Oral Answers to Questions

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Thursday 8th February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Huw Merriman]

I welcome my hon. Friend’s campaign for the Ely junction capacity enhancement scheme, which is one of the schemes referenced in the Prime Minister’s Network North plan. Network Rail has developed the scheme to outline business case stage, and next steps will involve further investment case development and delivery planning. I am keen to see it delivered, because it will deliver for rail freight.

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

[The Secretary of State for Transport (Mr Mark Harper)]

This week, the Government showed once again that we are on the side of Britain’s drivers. New measures from our plan for drivers will make it simpler to charge electric cars, with schools and colleges receiving grants to boost charging and the release of the first payments from our £381 million levy fund. We are also consulting on speeding up charge point installation.

We have a plan to decarbonise transport that is working. The Labour party is in disarray. Its leader, the right hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer), would ditch Labour’s flagship spending promise, despite only committing to it on Tuesday. The hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Louise Haigh) must feel uncomfortable, having said weeks ago that it was very important. It is not the first time that she has been in that position. She said a month ago that cancelling phase two of HS2 would make transport worse; the very same day, the leader of the Labour party overruled her and agreed with the Prime Minister’s plan. Labour has no plan, no direction, no clue—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Just a second, Secretary of State. You know that you have no responsibility for the Opposition, and I am sure that you would not want to take it on as part of your portfolio. I need to get through topical questions.

[Tim Loughton]

I am pleased to hear about the Secretary of State’s plans, but does he have a plan to deal with some of the apparent traffic jams in responding to consultations on private Members’ legislation in his Department? In 2020, the consultation on pavement parking closed. Pavement parking causes huge problems for guide dogs, wheelchair users and everybody else. When will we have a response to that? On the Parking (Code of Practice) Act 2019, introduced by my right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire (Sir Greg Knight), when will we see the plans to cut down on cowboy parking enforcement companies? When will that traffic jam be eased?

[Mr Harper]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising those issues. We will come out with a response on pavement parking very shortly. I cannot give him a specific date. On roadworks generally, we will consult on plans to improve the measures that stop utility companies causing roadworks to overrun, putting more pressure on them to ensure that our roads can keep moving, to support drivers.

Flying Schools

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Tuesday 12th September 2023 Westminster Hall

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered flying schools.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Robert. I am grateful to colleagues who have come along to contribute. On the face of it, this is quite a niche subject, but it has implications beyond constituencies, such as mine, that contain flying schools.

My interest is primarily because of Shoreham airport in my constituency—Shoreham airport, not Brighton City airport as it was somehow re-christened at some stage. It is the oldest commercial airport in the United Kingdom, founded in 1910, and the oldest purpose-built airport in the world still in operation. It mostly operates leisure flights. It has an art deco terminal building, often used for films and by air-related businesses. It encompasses helicopter training and fixed-wing pilot training.

Shoreham was known for its air show until the tragic air crash of 2015, in which 11 men sadly lost their lives and which I have raised before in the House. It was the end of what had been a very successful air show over the previous 28 years. Shoreham has had a flying school there since 1913, most recently operated by Flying Time Aviation Ltd, which was founded in 2006 but ceased trading in May this year. At its height, Shoreham was responsible for something like 6% or 7% of all the pilot licences granted in the United Kingdom. It was a very important place for people learning to fly.

As I said, my interest goes beyond Shoreham airport and my constituency. There are implications in what has happened there and elsewhere for the future of integrated flying schools across the country and the future capacity of the United Kingdom to train pilots sufficiently. No fewer than three major flying schools have gone bust in the last 10 months alone. The first, back in May, was the FTA flying school in Shoreham, which employed more than 12 instructors and had 160 students, typically paying up to £90,000 for a full pilot training course.

In November last year, Bournemouth Commercial Flight Training, the flying school at Bournemouth airport, founded in 2002, ceased trading. Tayside Aviation, based at Dundee airport—I am very pleased to see the hon. Member for Dundee West (Chris Law) here—founded in 1968, ceased trading in April 2023, just before Shoreham. It was a large training school, employing around 45 instructors, with 140 students. It offered pilot training for RAF pilots as well. This is a national issue. It is not just about Shoreham airport, which otherwise is a perfectly well-run airport.

