Civil Aviation Bill

Lord Davies of Oldham Excerpts

Monday 9th July 2012 Grand Committee

Moved by

[Lord Davies of Oldham]

69A: Before Clause 100, insert the following new Clause—
“Duty to promote innovation
In carrying out its functions, the CAA must, where possible and appropriate, have regard to the need to promote innovation in the civil aviation industry.”

[Lord Davies of Oldham]

My Lords, this is a probing amendment with a proposed new clause because we could not think where else to put it in the Bill. It raises a very important topic, to which I hope the Minister will respond in his customary constructive fashion by assuring the Committee that the Government have thought through this issue and, in so far as the Bill can assist in tackling it, are already doing so—unless by some remarkable occurrence, and in the unlikely expectation, the Minister accepts my proposed new clause.

We have proposed this new clause in Amendment 69A in order to probe the Government and to have a debate about one of the most significant challenges facing the aviation industry in the future and the need for the CAA to play its part. It is clear that the whole concept of the Bill is to establish a new position for the CAA and to update the provisions governing it, but one of the great challenges for the aviation industry is obvious, and that is that the British Government have subscribed to very significant and challenging carbon targets for the years leading up to 2050. We believe that aviation emissions must be included in these targets. Aviation emissions are already subject to carbon caps as a result of being included in the EU emissions trading directive, but I want to broaden the debate to consider the obligations of the industry against the whole background of carbon emissions.

In order to reduce emissions in the industry and to serve the needs of businesses and members of the public who wish to fly it is clear that there needs to be innovation in the construction of aircraft, so that we can meet what we all appreciate is a very significant demand for air travel, which no Member of the Committee expects to reduce significantly in the future. We all know the hopes that are expressed about developments such as high-speed rail—that they will lead to a reduction in short-haul flying—but that may not do much more than mitigate the increase that is likely to occur as people, in due course, want to spend their income on travel.

As for the industry, even if high-speed rail plays a part in replacing short-haul flights, nothing can take the place of long and medium-range flights. Only aircraft can provide that kind of travel in the timescale needed. We are all aware that the vast majority of vessels that carry passengers do so without regard to time: they are predominately cruise ships used for leisure, so the time constraint is not so acute. It must be several decades since the last passenger went on a vessel over a long distance to conduct business, except for those exceptional people who will never fly. The way to get about over long distances, clearly, is by air and not by sea.

Of course, the aviation industry has a major future. Another great innovation which I am sure others will bring to the Minister’s attention, if I do not, is the increase in global communications, the sophistication of conference facilities and so on. It leads to the potential obviation of people having to travel for business if they can conduct it just as well through effective long-range communication. I have to say that I participated in one of the first such ventures, which consisted of a link between the United Kingdom, Japan and the United States. Whenever Japan could hear the United States it could not hear Britain; and whenever Britain could hear Japan it could not hear the United States. The United States did not succeed in hearing anybody. It was a difficult exercise but I am talking about several decades ago. We all know how sophisticated human communication can be now. One dimension of the financial anxieties that we all have is the extraordinary speed within which very complex, staggeringly high-value financial communications are effected in fractions of a second. But conferencing of that kind will always have its limitations and people will still need to travel for face-to-face meetings.

There is a challenge to the industry. If the demand is there and the industry is the only way of meeting that demand, it has to have severe targets to reduce carbon emissions, which must mean that new aircraft engine designs and fuels will play an increasingly important part. This might seem a long way from the CAA but it sits on the European Aviation Safety Agency and has a role to play in implementing UK policy on the performance of aircraft. I would not decry the innovations that are already being introduced. Thomsons Airways, for example, operated passenger flights using a B757 aircraft that was filled with a 50% blend of EASA-specification bio-derived jet fuel. It went from Birmingham to Lanzarotte in the Canary Isles and was satisfactory. The bio component was derived from waste cooking oil. Owing to differences in the manufacture and supply process of these fuels compared with normal refining production, care was required to ensure that the fuel delivered to the aircraft was traceable and fit for use. That was ensured in this trial. Further use of biofuel is planned by this airline as wider availability of bio-derived jet fuel permits. That flight was overseen by the CAA’s flight operations inspectorate.

