Volcanic Ash (Impact on Aviation)

Margot James Excerpts

Thursday 10th June 2010 Westminster Hall

[Margot James (Stourbridge) (Con)]

I am pleased to follow my hon. Friend the Member for South Derbyshire (Heather Wheeler) in discussing the impact of the recent crisis. I represent Stourbridge in the west midlands, which—like every other town in the country, I dare say—is home to countless people who were inconvenienced or stuck abroad. The eruptions happened during the election campaign. I was due to attend the opening of a new building, including a ceremony and a whole day of events, at Old Swinford Hospital school, but it had to be cancelled because various teaching staff and governors were scattered around the globe.

Also—I will not say that this is worse—a couple of people from my election delivery team were detained in Dubai, along with about 10,000 or 15,000 other people, and were unable to return to the UK to help me to get elected. It was illuminating to see how many people are away at any one time. I was surprised to hear how many teaching staff were away on all sorts of educational trips, not necessarily with their students, in Australia and other parts of the world.

I will not repeat what my hon. Friend said about compensation and the need for transparency. I am sure that dealing with that is in the forefront of the Minister’s mind.

On the national impact, our airline industry is looking at £1 billion of losses, which is a serious matter. My local airport was not as badly affected as the one in South Derbyshire, but Birmingham airport suffered losses of £2 million. There is also the ongoing effect to consider. This week, I spoke to the chief executive of Birmingham airport, who informed me that things seemed to be back to normal with long-haul flights—people visiting relatives in far-flung parts of the world—business flights and short-haul, two-week summer holidays. However, short, weekend-break holidays, when people spontaneously think that they might go somewhere for the weekend because there is an offer on easyJet, still seem to be struggling. People are still nervous about whether they will get back in time for work or other commitments at the end of their weekend break. Therefore, we should not forget the impact on future airline business.

Obviously, we need to learn from the way the crisis was handled in April. There certainly seems to have been a lack of application of research on identifying safe thresholds for volcanic ash in the atmosphere. My right hon. Friend the Minister gave examples of near disasters that have occurred over the past 20 or 30 years, but they seem not to have created a sense of urgency about improving regulations. As a result, the only option left in April was to close all our airspace. Now that the Government are going to get a grip on the issue, I hope that that will not be our only option when an eruption occurs again, as I am sure one will.

Initially, the main criticisms were that the UK allowed its airspace to remain closed for at least 24 hours longer than the rest of Europe. There were also questions over the extent to which help was given to passengers stranded around the globe. My hon. Friend the Member for South Derbyshire mentioned people on the west coast of America whom this country and the former Government could have done more to help, and I am sure that that is true of people who were stranded in other parts of the world.

I have also heard criticism from people in the airline industry that there was a real lack of political leadership at the outset of the crisis. It took a full three days before leading members of the Government were on the airwaves giving a lead as to what actions should be taken. The first time they came on the airwaves, it was to talk about sending the fleet to Spain to collect people who were stranded there, which was not the sort of initial leadership that passengers and airlines were looking for. I am sure that our new Government will learn from the leadership issues that arose during the crisis.

Obviously, there has been no major volcanic explosion in Europe for several hundred years, so we cannot blame anybody too much for the fact that all the airspace had to be closed. If I have mentioned certain matters, however, it is because there were things that could have been done, despite the fact that nobody expected the crisis to hit.

In finishing the first part of my speech, I pay tribute to Willie Walsh, chief executive of British Airways. My right hon. Friend the Member for Gordon (Malcolm Bruce) said that most of us would not step into an aeroplane knowing the risks involved in flying into volcanic ash. Someone had to take the plunge and test a flight to see what the effects of ash in the atmosphere would be, and I greatly admire the chief executive of British Airways for leading from the front in that respect.

On the future, I hope that the research being done by easyJet will result in improvements to radar technology. I gather that the company is already testing its radar technology and believes that it will be good enough to predict ash clouds from about 60 miles away so that pilots will be able to fly around them. However, there is cause for a degree of caution about how far that will enable us to overcome the problem in the short term.

[Malcolm Bruce]

I want to reinforce that point. EasyJet should be commended for what it is doing, but does my hon. Friend agree that, if the technology is to make a viable contribution to a solution, it needs to be part of a regulatory arrangement, rather than the individual choice of one airline?

[Margot James]

I strongly agree with my right hon. Friend. It should be part of not only a UK, but an international regulatory solution. None the less, it is good to know that these technological developments are under way, although there is a fair way to go, even with the good work that easyJet has started. It is important that we understand the impact of not only denser ash clouds, but fragments and shards in the atmosphere. The key is to reach an understanding of what constitutes a safe level. I think that 2 mg per cubic metre is the accepted standard, but we need a greater evidence base to support that.

My right hon. Friend the Minister talked about the danger of the Katla volcano erupting. I gather from reading expert reports that it could have 100 times the impact of the previous volcanic eruption. Other experts—I am delighted that I now know that they are called vulcanologists, which sounds like something out of “Star Trek”, although I am sure that we will be hearing more from them in the future—predict that the Icelandic volcanic system will enter an active phase in the 2030s, so it is timely that the Government are starting to add weight to the priority of the issue.

The events that we are discussing have been a salutary experience for everyone who has been caught up in them. We in the west somehow think that we have conquered nature in many respects in our daily lives, but recent events are a timely reminder that nature is still very much in charge.

I would also emphasise the fact that nobody—no Government, no regulatory body, no industry—can predict and plan for everything. The Government are absolutely on the right path in looking for a regulatory solution and working with the industry, and I am sure that we will get there, but there is no perfect solution. I have spent most of my working life in the pharmaceutical industry, and there is no such thing as a medicine without a risk, just as there will never be such a thing as a flight without a risk. We have to accept that there will always be a risk, but we have to reduce it to manageable levels. We should opt not for the no-fly solution that we were all panicked into, but for a more manageable level of risk reduction.

New politics means different things to different people. To me, it is important that we understand that there are limits to what Governments can do, so we should not be too quick to blame the previous Government for the problems that I have tried to do justice to this afternoon. We should not expect too much or a perfect solution from this Government or any future Government.

I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Minister and her team will do their very best to move the situation on so that the airline industry and passengers are not once again brought to a halt and dramatically inconvenienced in the way that they were, and so that we manage the risk of taking to the air. However, nothing can ever be perfect.