Airports Slot Allocation (Alleviation of Usage Requirements etc.) Regulations 2025

Lord Empey Excerpts

Monday 20th January 2025 Grand Committee

I say again how much I support what is happening here, by and large. The industry is going through considerable difficulties. Airports are under enormous pressure; we have a shortage of pilots worldwide, which is very difficult to fill, and we have a great shortage—although it is not mentioned anywhere here—of professionals who work in air traffic control and other areas of the running of our important airports. So, I welcome this, but I would be grateful for some more reassurance from the Minister on the points I have raised.

[Lord Empey (UUP)]

My Lords, I have been following these issues for some years, and I find myself in broad agreement with the noble Lord, Lord Kirkhope. He mentioned air traffic control and the fact that restrictions are regularly placed on flights coming in and out of Heathrow, in some cases because of the absence of qualified staff.

I welcome the end of ghost flights, which were a nonsense not only environmentally but economically for the airlines. It was ridiculous having flights with half a dozen people, or none, going around, so that is a perfectly sensible provision. However, I want to draw it to the Minister’s attention that on two occasions I brought the Airports (Amendment) Bill to this House. It passed through this House twice. The noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, who was the Minister at the time, said that the problem, from the Government’s point of view, was that because of our membership of the European Union, we were not able to address the matter that I was raising.

That matter was the slots at London airports. Let us face it—Heathrow is the primary national hub, though I accept that other London airports are important—but there is no requirement to ensure that the main regional airports have access to Heathrow. We in Northern Ireland do not have much in the way of an alternative; in fairness, Boris Johnson promised us a bridge, but that has gone the way of all flesh so, in practical terms, we are left primarily with one way of getting here. You can get a ferry—but that can take a couple of days.

This applies to Edinburgh, Glasgow and Manchester. The Secretary of State does not have the ability to guarantee that the main regional airports have access. This is all to do with national connectivity. The primary clause in my Bill was:

“The Secretary of State may give to any airport operator a direction requiring him (according to the circumstances of the case) to do, or not to do, a particular thing specified in the direction, if the Secretary of State considers it necessary to give such a direction in the interests of ensuring sufficient national air infrastructure between hub and regional airports”.


It was to give the Secretary of State a power to deal with this. Even if competition is improved by these regulations, which I would support, that has nothing to do with where those slots are allocated. Maybe they are allocated to an airline, but they can fly anywhere. There is still a gap here. Now that we are not bound by the European regulation, will the Minister reflect on this? I appreciate that it is not in these proposals, but I am sure that he can see the rationale of ensuring this.

At the moment, we are well served—I have no issue with that. There are a number of airlines, albeit the competition has narrowed recently—but we are entirely at the mercy of the airlines. We have no ability to ensure that they travel on that route. It is a bit like the 80:20 rule; most of the time it works fine, but there could be circumstances in which it does not. We can also see that competition is limited and our fares are high, so there is a link to the consumer. The noble Lord, Lord Kirkhope, made that point; the consultation was wide, but consumer interests perhaps did not dominate to the extent that they should have.

I broadly support these proposals, but I ask the Minister to consider that with his department, because there is no guarantee that our key regions will have access, particularly to Heathrow. In those circumstances, the Secretary of State should have that power.