Civil Aviation (Consumer Protection and Regulatory Reform) Bill [LORDS] (Second sitting)

Jessica Toale Excerpts

Tuesday 20th October 2026 Public Bill Committees

[Keir Mather]

My hon. Friend is a champion for his constituents, both those affected by drop-off charges and those—he has spoken to me about this—who live in Prestwick, Ponteland and Woolsington who are particularly affected by taxi drivers not being able to use the airport in the way they want to and who end up impacting local communities. I raised that with local residents when I did a series of roundtables at Heathrow in relation to expansion. We need to manage all those impacts very carefully. People do not deserve to have disruption and nuisance on their doorstep because we are not getting the systems functioning in the way that they need to.

Government amendments 2 and 3, tabled in my name, make a related change to the commencement provisions of the Bill. As currently drafted, the review duty would come into force two months after Royal Assent; however, as the period for completing the review is measured from Royal Assent, it is appropriate that the duty itself also commences at that point, which the amendments provide for. They are technical and consequential amendments that simply ensure that the Bill is tidied and operates as intended, with the commencement provisions aligning with the revised review timetable.

Clause 7, as we have discussed, requires the Secretary of State to conduct and publish a review into the impact of airport drop-off charges on airport users. The review must be laid before both Houses of Parliament. I do not have much to add to the remarks I made when discussing Government amendment 1, but for the avoidance of doubt, let me quickly reiterate that we recognise the considerable strength of feeling that exists on this issue among passengers and parliamentarians.

[Jessica Toale (Bournemouth West) (Lab)]

My constituents have also raised issues around airport drop-off charges at Bournemouth airport, which have gone up to £8 this year. There are no public transport options to get to Bournemouth airport, so I hope that the Minister and the Government will take into account alternative routes to get to airports when looking at this issue in the consultation.

[Keir Mather]

My hon. Friend raises an important point. One of the functions of airport drop-off charges, as presently constituted, is to facilitate mode share changes at airports and to encourage airport users to take public transport where possible, but it is true that across the airports in the United Kingdom there is not consistent public transport availability. Those questions around provision and whether free drop-off spaces are provided, and the transparency with which they can be accessed, is of major importance. I thank my hon. Friend for that contribution.