Looking at the figures, we can see the looming problem. Back in 2015, around 2,500 commercial pilot licences were issued in this country. The prediction for this year is down to 500. We are losing a lot of capacity, and those three flying schools alone are responsible for a large chunk of that capacity. Hundreds of students are finding themselves seriously out of pocket because their flying school has gone down either before they started their course, having paid their fees up front, or mid-way through the course.

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

One of my constituents is affected by this issue. He paid significant fees up front for flight training, and that money has seemingly been lost. It is an issue that the Department for Transport needs to address. More broadly, as my hon. Friend rightly points out, the aviation industry, which is central to this country’s trade and connectivity, will start to suffer if the problem is not properly fixed.

[Tim Loughton]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend and near neighbour from Crawley who represents Gatwick airport. I know he can with us today only briefly due to a sitting of the Foreign Affairs Committee. One of his constituents contacted me, along with many other people from other constituencies who had relatives or were themselves being trained at Shoreham airport, then found themselves out of pocket with very serious financial implications. I will come on to what we need to do about that. It certainly has implications for capacity in the airline industry in the UK. If anybody knows about that issue, it is my hon. Friend, who represents one of the largest airports in the country. There is an angle whereby some of the commercial airlines may be able to help.

I am going to read out correspondence from some of those affected by Shoreham who contacted me. I invited a number of them to come and meet me in my constituency; we had a roundtable to hear some of their experiences and plan a way forward. It is my fault if Members have been contacted, because I encouraged people to contact their MPs to tell them about their experiences. That way we could get as many hon. Members as possible to put pressure on the transport authorities and others to look at the immediate problem, as well as address the longer-term implications and the weaknesses in the system.

I have also been working with the British Airline Pilots’ Association, which has been lobbying the Government for changes in the regulation of flight training schools, particularly to protect students who have made a big financial commitment and are, for all intents and purposes, completely unprotected. That is unlike the situation if they were at a university paying fees, or had other financial investments or obligations, which would be covered under Financial Conduct Authority provisions. The point I am making is that if someone is on a pilot training course, it is little different from any other form of tertiary education, yet it is treated completely differently from training on other expensive courses, such training courses for medics and lawyers. Pilot training is one of the most expensive training courses.

One potential protection that has been suggested, not least by the Minister and the Civil Aviation Authority, is that someone paying their fee could do so by credit card. The trouble is, many of the flying schools do not take credit cards. If someone has to pay £90,000 up front, not many people have got a limit on their credit cards that would allow them to pay it in one sum. That is not a facility that is open or practical for many potential students.

I wrote to the noble Baroness Vere in the Lords, who is the Minister responsible for aviation. I am grateful to the Minister of State, Department for Transport, my right hon. Friend the Member for Hereford and South Herefordshire (Jesse Norman), for covering her position today. I am afraid that it took some months and a bit of chasing to secure a meeting, but I am glad to say we have now secured one for a few weeks’ time, and I will be taking a delegation along with representatives from BALPA to see Baroness Vere.

A statement from the BALPA interim general secretary, Miranda Rackley, rightly noted that there is no public funding for pilot training:

“Flight schools going bust is financially devastating to hard-working students who deserve to have their money better protected from flight school failures. Pilot training is amongst the most expensive training of all professions, and unlike other careers such as law and medicine, there is no student funding available…Many trainees resort to family support to fund their training, such as remortgaging family houses. Government needs to step up and protect students that are so vital to the future of the UK aviation industry.”

BALPA has given a number of examples, and I have some direct examples too. A couple from Worthing, in my constituency, had to raise £90,000 for their daughter to train as an airline pilot. The 19-year-old signed up with FTA at Shoreham, and had to make a downpayment of £10,000 and pay a further £4,500 each month. In late May the school went out of business, which left her parents with losses of £45,000. That is a lot of money.

I can give other examples. Somebody wrote to me to say that their son

“was extremely keen on training to work for an airline. Because of that I remortgaged my house to fund him and almost paid for entire lessons in advance. Now I have no money left to support him financially for his dream job, and I am stuck in a predicament in how to move forward with my son’s education”.

Somebody from East Sussex said:

“My son was a student pilot at FTA in Shoreham, which has gone into liquidation. We have lost over £80,000.”

