Aviation Security (Reasoned Opinion)

Graham Stringer Excerpts

Monday 31st October 2016 General Committees

[Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hanson. The debate arises because the European Scrutiny Committee, on which I serve, has recommended that the House of Commons issues a reasoned opinion against the Commission proposal for a regulation creating a common certification scheme. A reasoned opinion signifies that the House does not consider that the proposal complies with the principle of subsidiarity. Put simply, this principle requires matters to be left to member states if they are best placed to handle them and the EU will not achieve a better result. Should the Committee approve, the House will be asked formally to approve the sending of a reasoned opinion by the 3 November deadline. A draft is annexed to our report, which forms part of the debate pack.

The terrorist attack on Zaventem airport in Brussels earlier this year was a sad reminder of how important airport security is for individual EU member states, and the incident at Glasgow airport in 2007 was a concrete example of how the United Kingdom is not immune to such attacks. The risk of such attacks fluctuates with changes in the terrorist threats faced by individual member states at any given time. The EU recognised that member states might need to react unilaterally to threats in its 2008 civil aviation security regulations, which set minimum standards for airport security but allow member states to apply higher security standards or more stringent measures in relation to airport security screening equipment than the minimum EU standards. The United Kingdom takes advantage of that provision.

This proposal is ostensibly concerned not with those standards but with creating a common certification system intended to facilitate the marketing of security equipment. However, a significant concern of the European Scrutiny Committee is that, despite Commission claims to the contrary, one of the effects of the proposal, albeit an unintended one, is that member states will no longer be able to apply more stringent measures. The Committee, in its reasoned opinion, also questions the basis of the Commission’s assumption that member states will not voluntarily improve their existing co-operation at a national level on the approval of equipment operated within the European Civil Aviation Conference. It also fears that the benefits of EU action might be undermined by the risk to confidential data associated with the equipment and by the cost and bureaucracy involved for member states in setting up certification processes and bodies.

The French National Assembly also issued a reasoned opinion on similar grounds. Although we are unlikely to reach the one third of votes in national Parliaments required to trigger a yellow card, which would result in the Commission’s having formally to reconsider its proposal, reasoned opinions from two Chambers from major member states ought to have some influence on the eventual outcome.

[The Chair]

Before I call the Minister to make the opening statement, I remind the Committee that this is a statement, so interventions are not allowed. There is an opportunity for questions when the Minister has finished his remarks.