Civil Aviation (Consumer Protection and Regulatory Reform) Bill [HL]

Lord Holmes of Richmond Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 2nd June 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to take part in this Second Reading debate. In doing so, I declare my interests as an adviser to the Crown Estate, Endava plc, and Simmons & Simmons LLP, as set out in the register. I congratulate the Minister on the way he introduced the Bill. I know he owns a bus; I do not know whether he has a jet.

[A noble Lord]

Not yet.

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)]

Given that he made an “end of the runway” comment, it is only fair to say that I have always found him incredibly “plane-speaking”.

I would like to talk about inclusion and innovation, largely because the Bill does not talk very much at all about these issues. There is clause after clause on proposed secondary legislation, but secondary legislation as set out in the Bill is permissive; it is not in any sense mandated. While I can understand, and support, the need for flexibility when it comes to provisions for secondary legislation, that goes to prescription and operational detail and the need for flexibility there; it should not be flexible and permissive when it comes to the principles, particularly around inclusion. Does the Minister not agree that there could be a lot more on the principles of inclusion on the face of the Bill?

“Come fly with me, let’s fly, let’s fly away”.

Lovely words from Mr Sinatra, but what if you are a sight-impaired passenger, or a wheelchair user, or somebody with different mobility or cognitive needs? Perhaps not so much. When it comes to the experience of disabled people, flying can often be torturous and anxious-making before even arriving at the airport. It can be an experience that is not uplifting but dire, sometimes discriminatory and often demeaning. Sometimes you are left in the terminal; sometimes, if you get to board, you are left on the aircraft at the end of the flight. When you finally emerge from the aeroplane, you oftentimes find that your wheelchair or essential mobility equipment has been damaged or destroyed. Come fly with me? Not without greater protection and coverage on the face of the Bill, not least for disabled people.

What about older people, who are not mentioned in the Bill? What about younger people: passengers and minors who are travelling unaccompanied? No increased safeguarding provisions for them are set out in the Bill. There is no equality assessment of passenger complaints and actions taken when it comes to disability and mobility issues. When we look at the current draft of the Bill, we see nothing specifically for disabled people, older people or younger people, or anything specific on equality. Does the Minister not agree that having an inclusive-by-design statutory duty on the face of the Bill would be a huge step forward—yes, for disabled passengers, but for all passengers boarding a plane?

I turn to innovation. This is an industry that has come up with some of the greatest innovations and advances in science, engineering and technology across the country and around the world. It is therefore interesting that, when it comes to new and emerging technologies such as AI, blockchain, cyber and quantum, the Bill is again curiously silent. There is nothing on an AI layer for slot allocation and transaction, the issue of passenger redress and, crucially, the issue around airspace itself. What about digital tools for passengers to press their claims, assess their stage and track where they are? They could be empowered through the digital tools that could be put in their hands as a potential consequence of this legislation.

What about data? What about interoperability? Many of the powers in the Bill will potentially dramatically increase the amount of data gathered—commercially sensitive data and data that could easily identify private individuals—yet the Bill is currently silent on that. There is nothing on AI governance, responsible AI or ethical deployment, all of which could be set out at a high level in the Bill without in any sense frustrating the flexibility of the proposed secondary legislation.

To give one example of where AI could positively impact, imagine a system whereby claims under the already mentioned Regulation EC 261/2004 could be assessed automatically by AI and the compensation not only calculated but paid. Similarly, imagine predictive analytics used before disruption has even occurred, looking at data around weather patterns and so on. Imagine what AI could do on slot allocation, using the level of data and analytics already available, if it was brought together with powerful AI tools—and perhaps a blockchain basis for slot allocation and transaction in the first place, to give that immutable record of what is happening in what can sometimes be a somewhat opaque exercise.

If we do not address these technology questions in a framework capacity in the Bill, we will have different approaches to AI and other technologies for consumer redress, passengers tracking their claims, slot allocation and airspace itself. This will differ and be variable, with, crucially, a lack of clarity and consistency. That is completely avoidable if we get it right at this stage.

To conclude, inclusion by design is absolutely essential and currently lacking. Innovation in all its forms is curiously absent from the current draft of the Bill. In many ways, to be only somewhat reductive, we currently have a Bill that in some ways pushes digital by default but is without inclusion by design. If unamended, it will leave exclusion by default and exclusion by design.

Civil Aviation (Consumer Protection and Regulatory Reform) Bill [HL]

Lord Holmes of Richmond Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 16th June 2026 Grand Committee

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

I declare that I am president of the CO Research Trust and a member of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee. The Minister has already referred to our report. I am also one of those people who responds when there is a call for a doctor on a flight, and some of my experiences lead to my support for Amendment 36 —in particular, two aspects of it.

I shall deal with my Amendment 14 first. It aims to address potentially toxic dangers sneaking into the air that we breathe, as has already been mentioned. We must have an unconditional duty to protect human life. The silent threat has mostly been ignored; that is the risk of a plane’s cabin air containing contamination by carbon monoxide and hydrocarbons. Carbon monoxide is colourless and has no smell, yet it is highly and rapidly toxic.