Somebody from London said:

“I paid a deposit to start training with them”

—Flying Time Limited—

“due to Covid and the changing of the schools schedule they were not able to provide lessons. When I asked for a refund they said they will get back to me and a week later they sent an email informing me the school is closing. It’s extremely sad and I’m not sure what to do or where to start as I want to continue with lessons.”

A constituent said:

“I have now been offered a place at one of the big ATO’s to continue my flight training as the FTA Global syllabus has been approved by the CAA and my training records have been reviewed by the training team at the ATO. So I am now in a situation that I am out of pocket”

—but could be transferred elsewhere—

“and the only way to get back into training without significant time off (due to being recent on training) is by gaining some sort of financial assistance. There is also a time frame I would need to start the training hence why us students would really need assistance from the government.”

There is a particularly poignant one from a Newcastle resident, who said that

“we have lost £50,313 that we had paid into my son’s training. Since a very young age all my son wanted to do was to be a pilot. He is unable to go into the RAF as he has corrected vision…and so we focused on the commercial training route. I have worked for the NHS for the last 27 years and you can imagine we are not rich people. We are hardworking and will give anything we can to enable my son to become a pilot. My husband…used some of his pension money to help…pay the school fees…It is astounding to realise that someone can pay in so much money for their education only to lose it all and that there is no route for any recompense.”

Their son

“will no longer be able to become a pilot as we cannot financially afford to fund a full course again. The failure of FTA has devastated my son and he no longer knows how to move forward in any career path.”

Here is another one from Uxbridge:

“I am a pilot student who was learning an integrated course at Flying Time Aviation limited in Shoreham-by-Sea. The course cost around £78,140, excluding the accommodation and cost of living”

On top of the fees, students have to fund living away from home and their general living expenses as well, which are not taken into consideration. The letter continued:

“The payment was made in 12 monthly instalments after paying an initial deposit of £14,190. On May 22nd, I received an email from the director of FTA informing us about the closure of FTA. I had assumed that the company would have the decency to give back what they owed to the students... However, it was made clear that no refunds would be made at all at the meeting held the next day. This has not only left me but more than 170 students in debt…I received an email last week from the liquidation company, which shows that the company owes me £65,500…however, with the company being extremely in debt, the chances of me and the rest of the fellow students receiving their money back are slim to none…we were only informed about the severity of this situation on the day they ceased trading.”

Finally, somebody from Kent said:

“I am one of the many who have been affected by this closure and have lost considerable amount of money and time—roughly £16,000 and only up until June to finish my flight training”.

There is a time consideration as well. People have 18 months under CAA regulations from the start of their course to the end and the examinations to complete that course. If people have started the course and cannot find or fund an alternative, they are right back where they started and that money has gone completely to waste.

I have taken up the case with Baroness Vere and the CAA, and they have both written back to me. The problem is that the CAA has oversight only of safety considerations and the quality of pilot training for flying schools, and has nothing to do with the finances or their sustainability, but surely the two are linked. There is growing evidence that the cash-flow problems that flying schools have had were leading to corners being cut, which could lead to compromised levels of safety, so financial sustainability is an important consideration in ensuring that flying training schools offer the full, safe and regulated pilots course that those students pay for.

Why do flying schools find themselves in this parlous situation? There are a number of reasons. First, they were hit hard by the pandemic. There was some support for them from the Government, but clearly flying training was not a priority at that time; indeed, much of it stopped for quite a long period. Secondly, flying schools are very dependent on fuel prices, which have rocketed because of events in Ukraine. The third consideration is that, perhaps uniquely in Europe, flying training courses in this country are subject to VAT, which is a large premium on top of already large fees. That does not happen in most if not all other European countries, where flying training is quite rightly treated as being educational, so is not subject to VAT.

I would like the Minister to comment on that last point. Does he think that flying training is a form of education and training, which the Government quite rightly encourage? If so, can he say why it is being treated as just any other sort of consumer item on which people are liable to pay VAT? That does not seem right.

There is also a Brexit element, which I am sure will greatly encourage the hon. Member for Dundee West. That is because previously flying training schools would only pay regulation fees to the CAA, but now, in some cases, if students have European pilots’ licences they will also pay fees to the European Union Aviation Safety Agency, or EASA. However, there is a Brexit bonus for pilots, which you, Sir Robert, will be glad to hear. Now that the UK has left the European aviation system, pilots are able to hold both a UK licence and a European licence, which was not possible previously under European regulations.

