Civil Aviation Bill

Kelvin Hopkins Excerpts

Monday 30th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Ellman]

Economic growth is indeed an important area and, while the Minister stated that it was an objective, it was not made clear how the changes would actually operate. So, yes, we would certainly like to look into that matter further.

Another area of concern relates to the proposed changes to responsibility for security in aviation. Transec was set up in 1991, following the Lockerbie disaster. Aviation security is a matter of prime importance, and aviation terrorism remains a magnet for terrorists who wish to inflict mass loss of life as well as economic disruption. It is a matter of concern that changes are being proposed in the area of responsibility for aviation security without a full consultation on how they will work.

It is proposed that the Secretary of State remain responsible for aviation security policy, with the CAA adopting new responsibilities that would include conducting a review of the aviation security directive, giving advice and assistance to the industry on security measures, monitoring and enforcing compliance with EU and domestic requirements, and carrying out national security vetting on individuals. The changes are linked with a change of approach from “direct and inspect” to an outcome-focused, risk-based approach.

These are major, substantial issues. The changes will involve a £5 million a year transfer of payments from the taxpayer to the aviation industry and passengers. Of greater importance, however, is the fact that they will result in divided responsibilities for aviation security. That is a matter of prime concern, and we call on the Department to be more explicit about exactly how the new system will operate, and to reassure passengers that their safety will still be a matter of supreme importance.

[Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way, and I apologise for missing the first part of her speech. Airport security has suffered from an ongoing problem of a division of funding, with local authorities having to fund their security. Does she accept that airport security should be funded not only adequately but nationally, as it is a national concern? It should not place a burden on local police forces.

[Mrs Ellman]

As the bill for security mounts, it is important to give full consideration to how it is to be footed. Passenger security is a matter of prime importance, and it needs to be assessed in an international context as well as in national and regional contexts.

The Transport Committee gives its general support to the Bill, but the areas of concern that we have identified are important ones, and I seek an assurance that the Minister will consider them as the Bill proceeds, so that civil aviation can be promoted to benefit the economy and to enhance the passenger experience.

[Mike Freer (Finchley and Golders Green) (Con)]

I welcome the Bill, which puts the passenger at the heart of airport regulation and operations. Previously, the airlines were the customer, so the new responsibility to make consideration of the needs of passengers the primary duty is an important step, but it remains important, too, to look at how the Civil Aviation Authority will balance the competing demands of passengers. Indeed, which passengers carry the most clout? Leisure passengers are by far the biggest users of our airports, so are they the most important because of their volume? Business passengers are lucrative and economically vital to our airports, but they lack the clout of volume, so which passengers will have the most pull?

Business and leisure passengers have competing needs at the airport. One may want a quick and slick process; the other may want more services while waiting to depart. More retail and more seating means less space for security screening: one generates income, one incurs expenditure, so how will the regulator balance those competing demands?

What about the airlines? The passenger may be the end-user of the airport, but the airlines have the operational interface with the airport infrastructure, so a secondary duty to have regard to the airlines is important—indeed, crucial. It remains unclear how the regulator would balance those needs against those of the passenger. For instance, a budget airline might choose to use steps and buses because it is cheaper than using air bridges, but in terms of passenger experience air bridges are far more popular, so which wins out—the passenger or the airline? These competing demands will, I hope, become clearer as the Bill proceeds.

Passenger experience is key, but one aspect of it that the Bill does not address is the experience of inbound passengers at immigration operated by the UK Border Agency. I do not believe that any Bill dealing with passenger experience can choose to ignore that part of the welcome to the UK—for British or external citizens. I appreciate that the UK Border Agency is a Home Office responsibility, while airport regulation is a Department for Transport function, but we need to ensure that customer experience during one section of the journey is not destroyed by poor service at the end of the journey. As the Bill proceeds, it should be possible to ensure that there is no departmental turf war. It is time for the UK Border Agency to become more transparent on behalf of customers and the airlines.

The current UKBA target is to clear 95% of non-European economic area passengers within 45 minutes. The measurement of this target is based on sampling, with queues sampled at various times of the day. The latest figures I saw for the first half of 2011 showed that 95% cleared in 45 minutes, but that is completely misleading for the customer experience. In fact, terminal 4 is by far the worst, with queues averaging more than 45 minutes 17 times a week—about three times a day. If we are to talk about civil aviation and UK passenger experience, it is important that UKBA immigration is brought into the picture.

