Civil Aviation Bill

Debate between Nigel Mills and Julie Hilling

Wednesday 25th April 2012 Commons Chamber

[Nigel Mills]

I had not planned to speak to the new clause and amendments, but I was tempted by the exchange on border services to relive some of our Committee debates.

I cannot support the shadow Minister’s amendments. I am not convinced that the licence dealing with the economic regulation of airports is the right place to impose conditions that ought to apply to every airport. I would hope that all airports operating in the UK would recognise that all these extremely sensible and worthy things were natural obligations that they ought to fulfil anyway, and that we should not need to legislate for them. If we do, though, we should legislate for them all, not just the one, two or three airports that happen to be economically regulated.

Clause 18, to which the amendments relate, allows—possibly even instructs—the Civil Aviation Authority to include conditions it thinks

“necessary or expedient having regard to the risk that the holder of the licence may engage in conduct that amounts to an abuse of…market power”.

If it was felt that an airport such as Heathrow was giving a particularly poor passenger welfare service because it could away get with it—because it has market power and people have to fly from there on certain routes—it would be perfectly fair for the CAA, recognising that risk, to impose conditions. We would all want the CAA to do that, if it saw those risks to any part of the passenger experience.

I want to touch on the experience of getting through passport control. Having been through four UK airports this week on Northern Ireland Select Committee duties, I was obviously spared having to go through passport control both in Northern Ireland and at Gatwick on Monday evening, so I have no recent miserable experiences to recount. However, this issue is becoming a reputational risk with people arriving in the UK on holiday or business, so we need to get it right. There is no particular magic to getting it right. The airports and the UK Border Force all have a role to play. As was said, it is a matter of getting resourcing to match the volume of passengers and flights, knowing when passengers are coming from jurisdictions that could make border control more complicated, and making available all the facilities that the Border Force needs, such as rooms near the passport checking station and so on. Airports could invest in electronic scanning devices as well. We need to encourage airports and the UKBF to work together pragmatically to make the service the best it can be.

The Minister asked why no amendments were tabled on this for Report stage. I moved one in Committee, of course, and I was tempted to bring it back on Report to get the wider view of the House, but I was not sure that the Whips would welcome my being tempted down that line. Nevertheless, we need to find a way of getting the UKBF to recognise its responsibility and to publish all the data on the length of queues by airport so that passengers and airports can know what the situation is likely to be. When the transparent data are made available, all involved will have the motivation to get those queues as short as possible by making the most effective use of the resources available.

[Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)]

It is interesting to follow the hon. Member for Amber Valley (Nigel Mills). He said that he could not support the Opposition’s amendments because airports should be doing these things anyway. If they were, we would not need the amendments, but because they are not, the amendments are important. That is particularly so for UK plc, given that, so often, the first and last impressions that overseas visitors get of the UK is of the airport.

[Nigel Mills]

For clarification, my point was that all airports should be doing this but that the amendments would apply the measure to only three UK airports.

[Julie Hilling]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his clarification. I absolutely agree that all airports should be doing it, but the Bill enables us at least to put the obligation on some; we would then hope that the others would follow. If airports want to attract business from passengers and other businesses, their standards need to be as high as those of the others. It is important, therefore, that we set down what we expect from our airports and airlines.

As we heard, the Transport Select Committee undertook the inquiry “Keeping the UK moving: The impact on transport of the winter weather in December 2010”—a very long title. That in-depth report looked into all elements of transport—not only aviation but the road network and how transport links together—and recommended that passenger welfare should be at the heart of airport operations. It also agreed with the recommendation of the Begg report that Heathrow and other airports should develop welfare plans for passengers during disruption. The report stated:

“Passenger welfare should be at the heart of airport operations. We concur with the recommendation of the Begg report that Heathrow should develop a welfare plan for passengers during periods of disruption: other airports should do the same. It is unacceptable that such plans do not already exist. If airlines fail to meet their obligations to accommodate stranded passengers, airports should be prepared to step into the breach. We would support measures by which airport operators could reclaim the costs of providing support to stranded passengers from airlines which had not discharged their legal responsibilities and we recommend that the CAA investigate how this can be achieved.”

