Open Skies Agreement (Membership) Bill [HL]

Lord Snape Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 26th January 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Snape (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord McNally, who represented my home town of Stockport for a while. I had no idea that he came straight from the circus before he did so.

I too congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, on providing us with the opportunity to discuss these matters. In my view we discuss aviation all too infrequently. This Bill provides us with an opportunity to do so, albeit it is late on a Friday afternoon.

It is easy to forget that 40-odd years ago the aviation world was very different from today. All over the world state-owned airlines operated infrequent and highly priced services. Indeed, sky-high fares and infrequent air services were in those days, to adapt a current slogan, for the few, not the many. It took the Carter Administration in the late 1970s to pass an airline deregulation Act in the United States, from which the rest of the world took their cue. I remember travelling to New York on Laker Airways in 1980 courtesy of a television company as we were filming the Carter/Reagan election battle. I sat next to an elderly lady from Scotland who did not know much about aviation policy but knew that Freddie Laker was the man who had enabled her to fly to see her relatives across continents. Although in 2018 we accept such a thing as a regular occurrence, for her it was new and dramatic.

Over the years there have, of course, been aviation agreements between the United Kingdom and the United States; prior to the open skies agreement there were the two Bermuda agreements, as the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, reminded us. The open skies agreement has brought many benefits, but it is tilted—as are many agreements with the United States—towards the United States itself. While the agreement allows any EU airline and any US airline to fly from any point in the EU and in the United States, the agreement allows United States airlines to operate into EU flights, but European airlines are not allowed into United States flights. Indeed, noble Lords will be aware that in the land of the free, foreign companies are not allowed to purchase a controlling stake in any United States airline. As an aside, that is an eminently sensible policy; the fact that over the years this country has seen so many of its strategic industries fall into foreign hands—the hands of people who own no great allegiance to the United Kingdom—is a retrograde step. The United States also has some control over its civil airlines through its Civil Reserve Air Fleet. I am always amused when I hear Americans complain about subsidies to companies like Airbus, for example, when one reflects that much of the United States’ aviation strategy over the years has been assisted financially and in other ways by the United States military. Despite the open skies agreement, it would be impossible for any foreign airline to carry military and government personnel in any numbers around the world because of the Fly America Act that the United States adopted some years ago. But as the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, reminds us, this is not just about the open skies agreement and the United States but about the European Union and the UK.

I picked up a newspaper cutting that I found at home the other day—I am not in the habit of hoarding newspaper cuttings but it was from the day before the general election in 1983, in which I had a personal interest. Without going into the politics that made me keep the newspaper, in the classified section there were some advertisements for holidays abroad. A company called Meridian was advertising what it called the Phone ‘n’ Fly June Specials from Birmingham Airport. In 1983 it was possible to fly to Tenerife once a week for £118 plus taxes. If my arithmetic is correct, that amounts to £278.40 today, plus taxes. Today one can go on the internet and fly to Tenerife from Birmingham with Jetcost for £68, and you can get a deal through Skyscanner for £42—this is money in real terms, aside from the inflation since then. There was also an advertisement to fly to Malaga, back in those days, at £88. There are currently 12 flights a week between Birmingham and Malaga. Again, that is entirely due to our membership of the EU and the subsequent agreements that have been made to allow us to do that.

The noble Lord, Lord McNally, was quite rude about the Minister before she had even had a chance to open her mouth. He will be aware, as I am, that Ministers in either House are normally sent to answer debates like this on the understanding that they say as little as possible and offend a few people as possible. The coalition was no different when the noble Lord, Lord McNally, was a Minister.

I hope that the Minister recognises that this philosophy that we seem to have about Brexit of “It’ll be all right on the night” is a little worn out. If the aviation world is to be reassured about the future after Brexit, she will have to say a bit more than the Department for Transport has said already. I commend the Bill and will support it. I hope that the noble Baroness will take it as far as possible and that the Government will accept its provisions.