Biofuels are only one option. There are also likely to be developments in the use of fuel cells and hybrid electric engines. The motorcar may have blazed an interesting trail—a reduced carbon trail, I hasten to add. The car industry has done that and aircraft engines may follow. On this important issue of the development of aircraft engines, I want the Minister to say that the Bill will ensure that the CAA will play its full role in innovation. We know the great emphasis that has been placed on quiet aircraft and are aware that heavier and bigger aircraft are quieter than lighter and smaller aircraft were in the past. This is an issue beyond quietness; it is about the whole future of the development of carbon emissions.

The CAA is also the economic regulator of NATS. It has already been proven that significant improvements can be made by air traffic control to increase the efficiency of the aviation sector. Innovations in technology can allow much more efficient flight paths to be taken and other improvements such as continuous rather than stepped descents. If we can use our airspace more intelligently through technological developments so that aircraft have continuous descent approaches, therefore using a much smoother glide path and much less fuel than with the traditional stepped approach, that will be of great benefit in reducing aircraft emissions. NATS has its role to play as well.

The Minister was kind enough, before we began the Bill, to give us the opportunity to meet several informed individuals, specialists, to tell us what possibilities exist in the area. I just want the Minister to confirm that the Bill guarantees that the CAA and NATS can play their full part in technological improvements so that we can still meet the demand for aviation and ensure that the industry has a thriving future while meeting the necessary carbon targets which the Minister has embraced. I beg to move.

[Lord Rotherwick]

I am rather seduced by the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Davies, which produces a duty to promote innovation. I very much welcome the brief from the director of airspace policy, Mark Swan, on innovation, as referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Davies, on continuous climb, and so on. Of course, that falls far short of innovation in general and business aviation. You have only to compare the UK to the US to see that we are lagging far behind. We are only a small aviation sector in general and business aviation compared to America and we need a champion to push such things.

For example, we have very few global positioning satellite approaches. They rely on a satellite, not ground-based, last century technical devices that cost a lot to administer. The answer that we are given at the moment is that it is up to the airports to ask for them, but the truth is that it is very expensive to implement. America has a GPS approach for every airport. They are wonderful. You can have dog legs on them, which means that you can fly around communities, lowering the noise, and do all sorts of things. You can have an instrument approach from both ends of your airport, not just the published plate for an NDB on one end.

More than that, the technology is now available to have WAAS approaches—wide area augmentation systems. These are ground-based devices—I believe that there are two or three in America—that up the accuracy of the GPS signal and allow the approach to be made to the accuracy that we are used to with an ILS—an instrument landing system. Again, it does away with expensive ground-based technology. They are very important. Imagine when you fly into a third world country and rely on maintenance by that country of its instrument landing systems, you are sitting in your seat wondering whether that third world country can carry that out. There is no worry if you are using a satellite-based system run by the US.

I am seduced by the duty to promote innovation but at the same time, if this is implemented or written into the Bill, it should come with a caution: “with due regard to the cost to general and business aviation”. The example is the mode S transponder that was brought in recently, for which the lower end of the industry had great difficulty grasping the need. I believe that it was necessary; there were good examples like being able to fly abroad or into certain air spaces. The industry is now beginning to grasp that and take it on. The transponder was needed but was badly sold to the industry, and it cost each and every plane owner quite a lot of money to implement the new equipment. Once again, I thank the noble Lord for his amendment; I think it is a good one.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Davies of Oldham]

There is no appropriate time like the present, so I will withdraw the amendment after I have given a few words of thanks, first, to those Members of the Committee who support the clear need for innovation. I also think that we needed reassurance from the Minister that the Bill provides sufficient powers and incentives to ensure that the limited part that the CAA can play in its role with regard to the industry is played as fully as possible against the very challenging objectives that we all need to meet through change, particularly those in aircraft engine design. However, I was extremely grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Rotherwick, for indicating that there are other aspects of technology that could be of great significance to the industry, to which the Minister also paid due regard.

