Brexit: Aviation Safety Regime

Lord Tunnicliffe Excerpts

Wednesday 17th January 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sugg]

My Lords, I agree that we need to keep regulation as low as possible. Continued membership of EASA is a possibility and we are actively considering it. The UK has a proud record in the aerospace sector and a number of distinct advantages, and will continue to do so after we leave the European Union.

[Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)]

My Lords, when Mr Michael Huerta, the outgoing boss of the Federal Aviation Administration, visited in December, he had a sense of urgency. He said:

“We need to know by next month because if we do not have a clear picture it leaves us little choice but to embrace a much more costly strategy of working on multiple potential scenarios”.


“Next month” is January, and he was implying that the FAA needs to know by the end of this month what we are going to do. What answer did he get at that meeting? If he did not get a straightforward answer, when will his successor get one?

[Baroness Sugg]

My Lords, regardless of our future relationship with EASA, there will be an aviation safety agreement in place between the UK and the USA. The precise form and exact terms of that agreement will of course be influenced by our relationship with EASA. As I said, we are working with the FAA. We are updating our technical annexes to the 1995 UK-US aviation safety agreement, which predates and has a wider scope than the EU-level agreement, and will continue to do so. We look forward to welcoming the new boss of the FAA in the coming months and having constructive meetings with him.