Air Traffic Management and Unmanned Aircraft Bill [HL]

Lord Naseby Excerpts

Report stage & Report stage (Hansard) & Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 21st January 2021 Lords Chamber

My purpose with this amendment is to seek government reaction to the need to provide for CAA-authorised and open operations in ways that the police powers in the Bill will do nothing to threaten or interfere with their commercial use and market growth. Other specialists, such as firemen and ambulance drivers, are set separate rules to other road users, which the police observe. Will the Minister agree to proposing further amendment to police powers in this Bill to address commercial uses and demonstrate the Government’s laudable commitment to supporting this fledgling industry? I sense that there is strong backing for this industry and the Minister’s direction to the Bill team would help to deliver it. I shall be happy to assist in the preparation of any amendments she decides to table.

[Lord Naseby (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I support the probing amendment tabled by the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig of Radley, to insert a new clause. I will not repeat what he just said, but I underline its importance. If we go back in time a little, the Minister may recall that, when she first took office on drones, we—the UK—were a bit behind the curve compared to France, Ireland and Canada. Now, we have an opportunity to take the lead, which is what this new clause is partially about. I want to re-emphasise to Her Majesty’s Government that this industry, in particular, is here to develop commercial distribution and to function at all, the police should not be involved. It should be left to the CAA. It is fair to be open and say to my noble friend that the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig, and I have been in discussions with the industry—particularly with its legal representative, Richard Ryan, who is a well-known and very well-qualified barrister.

I shall give a couple of practical examples. I have been involved with drones almost since the day they were invented. If you have a situation with a constable—let us say in Sandy, where I live—who, under Schedule 9, is simply asking for reasonable grounds for belief, which may be founded on a complaint by a passer-by, the consequence is quite significant for a commercial operator as the constable will have the power to request information while the flight is taking place. I do not know whether the Minister has had a go at flying these things—I hope that she has—but they are not that easy; I speak as a former pilot and the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig, is a very experienced pilot. Anyway, the flight is still taking place, and the operator is being interrupted. Currently, under Part 1 of Schedule 9, paragraph (1)(a) states that while

“a flight by a small unmanned aircraft is taking place”,

the constable may, as paragraph 2(1)(a)(ii) states, require the person to provide

“information that would assist … the constable to verify that … that flight”

is valid. The issue with this is: who takes responsibility for the flight when the pilot is being interrupted by the constable? What if the drone switches out of GPS mode and into attitude mode? It then clearly requires more care and attention with respect to carrying out flight safety under Article 241 of the ANO 2016. I know that my noble friend has all these details at her fingertips, but I remind her that Article 241 clearly states:

“A person must not recklessly or negligently cause or permit an aircraft to endanger any person or property.”


I have a couple of other points, which are perfectly practical as well. The amendments to Schedule 9 rely on the fact that a constable has reasonable grounds for suspecting that a provision of the ANO 2016 is or was being contravened, as well as other aspects. How would the constable know at that time what precise provision of the ANO 2016 was being contravened? In practical terms, this is unachievable, due to the complexity of the legislation and/or further amendments to the ANO, leading ultimately to a possible miscarriage of justice.

My next point is very relevant to what is happening in the Covid world at the moment. What is the position if a remote pilot is conducting numerous flights at the same time, whether it is at a drone lightshow or transporting medical supplies on behalf of the NHS at scale? Some of these flights could be beyond the line of sight. This is relevant because, when we start operating at scale, the police will have significant powers which can harm the industry, create unnecessary reputational damage and be of significant cost and disruption to the whole unmanned aviation supply chain.

I have half a dozen other examples, but I do not think that the Minister wants to hear them this evening, although I would be more than happy to supply them. I ask her to reflect that this is a new industry that can and will create many jobs, increase skills and set the UK up as a leading pioneer in unmanned aviation. A system that confronts companies with such onerous terms in the legislation, that captures absolutely all operators, is, in my and my noble friend’s judgment, flawed. We have a situation where the Government have taken a view. We have looked at other jurisdictions, such as Canada—a country I know quite well—where the legislation is about half the scale of ours.

My final thought is that the potential for the loss of income, innovation and opportunity will be significant if this law applies to commercial operations, or those with an operational authorisation, especially in the short term. There is significant reliance on a constable knowing all the relevant aviation laws that apply. This is no good when a drone operator, for example, has a roof survey the next day which he cannot perform because his equipment has been appropriated by the constable in lieu of an investigation with no time limit.

Here is a wonderful potential industry. We need to make sure that, yes, there is control, but that can be done by the CAA, an organisation for which I have had the greatest respect as a pilot myself. Leave it to the CAA—that is what should happen. I hope my noble friend will reflect on some of the evidence that we have managed to produce this afternoon.

[Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, we have heard a very powerful case from the previous speaker. I see no reason for me to detain the House unreasonably and will speak briefly, principally to Amendment 15. My concerns in Committee centred on what I saw as the need to isolate potentially irresponsible non-commercial users of drones from those who, for perfectly legitimate reasons, seek to exploit commercially this new and innovative use of the technology.

During the debate on 27 January last year, I raised the issue of the confiscation of equipment. On 12 February, I raised the same issue, in particular where rogue operators breached the rules. There has to be a procedure in place which more clearly separates and differentiates the potential rogue operator from the legitimate commercial operation. Fines are too often no deterrent. We know from government stats that there is a high incidence of non-payment among those who have little respect for the law. We need a separate, more vigorously enforced regime for rogue drone operators. We cannot treat CAA-authorised operations in a way which appears similar to that in which we treat recreational users.

The danger in the Government’s approach is that the recreational user will be the beneficiary of the developing, lighter-touch regime that will ultimately and inevitably have to apply to commercial drone operations. This is inevitable as commercial operators exert increasing pressure for the introduction of such a regime to protect commercial viability. Alternatively, if this does not happen, commercial operators will be penalised by the more vigorous approach that will inevitably have to apply to the recreational user. The systems proposed are flawed.

The noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig of Radley, has valiantly sought to convince the department and Ministers of the dangers, but has received little reassurance to date by way of response. The noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, can clearly see the writing on the wall and therefore seeks a review of the new regime at a later stage. She is to be congratulated on the persistent way in which she has pursued these matters over a number of years. Either way, the system when tested will need to be reviewed. We need two, distinct sets of rules and regimes; a separate regime that is fair to all.