I accept entirely what my noble friend Lord Soley said about government incentives for the development of new technologies in motor cars, and the licence system is a very effective weapon in those terms. But, as I understand it, neither the vehicles that airports use for towing things around nor their emissions are in any way subject to licence. Therefore, no incentive can be placed on the industry as regards those traction engines for a fresh, new design through the way in which they are licensed. I hope that the Minister has taken on board that we need some imaginative strategies. In fact, he has taken it on board because he is going to tell me about it.

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, the noble Lord has suggested that ground vehicles at airports are not subject to regulations. I expect that I will be writing to him to point out that even non-road vehicles have limits on their emissions. There are complex and quite tough regulations to ensure that any ground vehicle reduces its emissions as much as possible. Even a vehicle that is not an on-road vehicle is still subject to regulations on emissions. I think that my letter will go into that.

[Lord Davies of Oldham]

I am grateful for that reassurance but it raises an obvious question. Some airports have taken this issue very seriously already but others have not. I therefore ask the Minister not to tell me how these machines can be improved but rather what is the incentive, compulsion or challenge given to those airports which are not improving to ensure that they do so in the future. That is the nub of this issue with regard to emissions on the ground and at airports.

Without any doubt, the biggest challenge is to the aircraft manufacturing industry. As the Minister indicated in his response, we are not negligible players in these terms and already have had one or two interesting innovations in which we have shown ourselves to be world beating. With this amendment, I was merely seeking to get reassurance from the Minister that he took these issues seriously and that the Bill empowers people sufficiently to give their spur to this development in any way that they can, while always bearing in mind the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, that all new technology is more expensive than that which it replaces if it is going to do a more challenging job unless we have real breakthroughs in terms of design, which from time to time in certain areas occur. In the past, the aviation industry has not failed us in that respect, but the challenges ahead are obviously very intensive. With the Minister’s largely constructive reply, I am happy to withdraw the amendment, as this is a timely moment to do so.

Amendment 69A withdrawn.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Trefgarne]

My Lords, I have a good deal of sympathy for the amendment of my noble friend Lord Rotherwick. Might the Minister be a little clearer on what the process will be for the fixed penalty notices? I am ashamed to tell your Lordships that I am a veteran of the fixed penalty notice system as applied by Transport for London in relation to the congestion charge. I have on a couple of occasions had to appeal against an alleged violation only for my appeals to be dismissed instantly—no doubt, rightly. I discovered that if you insist on appealing and taking your lawyer with you to the tribunal in relation to your Transport for London penalty notice for alleged non-payment of the congestion charge, you are 90% likely to get off, but if you do not take your lawyer with you, you are not. It struck me as a rather shocking revelation. I do not suggest that there is anything wrong in the process, but amateurs who go on their own to appeal or simply send in a letter of appeal to Transport for London are likely to be dismissed out of hand. However, if you turn up on the day with your lawyer, you are likely to have your appeal allowed. I hope that there will be no such vagaries in the system to be employed by the Civil Aviation Authority. Who will hear appeals from fixed penalty notices issued by the Civil Aviation Authority? What will be the expertise of those who hear them? Can I be assured that the system will be a lot better than Transport for London’s?

[Lord Davies of Oldham]

My Lords, I have only one brief comment to make, one which I never thought I would make in Parliament or elsewhere. Oh the joys of Opposition for the Minister to reply.

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, before turning to the detail of the points made, I must emphasise the importance of the clause that the amendment would alter. My noble friend Lord Trefgarne mentioned the congestion charge. I have been caught by it but I never dared to appeal. I just paid up. That might be because I knew that I was wrong.

