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

Baroness Grey-Thompson Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 2nd June 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Grey-Thompson (CB)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as chair of the Aviation Accessibility Task and Finish Group. In July 2025, we produced an independent report. I thank the team at the Department for Transport, the members of the group and the industry, which was very open about how we can improve travel for disabled people. However, we found that not one airline or airport universally gets it right even most of the time. Our 19 key recommendations were made in the context of no legislative time, but I hope we now have a chance to impact what we do for disabled people.

After much consideration, the task and finish group looked at five themes: training, passenger information and communications, non-visible impairments, mobility aid design and handling, and tailored service and delivery. It became clear that there is a lack of data. It is hard to know how many disabled people fly annually, depending on the definition, but it could be around 1.5% of all passengers. The Library Note on this Bill, which was very helpful, said that the satisfaction rate for disabled people was only 82%. There is also a lack of data on when things go wrong. It is hard to know who to contact or complain to, how to resolve issues and even who has responsibility. Recognising that the industry has many moving parts, this Bill presents a significant opportunity to do something very different for disabled people.

We also know that there has been a significant increase in demand for assistance. We saw many airports and airlines trying to do the right thing, but the nature of the requests can be very variable. We recognise that what probably most people need is not assistance but wayfinding or help with bags. We need to think creatively about how that customer journey is carried out, even looking at airport design or gate allocation.

Through our work, we heard anecdotal evidence that the lanyard scheme has not always been used properly—stag dos arriving at the airport and requesting lanyards is not in the spirit of the scheme. I have seen people using an aisle chair to get on board and then seeming to walk off at the other end. I am conscious that there can be fluctuating conditions, but not having the right assistance puts huge pressure on an already strained system. One size does not fit all. A number of visually impaired people got in touch to tell me that, when they fly, they are continually told that they need to sit in a wheelchair and be pushed through the airport because that is easier for the staff, rather than doing it in a way that works for the disabled person.

A significant number of people wrote to me to say that various influencers have filmed airports, showing ways to cheat the system, which not only encourages people to think about creative ways to get through the airport, but has resulted in an increase in negative comments made towards disabled people who have genuine needs.

What also came through was that there needs to be a more streamlined method of booking assistance. This is very different from the railway industry, where you could potentially catch a later train or a later bus. There is a real challenge in managing expectation, providing assistance in a reasonable time and being clear about sorting things out when mistakes are made.

We also found out that a lot of the information was joined up. On a personal level, I never look at an airport website, but at one point I was a very frequent flier, and I have travelled through most UK airports. The actual challenge of booking assistance is too varied. For some airlines, it relies on the disabled person knowing a very vague assistance code, or when you get to the airport, you are asked all those questions again. It proves that the system is not working as well as it could.

While recognising that we have an issue with international jurisdictions and that we can control only some parts of the journey, I would also like to look at how we could influence more widely. A lot of the emails sent to me were about equipment being broken and, in some cases, destroyed by not being secured properly during the journey. One thing that the Bill will not be able to sort—but I had a huge number of emails about it—is the issues that passengers who travel with allergies face.

Recently, I had a number of emails from people who use colostomy bags or ileostomy bags, about how they are treated. Each person recognised that security is an important issue and that checks need to be done. One person who wrote to me recently, who flies a lot, said that the only way they are able to manage going through security is by taking their colostomy bag off just as they go through security, covering it up with tissues and tape, and then putting it back on when they go through the other side. That just does not feel appropriate at all.

I broadly welcome the increased powers of the CAA, but, like the noble Lord, Lord Harper, I would like to understand what the best route is to actually securing better treatment for disabled people.

Most of the emails I receive are about being left on a plane, or broken or missing equipment. We have all heard of the numerous tales of Frank Gardner when he has been flying. He has had incidents where his wheelchair was incorrectly tagged and staff were unable to locate it. He has had a couple of very high-profile cases. In May 2022, when it had happened numerous times, he said that disabled passengers appeared to be treated as the “lowest priority”. Sophie Morgan, likewise, a very well-known disability rights campaigner, suffered terrible experiences with damage to her chairs. But most disabled people do not have that platform. Athena Stevens’s chair was worth £25,000. It was irreparably damaged while travelling, which left her unable to travel independently. She estimated that the overall impact on her life and business reached £70,000, due to additional care, having to travel differently and lost work, but only limited compensation was made available. Maayan Ziv—a case in Canada—had a chair that was worth $30,000 and was severely damaged. This became widely known, because there was a lack of understanding of what a wheelchair means. It is not just a suitcase. It is not something that is very easy to replace.

I have had many experiences over the years, including one memorable time flying from Geneva through Charles de Gaulle to Birmingham. When it became clear that my chair was not there, I was asked by a member of staff whether had I ever tried to walk and whether I would like to try to walk. No, I cannot walk. The airline then tried to return two sleeping bags to me and argued that that was my lost property, even though they were clearly tagged to a different airport and another name. My day chair was found several weeks later in Dublin, and it came back to me in two pieces. It had literally been cut in half. It was suggested that I might like to try and duct tape it back together, which did not work. I wonder how much the airline industry is spending on repairs and replacements.

Another incident occurred when I was an athlete, flying with my racing chair—I always found it better to travel with my chair unboxed because they could see what it was. I was travelling with a very cheap pair of wheels, which got damaged, and the airline immediately jumped to replacing them and trying to offer me a very expensive pair of wheels. I was able to say that I needed a spoke key and 20 minutes. There needs to be some proper assessment of damage, ensuring that the level of liability is commensurate with the equipment.

We have to recognise that equipment is also changing. More people are using scooters than ever before, especially those with fluctuating conditions—they are much easier to travel with than an electric chair. Many noble Lords will see that I have a battery attachment that I use on my chair to get out and about around London. I have never tried to fly with it. We do have to explore the challenges of flying with much of this equipment, especially the safety issues; I know the ongoing work of the implementation group is looking at this. When a disabled person gets all the way to the gate and then finds that they are not allowed to fly—again, I recognise that there are related safety issues—it causes a significant number of problems.

We therefore need more data on the number of people who fly, what they require, and where things go wrong. Also, on wheelchair and mobility equipment protection, I would be very interested to see whether we could try to accurately report, publicly, the number of wheelchairs and mobility aids that are damaged, delayed or lost each year. We also need to look at how we can improve the enforcement and accessibility failures. In the task and finish group, we talked about specific penalties for repeated accessibility failures. That was not possible at the time, but I think it might be now. We should also look at the complaints process to ensure that it runs quickly and smoothly and is not leaving disabled people in situations where their complaints have timed out through no fault of their own.

I would also be interested in looking at requiring the CAA to publish a wider disability impact assessment before implementing significant new regulations. On airport assistance standards, the quality of assistance is variable across the UK. How can we establish minimum standards for passenger assistance, reasonable waiting times, staff training, communications support, and boarding and disembarkation procedures? It would also be very useful to have an update from the implementation group on the work it has been doing since July last year; that would help all noble Lords in addressing the Bill. Currently, everything is just a bit too ad hoc; it is quite difficult to travel as a disabled person, and we should be able to make that better.

I look forward to working with the Minister and his team to improve the Bill.