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

Debate between Baroness Foster of Oxton and Lord Berkeley

Report stage
Monday 13th July 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I apologise for this manuscript amendment; something went wrong with the Public Bill Office. I shall be very brief at this time of night. I just want to emphasise that we have been talking about general aviation for much of the day. There have been some really useful comments from the noble Lord, Lord Kirkhope, my noble friend Lord Barber and the noble Viscount, Lord Goschen, and some good answers from the Minister, for which I am very grateful. However, general aviation still needs one thing that has not been mentioned so far: the global navigation satellite system, which enables people to train and do whatever they need to do in places of bad visibility.

My reason for tabling this amendment was that I received, at the end of last week, an interesting paper from the Royal Aeronautical Society called GNSS Services Supporting Civil Aviation in the UK. It is eight pages long—noble Lords will be glad that I am not going to read it all out. It gives the history of the GNSS from when we left Europe, and therefore left EGNOS, to where we are now.

Basically, it says that since then the Cabinet Office and a lot of other departments have been looking at alternative systems to EGNOS, one of which was Inmarsat, which I have visited. The House of Commons Select Committee took evidence on the UK space strategy and UK satellite infrastructure. It said:

“We urge the government to publish a National PNT Strategy and set out what ground and space-based components will be used”.


Nothing much seems to have happened, and the conclusion of this paper is that we have lost 15 years’ development by not going ahead with EGNOS.

EGNOS is still there. I am told that it can be reinstated very cheaply—somewhere between £30 million and £40 million—whereas the alternative, according to this paper, could be somewhere between seven and 10 years away. We really need this for training pilots and other people involved in navigating when the visibility is bad. It is not just for people having joy rides; it is for business, passengers and training, so why not do it? That is why I put this amendment down, in the unlikely hope that my noble friend the Minister will say yes. I hope it gives food for thought and I shall send him this paper so that he can study it in more detail. I beg to move.

[Baroness Foster of Oxton (Con)]

My Lords, I support this amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, co-signed by the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Gower. We have had discussions on this over the last couple of years.

When I was a member of the European Parliament, I was a rapporteur on GNSS—global navigation satellite systems. That was key when we were looking at how we were covering airspace and airports, et cetera. Switching off EGNOS when we left the European Union affected somewhere in the region of 27 airfields around the United Kingdom, including areas such as the Highlands and Islands, and the Scilly Isles, not just where fixed-wing aircraft go but where helicopters fly in. Therefore, it has reduced the landing limits—for landing and take-off—and the operational aspect, not just for passengers but when they are taking in goods or freight. It is an extremely important issue.

Under the last Government and this one, we have not got very far on this. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, that we need to seriously look at this and reintroduce something like EGNOS, because it is important for the United Kingdom. To have done this and then just left it has not been helpful at all. I certainly support what the noble Lord said and I hope that the Minister will seriously look at this again, because we need to reinstate this system.