Draft Operation of Air Services (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2018

Michael Fabricant Excerpts

Monday 19th November 2018 General Committees

[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Jesse Norman)]

I beg to move,

That the Committee has considered the draft Operation of Air Services (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2018.

May I say what a pleasure it is to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Christopher? Following the UK’s decision to leave the European Union after the referendum in 2016, the Government have been working to develop a positive future relationship with the EU, including a comprehensive and ambitious air transport agreement. The Department for Transport has undertaken a significant amount of work with respect to the withdrawal negotiations and to prepare for the range of potential outcomes. The best outcome, as we all recognise, is for the UK to leave with a deal. A draft withdrawal agreement that delivers on the referendum, brings back control and protects jobs is now being considered by the House.

[Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)]

May I tell the Minister how relieved I am to hear what he said? If I believed others, I would think that, once we left the European Union, planes could not fly into the UK, and planes from the UK could not fly to Europe. Do I take it that all that was a load of hogwash?

[Jesse Norman]

I cannot comment on the wisdom or otherwise of comments made at the time, but on 7 March this year the President of the European Council, Donald Tusk, said,

“I am determined to avoid that particularly absurd consequence of Brexit that is the disruption of flights between the UK and the EU.”

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Sheerman]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Christopher. My remarks will be brief, and I have been lucky to make so many interventions.

I am deeply worried about the whole process, and not only because I have spent many years involved in air safety. I know quite a lot about the industry and I have very good communications with it. The industry does not think that there will be—to quote the Minister—no impact on existing services. The industry thinks there will be a great deal of impact on existing services. It does not know precisely what because we are in limbo. Nobody knows what the Government are going to do, who the Prime Minister might be or what the Leader of the Opposition or the Opposition think about the current situation. In a sense, we are gambolling though at a fast rate.

I am a great admirer of the Minister’s style and intellect, but he is rushing this measure through with not one word from Back Benchers. Our job is to scrutinise legislation. That is at the very core of what a Member of Parliament should do. I am not sure that I know that people will be safe flying after we leave the European Union. I am not sure that we have the right relationships for investigating the standards and how we operate. I have not had any affirmation that there has been serious communication with the Irish Government. In aviation, we are closely entangled with the Irish and also the United States. Our biggest traffic is across the Atlantic to North and South America. Have there been discussions? As someone who is long versed in aviation safety, I do not believe that the process of scrutiny is good enough.

[Michael Fabricant]

If the hon. Gentleman does not agree with the manner in which we are scrutinising, is that not more an issue for the Procedure Committee than for this Committee? It seems to me that he is complaining more about how we conduct SIs, rather than the actual meat of this piece of legislation.