Monarch Airlines

Lord Cavendish of Furness Excerpts

Monday 9th October 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan]

I am sure that the CIA is doing a great job, but on this occasion I will talk about the CAA—the Civil Aviation Authority. The noble Lord makes a number of very serious accusations. As I said, the administrators have a duty to report to the Government within three months on the actions of the directors. Again, as I said, if there is any evidence that those directors have acted improperly we will not hesitate to take action against them. I am afraid that I do not agree with the noble Lord: the CAA has done an excellent job in unprecedented circumstances. I have been working very closely with the CAA and it has acted in the best interests of the passengers involved. The noble Lord shakes his head. If we had not done anything and not put any contingency plans into action to bring people back, I am sure that he and many of his colleagues would be criticising us for not doing so. The CIA—the CAA; the noble Lord is getting me into it now—has acted properly and done an excellent job in very difficult circumstances pulling together a huge rescue operation for over 110,000 people. It deserves our credit.

[Lord Cavendish of Furness (Con)]

My Lords, as someone who was stranded rather absent-mindedly by Monarch’s failure, may I be allowed to recognise the Government’s response? Clear instructions appeared on the internet and arriving at Palma airport we were met by courteous and efficient representatives and returned home with only a few minutes’ delay. Significantly, the representative also explained the need to protect the taxpayer as far as possible. Will my noble friend pass on the appreciation for a rescue that was so efficiently carried out?

[Lord Callanan]

I thank my noble friend for his comments. I will certainly do that. Of course, we are all happy to criticise government agencies and organisations when things go wrong—quite rightly—but in this instance we should pay credit to those who have put so much work into organising this rescue operation. I am pleased that his repatriation flight worked well. The Secretary of State visited the first repatriation flight at Manchester Airport and I visited Leeds Bradford Airport to meet repatriated passengers. I was met with almost universal praise from those people for the way that the problem had been handled and the way they had been met in foreign airports by both Foreign Office staff and government surge team staff who were sent out to assist with the efforts in over 40 airports across the continent. On this occasion, things have gone extremely well. We still have a few more days of the operation left so we should perhaps not speak too early, but so far it is looking very good and we should thank the agencies involved.