The Government responded:

“However, the legal responsibility to provide care and assistance to passengers remains that of airlines. It is important that any initiatives to bolster the provision of passenger welfare during periods of disruption, for instance through passenger welfare plans, do not create any uncertainty in this area.”

The Committee welcomed the Bill, about which the Government response said:

“The CAA would have a new primary duty that would put the interests of passengers unambiguously at the heart of the regulatory regime.”

It is disappointing, then, that on Report we are still urging the Government to put in the Bill the obligation for airports to develop welfare plans.

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[Julie Hilling]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention because I absolutely agree with him. That is why I am very concerned that if cost is a driving force within security, airports may look to see how they can reduce costs rather than, as the hon. Gentleman says, continuing to be innovative. As he so rightly says, it is not enough to shut the stable door after the horse has bolted and say, “They got through there but we can stop them next time.” We have to stop them the first time—an incredibly difficult task.

[Nigel Mills]

Will the hon. Lady join me in welcoming the full body scanners that have been installed by Manchester airport? The evidence is that not only are they cheaper to run and much preferred by the passenger for being less intrusive—there is no need for the physical pat-down—but they maintain all the security features. That is the kind of security innovation that we would like to see, and it is a crying shame that there is a threat from the European Union that the use of those scanners will not be allowed to continue.

[Julie Hilling]

Clearly, the hon. Gentleman has already seen my speech. I shall go on to talk about Manchester airport.

We have heard about the profiling of potential offenders. I am concerned that people with brown skins are more likely than others to be pulled over for more rigorous security checks, and I am not yet convinced that that will not occur. We have seen what happened with stop and search on the streets. Will that be replicated in our airports? The percentage of black and minority ethnic people who are stopped and searched by the police is much higher than that for the white population, and the police can argue, as can any security service, that certain people are more likely to be involved in street crime and gang-related violence, but the result is the capturing of everybody of a certain colour or ethnicity, which can become very worrying.

My hon. Friend the Member for Feltham and Heston (Seema Malhotra), who is no longer in her place, spoke about the Sikh gentleman who was asked to remove his turban. We must ensure that people will not be targeted because of the way they look or because they come from a certain background. We need to ensure that people are treated the same and that people who meet certain criteria are the ones who are picked out.

Fuel Prices and the Cost of Living

Debate between Nigel Mills and Julie Hilling

Wednesday 16th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Nigel Mills]

I am grateful for that intervention—I think. The cost incurred in driving to and from work is clearly a factor when people are deciding whether work pays, which is why the increase planned for 1 April really should not go ahead.

Let me return to the topic of nudging. I think we all accept that tax can influence behaviour, and that if we further increase the tax on driving we will see the changes in behaviour that we would expect. People will drive to work less, and businesses will not be able to survive, prosper and grow because they will not be able to cope with the increased cost base. We can all cite small haulage businesses in our constituencies that are struggling to deal with the duty rise. As has been pointed out, reversing the VAT rise will not help those businesses at all; it is the level of duty that we need to consider. If the Government want to find another way of raising some revenue from the haulage industry to help compensate for the loss of fuel duty, I urge them to accelerate their plan to charge foreign road hauliers for using our roads.

[Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Nigel Mills]

I am afraid that I have already given way twice.

There is anecdotal evidence that foreign hauliers drive into our country with full tanks of petrol, which in many instances means that they can do all their work here without paying any fuel duty. We are making our haulage industry uncompetitive through the prices that we are charging hauliers to buy diesel in this country and the road taxes that they have to pay. Meanwhile, we are not charging foreign hauliers anything to use our roads. Let us collect that revenue as soon as possible, and use it to help support our own small businesses.

