Civil Aviation (Insurance) (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020

Lord Balfe Excerpts

Thursday 18th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Balfe (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I declare my interest as president of BALPA, the airline pilots’ union. I endorse what has been said about attendance in the House, not only by Ministers. The Chamber is empty. We need the Whips to get together to find a way to get far more people into the Chamber. At the moment it is very difficult.

I turn to the points made so ably by the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, and my noble friend Lord Blencathra. I serve on an international pensions committee. It had a disabled member on it for a few years. I became all too aware of the catalogue of errors that my noble friend outlined—the number of times things went wrong and airlines just looked the other way or their compensation was inadequate. Mention has been made of Lufthansa. I like to think that the Minister will introduce a disabled rights in aviation SI or law, or something. As noble Lords all know, I did not support leaving the European Union but, now that the British people have pronounced quite decisively that we are going to leave, for goodness’ sake let us get something useful out of it. This is certainly one thing.

The noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, took part of my speech away, I am afraid. I will mention paragraph 7.1 of the Explanatory Memorandum on the article that confers powers on the Commission to adjust minimum levels. Is it intended that the UK will follow this? How will it monitor what is happening and what the EU intends to do? The EU will obviously have its own internal processes before making changes. How do we propose to be linked into them? What notification arrangements are we expecting to get? I note also that there will be powers for the Secretary of State to amend the minimum insurance requirements by regulation. Are there any plans to do this at the moment?

The next paragraph talks about how an article inserted by the regulations

“includes provision for the European Parliament or the Council to object to continuation of the delegated powers at five-year intervals … these provisions have no practical application in relation to the UK”.

That is because we have a deficient democratic system, frankly. We should also have some system, now that we are leaving the European Union, to look at the continuation of delegated powers and decide whether they should be revoked. I would like the Minister to agree to look into this.

I endorse the points made by my noble friend Lady McIntosh. I have now had three months struggling with BA to get a refund on a ticket. I have very little sympathy for it. It is very good at asking for money, but very bad at giving it back. I would like the Government to add some weight to those customers who are still waiting for refunds after months and a deliberate attempt by airlines, particularly BA, to avoid paying out. I could paper a wall with the number of times that I have been offered a voucher.

Finally, I take the point that the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, made about the aviation industry having been informed of the department’s intention. Specifically, with what information and in which way were the trade unions informed of the department’s intention and what response did the Government receive from them?