Civil Aviation Bill

Debate between Jim Shannon and Pat Glass

Wednesday 25th April 2012 Commons Chamber

[Pat Glass]

I said earlier that although UKBA cuts are primarily a matter for the Home Secretary, they have a significant negative impact on the passenger experience.

I agree with the premise in the Bill that the passenger must be put at the heart of the regulatory regime. The Bill is right to give the CAA a primary duty on air transport users. The Bill is not specific enough on how that objective will be met, whereas the new clause and amendments would provide such specificity.

Delays caused by UKBA checks, baggage handling and adverse weather cause huge passenger dissatisfaction and are made that much worse in times of crisis, whether that is caused by adverse weather conditions for which there should have better planning, or by volcanic ash—in the last such crisis, the needs of passengers hit an all-time low.

An Office for National Statistics omnibus survey conducted in February 2010—it came hot on the heels of the crisis caused by adverse weather conditions at Heathrow—revealed that although most passengers are largely satisfied with their experience at airports, they have different views on different aspects, and were not equally satisfied with all aspects of service. The aspects of least satisfaction included information provided on bringing goods into the UK, on which there has been some improvement; information on destinations served by the nearest airport; baggage collection; and the cost of flights.

The CAA discovered in its own survey of passenger satisfaction at airports that waiting at immigration was a concern. Fewer than 70% of passengers at London’s three major airports were satisfied with immigration services, and 8% of surveyed passengers waited more than 20 minutes. That impacts on our international reputation. I agree that the primary duty should be to promote the interests of passengers, but passengers are telling us that that does not always happen; that it happens better in some aspects of the service than in others; and that it can break down completely in times of crisis.

Following the Transport Committee inquiry into the failure of both the Government and the industry adequately to prepare and respond to the severe winter conditions in December 2010, the absolutely appalling experience faced by many passengers, particularly at Heathrow, demonstrated the need for the sector significantly to up its game in relation to passenger welfare. The Bill fails to deliver on that.

“Keeping the UK moving”, the excellent Transport Committee report on the impact on transport of the winter weather in 2010, recommended that airports

“be required to develop passenger welfare plans and to provide”

sufficient

“support to stranded passengers during periods of disruption.”

It is disappointing that the Government do not take the same view. Is the Bill not a perfect opportunity to ensure that airports provide assistance to passengers, even if only for elderly or disabled passengers, or for those travelling with small children, who could be stranded in airports for days at a time?

The UK’s reputation was damaged by scenes of thousands of stranded passengers in airports over Christmas 2010, and equally damaged by the aftermath of the Icelandic volcano eruption. I was contacted by a number of constituents, as I know other hon. Members were, who were trying to get back from airlines the vast amounts of money that they had been forced to spend while stranded. Members of the Bill Committee will remember that I entertained them with my family’s experience. I was trying to help my elderly and disabled parents who were stranded in Barcelona. Their experience was perhaps extreme, but it was by no means unique, and the Government need to ensure that in future, passengers—disabled or not—do not experience such a shocking lack of care.

In the light of such fiascos, the Bill is an opportunity to place obligations on airports to provide help for stranded passengers in similar situations, and to prevent a repeat of the past. The need for early, decisive action on whether to cancel services is particularly important. There has been some improvement in that respect. I was due to fly out of Heathrow a couple of months ago when planes were again stranded by snow. I got a text and then a phone call from the airport telling me that my flight was cancelled, which saved me trailing up to the airport and standing around all day. We should recognise that vast improvement. The value of knowing sooner rather than later whether a flight is cancelled should not be underestimated. It could mean that fewer passengers are forced to endure hours, and possibly days, in an airport. If they know earlier, they can make alternative, more comfortable arrangements.

The problems also included the supply of de-icing and anti-icing products, and road salt. We should ensure better liaison over the treatment of the appropriate public road network between airports and local highways authorities. There has been some improvement on that, too. In 2010, my local authority properly prepared for the winter weather. It bought and arranged delivery of salt, but at the last minute, in an absolute panic, the Government effectively took salt that had been paid for by local authorities and transferred it to parts of the country that had failed to plan. However, we must accept that there has been some improvement on that situation.