In much of the commercial fleet, pressurised air for the cabin and other parts of the plane must be kept frost-free, and that air comes directly from the engine compressors. It is called bleed air. When engine seals are broken or even have a micro-crack, synthetic oils and hydraulic fluid leak into this air flow. When subject to extreme temperatures, the fluids become neurotoxins, which are then inhaled, and that constitutes a cabin fume event. The neurological and respiratory symptoms are often short-lived and fade, but they can be far-reaching. They include things such as dizziness, headache, muzzy thinking and even shortness of breath and nausea—but, very occasionally, it may lead on to much more serious issues. Carbon monoxide binds to haemoglobin, which it does much more quickly than oxygen, so in effect it suffocates our vital organs.

Even at low levels of exposure, passengers can feel unwell, but for the pilots in charge of the plane, hypoxia is potentially a threat to aviation safety, nationally and internationally. Filters exist, such as the HEPA filters, which can block around 99.97% particles, including viruses, but they are useless against gases, which just flow through them.

In 2007, the Committee on Toxicity examined several reports on cabin air sampling on a selection of normal flights, showing very low levels of contaminants. It concluded that cabin air quality globally conforms with standards. However, it stated that

“uncertainties remain, and a toxic mechanism for symptoms cannot confidently be ruled out”.

A 2017 study by the European Union Aviation Safety Agency pointed out that

“there is no contaminant-free indoor environment. The aircraft cabin is no exception. However, due to the exceptional high air exchange rates in aircraft, the cabin air has been proven to be less polluted compared to normal indoor environments”.

So far, so good. The 2018 guidance on cabin fumes from the International Federation of Air Line Pilots’ Associations states:

“When a fume event occurs, cabin air contamination can cause short-term physical effects which may compromise flight safety. Sufficient scientific concern exists requiring more studies in order to determine any short and long-term effects of fume exposures”.


It is worth noting that the Civil Aviation Authority does not officially recognise aerotoxic syndrome, but Unite the Union and other unions are pursuing legal action over airlines’ duty of care and campaigners have called for an independent inquiry. Fume events are indeed rare, affecting only about one in 10,000 flights. Newer aircraft designs, such as the Boeing 787, utilise bleed-free technology, which draws air directly from outside rather than through the engine turbines. However, these planes represent only around 1,175 planes of the approximate 30,000 commercial aircraft in service. Most aircraft pre-date or did not incorporate that design.

The reality of our skies is interesting. Heathrow registers about 1,300 flights a day and Gatwick over 700—let us round that to around 2,000 flights a day. Mathematically, if one fume event occurs every 10,000 flights, the risk is about one a week over London, ranging from very minor to potentially serious. Currently, we rely on the human sense of smell to detect a fume event, and crew report the typical smell of dirty socks or burnt oil. However, the human nose cannot detect carbon monoxide, which is what caused the tragic crash of the Piper Malibu that killed Emiliano Sala.

In 2025, the CAA mandated that certain small piston engine light aircraft carrying passengers must monitor carbon monoxide. This leads to my amendment. If monitoring is vital for the protection of the users of small light tourism aircraft, on what grounds do we fail to offer the same protection, and de facto guarantee of safety, to hundreds of passengers confined in a commercial airliner? The technology already exists. Airbus is collaborating with the Fraunhofer Society to develop mass spectrometry systems capable of pinpointing the source of these pollutants with extreme precision. Our legislation should mandate every air transport service provider to install, maintain and operate continuous active monitoring systems for carbon monoxide, in particular, and hydrocarbons in the cockpit and passenger cabins.

Notably—I believe this is directly relevant—the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, of which I am a member, gave the view that

“the power in section 61A(7) of the Civil Aviation Act 1982, read with section 61A(1), is inappropriate because its effect is to give the Government unconstrained power to decide which operational and safety aviation rules will be delegated to the CAA and consequently made without Parliamentary process; and to ensure Parliament is properly able to scrutinise the scope of delegation of rulemaking to the CAA: the power … should be amended to make clear the principles underlying the exceptions to delegated rulemaking; and that power should be subject to affirmative procedure”.

I hope that the Government will amend the Bill accordingly. Otherwise, we will have to bring this back on Report.

Very briefly on Amendment 36, there is a risk of deep vein thrombosis in passengers. It can result in a fatal pulmonary embolism. It may well often be linked not only to the passenger’s own propensity to have a blood clot but to whether they are in an inappropriate seat to meet their medical needs and the seat pitch is inappropriate, particularly on very long-haul flights. I have had to look after people on the floor of an aircraft, sometimes for many hours. It is extremely difficult to hear what is going on through a stethoscope, because the engine noise is so great that you cannot hear properly, and trying to take somebody’s blood pressure on the floor of a crowded aircraft is not easy.

The thing that concerns me even more than that is the provision of lavatories. I have had an incident on a long-haul flight of two young people with really catastrophic and probably infectious gastroenteritis, which meant creating a public health measure to seal off one toilet for only them to use and making up rehydration fluids to keep giving them all the way back to Heathrow. It meant that there were not many toilets for other passengers, but I certainly did not want other passengers to use the toilets that these two were using. One problem is that the lavatories in many planes are so small that if anyone needs assistance with toileting, particularly if they have a bowel problem of any sort, including a stoma, it is extremely difficult to be in that toilet cabinet to assist them. Amendment 36 is particularly important.

