Air Traffic Management and Unmanned Aircraft Bill [HL]

Lord Kirkhope of Harrogate Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords & 2nd reading (Hansard)
Monday 27th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kirkhope of Harrogate (Con)]

My Lords, in general I welcome the Bill. I declare my interest as a pilot, a former airport board member and chair of the inquiry set up by the All-Party Parliamentary Group on General Aviation last year, looking into the UK’s lower airspace. I will concentrate most of my remarks on airspace elements in the Bill. First, I recognise the importance of the aviation 2050 consultation paper, which was widely responded to. It was extremely helpful in our discussions and will, no doubt, be helpful to the Government. There were general remarks about the constricted nature of airspace in this country, especially in the south of England, where there is a big mix of general aviation and non-general aviation traffic.

As a consequence of the growth in aviation generally in this country, the CAA and the Department for Transport have both rightly recognised how complex UK airspace is—possibly the most complex in the world. Much of the design and principles have not changed significantly since the 1950s or 1960s, as the Minister indicated in her opening remarks. As my noble friend Lord Goschen and other noble Lords have said, there have, of course, been changes in technology. We have moved on, but the administrative and legislative support has not changed to match them. The Bill gives the Secretary of State the power to change, remove or apply an airspace change by directing a party to make such a change. I hope that the Government have properly considered what sort of ethos needs to apply here. I appreciate that we cannot remove the regulations set out in Section 70 of the Transport Act 2000, but it is important to note that those legislative requirements that govern how the CAA must manage its airspace are still significantly important. I will return to the CAA’s responsibility in a moment. When exercising its function, the CAA should, of course, consider safety, primarily, then efficiency and also the equitable treatment of all airspace users, together with a high level of proportionality. Again, the issue of proportionality is important. Our inquiry last year declared that we should always apply the criteria of safety, proportionality and need when looking at changes in UK airspace.

It is also important that proposals made would inevitably extend the powers of the CAA to some extent. I was interested to hear other noble Lords’ references to maintaining the resources of the CAA in order for it to do its job both now and in the future. I very much believe that the CAA must have some form of independent review procedure in any changes or proposals for change that it wants to make, while maintaining the criteria to which I have already referred. I think it is important, in relation to its resources, that the Government should consider exempting the airspace department of the CAA from the financial return requirement. This would allow it to take on the extra responsibilities without worrying about the financial consequences. I also welcome, generally, a sensible enforcement and appeals approach to future airspace diktats. The inevitability of court action is not conducive to speedy and equitable outcomes and it does little to achieve mutually sustainable outcomes.

Throughout our inquiry we were reminded of the pressing need to be able to remove airspace when it is not demonstrably required. Other noble Lords have also, rightly, pointed this out. It is important that such a reduction in airspace is available to us. The Minister’s predecessor, my noble friend Lady Sugg, reassured me in a Written Answer to a Question I raised in March 2019 that,

“a key policy objective is to ensure that the UK has the minimum volume of controlled airspace consistent with safe and efficient air traffic operations”.

How will the Government actually achieve this? Where is the power for the Government or the CAA to maintain it? Surely this must include powers to remove controlled airspace. Indeed, sometimes one wonders about airport operations, particularly, which build up enormous areas of controlled airspace that are not required in due course. One almost feels that this is a virility symbol, or at the very least some form of asset build-up—a bit like a builder’s landbank in the domestic sector—by which some airports wish to increase their asset value through the size of their controlled airspace. It is almost as bad as the use of slots by airlines, which become almost the most valuable part of the entire operation of an airline.

I welcome the proposals for a review process for airspace change programmes and new powers for the Government to require controllers of airspace to consult where appropriate. This must obviously include circumstances, as I said, where there may be a justification for reducing airspace as much as where there is a wish to increase it.

I shall refer briefly to the issue of pressure on those involved. I very much respect the work of air traffic controllers. The noble Lord, Lord Whitty, referred to artificial intelligence and then we heard from my noble friend Lord Naseby, who displays an enormous amount of intelligence which is not computerised but arises from his broad experience. I believe that it is important that we will be relying on individual air traffic controllers—real people—and the pressure on them of any changes we make must be taken fully into account.

I said that I would not refer to much other than airspace, and I do not wish to divert into the question of drones, but I feel that the challenge of the arrival of these unmanned objects puts great pressure and tension on the issue of airspace and those who control it. As technology rapidly improves, it makes it possible to create more flexible airspace. We concluded in our inquiry that systems such as PilotAware and others, coupled with digitisation and the ease of access to NOTAMs—notices to airmen—mean that pilots are far better prepared than they have ever been in the past. Together with all these changes, I hope that the Government will realise that we need to make sure that pilots are adequately trained to deal with not only technology but the changes that are made to airspace and to the rules and requirements upon them of traversing across and outside of airspace.

General aviation in the UK is a substantial contributor to our GDP, greater than some of the other areas we spend a lot of time debating. I will not pick any in particular except to mention that it is greater than fisheries, for example, which is a very difficult subject. We must understand that general aviation is not only important to this country and its future but certainly deserves our full support and encouragement.