Civil Aviation (Consumer Protection and Regulatory Reform) Bill [HL]

Baroness Foster of Oxton Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 2nd June 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Foster of Oxton (Con)]

My Lords, first, I will try to cheer you all up a bit, because that is not what was reflected by our previous speaker. I declare my interest as an adviser for the Drone Delivery Group. I am also a vice-chairman of the All-Party Group for the Future of Aviation, Travel and Aerospace.

As a further interest, I spent the first 25 years of my working life at British Airways as a young stewardess. For the following 15 years, I was in the European Parliament and dealt with all the primary legislation that covered the civil aviation area and other forms of transport. The former RAF Baroness has left, but I recall that she mentioned what it was like in the RAF all those years ago. For those of your Lordships who are pilots and understand airspace, when I started flying I was on a Hawker Siddeley. Most airfields did not have an ILS—an instrument landing system—yet we have those most advanced aircraft that could land in virtually nil visibility. So technology has certainly moved on apace in the last 50 years.

I say that because we have one of the best and most exciting industries that we have ever created, when we go back historically into civil aviation, certainly post the Second World War. We also have some of the best brains and the best scientists, who are inventing the technologies in the aerospace sector that make aviation as safe, clean and green as it is today.

Given my time as a Member of the European Parliament, I am going to come on to the three key areas that are mainly in the Bill. I thank the Minister for his comprehensive introduction and, like most colleagues, obviously I have read through what it says. Regarding our leaving the European Union, I was involved in the legislation for the European Aviation Safety Agency 20 years ago. It was actually developed for the certification of the A380 aircraft, because obviously we cross-border manufactured. That was the reason the agency was set up, but then its scope expanded over the years, so the agency had competence for many other areas. Of course, that took away the competences that the CAA had had. When I originally joined the airline industry, every nation had its civil aviation authority and there was no sort of European central body.

However, we also comply with the Montreal and Chicago conventions, ICAO and IATA. This is not just about legislation being made here, and the Government need to take account of that, as did the European Commission at the time. It is fine to say, “Well, we will make rules and regulations about x, y and z to do with civil aviation”. But primarily we are signed up to, and must comply with, international obligations, which obviously affect the entire aviation industry worldwide.

Clearly, we are now putting back competences to the Civil Aviation Authority which it has not dealt with for many years, and it needs to make sure it has the resources and everything else to do it properly. I have every confidence in our Civil Aviation Authority; it is one of the best civil aviation authorities in the world, along with our accident investigation bureau in this sector. The independence that our agencies have is key. Therefore, we do not get overwhelmed by political interference in areas where the experts need to be making a lot of the decisions.

I will touch on the three primary areas in this Bill. The first is airspace. We know that, with the increase in traffic over the years, the pressure on airspace has obviously grown terrifically. I was one of the rapporteurs for the single European sky regulations in the European Parliament, over 20 years ago. We were looking at functional airspace blocks and at ensuring that, right across Europe, it was smooth. Eurocontrol had obviously taken a huge role in traffic management, so it started to improve it hugely. Nevertheless, we still have bottlenecks around Europe which will affect us in the United Kingdom, but at the time the United Kingdom was known for having one of the best systems. We mixed the civil with the military to ensure that, when we were not using military airspace, civil aviation could use it. That was very unlike France and some other countries, which insisted on keeping these corridors, and therefore we had a backlog all the time.

In terms of capacity in the airspace sector, we know that when vertical separation was reduced over 20 years ago down to 1,000 feet, obviously because of the introduction of anti-collision devices et cetera, it was key to trying to get more capacity into European airspace. But, as we know, the industry has grown further, so it is quite right that we are looking at how to make this better. I think the CAA, NATS and the providers have done a terrific job with all the steps that they have taken—not with the vertical separation, obviously, but when they look at trying to ensure that we can cut times down for landing and take-off. I accept, however, that more technology needs to be brought in to make it even more efficient. I would like the Minister to tell us—maybe not today—what exactly the Government are looking to do. We have a lot of what they would like to do, but I would like to know precisely what they think will make this more efficient: I have not read that.

Moving on to slots, I was also rapporteur on slots in around 2004-05, and for the slots revision, which was about 10 years later. Slots are not a simple thing; I think I still have got the scars on my back. People think that, generally, the captain says, “Here’s the slot and we’re going to push back”, and sometimes you have missed it because the baggage is not on, or something—but of course it is not like that. These slots are traded twice a year through IATA and it is quite a complex business.