The noble Lord talked about the higher success rate if you bring your lawyer. It may be that the appellant brings his lawyer because he is certain that he is right, so not surprisingly he wins his case. The noble Lord also asked about the appeal process. If someone who has been issued a fixed penalty notice is unhappy about that, he can take it to court in exactly the same way as a motorist can take a matter to court—like the McCaffrey case.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Davies of Oldham]

My Lords, I shall contribute briefly because I cannot do justice to this issue. However, I hope that the Minister will do so. I pay tribute to the enormous work of the noble Countess, Lady Mar, in this area. I had the privilege of knowing Nancy Tait who happened to be a constituent when I represented Enfield and first came into the House. For a number of years her concerns about asbestosis were brushed aside on the grounds that the evidence did not match the allegations being made and anxieties being expressed. Everyone else knew that huge potential costs were involved if asbestos had to be stripped out of buildings that were already constructed, to say nothing about not being used again for building. She was right and the doubts of the authorities were eventually overcome. The evidence was produced and we are all healthier because of that, not least our schoolchildren because one of the great uses of asbestos was in schools.

I do not know whether this issue is as significant as that but when the noble Countess, Lady Mar, came to see me when I had responsibility for the department in this House a few years ago, I asked for all the investigations and evidence that the department could make on these issues. I know that a significant amount of work was done. The one thing that I was not prepared to do was to stand before the House on behalf of the Government and reject the noble Countess’s amendments without an assurance that we had explored every dimension.

There was an element in that about which I have not heard any more. I wonder whether the noble Countess can enlighten the Committee. One of the issues was that the airline pilots, through BALPA, did not regard themselves as being excessively threatened by this problem. We all know that they have to protect their livelihoods and they have a vested interest, but equally no one goes to work thinking that they may be engaging in something that will seriously affect their health in the future or even make them dangerous if they fall ill while they are working. That was an important dimension. I do not know whether BALPA’s attitude has changed. There has been no reference to it but it would be germane to the debate.

[The Countess of Mar]

I think that the noble Lord might agree that being an airline pilot is quite a macho job and you do not admit that you are feeling ill until you have to. We have two pilots here. Some of the people with whom I have contact are ex-BALPA pilots and are now seriously ill—some very seriously ill. While they were members of BALPA and working they did not complain. I mentioned at Second Reading the fear that they have of reporting because of losing their jobs.

[Lord Davies of Oldham]

We all understand that point. The noble Countess referred to macho jobs. There are lots of tasks that are extremely dangerous and people are prepared to take them on, but a risk to their health of what is involved is a long-running dimension that this manifestation represents.

My point is obvious enough: I was assured several years ago that there was not sufficient substance in the position as established at that stage for action to be taken. The action, of course, will be dramatic. Reference has been made to the fact that the Dreamliner does not use this air system. The Dreamliner is rather an expensive aircraft to produce, as we all know, and it is in open competition with the A380, which uses the old system. We are talking about massive resources being involved. There is no easy switch. If anyone had thought at any stage that everyone’s health could have been safeguarded just with an easy technological change, that would have been done, but we are talking about something so much bigger.

[Lord Empey]

Does the noble Lord accept that maintenance is an issue here? The 146’s oil seals were partly responsible when they corroded, largely due to the chemicals to which they were exposed. Maintenance may not be the solution but it is certainly an issue.

[Lord Davies of Oldham]

It certainly is; the 146 illustrated that in graphic terms and that is why changes were made. I hope that the Minister is able today to build on experience. After all, the issue has been before the department, thanks to the work of the noble Countess, over a number of years now. I hope that he is able to give the Committee reassurances about this question of health and how it is being monitored. I do not have the slightest doubt that if we are wrong, we would all feel dreadfully culpable because significant warning signals have been sent out, and that is why the issue has to be treated with the utmost seriousness.

[Lord Wigley]

Does the noble Lord agree that the first step must be to get authoritative independent evidence, facts and figures on which to base decisions, and that that needs to be looked at rigorously? That is something we could all support because out of that we can then reach reasonable conclusions.

[Lord Davies of Oldham]

Of course. That is a major exercise and a costly one, and would have to be done with the greatest thoroughness. The department and indeed the Government would have to be convinced that the anxieties were such that they could be allayed only by that approach. It is for the Minister to indicate to us whether he thinks that we are at that stage now; we certainly were not a few years ago.

