Air Traffic Management and Unmanned Aircraft Bill [HL]

Lord Balfe Excerpts

Report stage & Report stage (Hansard) & Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 21st January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, we have heard a very powerful case from the previous speaker. I see no reason for me to detain the House unreasonably and will speak briefly, principally to Amendment 15. My concerns in Committee centred on what I saw as the need to isolate potentially irresponsible non-commercial users of drones from those who, for perfectly legitimate reasons, seek to exploit commercially this new and innovative use of the technology.

During the debate on 27 January last year, I raised the issue of the confiscation of equipment. On 12 February, I raised the same issue, in particular where rogue operators breached the rules. There has to be a procedure in place which more clearly separates and differentiates the potential rogue operator from the legitimate commercial operation. Fines are too often no deterrent. We know from government stats that there is a high incidence of non-payment among those who have little respect for the law. We need a separate, more vigorously enforced regime for rogue drone operators. We cannot treat CAA-authorised operations in a way which appears similar to that in which we treat recreational users.

The danger in the Government’s approach is that the recreational user will be the beneficiary of the developing, lighter-touch regime that will ultimately and inevitably have to apply to commercial drone operations. This is inevitable as commercial operators exert increasing pressure for the introduction of such a regime to protect commercial viability. Alternatively, if this does not happen, commercial operators will be penalised by the more vigorous approach that will inevitably have to apply to the recreational user. The systems proposed are flawed.

The noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig of Radley, has valiantly sought to convince the department and Ministers of the dangers, but has received little reassurance to date by way of response. The noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, can clearly see the writing on the wall and therefore seeks a review of the new regime at a later stage. She is to be congratulated on the persistent way in which she has pursued these matters over a number of years. Either way, the system when tested will need to be reviewed. We need two, distinct sets of rules and regimes; a separate regime that is fair to all.

[Lord Balfe (Con)]

My Lords, I remind the House of my role as president of BALPA. I thank the Department for Transport for its constructive engagement with officers from BALPA in getting this far—goodness knows, we have spent a long time getting this far with this Bill.

I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, that rogue drone operators are clearly very different to the responsible drone operator that we wish to deal with. However, I am not sure that supporting this amendment is the right way forward. The Bill is not the right vehicle to include a requirement to review unmanned aircraft legislation. It cannot just be left to the CAA, as has been suggested, because if there were a major incident, government would be expected to have a role and to respond. At the same time, the development of drones is proceeding at an enormously fast pace. Will the Minister reassure us that a system of regular review will be put in place?

The serious concerns of BALPA are not limited to where we are today but look to where we might be tomorrow. We hear, for instance, about the problems with multiple use of drones, where one person controls more than one drone. The first instinct is to say, “That’s terrible, isn’t it? We really should have only one person per drone,” but let me put another scenario to the House. If someone is lost at sea, or there is an air crash, you may well want to have a swarm of drones covering a wide area. For that to be effective, you would need one central person to be in control so as to investigate what was beneath, and being observed by, a number of drones. It is not quite as simple as some people seem to imagine.

I would like the Minister to assure us that there will be a regular review, and that she will come back to the House at an appropriate time, possibly in answer to a Question, or put something in the Library, outlining the principles which could follow that review. It is no good saying that we want one every five years or every two years; we need to be able to respond fairly quickly to matters as they come up. I will certainly not be supporting a Division, as passing this clause would not take us forward at all. However, my hope is that some of the principles contained therein are the sort that should be borne in mind in developing the policies that we want to see for the effective and reasonable control of drones, commercially and privately.

--- Later in debate ---

In summary, without Schedule 11 and without these amendments to it, it would not be possible to ensure that the enforcement of secondary legislation relating to UA remains fit for purpose, especially in light of new and often rapid developments in UA technology and its possible misuse in the future. To reiterate, despite this looking like a large quantity of amendments, there is no change to policy intent. The changes are necessary because of the changes to the underlying regulations and the retained EU law and to the ANO. I beg to move.

[Lord Balfe (Con)]

I am speaking to this general set of amendments, but I want to speak particularly on disabled safety features on drones. The Bill should make it illegal to fly a drone if any safety features are inoperable or have been disabled. My noble friend Lord Whitty tabled an amendment to this effect in Committee. The Minister’s assurance then was that the safety feature that could be referred to would be electronic conspicuity, the disabling of which would be covered under other provisions. That, we believe, is not the case. Lights, geo-awareness and geo-fencing, software functions that limit altitude, remote ID and various redundancy measures could all be covered under this provision. There are technical requirements for certain systems whereby the user cannot modify them—for example, data associated with remote ID. However, this does not protect against deliberate hacking or intentional disabling of systems. A provision that makes these acts illegal is therefore relevant.

BALPA has engaged directly with staff at the DfT on this point and we are grateful to the Minister’s officials for doing so. We note that the Government believe that sufficient safeguards are already available in the Air Navigation Order to cover this matter, but, overall, we still believe that a specific and separate offence should be created in the Bill. I make these points for the Minister to take on board, as it is highly likely that this sensible and proportionate amendment may be urged when the matter is considered in the other place. I hope the Minister can take this back to the department and reflect on it as the Bill proceeds further.

[Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I start by congratulating the Minister on her spirited 12-minute speech, which covered all these amendments.

In the heady days of the 1960s, I went to university for three years. Her Majesty was good enough to teach me to fly in the Royal Air Force. At university, I ran the college bar and happened to get a maths degree. It was useful training, which led me into an airline career. Running the college bar gave me first-hand experience in line management, and I am afraid that the only effect of the maths degree was to make me even more pedantic than I was naturally.

Accordingly, when the Minister was kind enough to send a letter setting out these amendments and where they were, I read it and alighted on some of the words used. She wrote to clarify that these were “largely” technical changes, saying that it is important to note that these amendments, if accepted, will not change the policy intention of the Bill and are, “in most cases”, just making minor but essential changes. Either the words are careless, and the changes are wholly technical—though I believe that there is no such thing in most cases—or some of these amendments are not technical in nature. In her response, can the Minister tell me which of these many amendments is not a technical change but has some substance? Or can she assure me that the words “largely” and “in most cases” should have been omitted from her letter and that all the changes are technical?

I ask for this assurance because we do not have the resources to work through such a large number of amendments. We made an attempt—and I commend our adviser, Ben, who worked through them. He could not find anything that was not minor and technical, but I would value the Minister enlightening me and satisfying my pedantic approach.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, Amendment 22, in simple terms, allows an appropriate authority to destroy a drone. The Minister has been kind enough to debate this at some length and wrote me a letter on 11 January setting out three points. First, legally, the power to destroy a UA already exists. Secondly, operationally, destroying a UA is not generally desirable. Thirdly, existing technology is such that destroying a UA is often unnecessary. I am not being pedantic here, but the words in the last two points, particularly, are of a partial kind. The Minister does not really need to debate reasons two and three with me. When it comes to the third, I know that “existing technology is such that destroying a UA is often unnecessary”, but it may be necessary. I accept that, “operationally, destroying a UA is not generally desirable”, as all sorts of second-order effects would have to be taken into account. Nevertheless, the only point I wish to debate is that, “legally, the power to destroy a UA already exists”. In her response, I would like the Minister to convince me of that.

I am aware, through my previous responsibilities, of the impact that can be made with two kilos of Semtex. The potential for a determined terrorist to use a UA for malicious terrorism is real. Such a terrorist coming from a sophisticated organisation would, of course, not have a drone with all the protective devices that a commercially applied drone has. The Gatwick incident showed that the police were then powerless, probably for technical reasons, to stop massive disruption taking place by the use of a drone. It seems to me that if a serious terrorist-like incident were developing, one would want a clear power for the authorities to destroy a drone. The burden rests with the Minister to convince us that the powers that exist are genuinely sufficient to make sure that the authorities, in appropriate circumstances, could destroy a drone in the interests of safety and limiting damage or massive destruction. I beg to move.

[Lord Balfe (Con)]

My Lords, I will not detain the House for long, but this is my application to join the pedants’ club, which was advertised somewhat earlier.

The amendment says

“insert ‘destroy the aircraft or’”.

The clause would then read:

“The constable may destroy the aircraft or require a person to ground the aircraft”.


I thought that this was a sort of “Derbyshire Constabulary amendment”, where they go chasing round after people—a constable cannot destroy an aircraft. What would we have? Would we have Derbyshire police with a popgun? I am afraid that it just will not work.

I can see what is meant but I can also see that we need to think this through a bit more thoroughly, particularly the attendant risks that might arise. The power conveyed in this Act could almost certainly be incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights. I speak as a long-standing alternate member of the Council of Europe, and, indeed, as someone who was for some time a chair of its committee on implementation of judgments of the court. Even if the wording were sound, I am not sure that the principle is. You would need a proper judicial process in order to destroy a drone, and you would not be able to do it as an either/or—we will either destroy the drone or make you land it and then we will talk to you. I suggest that the amendment is well meaning but, unfortunately, defective.

[Baroness Randerson (LD) [V]]

My Lords, destroying a drone or an unmanned aircraft is a vital mechanism, particularly for dealing with terrorism. The incident at Gatwick at the end of 2019 illustrated for us all that dealing with an intruder drone is a highly complex issue. I invite noble Lords to think back to that and to the discussions that took place in the media, and, much more importantly, behind the scenes, on exactly how to deal with a drone that was causing millions of pounds of economic damage. It was damaging the economy and causing huge individual damage to those unable to fly, yet people were paralysed into inactivity, not least because there was a lack of certainty about powers. There was also a lack of certainty about the ability to destroy the drone effectively and the safety of doing it. All those things were being taken into account.

However, there would be circumstances where destroying a drone would be the simple and clear answer to a threat. I welcome this as an interesting, probing amendment. Like the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, I shall listen carefully to the Minister.

Going back to the Gatwick situation, I remind noble Lords that days were spent deciding how to deal with that drone. To this day, we do not know who was flying it. Therefore, the situation was never satisfactorily resolved.