In addition to slot-airports—Heathrow and Gatwick, and do not forget the other airlines coming in—the value of the company depends on which slots they hold. When we were looking at slot revision back in 2004-05, the European Commission wanted primary trading. That would not have worked. It also had an idea that maybe it should be the one to allocate slots, but that was certainly not going to work. After much debate, it was recognised that one of the key issues is to make sure there is slot fairness, apart from grandfather rights and new entrant rules, which were brought in. Obviously, there is what happens when we have issues like the Middle East and other conflicts—the “use it or lose it” rules, which we have mentioned in discussing statutory instruments—and there are ways to get round this sort of thing. Notwithstanding that, people need to tread very carefully when they are looking at some sort of slot changes or changing the rules. This is just not a simple, “Oh well, let’s have this”, or “somebody in the Department for Transport thinks we should do X, Y and Z”. It will be at your peril if somebody starts to try and does the wrong thing, because it affects third-country carriers coming in.

The next area I would like to touch on is passenger rights. The noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, and others have raised this. I will touch on the “passengers with reduced mobility” regulation. Before the regulation was changed, the airlines had taken responsibility for their disabled passengers and passengers who need assistance. It was the European Commission which determined 20 years ago that it should not be the airlines that do this—not that the airlines may want to do it now—and that it should move to the airports.

The disadvantage of that was that, when an airline offered a service, everything that happened on that journey came back to the airline, so it took responsibility. I was crew. I sat with people while they waited for their wheelchair, or tried to check that the wheelchair was not damaged if it was in the hold. I have seen it first-hand. There is no excuse for people being left on aircraft on their own, waiting for somebody to take them off. There is little excuse for wheelchairs being damaged when they are hold loaded. The decision at the time was to take this responsibility away from the airlines and give it to the airports. This is where you lose that connection. How could you reverse that? I have no idea, because I doubt whether the airlines would want to take back that responsibility. It is just a thought as to how things were done and what has slipped since. There is no easy solution to this, but it is about what is called good customer service.

This brings me to general passenger rights: the old regulation 261, which was about cancellations and delays. I have to say—some people may disagree with me—that I lived and breathed 261 over those years, and certainly, colleagues in the European Parliament did. We got a very good deal for airline passengers. The legislation was robust. It was the first legislation that made airlines actually look after their passengers if flights were cancelled or delayed. It put the onus on them to really cough up and make sure they were doing their job. Most of the time they did a good job, but unfortunately a number of airlines were not particularly interested. That, hopefully, has improved hugely. There has to be a balance between the responsibility being on the airline and, for example, if there is compensation, the level at which it is set. We got to €200, €400 and €600 on short, medium and long haul flights. A balance has to be struck, but I do not think it is impossible. The legislation that is in place is good. We even moved from force majeure to exclude external events, to certain things being brought back in, whereby a passenger could claim compensation or at least ensure that they were being looked after.

It is good that the passenger is at the heart of this; it is right that they should be at the heart of this industry. As I said, we run a great industry. There is no reason for people to be treated badly. I have been at the forefront, when you are at 35,000 feet and you are going to be diverted because there is a thunderstorm, for example. This is where professionalism, reassurance and training of staff, including ground staff, has to come in, to ensure that the passengers are the priority; they are the ones that need to be looked after. Even in the direst circumstances, the public generally are fabulous. They know that they are in your hands. They will be very forgiving if they know that somebody is doing their very best in a professional way.

On a slightly critical note, the Secretary of State appears to run right through this legislation. The Secretary of State decides this, the Secretary of State is going to decide that—and, of course, the Secretary of State is answerable to all these things. But he or she will be responsible for the rulemaking. Then, the question is: who will advise the Secretary of State on this new rule? Will the Secretary of State be talking to the CAA? Will they be talking to people in the Department for Transport? It looks a little ambiguous, so there needs to be some clarity.

Finally, there also needs to be some clarity on the issues themselves, such as airspace and slots. We are being told what is wrong and what the Government would quite like to do, but I would like examples of things that have really gone wrong and what precisely the Government are thinking of putting in this legislation. There are questions to be answered, but I would like to thank my colleagues and others for referring to general aviation, which is key. I thank the Minister again for coming to the House with the Bill today.