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to take part in Committee on the Bill. As it is my first intervention in Committee, I declare my technology interests as set out in the register, variously as adviser to the Crown Estate, Endava plc, and Simmons & Simmons LLP, and as non-executive director of Avalanche (BVI) Inc and the Avalanche Foundation. It is also a pleasure to follow my friend the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay. The whole Committee and everybody should thank her for everything that she has done on flights in extraordinarily difficult circumstances. I support everything that she had to say on shortcomings and areas that need to be addressed which, as she clearly pointed out, could be addressed right now.

I also support the amendment from my friend, the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson; it must be agreed. I see precious little point in wasting any of the draftsperson’s ink on a “may” provision. “May” is “whenever”. We have seen from other legislation pertaining to disabled people that “may” is a hope that never comes to fruition, so “may” must be converted to “must”.

Similarly, I support the comments of my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham—he sounds even better when he is quoting himself from a previous Hansard. It seems extraordinary that the circumstances he sets out have not been addressed. They do not, in any sense, reflect what happens in the rail industry. As a corollary, I ask the Minister: as it works so well in the rail industry, would some systems such as Delay Repay not be a positive addition to the airline sector? Those payments can be rightly collected behind the scenes from the source of the problem, be it NATS or another service provider. Smart contracts could be deployed so that those payments are automatically made when such events occur.

However, there is a situation that we are seeing a creeping illustration of across a number of sectors, including in aviation, as my noble friend Lord Young set out. I will highlight what is happening in the financial services sector around fraud. Banks are on the hook for repayment and reimbursement for certain fraud events, such as push payments, whereas telcos or platforms, where the frauds may originate from, are currently not. I would be interested in the Minister’s comment on the sense that there is an increasing tendency for this, where, in reality, the costs and compensation should fall where the breach occurs. It is a very simple and well-established legal principle. I look forward to the Minister’s response to my noble friend’s excellent intervention.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)]

My Lords, before my noble friend responds, far be it from me to get between two former Secretaries of State for Transport before a Transport Minister comes to respond to either of them, but I want to check something with my noble friend Lord Harper. Is he suggesting, as a point of principle, that for any wholly or partly owned entity where the state has even a minor share, there should never be a question of compensation or liability for redress to be made by dint of whole, partial or even minority public share ownership of that entity?

[Lord Harper (Con)]

No, I do not. The question I had to answer was that if you have a status quo and if you are going to make a change, you have to ask yourself, does the change drive an improvement in behaviour or outcomes? I simply was not persuaded that it would.

Picking up my noble friend’s point about perhaps having saved the Minister a bit of bother, I thought, when I was listening to him make his case, that there is, of course, the opportunity, when one is now both in opposition and on the Back Benches, to let the Minister do all the work. But since the event happened on my watch, as it were, and we put quite a lot of thought into whether we should make the change that my noble friend set out, and since the answers that he received from our noble friend Lady Vere of Norbiton when she was Aviation Minister were effectively on my behalf, I thought it would be a bit slopy-shouldered of me to sit here quietly, not say anything and not give the Committee the benefit of the thought process at least. Being slopy-shouldered has never really been my style, so I thought it was at least worth giving the Committee the benefit of the effort that went in on behalf of aviation consumers who were disadvantaged by this, the work that went on by the industry and the work that the Government did to try to put things right.

My final point is just to say that the industry—NATS, the airlines and the airports—demonstrated a remarkable ability to work together to serve the interests of consumers. The industry has a lot to be proud of in the way that it comes together when there are these difficult circumstances to serve the people who pay their wages.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Kennedy of Cradley (Lab)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 7 in my name. I declare my interest as chief operating officer of Natasha’s Foundation, the UK’s food allergy charity, which was previously known as the Natasha Allergy Research Foundation.

At Second Reading, my noble friend Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill emphasised that the purpose of the Bill is to strengthen consumer protections and improve the passenger experience. He recognised the importance of accessibility and ensuring that aviation works effectively for all passengers. We have heard passionate speeches from the noble Baronesses, Lady Brinton and Lady Grey-Thompson. My amendment would not only address their issues around reduced mobility but would include non-visible disabilities and medical conditions, such as allergies, so that all passengers—including those with visible disabilities, non-visible disabilities and medical conditions, especially food allergies—can travel safely and with confidence.

I will focus on food allergy today. It is a serious medical condition, where a trace amount of an allergen can trigger a rapid and potentially fatal reaction. If someone is in the air and ingests the food to which they are allergic, they can be unconscious within 30 minutes. Whether they are on a short-haul or long-haul flight, they therefore experience serious difficulties. More than 3 million people in the UK—and around 220 million people globally—are living with a food allergy. This is not a medical condition the aviation industry can afford to continue to overlook.

UK tribunals have recognised that a food allergy can constitute a disability under the Equality Act 2010, where it has a substantial and long-term impact on daily life. Moreover, legal advice commissioned by Natasha’s Foundation concluded that Natasha’s law applies to pre-packaged meals served by UK airlines, and that airlines have a legal responsibility to provide allergen information under UK food safety law. However, in practice, that does not happen: Natasha’s law is hardly ever applied to pre-packaged airline food. Can my noble friend the Minister clarify the Government’s position on Natasha’s law and pre-packaged airline food? Does it apply, and if so—to illustrate the point raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton—who is responsible for ensuring that airlines comply with Natasha’s law and current UK food safety laws? That question covers both UK-based airlines and those that operate within our UK airspace.

