Laser Misuse (Vehicles) Bill [Lords]

Rehman Chishti Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons & Programme motion: House of Commons
Wednesday 18th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)]

In answer to the point made by the shadow Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Middlesbrough (Andy McDonald), that this measure has been pushed by the Labour Opposition, I say that success has many fathers and failure has none. I refer him to my private Member’s Bill of 2016, on the regulation of sales, ownership and illegal use of laser pens. The Bill was intended to make

“the sale, ownership and use of portable laser emitting devices with output power of more than 1 milliwatt unlawful in certain circumstances; and for connected purposes.”

At that time, having looked at the matter since 2014, I was grateful to the then Lord Chancellor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove), and to my hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Mr Goodwill), whom it is a pleasure to follow today. During that time, he was a Transport Minister and then a Home Office Minister, and I had discussions with him about addressing the misuse of laser pens. More recently, I have had discussions with Business Ministers, because the issue of the misuse of lasers goes across the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, the Department for Transport and the Ministry of Defence. I have therefore spoken to and worked with a raft of Ministers to find a coherent strategy to address the misuse of laser pens.

[Mr John Hayes]

rose—

[Rehman Chishti]

Before I give way to my right hon. Friend, I want to say that I was also grateful to be able to make representations to him, to which I will refer later.

[Mr Hayes]

My hon. Friend did indeed make those representations, which helped shape Government thinking. To add to the list of Departments involved in this work, I know that he would not want to miss out the Home Office. The Home Office has been engaged in this matter because, sadly, there is the potential for terrorists to take advantage of these simple devices with catastrophic consequences.

[Rehman Chishti]

I am most grateful to my right hon. Friend, who is absolutely right. I did make representations to him and had discussions with Home Office Ministers. Lastly, I want to thank the current Secretary of State for Transport for the time he gave me and for fully taking on board my concerns.

I of course welcome what is proposed in the Bill. When certain individuals are recklessly misusing laser pens, we want to ensure that the legislation is clear so that the police and our Crown Prosecution Service can prosecute them, and the previous legislation, the Air Navigation Order 2009, did not provide that clarity. According to the Civil Aviation Authority’s figures, there were 20 recorded incidents in 2005 and 746 in 2009. In 2010, there were 1,500. In 2011, there were 1,912, and in 2012 the number was 1,571. If we compare that with the number of convictions under article 222 of the Air Navigation Order, we see that there were only 26 convictions from 1,500 recorded incidents in 2010. In 2011, when 1,912 incidents were recorded by the CAA, there were 48 convictions. In 2014, the number of convictions was 18, but there were 1,447 incidents. It is quite clear that the legislation to address, deter and bring to account those responsible for the misuse of lasers—those who take part in this reckless activity—did not have the necessary and desired effect.

The Bill, which will make the offence one of strict liability, meaning that the prosecution is not required to show intention, is absolutely right and proper. We need legislation to have the right deterrent effect, so the punishment needs to be commensurate with the seriousness of the office. Previously there was only a financial penalty, which was not the right way forward. Under the new measures, the penalties have been increased to include both financial penalties and a sentence of up to five years, which most certainly is the right way forward.

A body that has not been referred to yet is the parliamentary advisory council for transport safety, which wrote to me on 19 April 2016. Its letter reads:

“On behalf of the Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety (All-Party Parliamentary Group), I am writing with regards to your recent Private Member’s Bill on the use of laser pens.

Between 2009 and 2015, the Civil Aviation Authority recorded seventeen reports of laser pen attacks affecting air traffic control towers in the UK.”

That point is now being addressed in clause 2—clause 1 addresses the need for clarity in legislation by making the offence one of strict liability—and I am grateful that the Secretary of State has taken on board PACTS’s representations about infrastructure. It is a wonderful organisation and does excellent work to make transport safe for everyone.

Colleagues from across the House have referred to BALPA, which is an absolutely superb organisation. It wrote to me on 14 April 2016 and said:

“On behalf of Britain’s 10,000 airline pilots I am pleased to offer BALPA’s support to you in respect of your bill to regulate the sale, ownership and usage of laser pens.”

The letter goes on to make a point that many people out there will be familiar with, which needs to be made again. It states:

“The issue has become especially important in recent months with the attack on a Virgin Atlantic aircraft which resulted in the First Officer feeling unwell and having to return to base.”