Transparency must be dealt with as the Bill proceeds. It must be possible to force the UKBA and the unions to address rostering flexibility and the redeployment of staff across terminals to match the passenger volume information provided by the airlines. Airlines provide passenger loading information 48 or 24 hours—sometimes even two weeks—before a landing, yet the UKBA seems incapable of rostering and redeploying people across the terminals appropriately.

Let me move on to deal with the issue of regulated and unregulated airports. The decision rests with the CAA, but the danger is that Heathrow will end up as the only regulated airport, which could place it at a disadvantage, especially if there continue to be more flights to the BRIC economies—Brazil, Russia, India and China—from Frankfurt and Schiphol than from Heathrow. The list of regulated airports needs continuously to reflect competitive forces between airports—not just market influence and not just within the UK markets.

Let me deal with one particular example of customer experience that needs to be looked at as the Bill proceeds. I refer to the impact on security. I think it right for the proposed regime to involve risk-based outcomes, and if risk-based outcomes lead to different screening regimes, we must accept that. The risk profile of a pensioner from East Finchley returning from a package holiday on the Costa Brava is very different from that of someone returning from a terrorist hotspot elsewhere in the world, and that person will need to be screened differently.

We need to work with our European partners to establish a Europe-wide procedure that reflects risk. For example, a passenger leaving New York is heavily screened, and is virtually strip-searched before entering a plane departing from the United States. When that passenger lands at Heathrow, an equally strict security regime applies. We force him virtually to leave the airport and check in again, undergoing all the necessary security procedures. That not only worsens the customer experience of the transit passenger, but lengthens the queues of people seeking to undergo the normal security checks. I realise that there are Schengen rules that need to be dealt with, but I do not believe that it is beyond the wit of the Department for Transport to deal with them.

[Kelvin Hopkins]

I have travelled through Heathrow many times, and have often seen queues unstaffed. More staff could mean more queues and a more rapid experience for passengers. It would be helpful to spend a little more on the UK Border Agency, would it not?

[Mike Freer]

That is a good point. However, this is about not just staffing but the use of technology and the deployment of staff. Airline representatives tell me that there can be a quiet arrival hall in one terminal and a packed arrival hall in another, but that it is impossible to redeploy staff from one terminal to the other quickly. It is not merely a question of the number of people manning the desks; it is a question of how the UKBA and the unions choose to deploy them.

We must work with our European partners to dovetail changes to Schengen in at least the major European airports, so that those who have already passed through highly screened areas are not forced to be screened again, and we can improve customer service and relieve the pressure on domestic passengers. The customer must be an integral part of civil aviation, and penalties for poor performance are crucial.

The Bill takes a significant step to protect airline-based holidays for the customer, and I welcome it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Harris]

I entirely agree. In 2009, I spoke twice in support of the Government’s plans to build a third runway, and I did so with jobs and the economy in mind, along with the conviction that the Conservative party’s stance at that time was based on cynical electoral calculation rather than any concern for the environment.

I look forward to hearing the contribution of the hon. Member for Spelthorne (Kwasi Kwarteng). I believe that, like me, he supports the third runway—although he might wish to correct that. His predecessor in this House also supported it; he courageously stood against his party’s line, and it is a pity that he chose to retire at the last election—although I am, of course, delighted that the current hon. Member for Spelthorne is now a Member of this House.

The hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) referred to the sale of British Midland International and the impact on Scottish air services. Those of us who supported—and still support—Heathrow’s third runway pointed out the blindingly obvious fact that a continued squeeze on capacity at Heathrow would inevitably lead to the withdrawal of domestic slots in favour of more profitable international slots. Earlier this month, BAA chief executive Colin Matthews warned:

“Capacity constraints are damaging the UK economy today when the country can least afford it.”

The Conservatives may have won the vote on the third runway, but they have certainly not won the argument.

[Kelvin Hopkins]

May I point out both that our party has also accepted that there will be no third runway at Heathrow and that one way of relieving capacity at Heathrow would be by shifting some medium-haul and short-haul flights to Luton?

[Mr Harris]

My hon. Friend makes a perfectly understandable constituency point, which I am sure will not have gone unnoticed by the Luton Observer, or whatever his local paper is called.

