Aviation Security

Peter Bone Excerpts

Thursday 5th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr McLoughlin]

The answer to that is yes. Obviously, we are looking at security at all the airports where we have any concerns whatsoever, but the hon. Gentleman is absolutely right about the information and the warning from yesterday being specific to one airport. I very much hope that we can work with the Egyptian Government to make sure that the measures that would give us confidence about screening and the like are undertaken and that this advice will be removed as soon as possible.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

I refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

I am grateful to the Secretary of State for immediately coming to the House to explain the situation in great detail. The one thing we can be sure of is that the British travel industry is second to none in response to a crisis like this. It is also true to say that we would not be flying to a country if we were concerned about the security systems there, so this must have been a lapse in the security. People should be reassured by the fact that we would not allow our aircraft to fly into a country where the security was deemed to be poor. Does the Secretary of State agree?

[Mr McLoughlin]

Yes, I agree with my hon. Friend. As I said in answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Crawley (Henry Smith), I would like to thank the travel industry and the airline operators for the way in which they have responded in helping us to work out the solutions that we will be putting in place over the next few days and in the interim and then to look to the longer-term solutions, so that this airport can be regarded again as one where we can remove the current travel advice.