As is it clear to many food-allergic passengers, despite the seriousness of their condition and the laws designed to protect them, allergen management is too often treated as an afterthought by the aviation industry. Passenger support is frequently inconsistent. Passengers encounter a reluctance to make reasonable adjustments or to provide any support to help them travel safely and with confidence. Passengers frequently report difficulties sourcing an airline’s policy on allergy. There is hardly ever a list of the support available to them, and it is not clear whether a plane carries spare adrenaline auto-injectors. Food-allergic passengers need to know that information, especially when research suggests that around one in 10 food-allergic passengers reports experiencing an allergic reaction when flying.

Passengers regularly ask the cabin crew for food ingredient lists on a plane. IATA states that the lists should be available to passengers, but they hardly ever are. Even when passengers do everything asked of them and pre-order a special meal, many find that it has not been loaded on to the aircraft, it has been mistakenly given to another passenger or, worse, it contains the food stuff to which they are allergic because there are weak controls over meal supply chains. Unless a provision such as Amendment 7 is added to the Bill, the lack of priority and attention given to allergen management on flights will continue.

The support for food-allergic passengers that we are asking for is not hard to provide, and it is not hard for the aviation industry to make a big difference. My amendment does not impose disproportionate burdens on the industry. It is largely about ensuring better training, information and communication, as well as compliance with the laws that already exist. In brief, Natasha’s Foundation has identified four areas where improvement is needed: leadership, training, policies and food. Airlines need to be asked to publish clear policies, setting out the support passengers can expect. They should be easily available on their websites, communicated before booking and throughout travel, and applied throughout the passenger journey. Simple adjustments, such as announcements on flights or time to pre-board to wipe down food trays, are easy to accommodate in the airline industry, but they are frequently inconsistent. A food-allergic passenger may request them, but that does not mean that the request carries through to the cabin crew on that plane, as they often do not receive the communication that someone is a food-allergic passenger.

All airline staff, as the noble Baronesses, Lady Brinton and Lady Grey-Thompson, said, should receive training. We would obviously say that that needs to be food allergy and anaphylaxis training, how to recognise an allergic reaction and how to use an adrenaline auto-injector. Spare AAIs should be carried on all flights and be available in many different sites across airports. Accurate allergen information must be available for all the food served on board. Natasha’s law should be applied and enforced, and cabin crews should have access to information about the food they serve.

All these recommendations are very much in line with the conclusions of the Aviation Accessibility Task and Finish Group, chaired by my noble friend Lady Grey-Thompson. Natasha’s Foundation thank her for her support, as we were very grateful to have the opportunity to provide evidence, and we were pleased that allergy was recognised in the group’s final report. The group’s recommendations on staff training, passenger information, communication and support for people with disabilities and non-visible disabilities, including allergies, is exactly as the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, said—we are all trying to do the same thing, because all these conditions need the same thing: information and training.

I therefore hope that the Government will look favourably on the amendment. I also ask my noble friend the Minister to take time to read, before Report, the report from Natasha’s Foundation, Flying with a Food Allergy, and agree to meet the foundation and others to discuss this amendment and the practical solutions that it contains to improve safety, build trust and enhance passenger experience, which is what the Bill should be about.

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)]

I thank noble Lords who have taken part in this debate so far, not least my friends the noble Baronesses, Lady Grey-Thompson and Lady Brinton, who have done so much for disabled people for such a long period of time, despite suffering indignity and discrimination on their own account, often when using various transport modes. It is impressive, and continues to be messaging that Ministers in any and every department should take more than a passing note of.

To take one tiny step back—here I am in danger of giving a bit of a Second Reading speech, but I promise noble Lords that it is purely Committee-stage chat—I want to talk about what is possible. So much of what has been discussed with regard to disabled people goes into the “too difficult” file, or somehow health and safety trumps the rights of disabled people.

At London 2012 we faced the world’s finest elite disabled athletes coming to London—and, whatever we did at the park, the venues, the stadium or the aquatic centre, imagine if we had not looked at the aviation experience, not least at the port of arrival for air, London’s Heathrow Airport. Noble Lords can imagine that whatever we did in terms of athlete experience in the venue and the village would have been as nothing; if we had not intervened, we would have had the world’s finest Paralympians coming to London, and their first experience of London 2012 would have been being pushed through the airport in an airport wheelchair, because it was said at the time that it was too difficult and operationally impossible to repatriate a person’s wheelchair to the door of the aircraft. We were fortunate that we had the power, the brand and the most immovable of deadlines of London 2012 to make that difference.

But the reality is that, no matter how good we planned that golden summer of sport to be, it is as nothing to ensuring, enabling and empowering all disabled people to assert their rights to travel with independence, dignity and respect, or, to put it another way, to have an airline experience equivalent to what a non-disabled person—lucky for them—can just experience and take for granted. I say “experience” because that, I believe, is the most helpful lens to get us to the right position on this. We should think about this experientially before we even make one operational decision in the Bill.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Lord Holmes of Richmond]