We have heard that, according to the review by the Office for Budget Responsibility, rising prices do not necessarily generate rising tax revenues. As was demonstrated by my hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Mr Walker), that is because of the damage that increasing fuel prices do to the overall health of the economy, which depresses tax revenues. The Government are looking for tax cuts to try to enhance growth. We have plans to reduce corporation tax, but we should consider the damage that fuel tax rises do to growth. There must be some scope for a reduction in fuel tax. Even if it were not revenue-neutral, it might make a positive contribution to the growth that we need if we are to tackle the deficit.

I cannot support this Labour motion. The fact is that we could not reverse the impact of the VAT rise, because that would be illegal. Even if we could try, it might take six years. I urge the Front-Bench team, and the Chancellor when he delivers his Budget next week, not to go ahead with that planned fuel rise. We need some sort of fuel duty balance, to try to ensure that the shock of oil price rises does not do the real, serious and predictable damage to our economy that it could, and we must also bear in mind that if the middle east situation worsens, the shock could become much more severe than at present. We could be faced with the real damage to jobs that those significant price hikes could do.

Identity Documents Bill

Debate between Nigel Mills and Julie Hilling

Wednesday 15th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[Nigel Mills (Amber Valley) (Con)]

It is a pleasure, as always, to follow the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe). I have done it so often he might want a restraining order at some stage.

I understand the argument for why the people who foolishly bought an ID card should get some compensation—[Interruption.] I am not saying I support that argument, but I can see its logic. However, I struggle to see the logic behind the arguments for new clauses 2 and 4, one of which would, if I am right, see the existing cards be valid for nearly another 10 years. The other would provide for a discount, at some point during those 10 years, if someone applied for a new passport. I struggle to see, however, how having ID cards that are still valid in nine years and nine months would give those holding them the advantages they sought when they paid for them. Where would those ID cards be accepted as a proven form of identity? What is the risk that people could forge them? Would people struggle to tell the difference, if they did? Would people be able to travel around the EU using an ID card instead of a passport? I struggle to see how that would happen, and it would open up the door to a manner of identity fraud different from what we already have, so I cannot vote to keep it in place for the next 10 years.

The idea of credit against a passport is a better one, but again we would have the problem of having to keep the data for all that period. We would also have the problem of how to process that data. I presume that the easiest way would be that, when a person applied for a passport, they would have to send in their ID card to prove that they actually had one in the first place. Again, however, how would we deal with people who had changed their names, lost their ID card or found it useless for eight years until their passport renewal came round and had to dig it out from the bottom of a drawer somewhere? There would also be the risk that people might try to create fraudulent cards, meaning that someone would have to go back to the original list of people with ID cards for proof. And how would we handle the fact that not everyone actually had paid for their card? I accept that the proposal provides for that, but it means that someone would need a record of who had paid for their card and who had got theirs free.

With respect, therefore, I cannot see how we can vote for either of the two solutions. There is no way I can vote for either. Given some of the concerns raised by Opposition Members about the legal issues involved in scrapping ID cards without compensation, I would be grateful if the Minister could repeat the assurance he gave us in Committee that the Government had received solid legal advice that it is legal and will not be overturned at huge cost to the taxpayer resulting from the court proceedings subsequent to this process.

[Julie Hilling]

Hon. Members on both sides have been extremely rude to constituents of mine who have written to me about how they bought an ID card in good faith. I assume that a lot of Members in the Chamber today were not part of the pilot programme in which constituents were able to buy ID cards. Had they been, perhaps they would also be speaking up on behalf of those constituents who bought ID cards but will not now get a refund. Those who have written to me are mainly pensioners and on a low income. They decided that they were only going to be travelling as far as Europe and that therefore an ID card was a good value alternative to paying the full amount for a full passport. These people are taxpayers.

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[Julie Hilling]

Especially in a marginal.

I have received letters from about a dozen people in my constituency, and as I say, they are on low incomes and are taxpayers. Each of them entered into a contract with their Government saying, “I will purchase an ID card, and for that I will have the benefit of travel within Europe and other benefits, such as proof of identity, for 10 years.” It is not unreasonable for those constituents to expect either to get their money back or to receive credit for it.

[Nigel Mills]

Will the hon. Lady confirm my understanding that those constituents will already have had a passport that they can use to travel to the same places?