As a result of all these factors, many flying schools have had cash-flow problems, leading to claims that they have been demanding money up-front from students in order to keep themselves afloat. In the case of the FTA at Shoreham, it is claimed that it now has debts in excess of £5.5 million, including a £1-million debt to His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, much of which will be accounted for by VAT liability. However, the FTA’s planes are all mortgaged and it has precious few assets, so it is highly unlikely that there will be anything left for the students who paid up-front or who are partway through their course; they will have to find a new flying school to transfer to, if they can afford to raise the necessary funds to do so.

As I have said, there is the added complication that this issue is time-limited, which is where I think the CAA has a far greater role to play. There are concerns that the CAA has not been as proactive as it might have been in trying to find solutions for some of the students at FTA, including reconsidering the way that exams are held and considering whether there can be any flexibility in that regard, particularly for those people whose course was delayed because of the pandemic; earlier, I cited the case of one such student.

There are also serious questions to be asked of the owners of FTA, who apparently were in touch with the potential receivers back in January, and there was also a reorganisation of debt liabilities to a new company, even though FTA was still taking up-front fees from students virtually up to the day on which it went under. As I have said, those students are not covered by basic Financial Conduct Authority protections, and the advice from the CAA and Ministers has been that they should pay with a credit card which, as I have also said, is not very practical. Consequently, those students are not covered by the protections in section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act 1974 that other credit card purchases would attract. The FTA flying school in Shoreham was a key academy, offering a European flying licence, and it looked like one of the safer and more sustainable flying schools. Consequently, its closure has shocked the industry and clearly other flying schools remain vulnerable.

When I wrote to the Minister, Baroness Vere, her response, as I have said, was that

“the extent of the CAA’s regulatory oversight of flight training organisations is limited to ensuring each organisation complies with specified safety requirements, including suitable training to an agreed safety standard.

The CAA has no direct regulatory oversight of the financial health of a flight training organisation or of the individuals operating within that business, and any proposals to grant these powers to the CAA would first require the Department to consider amending existing legislation, through its rule-making programme, to introduce such powers. In this regard, any changes to the scope of the CAA’s role and functions would likely require a process of developing and consulting on new draft regulations, new regulatory guidance, training for CAA inspectors and the establishment of a framework for regulatory oversight and insurance of the initial and ongoing financial resilience of flight training organisations.”

Right—let’s do it, because, as I have said, all of that will be needed before long if we are still to have a flying school business left in this country in the future.

BALPA contends that the CAA has a statutory responsibility, under retained EU law, to operate an ongoing oversight programme for UK-approved flight schools, which includes requiring “evidence of sufficient funding”. BALPA does not believe that, to date, the CAA has discharged that responsibility diligently or at all, and I agree. There is a financial oversight aspect of the CAA’s regulatory role. Clearly, demanding fees up front to keep operations afloat does not smack of flying schools having sufficient funding. The CAA needs to step up and step in.

BALPA has been working with students to introduce protections to avoid some of the disastrous financial consequences that have befallen students at Bournemouth, Shoreham and Dundee. Specifically, it has brought in its finance fairness charter, under which it asks that, as dedicated approved training organisations, flight schools

“commit to a fundamental principle of not accepting advance payments or deposits from cadets that exceed”

a certain amount

“for training services. This financial limit aims to assure cadets while promoting fiscal responsibility.”

Additionally, it asks that ATOs

“pledge to furnish cadets with comprehensive information regarding payment alternatives if available, further underscoring transparency in line with these commitments”

and

“pledge to extend the convenience of payment by credit card without imposing any undue surcharge providing the cadet with additional consumer protection.”

The BALPA charter adds:

“Transparency is paramount. ATOs undertake the commitment to furnish cadets with accessible information pertaining to their training programs, associated costs, payment protocols, refund mechanisms, and all pertinent terms and conditions.”

That seems perfectly sensible to me, and I hope the Minister will consider taking it up with the CAA. One person who has been caught up in all this wrote to me, referring to the

“seemingly disinterested attitude the CAA has taken towards investigation of misuse of Student monies”,

with the CAA just rolling out the excuse that that does not come its remit, when many of us think that it does.

