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

Joe Morris Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 20th October 2026 Public Bill Committees

[Olly Glover (Didcot and Wantage) (LD)]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his enthusiasm—it is not yet shared by those on the Government Benches, but perhaps that will come in time.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Turner. Here we are with yet another Transport Bill Committee. People often say that transport is a boring, unsexy topic—

[Joe Morris (Hexham) (Lab)]

No!

[Olly Glover]

Well, indeed. Yet the Government are dedicating so much legislative time to it, which rather undermines that thesis.

I also note that a number of Government Members have already served their time in Transport Bill Committee jail, and now they are here again. I hope that is a sign of investment in their futures, rather than a punishment, because some would argue that being on a Public Bill Committee sometimes feels like a punishing, if necessary, duty—although I am sure the Minister would not endorse such seditious sentiments.

I will defer to my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam on the substance of these amendments, but I will just say a little about the Bill as a whole and how I hope the Committee will operate. We broadly support a large amount of the Bill, but there are some aspects that we have concerns that. Perhaps there is a little too much faith being placed in the abilities of the CAA without enough oversight of it. We would also like to see some protections for consumers and the communities affected by aviation expansion. Of course, those communities include everybody on the planet, because of the significant environmental impact that aviation has, but I will say more on that as we as we go.

As for this Committee, of course, the normal arrangement is for the Government to reject all ideas that are not their own. At this stage, however, I lay down a challenge to those on the Government Benches: could it be different this time? The new Prime Minister has indicated his willingness to embrace Liberal Democrat ideas on occasion. For example, yesterday he warmly embraced our policy of banning people listening to things on their phone in public without using their headphones. I hope the new culture initiated by the Prime Minister will be embraced by the Minister and that the Government will perhaps accept at least one of our ideas in this Committee. That is my hope; we shall see if it happens.

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

Joe Morris Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 20th October 2026 Public Bill Committees

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Keir Mather)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms McVey. I hope Members will agree that a planned and thorough review delivered within 12 months is preferable to a report that cannot engage substantively with the issues at hand but is delivered within six.

[Joe Morris (Hexham) (Lab)]

May I urge my hon. Friend the Minister to bear in mind and consider the impact on residents near airports in my constituency who are affected by airport drop-off charges? They also have hire vehicles that create a bit of a nuisance to public spaces, green spaces and gardens across my constituency.

[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.