31: After Clause 2, insert the following new Clause—
“Use of artificial intelligence in CAA enforcement decisions(1) Where the CAA uses an artificial intelligence system to inform or support the exercise of its direct enforcement functions under Schedule 1, the CAA must—(a) ensure that every enforcement decision informed by an artificial intelligence system is reviewed and authorised by a qualified human decision-maker before it takes effect;(b) conduct bias audits of the system at intervals of not more than 12 months and publish the results;(c) provide a written explanation of any enforcement decision informed by an artificial intelligence system to the person affected on request;(d) operate an accessible appeals mechanism through which persons affected by such a decision may challenge the use of the system.(2) For the purposes of this section “artificial intelligence system” has the meaning given in the AI Act (Regulation (EU) 2024/1689), or such other meaning as the Secretary of State may specify by regulations.(3) The CAA must publish an annual report on its use of artificial intelligence systems in the exercise of its direct enforcement functions.(4) Any regulations under this section are to be made by statutory instrument.(5) A statutory instrument containing regulations under this section may not be made unless a draft of the instrument has been laid before, and approved by a resolution of, each House of Parliament.”Member's explanatory statement
This amendment seeks to require human oversight at every decision point where AI is used in the CAA's direct enforcement functions, mandates annual bias audits with published results, requires written explanations of AI-informed enforcement decisions on request, and establishes an accessible appeals mechanism.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to move Amendment 31 in my name and to speak to Amendment 32 and the other two amendments in my name in this group. It is worth reflecting that we have now been in Committee since 3.45 pm. We could have flown to Athens in that time, but who would want that when you can have the warmth of the Grand Committee together?

To take a step back, it is interesting that the aviation sector has often been at the forefront of technological advancement. Just two examples are Sir Frank Whittle’s jet and the elegance of Concorde, which also speaks beyond technology to what we can achieve when we work internationally and collaboratively—something unrivalled in commercial aviation since and that is still a marvel. Bearing that in mind, it is extraordinary that this Bill is silent on the possibilities of technology, not least emerging technologies and the powers they could bring to support the intentions of the Bill. That is the purpose of these amendments.

Amendment 31 looks to how AI could be used to assist the CAA in its endeavours. Amendment 32 looks at all the questions around cyber, particularly given the legacy systems at UK airports. The Bill’s provisions will bring a lot of new data into play. It is imperative that this data is subject to stringent levels of cyber security and protection. It would be positive for all concerned if this were set out in the Bill. Harking back to those days of innovation and endeavour—the white heat of technology from the Labour Government under which Concorde came into being—it would be extraordinarily positive to have a technology horizon-scanning requirement for the CAA. That would make a difference not just for airline businesses, as it sits squarely with them, but to how emerging technologies could assist and transform the operations of the CAA for the benefit of airlines, passengers and everybody involved in aviation.

Finally, to turn to the governance that should sit around these technologies, there is clearly an assistive, enabling and supportive role that the CAA could play in terms of guidance and support. The Government have clearly stated their approach to artificial intelligence: to not bring forward cross-sector and cross-economy AI legislation. There is nothing party political in that approach; it is the identical approach to that which was taken by the previous Government. It is a sub-optimal approach, because it fails to give the UK the best opportunity really to realise and optimise the potential from this constellation of technologies that we call AI and go to the heart of the attendant risks, which will otherwise go unaddressed, and oftentimes it will be those at the sharp end who suffer the most.

The Government have stated that they do not want to do cross-sector AI regulation and that they will take a domain-specific approach. Here we have a specific domain—aviation—yet the Bill is silent with regard to AI. Is it the position that the Government are simultaneously not bringing forward cross-sector AI legislation while also not doing anything domain by domain, sector by sector on AI legislation and regulation? That is the position with regard to this domain, as set out in the Bill. This is about the transformational power, and the potential for the CAA to transform how it goes about its operations to enable better services to airlines, and its role in transforming the passenger experience and optimising it, with a far more efficient use of all the resources that are currently in play. That is the current situation, and it seems at least curious if not somewhat unfortunate. I look forward to the Minister’s response and I beg to move.

[Lord Barber of Ainsdale (Lab)]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 101A. I declare an interest as I am currently president of the British Airline Pilots Association.

It is clear that we have ambitious targets for growth in this sector. It is a sector with tremendous growth potential. That will need an appropriate number of pilots to be available in the coming years, but it is clear that there is a rising number of licensed pilots who will leave the workforce in the next few years. There is a compulsory retirement age for commercial pilots of 65. In a recent answer to a Parliamentary Question, the Minister reported that, of the CAA-registered pilots reaching that age, more than 1,300 will leave the sector within the next five years. That is at a time when we have ambitious plans for airport expansion, to promote growth in the sector.

This amendment would require the CAA—and it would engage the sector—not to sleepwalk into difficulties with shortages of pilots by publishing an annual report, with three key issues to address. First, there is the availability of pilots in the coming period. Secondly, there is the capacity of training provision in this area. Thirdly, there are the factors affecting access to the profession of pilot, including the cost of the necessary training.

On that final point, there are currently real financial barriers to pilot training. The cost is something of the order of £100,000 or more, and there are only two airline-funded schemes to train new pilots—British Airways and Jet2. For every successful applicant to the BA scheme, there are around 100 unsuccessful applicants who would like to make a career in the industry and who potentially have the skills and adaptability to undergo the training successfully. In terms of availability of finance, unless you have the bank of mum and dad, there is no real alternative provision available. There is no student loan scheme for people wishing to access the profession, and there is no readily available commercial loan offer from the banks either.

--- Later in debate ---

That is the fastest I can speak.