“For many pilot hopefuls,” BALPA says,

“the costs involved in attaining the necessary qualifications have meant going to extreme measures to secure the funding required, including re-mortgaging family homes”—

I have given examples of that—

“taking out multiple un-secured loans, maximising limits on credit cards and/or borrowing sums of money from family, far exceeding any normal student borrowing.”

It adds:

“In the UK, a trainee professional pilot is not viewed in the same way as a student in any other field or profession. In 99% of cases in the UK, a trainee professional pilot does not even qualify for student status.

For too long, trainee pilots have been viewed and treated as customers. They are students in education, investing in their futures and they are the future of the UK’s aviation industry.”

I wholly agree.

There is another issue, which I referred to briefly: VAT. Interestingly, this point was raised by the now Defence Secretary in a question to the Chancellor of the Exchequer in June 2018, when he was on the Back Benches. He asked the Chancellor,

“with reference to Strategic Review of General Aviation, published by the Civil Aviation Authority in July 2006, whether his Department has conducted a review of whether the current VAT treatment applied to flight training places UK flying schools at a competitive disadvantage to those based in other countries; and if he will make a statement.”

The Treasury replied:

“The government does not hold information on tax revenues that can be broken down to assess the impact of tax on flight training.”

This is not a new issue and many senior colleagues have raised it in the past. I cannot stress enough the financial impact that these closures have had on students who have saved or begged families hard to train as pilots to fulfil their dreams. Why do we not treat flying schools like any other places teaching students in tertiary education, rather than treating students as consumers of a product that happens to be a training course? Why is flight training subject to VAT in this country, unlike anywhere else in Europe?

Having said that, the consequences of the recent closures go far beyond the implications for individual students who find themselves severely out of pocket and need protections. BALPA says that we also need new protections to help secure the training pipeline of commercial pilots to aid forward planning for airlines. We need those new protections to prevent the loss of foreign investment from airlines investing in the UK’s highly experienced flight training industry. We used to be the pride of the world and many foreign pilots would come here for their training. We need new protections to support smaller airfields across the country that support thousands of skilled jobs, including flight instructors, engineers and air traffic controllers.

Today, I received a note from Airlines UK, which makes some interesting observations. Of the 15,295 holders of CAA-issued commercial pilot licences aged between 18 and 64, only 2,954 are under 30, while 3,500 are between 51 and 64. We have an ageing population of pilots who are already trained and working. In the last decade, the total number of UK commercial pilot licence holders fell by 10% and the number under the age of 30 fell by 4%. Airlines UK therefore supports many of the proposals made by BALPA, including that we should remove

“VAT from pilot and air traffic control officer training”;

that we should

“enable student and/or other self-funded options to be used for courses to qualify as a pilot”;

and that there should be an update of the apprenticeship levy

“to enable employers to overcome existing barriers to use apprenticeship funding for pilot and ATCO training.”

We should bring together people from the Department for Education, the Department for Transport and the Treasury, BALPA, and the rest of the airline industry, which plays a role because it is the beneficiary of pilot training—the bigger airlines do not tend to pay for some of this training, but I think they have a role too—to find an immediate solution for those prospective pilots left severely out of pocket, and to introduce financial protections to ensure that that is highly unlikely to happen again, and to ensure that there is oversight of financial sustainability and that the CAA, or an alternative body, can regulate the future of flight training schools.

Without that, we will have an awful lot of students who find themselves at a loose end, unable to fulfil their dreams of becoming the pilots that this country desperately needs. There will also a big confidence issue for pilot training in the United Kingdom. Other countries send their students to this country to train, but people from our own country who want to train as pilots will not be able to do so in the United Kingdom, either because of a lack of capacity or because it is too risky, so they will go abroad and decide to stay and work there, and we will lose them.

There is a severe risk to the UK airline industry unless this situation is sorted out urgently, and that is my ask of the Minister and his colleagues. This issue has big implications for the flying industry in the United Kingdom and a big implication for a lot of the students represented by hon. Members here today. It cannot be ignored any more. I hope that in our forthcoming meeting with the Minister she will be able to progress some urgently needed solutions to the problem.