During the 2010 crisis, the then Transport Secretary, the right hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr Hammond), promised urgently to legislate to penalise airport owners for bad service, but passengers are still being left without the added protection such reforms should have brought. Airlines and airports are quick enough to take passengers’ money, but much less keen to step up and help in times of crisis. Damage has been done to our international reputation and to the needs of the air-travelling public, whether they are disabled or not, and it is time for the Government to step in and put passengers first.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I want to make just a couple of comments. I congratulate the Minister and the shadow Minister on how well the Bill Committee was run. All members of the Committee contributed to the Bill and the best way forward.

As an elected representative for Strangford in Northern Ireland, I have been contacted by three airports in Northern Ireland—Belfast City, Belfast International, and Londonderry—because they want to ensure that the regulatory system is efficient. Some perceive inefficiency and say that the regulation is burdensome, and that the system clearly needs reform. In some ways, the Bill Committee tried to ensure that we can provide an efficient, flexible system that works well. If we have done so, it is good news.

New clause 2 refers to an

“annual report on disabled and reduced mobility air transport passenger experiences”.

Many hon. Members have been contacted by constituents —this point was made in Committee—who have particular and specific, but not unique, personal medical and health circumstances. They might have had an operation and now carry a colostomy bag, or they might have had metal inserted into their body to protect their spine or shin. As a result of wars all over the world, many people have lost limbs, and many soldiers and civilians have prosthetic limbs, yet when it comes to improving their experience in airports, we find that the process seems to be inflexible. I have heard complaints on that.

The hon. Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Tom Blenkinsop) introduced a ten-minute rule Bill on such problems, so the matter has been talked about before. I would like to know how we can improve the experience of airports for those people, who have made it clear to me as an elected representative—I suspect they have made it clear to other hon. Members—that their experience was not the best and asked how we can make it better. I believe that we can. I know that the Minister will assure us on that matter, and I look forward to her comments.

Domestic Heating Oil

Debate between Jim Shannon and Pat Glass

Wednesday 9th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Pat Glass]

I am happy that the Minister will be able to speak for himself when the time comes. No doubt he will give us his wisdom on that.

Customers are in the worst possible situation; it is a perfect storm. The market is completely unregulated. Added to that is a lack of competition in the market, where many suppliers are owned by just one or two companies, and suppliers are prepared to charge exorbitant prices simply because they can. On top of all that is the fact that we have just had the coldest winter in living memory.

The biggest supplier is DCC Energy, an Irish company that says it supplies a quarter of this country’s domestic market. It owns 41 heating and oil distribution companies and five price comparison websites. The websites of those 41 wholly DCC-owned companies state that they are independent, and none discloses the extent of DCC’s hold on the British market. DCC has recently been on a spending spree, buying up regional companies. It owns five price comparison websites, including BoilerJuice.

When I and others first raised this issue in the House, The Sunday Times carried out an investigation. It found that BoilerJuice, which is owned by DCC, only compared prices between DCC-owned companies, and that its so-called best deals were up to 65% higher than those of genuine independents. If that is not a deliberate intention to mislead customers, I am not sure what is. Since The Sunday Times outed BoilerJuice, prices have dropped by as much as 63%, which DCC has said was due to “fluctuating market prices”, but neither The Sunday Times nor I could find anything fluctuating in the market other than DCC’s panic.

Energy experts have advised me that DCC might actually control up to 50% of this country’s domestic heating oil market. GB Oils, another big company that is seemingly independent, is in fact a subsidiary of DCC Energy. NWF Fuels is another big player. It markets 14 different brands, including Pace, Fuelcare and WCF Fuels. On the surface, this looks like a market in which there are many suppliers and in which competition will work to keep down prices, but it is quite the opposite.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

The hon. Lady has been very generous in giving way to Members on both sides of the Chamber. She said that she wanted to get input from right across the House and across the United Kingdom, and I should like to give her an example from Northern Ireland. Oil comes through the port of Belfast and is then farmed out to all the different areas across the Province. It is the same oil, yet the price fluctuates between £20 and £30 per 800 litres. Does she agree that that is another example of why regulation is much needed?

[Pat Glass]

I certainly do.