National Air Traffic Services: Operational Failure

Lord Foulkes of Cumnock Excerpts

Tuesday 5th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

The noble Lord raises a hypothetical—the outcome of this investigation —which I will probably not engage with at this moment. However, what I am very clear about, as is the Secretary of State, is that the investigation that NATS is carrying out, overseen by the CAA, will get to the root cause of whatever caused these events and that that will be published in due course with next steps.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, when I represented Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley in the other place all those years ago, when the air traffic control in the south had some problems, the air traffic control at Prestwick took over for the whole of the United Kingdom. However, once Swanwick was open, it was integrated and therefore there is now only one NATS service. Would it not be better to have a look at going back to where one could come in when the other failed, and therefore we would have a backup?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

The noble Lord raises an interesting point. As I said, when the investigations around this are completed and the reports are available, potential next steps will be considered, particularly around mitigations to ensure that this does not happen again.