UK Flight Ban: Sharm El Sheikh

Jonathan Lord Excerpts

Wednesday 13th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jonathan Lord (Woking) (Con)]

I would like to thank Mr Speaker for granting this important debate. I take a particular interest in the matter as a co-chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on Egypt. It is a privilege to serve alongside some excellent officers and the right hon. Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms), the other co-chairman.

In November 2015, the then Prime Minister, David Cameron, took the decision to put at ban on UK flights direct to Sharm El Sheikh airport following the terrible loss of a Russian plane on 30 October that year. He declared that the UK would work with the Egyptian Government and aviation authorities to ensure that Sharm El Sheikh airport was safe before relaxing the ban. Following an inspection from the UK’s Department for Transport, a 25-point plan was drawn up to ensure the safety of the airport. The Government of Egypt and the hotel industry in Sharm El Sheikh has invested around £20 million to implement all 25 points listed. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office has also issued official guidance that identifies the resort as in the green category, which means it is a very low-risk area. Yet despite the assurances from the Department for Transport and our Foreign Office, and with the UK’s 25-point plan now fully implemented, Sharm El Sheikh airport remains closed to UK flights.

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

Does it not come as a great surprise to my hon. Friend that the ban on flights to Tunisia, which is immediately opposite ISIL- infested beaches in Libya, was lifted, whereas the Sharm el Sheikh ban has not been lifted, although it was British expertise that helped to restore that airport to its current excellent status?

[Mr Lord]

I agree with my hon. Friend. When the all-party parliamentary group on Egypt, of which the right hon. Member for East Ham and I are co-chairmen, visited the country recently, it was instructive to note that virtually everyone we met was aware of the continuing UK ban. Parliamentarians, Ministers and business people obviously knew that the UK was now encouraging tourism back to Tunisia, and they took it as a bit of an affront that we were not helping Egypt in a similar way. Given that the UK’s 25-point plan has been fully implemented, they find it very disappointing that Sharm El Sheikh airport remains closed to UK flights. The UK is now unique in being the only European country to operate such a ban: every other country in the EU allows flights to Sharm El Sheikh. The ban has had a significant economic impact on the resort’s tourist economy, which is highly reliant on the UK tourism trade. Hotels are operating at only 35% of capacity.

I understand that security experts in the UK and Egypt now agree that Sharm El Sheikh has one of the world’s most secure airports. In 2016, after three trips to the town, Sir Gerald Howarth, then an MP and chairman of the APPG, told UK travel companies that representatives of the Department for Transport had told him that they felt that the conditions to enable flights to resume had been met. To meet those conditions, Egypt has spent more than £20 million on improving security at the airport, replaced outdated equipment, trained 7,000 staff using the UK aviation security firm Restrata, run rigorous background checks on current staff, laid off more than 40% of the original staff and introduced a new biometric ID system for all airport employees. The Egyptian authorities have also invested £26 million in security at tourist hotspots and hotels across the nation.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

My parliamentary aide had the holiday of a lifetime in Sharm El Sheikh; after all, it was her honeymoon. I join the hon. Gentleman in highlighting the great bonus of the flights to home-grown tourist operators. If it is safe to do so, we should request their restart. We should encourage the Egyptian Government to continue their great protections for the human rights of Christians and those of other faiths, and ensure that the economy of Sharm El Sheikh can be reinvigorated and rejuvenated as a result of tourism from Northern Ireland and the United Kingdom as a whole.

[Mr Lord]

I agree with every single point that the hon. Gentleman has made.

Strategically, Sharm El Sheikh is one of the easiest tourist destinations to make secure, as it is only accessible either by air or by a single road, via a tunnel. These two entry points ensure that the area is easy to secure.

Before the flight ban, roughly 1 million British tourists visited Egypt each year, benefiting the economy by a minimum of £500 per tourist. At a conservative estimate, tourism was worth £500 million. Now only 350,000 British tourists are visiting annually, which represents a vast loss to the Egyptian economy. The number of British tourists flying to Sharm El Sheikh itself dropped from 900,000 in 2014 to just 231,000 in 2016.

The impact on the local economy is acute, with 70% of the dive centres in the Red sea area closing down by early 2016 and a further 20% no longer operating to full capacity. Things are now getting a little better owing to the reinstatement of flights by all other countries, but the impact on the local and national economy is still very significant. Tourism accounts for about 6% of Egypt’s GDP and employs 12% of the population.

The ban has also had an impact on the British economy, with UK airlines losing significant revenue, which they have sought to regain primarily by shifting flight capacity to the western Mediterranean. The recent collapse of Monarch airlines has very largely been attributed to the UK ban on flights to Sharm El Sheikh, and other airlines such as Thomson and Thomas Cook have also reported losses due to that ban.

The ban may also impact the UK economy in the long term. In PwC’s latest authoritative report on the global economic order, Egypt is moving up the rankings, thanks to the wider economic reforms of President Sisi and his Government, and Egypt is a valuable trading partner for the UK, as our trade envoy there will attest.

UK companies currently invest more in Egypt than the rest of the world put together, but on that recent trip to Egypt by the APPG, every single Egyptian businessman and politician was palpably upset, and indeed rather mystified, by the continuing UK flight ban and said it was a very real impediment to the good relations that ought to exist between our two great countries.

In summary, I would like to tell the House of early-day motion 468, recently tabled by myself and my co-chairman, the right hon. Member for East Ham, because it summarises this whole issue well, and I look forward to the Minister’s reply to its points:

“That this House welcomes the successful implementation of the UK-Egyptian joint action plan and substantial investment in upgrading security at Sharm El Sheikh airport using UK expertise in transport and security services; understands that Sharm El Sheikh airport is now considered by Department for Transport officials as one of the safest airports in the world; further notes that the UK Foreign Office safety categorisation for Sharm El Sheikh is green meaning that it is assessed as safe; acknowledges the reinstatement of flights to Sharm El Sheikh from other European countries including Germany, Italy and Belgium and the resumption of holiday flights from the UK to Tunisia; and calls on the Government to review the situation urgently, taking account of updated security advice and to consider lifting immediately the ban on flights from the UK to Sharm El Sheikh.”

The early-day motion has had good support from across this House. I urge the Government to consider it carefully, and to come back to the House with a positive response.