We saw the reports in the media at the time. Any one of us could have been travelling on that plane, and we have citizens who use planes on a daily basis to travel between different parts of the world or internally within the United Kingdom.

For a long time, the legislation was not fit to address this menace, and it is right and proper that we see support coming from the Scottish National party, from Labour and from the Conservative party, all working together. At the end of the day, we all have a fundamental duty to protect our citizens. Safety in transport is absolutely vital, and the Bill helps to address that. On that point, I thank BALPA and our pilots for what they do. They are exposed to risks, but they still do a brilliant job. I cannot read out BALPA’s letter in full, but I am more than happy to share it with colleagues.

I am also grateful to London City Airport, which wrote to me on 18 October 2017 in support of the proposals to address the misuse of laser pens and with its own suggestions. One additional point that it raised was as follows:

“Another solution is to create a licensing system where an importer, retailer or consumer must obtain a licence especially for high-powered laser pointers. This will allow the Government to maintain a register of sellers and users. The licence can include a criteria relating to training or insurance, thus improving the users’ awareness of the safe use of laser pointers.”

Although this is not in the Bill, I am pleased that, following my representations to the Minister for Digital and the Creative Industries and other colleagues, in January the Government announced new measures to tackle the sale of unsafe laser pointers. My 2016 private Member’s Bill would have addressed the sale of laser pens over a certain output.

First, I welcome the Government’s announcement in January—no doubt the Minister will comment further on it—that they will strengthen safeguards to stop high-powered lasers entering the country, which is absolutely right and proper. As the hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Alan Brown) said, certain laser pointers of exceptionally high power have no legitimate purpose but are easily accessible in the United Kingdom and on the internet.

Secondly, the Government announced additional support to local authorities, ports and border teams to stop high-powered laser pointers entering the United Kingdom. Thirdly, they announced that they would work with manufacturers and retailers to improve laser pointer labelling. The Government have also looked at better policing of laser pointer sales by working with online sellers such as eBay. The problem is the same as with the purchasing of knives on the internet. We have to regulate the purchasing of laser pointers online.

Finally, the Government announced awareness raising of the risks associated with laser pointers, particularly among children, given that many do not know the dangers. We need to get the legislation right and, linked to that, we need to address the use of certain laser pens.

It would not be fair of me if I were not also to thank Heathrow Airport, which wrote to me on 4 October 2017 in support of my private Member’s Bill. The final paragraph of the letter said:

“We would welcome any improvements to the regulation governing the sale, ownership and use high powered laser pointers, such that only the legitimate sale, ownership and use of such devices is permitted. We would also support any improvements to the Air Navigation Order (2016) which make it easier for the police to enforce the legislation”.

That, to a certain extent, is covered by clause 1.

Finally, I refer back to the representations from London City Airport, and I hope the Minister will take this point forward. When I tried to obtain information on the number of incidents there had been, the difficulty I had in trying to find out the number of convictions under different categories of the Air Navigation Orders is that the Crown Prosecution Service does not keep a record of that. The numbers I gave earlier therefore related to article 222 of the Air Navigation Order 2009. The letter from London City Airport therefore said:

“However, I believe a more informed approach based on better data-sharing between the Metropolitan Police, the Government, CAA and…airports will bring transparency and clarity on the scale of the problem. This will allow the Government to implement solutions accordingly.”

That would ensure that all the different organisations were working together, and it would ensure transparency of the data that was available.

I have been looking at this matter since 2014 and—this is not often mentioned—I would not have been able to get a lot of the data, research and freedom of information requests if not for my brilliant researcher Barry Watts, who no longer works for me after four years in Parliament. He has now gone on to do other things, but the research we have is down to our brilliant researchers. I thank every colleague in Parliament, including some former Ministers who have spoken today, because whenever I met them, they were absolutely brilliant in understanding that very point.

We have talked about issues with regard to airports, aeroplanes, infrastructure and railways, but in 2016 the defence air safety occurrence report recorded 250 laser-related incidents in the UK in the past five years that put our amazing, wonderful military personnel, and their work, in danger. Concerns have been raised across the spectrum, and the Bill is the right way forward, but I also ask the Minister to look at how it works over the coming years. If the Bill needs to be reviewed, and if further measures need to be taken, I ask her to work with the organisations involved to see how things can be further improved.

I thank the Minister and her team for listening and for taking on board the representations that have been made to me.