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who contributed to this interesting debate. I also thank the Minister for his speedy response, which was Concorde-like in its pace of delivery and has landed us at the end of today’s proceedings in Committee. For now, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 31 withdrawn.

Civil Aviation (Consumer Protection and Regulatory Reform) Bill [HL]

Lord Holmes of Richmond Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 18th June 2026 Grand Committee

I am told that BALPA represents 85% of all pilots, so it is a useful shorthand. I am sure that advisers to the Minister will tell him that it is inadvisable to include a specific group, but I am sure we can find some words. Pilots need to be in that consultation. I take the point of the value of a short consultation but, inevitably, because this will be so new, it will affect people on the ground in different ways, so there must also be some capability for ongoing consultation so that responsible bodies with the power to change things have to listen to users, people on the ground and operators.

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to my Amendment 63. I thank the noble Earl for the excellent way in which he introduced the group and covered the amendments with such eloquence. This is a very straightforward amendment whose purpose is clear: to have an immutable cryptographic record of such important decisions. I agree entirely with the noble Earl. The blockchain reference is merely illustrative but it also shows the unfortunate speed that I was flying at when I was drafting. I would like to have set out criteria that any technology would need to meet to achieve the objectives in the amendment. That was the approach that we took in the Electronic Trade Documents Act, for example, when we specified no particular technology but set out a series of criteria that any technology would have to meet to be able to perform the task. If we can import that into our considerations of this amendment, that would get us pretty much to where I am at.

The point is that blockchain would more than suffice for the task. There is obviously a difference between blockchain and distributed ledger technologies, which we do not need to go into at this stage, but there are technologies that have not even come to fruition, never mind to a level of usability at this stage, which almost certainly will have a part to play in such illustrations as this. It is critical, though I failed in this amendment, to have technology neutrality, because through that technology neutrality you give yourself the best opportunity of having technology future-proofing. If the Minister could respond with those thoughts in mind, which are in the text but I wrote them in white ink on a white page, I would be obliged.

[Lord Kirkhope of Harrogate (Con)]

In proposing Amendment 65, I must declare again my interests as set out at Second Reading. I have held a private pilot’s licence for about 40 years now. I am an officer of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on General Aviation, and I am the author of its inquiry into our lower airspace that was conducted a year or two ago. I am honorary vice-president of the British Airline Pilots Association and a former airport director. In a way, I am looking at this subject from rather more than one perspective.

At Second Reading, I pressed the Minister on Clause 6, and, in particular, on the change it makes to who must pay for air traffic and air navigation services from

“operators or owners of aircraft”

to simply “persons”. I asked what lay behind this decision and whether it was prompted by newer developments such as drone delivery, and at that point I referred to the Minister nodding his head. I am afraid that perhaps I was taking too much on in assuming that the nod related to my remarks—I make no aspersions otherwise. I said then that the burden on general aviation ought to remain broadly where it sits today.

This amendment would require the Secretary of State and the authority in exercising their functions over these charges to have regard to two matters: the growth and sustainability of general aviation, and the desirability of ensuring that those carrying out general aviation activities do not pay charges disproportionate to the use they make of the services. Many of my colleagues here who have spoken earlier in these debates have indicated their interest in general aviation, so there are quite a lot of us around, but it is important that I explain to the Committee that general aviation means civil aviation other than commercial air transport. It includes gliders, light aeroplanes, microlights, and the private and training flights of which I spoke earlier. It is not airlines and it is not, as I shall come to say, drones. On the Government’s figures in their general aviation strategy, the sector contributes, they accept, something in the order of £3 billion in gross value added and supports some 38,000 jobs. It is around 1/14th of the size of the commercial airline industry.

The figure I ask the Committee to hold in mind is that a great majority of those who sit at the front of the airliners that this Bill is chiefly concerned with—by some estimates three-quarters or more—began in general aviation, very often paying for their own training at the small flying schools the regulator knows as declared and approved training organisations. Those same schools and that same flying give us our future air traffic controllers and aircraft engineers, as well as those who pilot light aircraft. With Boeing and Airbus alike forecasting a need for several hundred thousand new pilots around the world in the years ahead, this is exactly the wrong moment to make it more expensive to learn to fly. From my involvement with the British Airline Pilots Association, I can tell the Committee that the profession, as was referred to earlier by the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, watches the health of general aviation closely, for it is from there that the profession is renewed.

I will mention drones, for I suspect they lie close to the heart of the change. The Government have been candid that the Bill is needed in part because of new users of the air—the drones and the air taxis that will follow. I do not quarrel with that. Those users will make real demands on a future digital airspace and it is fair that they should pay their share, but the drone is not general aviation. They are governed by a separate code altogether in the air navigation orders and the unmanned aircraft regulations, in their own open, specific and certified category. My concern is that, when one widens the net from the owner and operator of an aircraft to any person, one catches the drone operator one is aiming at but one may also catch the local gliding club.

The danger is of a single standard designed for the commercial airliner being pressed on everyone, bringing cost and complication to those who fly small and simple aircraft—not always terribly simple, I might add. A glider under tow or a training aeroplane in the circuit draws on a fraction of the air traffic services that an airliner consumes or, for that matter, a fleet of delivery drones one day will. The charge each meets should reflect that and no more. There is a related point that it can hardly be right to levy a charge on a person who does not use and cannot use the very service being charged for. That is the principle behind this amendment: that those who make little use of the system should bear little of its cost.