The provision of security is of great concern to all our constituents. The Government’s policy paper that was published at the same time as the Bill in November claimed that the transfer of aviation security regulations functions would save the taxpayer £24.6 million over 10 years. However, it also stated that the CAA would incur costs of £5 million each year, more than double the level of savings to the Department for Transport. Will the Minister explain either in summing up or in Committee why this transfer of powers appears to result in a net annual cost increase of £2.5 million? If that is because we can expect a more secure airport experience, I welcome the move, but if there are to be higher costs but no improvement in security, I will be concerned, particularly if that extra cost is to be passed on to the travelling public, which I understand is the case.

I welcome this Bill, however, and, without wishing to second-guess the great wisdom of the Labour Whips Office, may I say that I look forward to scrutinising it in Committee in the weeks ahead?

--- Later in debate ---

[Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)]

It is my privilege and great pleasure to be the first member of my party to congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Feltham and Heston (Seema Malhotra) on her maiden speech. It was a superb speech of which she can be rightly proud. I am sure that members of her family who heard it will be equally proud. She mentioned Russell Kerr as one of her predecessors. In the 1960s, when I was a student, Russell Kerr came to speak to our university Labour club, of which I was then president. I knew him well, and I know that were he alive today he would be equally delighted to have such a wonderful successor. She spoke very well and has a strong speaking voice. I am sure that she has a great future in the House.

I will speak briefly about aviation matters. It is nice to follow the hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins), because my first ever holiday flight was taken from Lydd airport in a Bristol 170, too many years ago to remember now. It was an interesting experience.

I support some of the previous speeches. My hon. Friend the Member for Luton South (Gavin Shuker) spoke for the town, as I hope to. My hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West (Julie Hilling) made a particularly strong speech, for which I commend her. I listened with great interest. The hon. Member for Tamworth (Christopher Pincher) made a point about developing the regions and building regional airports.

My first point involves security and immigration. We must ensure that the UK Border Agency and all security staff at our airports are sufficient to do the job, that all our airports are properly staffed, that staff are properly paid and that the whole system of immigration control and security at airports is adequately funded. We cannot cut corners in such matters.

I know from experience that we have not funded Luton airport as well as we should have done. I visited immigration staff there some 10 years ago, and they complained bitterly that there were not enough of them to do the job properly. They wanted to stop drugs coming in—from Amsterdam, for example—but they could not do a proper check on all passengers. We must ensure that airports are properly staffed and that, in these times when the Government have chosen to cut spending, those important matters are not underfunded.

Another important point was made about airport capacity, particularly in the south-east. I was one of those in our party who did not support building the third runway at Heathrow, and I am pleased that both our party and the Government have now accepted that it will not be built. I have always argued that we should make maximum use of existing capacity in the south-east in the first instance, and that we should ensure that we make greater use of regional airports.

Germany was mentioned, and it has several major airports in different parts of the country. We have focused too much on the south-east, and we have a lopsided geography; too much of our population and economy are in the south-east, and not enough are spread out into other areas. Although I represent the south-east, I appreciate that we need to do much more to develop the regions economically. That means serving those regions with long-haul flights so that they can be developed better.

Luton airport can make a significantly greater contribution to capacity in the south-east. We heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Luton South that we could take at least 7 million more passengers a year. At the moment, the airport cannot take the longest-haul flights, but new generations of aircraft are coming through, such as the Boeing Dreamliner, a composite-bodied aircraft that can fly longer distance with a higher payload and more efficient fuel usage. If the Dreamliner flew from Luton, it could serve the south Asian subcontinent, which would be significant for Luton, and the western seaboard of the USA. That generation of aircraft is coming, and I look forward to them flying from Luton.

In the meantime, however, we must maximise Luton for the use of medium and short-haul flights. Much of the traffic that goes to Heathrow could come to Luton. I have even argued that Luton could become a satellite airport for Heathrow—part of the south-eastern hub, in a sense—but we would need a rapid transit link between the two airports, which is possible. There is a railway track that diverges at Cricklewood on to the western region, so we could have a fast shuttle service from Luton Airport Parkway station direct to Heathrow, and it could act as a satellite to Heathrow in the longer term. Imaginative measures could be taken to enhance airport capacity in the south-east.

I will not say much more, as others wish to speak. I hope, however, that the Bill will be improved as it passes through the House, and that the important points made, in particular by my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West, will be taken into account and acted on.