it covers is a different question and relates to the geography of the United Kingdom. We have not heard it previously suggested that somehow the geography of what NATS covers ought to be different. It ought to be reliable.