I want to be clear about what I am not asking. I am not asking that general aviation be exempted from all charges. It pays its way today and it should continue to do so. Nor am I seeking to frustrate the much-needed programme of modernisation that, rightly, this Bill provides for. I supported its general objectives at Second Reading and continue to support them now. I ask only that, as these powers are set out in greater detail, the interests of general aviation are kept in view and the principle of proportionality is clearly set out, rather than left to assurances by the Secretary of State.

If the Minister can tell me that the Government have no intention of drawing general aviation into a charging regime built for the airlines or for commercial drone activity, and that he will consider how that intention might be given proper statutory form, that would be enormously welcome.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Harper (Con)]

My Lords, I will primarily speak to my Amendment 73, which was suggested by IATA. I tabled it because I read it and thought it raised some important issues on which I want to test the Government’s thinking.

When I was Secretary of State, this process worked very smoothly and, as my noble friend Lord Grayling said, this is largely a commercial exercise. Slots have economic value. They are allocated independent of government and that usually works very well. There are circumstances, as the Minister set out at Second Reading, where there are challenges to how the system works because of outside circumstances. The Government then step in and make some changes which work in the interests of consumers and the industry.

It is also the case that the slot co-ordinator, Airport Coordination Limited, a private company, exercises a considerable amount of power and influence. At airports with a constrained supply of slots, that gives it significant economic power. At the moment, it does not have any regulatory oversight. It is effectively exercising what could be argued to be a quasi-regulatory function, but there is no formal oversight.

The amendment I have tabled is quite narrow but would bring the co-ordinator under the oversight of the CAA, which would give it the ability to scrutinise decisions and its governance. It would, importantly, preserve the independence of the UK slot co-ordinator, which is important and required by our international agreements. It would also introduce a proportionate independent mechanism to challenge decisions. At the moment, if anybody wants to challenge a decision, they have to go through a judicial review process, which is very costly, time-consuming and almost never happens. If you had CAA oversight, it would mean that either the airlines or the department could refer decisions to the CAA and have them looked at independently. It is important that the Government do not have the power to do that, but we should have some sort of process in place.

What I seek from the Minister is the Government’s view on whether the system works well at the moment. Do the Government believe the slot co-ordinator, effectively, has powers which should be better regulated or are they perfectly content with the system as currently set up? Do the Government think it need any changes? I thought the amendment was a useful way of testing the Government’s view. I was therefore very happy to table it and to make the case for it. I look forward to the Minister setting out the Government’s position when he responds to this group.

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)]

My Lords, I am delighted to follow my noble friend Lord Harper. I intend to speak to Amendments 74 and 75 in my name. It would be only slightly reductive to say it is all about the slots. In many ways, this part of the Bill is the very heart of the industry.

To that end, it would seem to make sense, under Amendment 74, to have greater clarity and transparency for all those who should be involved, should be concerned and should have a role in this. They would have that clarity through such a system as set out in Amendment 74. Again, I accept the specificities around blockchain and DLT and would insert mid speech a criteria-based approach so that other technologies which could achieve this aim are equally beneficial to the purpose of the amendment.

Amendment 75 moves that on somewhat to test how much the Government would wish not to overly interfere with slot allocation but, where all things remained equal, they would want other provisions to be brought in. In Amendment 75, I cite the example of environmental concerns, but the principle would work equally well for regional connectivity being higher up the agenda or other issues the Government may wish to push through. As has been rightly set out by my noble friend Lord Grayling, this is largely a commercial matter and there is a market but, like all good markets, that does not mean there is no role for government in it.

It is clear that the Government need to get the right level for that role and not overstep, but it is critical because in many ways the essence of that element of the industry is all about the slots. I am interested to hear where the Minister believes that line should be drawn and whether there is potential to bring other factors to bear, which would fit very well with some of the Government’s other key objectives, such as environmental issues, growth, the nations and regions, and connectivity. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

--- Later in debate ---

When the Minister responds to this short debate, I would be much obliged if he could give a crisp answer to that aspect of the Committee’s recommendation.

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow my noble friend. I shall speak to Amendment 96 in my name. It rehearses an issue that we discussed in Committee on Tuesday, but it is pertinent to this section. Essentially the point at issue is this: we have a Government who have stated that they have no desire to legislate or regulate cross-sector or cross-economy for artificial intelligence and that a domain-specific approach is preferred. I suggest that that is a suboptimal choice, but it is still a legitimate choice.

The difficulty is that every time we come to some such domain—this Bill is about aviation—the Bill is silent on AI. I appreciate that there are data protection provisions in other legislation, but that is but one specific element of artificial intelligence. I believe that when one considers the role and functions of the CAA and the positive role it could take when it comes to artificial intelligence, all the people who are subject to the CAA’s powers would greatly benefit from an AI aviation standard to deal with transparency, explainability and bias and to look to the systems that not only the CAA uses, may use or, indeed, it could be said, must use in the very near future and to AI systems that are already in use across the aviation sector.