[The Countess of Mar]

I have no intention of expecting the airline industry to scrap all its planes immediately and replace them with the Dreamliner. I recognise that that would be hugely expensive. It is just the same story as with asbestos and, in a more minor way, with sheep dip, although the latter problem has been resolved. I am concerned that people are not reporting ill health because they are frightened—frightened of losing their jobs, in one case, or of retribution. If the CAA had the power to enforce COSHH, doing so would make the airline owners maintain their aeroplanes properly— I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Empey, for his intervention there—and take notice when there was a complaint. Until we know how many complaints there are, we are not going to be able to solve the problem.

[Lord Davies of Oldham]

I hear what the noble Countess says, and I heard that case deployed at the time when we met previously on this issue. Overall, though, my experience is that, whatever risks to livelihood, people have the greatest concern about threats to their long-term health and it is therefore not the case that they conceal these issues. The issue with the asbestos problem was not that people were concealing the impact; what was not being substantiated sufficiently was cause and effect, which is exactly the issue here.

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords for their contributions to this debate. On the first amendment tabled by the noble Countess, airline pilots and crew members are already protected in this area by Part IVA of the Employment Rights Act 1996, which was inserted by Sections 1 to 2 of the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998, both as workers who can make a protected disclosure to their employer and as individuals who can make one to the CAA. The CAA is a prescribed person for the purposes of that Act, which means that it can receive “protected disclosures” or whistleblowing from the civil aviation industry.

As for awareness of these rights, the CAA has a published statement on its website in relation to its whistleblowing policy which makes it clear that it will investigate all complaints in an appropriate manner, endeavouring to maintain confidentiality at all times.

I add for the sake of completeness that, as well as the protection afforded by the Act, the CAA has long established processes in place for incident-reporting and to safeguard confidentiality. The chief of these is the mandatory occurrence reporting scheme established in 1976. Consequently, the noble Countess’s amendment refers to protections already in place and is unnecessary.

The second amendment proposed by the noble Countess is also unnecessary. However, it also has an important and possibly unintended consequence which makes it unacceptable. The amendment would substitute the existing provision in Section 60 of the Civil Aviation Act 1982 with the wording that it proposes. This would be a backward step because it would cause the removal of the power which enables an Air Navigation Order to contain provisions,

“for safeguarding the health of persons on board aircraft”.

That power has already been used.

The duty on the Secretary of State of,

“organising, carrying out and encouraging measures for safeguarding the health of persons on board aircraft”,

now in Section 1(1A) of the 1982 Act, as inserted by Section 8(2) of the Civil Aviation Act 2006, was a widely welcomed reform. The existing Section 60 power is part of delivering that general duty. We do not want to lose that. I suspect that the noble Countess does not want to lose that either, but the effect, perhaps unintentional, of this amendment would be to remove the relevant subsection of Section 60. That is why I regard it as a backward step and why it is opposed by the Government.

There is also a second objection to this amendment. The matters listed in it are a mixture of UK legislation, European legislation and European Aviation Safety Agency technical specifications. They are already enforced by the appropriate regulators in relation to the protections that they give, including safety, technical integrity of aircraft and working conditions for those in the aviation industry.

The principal enforcement agencies are the Civil Aviation Authority and the Health and Safety Executive, and there is a memorandum of understanding, referred to by the noble Countess, between these two bodies setting out their respective responsibilities for enforcing occupational health and safety in relation to public transport aircraft while on the ground and in the air. It was drawn up by the two organisations with the aim of avoiding duplication of effort in the areas of overlapping mutual interest. There is therefore no need specifically to provide for the enforcement of these in an ANO.

The noble Countess suggested that the CAA was complacent. This is far from being the case. Successive UK Governments have investigated the matter thoroughly. The UK has an excellent safety record in aviation which we would not wish to lose by being complacent. Allegations of ill-health caused by cabin air have not been upheld by research. The main research study, published by Cranfield University in May last year, found no evidence of pollutants occurring in cabin air at levels exceeding available health and safety standards and guidelines.

However, I am well aware that the noble Countess has very strong views about the standards and guidelines. Levels observed in the flights that formed part of the study were comparable to those typically experienced in domestic settings. The department has now formally referred the published research studies to the Committee on Toxicity, the independent adviser to the Government on matters concerning the toxicity of chemicals, for it to consider the matter.