Aviation

Lord Sharkey Excerpts

Thursday 13th October 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharkey]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Rotherwick for giving us the opportunity to debate this question. I cannot hope to match his expert knowledge or long dedication to general aviation, but I hope at least to emphasise and perhaps develop some of the points he made so forcefully.

I start by saying that in my 20 years as a private pilot, it has always seemed that the general aviation industry has, to say the least, not been frequently on the radar of government. In some—perhaps even most—respects, this has been a very good thing. The industry has grown up and flourished in an atmosphere of self-reliance and without government subsidy. I hope that this self-reliance and absence of subsidy will continue indefinitely. I also hope that in future the Government will take a greater interest in general aviation than has historically been the case. A greater government interest is necessary because the context for general aviation is changing significantly. I will not repeat the excellent analysis of the aviation industry made by my noble friend Lord Rotherwick, but I will emphasise a few key facts.

The general aviation industry is not insignificant. The last CAA study estimated a contribution of £1.4 billion to the UK economy. A more recent PricewaterhouseCoopers study of 2006 put the contribution at £3.7 billion and estimated 50,000 direct employees. General aviation is a very significant element in flying training. Without GA flying schools, the supply of commercial pilots would suffer significantly. GA flying schools are also a source of foreign income. British flying schools have a long and distinguished record in the training of foreign pilots. This flying school activity and success happen despite the fact, as the CAA noted in 2006, British flying schools operate under a competitive disadvantage compared with schools in other countries, primarily because of the higher UK regulatory charges and higher tax charges.

General aviation is not small and is not all about leisure, although of course there is nothing wrong with leisure. There are around 1,000 flying sites in the United Kingdom, around 32,000 general aviation pilots and over 12,000 aircraft. Research for the General Aviation Awareness Council estimates that 70 per cent of general aviation activity has some safety or some business purpose. I should mention the safety record of the UK’s general aviation sector. General aviation flying in the United Kingdom is between three and four times safer than the European average, a quite remarkable tribute to our training system and to our pilots. I shall return to this statistic a little later in the context of the European licensing regime.

Overall, it seems to me that the GA industry now faces two particular challenges and would benefit from more attention from the Government as they try to deal with these problems. As my noble friend Lord Rotherwick has said, the first problem is to do with UK planning regulations, in particular as they relate to wind farms and at least in one case as they relate to High Speed 2. As things stand, the CAA gives guidance on the siting of wind farms. A problem arises because this guidance can be and is ignored by planning authorities. The result is the siting of wind farms against CAA guidance and in what airfields and aviators consider to be dangerous proximity to active runways. Sometimes commercial opportunities presented by wind farms are irresistible to airfield owners, with the consequent loss of facilities to GA and to the wider community.

I am advised by the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association that as of today the airfields at Strubby and at Manby in Lincolnshire, at Fishburn in Durham, at Truro in Cornwall, and at Fearn and at Glenbrittle in Scotland are all at risk of closure because of wind farms. There will be more. What is needed, as my noble friend has pointed out, is for the CAA guidance to be given some force. I hope that the Minister can investigate how this may be done.

The problem is not only wind farms, as I have said. In at least one important case, High Speed 2 may also force the closure of an airfield. Twenty-odd years ago, I started to learn to fly at a flying school at Denham airfield in Buckinghamshire. For a very long time, this has been a thriving and busy airfield with easy access to London. Unfortunately, the proposed route of High Speed 2 shows the line passing too close for comfort to the east end of the runway at Denham. Worse, a possible Heathrow spur appears at the moment to pass directly through the runway itself. It would be very sad to lose an airfield such as Denham in order to be in Birmingham 15 minutes early.

The Question on the Order Paper asks for the Government’s assessment of the provisions and facilities available for general aviation. I beg your Lordships’ indulgence to interpret this to cover also the provision of licences for British GA pilots. The conditions attaching to the provision of British GA licences are essentially now determined in Brussels. The European Parliament has very recently approved by a very narrow margin new and onerous conditions for licences. Specifically up until now it had been possible to fly in the UK, as I do, on a foreign pilot’s licence, even if domiciled here. This arrangement is to be terminated. In future, all pilots domiciled in Europe will be required to have European licenses. As General Aviation notes:

“For many pilots, even those who have been flying perfectly safely for decades, this would mean going back to school and studying at enormous expense for a piece of paper they didn't need”.

The International Council of Aircraft Owner and Pilot Association estimates that this will affect 100,000 pilots in Europe, many of whom are domiciled here in the UK where our safety record is already three to four times better than the European average. This development directly threatens the health of UK general aviation and is completely unnecessary. It is an area where a little more active government help would have been, and still would be, very welcome. I urge the Minister to look carefully at the burdens that EU regulation is imposing quite unnecessarily on this self-reliant and unsubsidised general aviation industry.

I close by once again thanking my noble friend Lord Rotherwick for initiating this debate and saying how much I hope we can convince the Minister of the need to give general aviation just a little more care and attention in future.