A specific AI aviation standard could bring clarity and coherence across this industry, across the roles and powers that the CAA is responsible for and across actions. It is imperfect because it would be far better to have AI legislation and regulations that could be understood by the public, business and all of us wherever we happen to come across AI, because those flexible, agile regulations would be cross-domain, cross-sector and cross-economy, so they would deliver the clarity, consistency and coherence that you require whether you are an aviator, an investor, an innovator or a citizen. However, that is not the choice the Government have made, so I suggest it would be worth considering an AI aviation standard at least to deal with this domain. The issues go far beyond data protection, which is but one part, albeit an important part, of this, but AI is already impacting in this sector. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

[Lord Barber of Ainsdale (Lab)]

My Lords, I begin by recording my registered interest as the president of BALPA. I strongly echo the point made so clearly by the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, about the importance of engagement with the pilot community on many of the key issues in the Bill. I very much welcome the recognition that I have heard from just about everyone in the Room of the vital expertise that BALPA members can bring to the consultations required by both the Government and the CAA in key provisions in the Bill.

I will speak briefly to Amendments 89 and 95 in my name, which are supported by the noble Lord, Lord Kirkhope. Amendment 89 seeks to remove the apparent veto given to the CAA over the document to be issued by the Secretary of State setting out their priorities and objectives for the exercise of the CAA’s rule-making functions; the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, touched on this point in his remarks. It seems a curious piece of drafting in this part of the Bill. The amendment also strongly emphasises the importance of consultations on these issues with organisations and persons with relevant interests and expertise who would be affected by the new or amended proposed rules; that will clearly include pilots.

Amendment 95 would require the Secretary of State not only to publish any directions issued to the CAA, as the Bill currently requires, but to lay any such directions before Parliament, thus allowing parliamentarians the opportunity to probe and scrutinise them. This would provide greater openness and transparency without being overly burdensome. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

Civil Aviation (Consumer Protection and Regulatory Reform) Bill [HL]

Lord Holmes of Richmond Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 13th July 2026 Lords Chamber

These are cast-iron examples, and they have happened to me dozens of times, as the noble Baronesses, Lady Brinton and Lady Grey-Thompson, will testify. It should not be rocket science to bring in sufficient training to the airlines and their operators to prevent that happening time and again in the future. Therefore, I support the amendments.

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow my noble friend Lord Blencathra, who always tells it very much as it is. I think we should probably all follow the wise entreaties of Lady Blencathra to “Be nice”. As an ex-Chief Whip, my noble friend Lord Blencathra is always nice. I say that with an ex-Chief Whip to my left, an ex-Chief Whip right in front of me and, as far as I know, other ex-Chief Whips dotted around the House. I say that to the Minister as well, with regard to the amendments in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of Cradley, bearing in mind her connection to that aforementioned role of the not ex but current Chief Whip.

I support the amendments in this group, and indeed nod to the previous group, and I thank the Minister for his engagement throughout this process, particularly between Committee and Report. There is a lot that cannot be done directly by the UK Government, whichever party that happens to be, because of the international nature of this and the Montreal convention—I will come to that in a bit. However, the Government would not have brought forward their amendments were it not for this Minister—not any Transport Minister but this Minister. I thank him for all the work he has done on the Bill when it comes to accessibility and inclusion, and indeed on Bills in the past—and, I might say, with railway Bills yet to come.

It is clear that many of the provisions will apply domestically. That is obviously a fraction of air travel but it is an important one, and it matters. Ultimately, all this could be got right. We would not need to talk about disabled people, wheelchair users, guide dog owners, passengers with restricted mobility or any of this if there was passenger customer service. All this is just quality passenger customer service, but, because that is not the case, we see illustrations which bite hardest on disabled people. That is problematic not only because there is not the passenger customer experience that should be there but largely because none of this is planned experientially; it is planned operationally. That is never the way to plan anything if you want it to be human and dignified and have all the values that we subscribe to, of fairness, equality and respect.

If things are planned operationally, it is hardly surprising that it often feels like disabled people are being treated like cargo, to be just moved in whatever fashion is determined from one place to another—or, indeed, as the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, and others have pointed out, to not be moved, missing the flight or being left on the flight long after it has landed and all the passengers have left the plane.

If you plan experientially from the outset, you necessarily bring in all the human dimensions and you bring in inclusive by design—an inclusive culture, led on, which then flows through the whole experience. In addition, if you plan experientially, you do not have all the difficulties that come when one provider—one operator—ceases its part of the deal and another one takes over, or indeed does not, because that passenger experience is planned right from the first moment that any of us even thinks about potentially buying a ticket right through to where we clear customs and baggage and continue our onward journey at that destination airport. If you plan operationally, each operator plans its bit and many things fall down as those operators are not connected together in a seamless, quality passenger experience. So, yes, it is training, information in accessible forms, and thinking about every beat point of that journey, but it should be a journey planned experientially.

The Minister’s amendments go some way and certainly set the right tone, and we need to ensure that that runs through all the consultation and the subsequent regulations. I thank him again and I put one final ask to him: would it not be a good idea for the UK to seek to convene international airlines and all operators involved in air travel in London, bringing them to this city not because we are saying that the UK is the best at this or because we are talking about UK exceptionalism, but to try to start this international dialogue, to move forward with the Montreal convention and to bring other like-minded nations around that table to move things forward? It is good to make a difference in the UK—it is small but significant—but the Government can, and I hope they will, play a leading role among other like-minded nations, using all our convening power and our soft power to make some movement in this area. This has gone on too long and it is unacceptable that, just at the point you step airside, all your rights fly away.