Drones

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Tuesday 21st November 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sugg]

My Lords, shining a laser at pilots or drivers is of course incredibly dangerous, and we are looking at how to address that. The legislation I am discussing today refers solely to drones and not to lasers.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, can the Minister explain to the House who is going to catch the perpetrators who fly drones illegally? What are the Government going to do about it, and what kind of penalties could there be? There are so many flying around today—who is going to identify and catch them?

[Baroness Sugg]

My Lords, as I mentioned, we will extend police powers in the legislation. I am sure your Lordships understand that it is sometimes a challenge to link an operator to a drone. We are trying to help address that by introducing a registration system, and we are investigating electronic identification. We are looking at putting powers in the legislation for the police to require drone users to produce registration ID and documents and to land their drones, and to search for and seize a drone when there is reasonable belief that a crime has taken place. We very much hope that that will enable police to capture people who are misusing drones.