--- Later in debate ---

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

It is a delight to see you in the Chair, Sir Robert. I thank everyone who has spoken in the debate, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Mike Kane) on retaining his place in the shadow Transport team. It has been an interesting debate, and I am grateful to colleagues for their contributions. Aviation is a very important sector and is a matter of local importance in the constituencies involved.

Let me start by reiterating the apology that my noble Friend Baroness Vere gave to my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton). I know that she and he are to meet in a matter of days, and I look forward to that being a constructive and engaging conversation. I am delighted to respond to his concerns in this debate. As he will know, the Government regard the aviation sector as an important strategic asset. It contributes at least £14 billion to our GDP every year and supports some 230,000 jobs across all regions of the country. We recognise the sector’s importance both geographically and economically.

It is important to focus, as hon. Friends have done, on the dire impact of training operators’ failures on the students involved. There is a tremendous human cost, which has been brought out well during this debate. I have a particular sense of identification with it because I have a pilot’s licence myself, although tragically it has long since fallen out of use. It was paid for not by the bank of mum and dad but out of my own earnings, in case Opposition Members were wondering. I am the son of a pilot, the brother of pilots, the nephew of a pilot and the grandson of a pilot, so I have a very considerable personal understanding of the issues involved, as well as the ambition, inspiration and joy that flight gives young men and women across this country, as it has done for generations. I fully recognise the point that the hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East made about the increasing importance of a relentless focus on improving diversity in the sector. He is absolutely right about that, in every dimension.

Having said that, what we have here, as far as I can tell, is the disorderly liquidation of three local aviation training operators. That carries with it tremendous disruption and difficulty, and it exacerbates the impact because an individual can literally turn up one day or—as colleagues’ constituents have done—receive an email saying that the institution to which they have confided their hopes, their dreams and a lot of money has gone, completely unexpectedly and without any notice, into liquidation. They may, and in many cases will, receive back none of the money that they have already contributed.

When we think about the wider picture, however, it is important to put things into perspective. May I offer the Chamber a correction to a number that has been used? In 2023—I am advised by civil servants that this is true—there were 11,675 applications for training across all licences in aviation. We are talking about terrible local impacts on a relatively small number of people so far and three failures of ATOs among some 270 registered flight schools across the UK. That is not to derogate for a second from the tremendous importance and extreme sadness and in some cases grief that has been inflicted; it is only to say that making general rules on the basis of a relatively small portion of the whole sector is something that one needs to bear in mind. When we think about the enormous sums that have been lost in some cases, we are talking about people who are in commercial licences at the very top of the pyramid and are therefore as close as one could be to potential long-term gainful employment.

I will come on later to what the CAA is doing and the suggestions that have been made, but let me just pick up on a couple of points that, rightly and importantly, have been made by my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham. He is right that the pandemic had a difficult impact on the aviation industry generally and on the training sector. As he will recall, the Government made every effort, at considerable cost to the taxpayer, to support institutions, companies and individuals throughout the air transport sector. That amounted to something like £8 billion of pandemic-related support and included support through loan guarantees; support for exporters; the Bank of England’s covid corporate financing facility; the coronavirus job retention scheme, for which I was responsible; the Treasury’s furlough scheme; and the airport and ground operations support scheme. A tremendous amount of specific support for the sector was given during what was a completely unexpected and dramatic change in our business, social, personal and economic arrangements. My hon. Friend is absolutely right to focus on that; he is also right that fuel prices have gone up, which will have had the effect of driving prices upwards.

However, as a former Financial Secretary to the Treasury, I do not share my hon. Friend’s view that a cut to VAT would be the answer to the problem. There is a very simple reason for that. There are many cases of sectors in the UK economy that have called for VAT cuts. In a very small number of cases, because VAT is by design a broad-based tax, reductions have been made to levels of VAT. Very often, they have not been passed on as any kind of saving to the end user; they have gone to support the margins of the company. In the training operator business there may be some value in that, but it is the normal course of things that in a competitive private sector industry there will inevitably be organisations that for various reasons do not manage themselves effectively, or go bust for other reasons.

[Tim Loughton]

I am slightly disappointed by the Minister’s comment. This is not a huge mass industry; it is not beyond the wit of a regulator or of the Treasury to ensure that VAT savings are directly passed on, or else the companies would not be eligible. Even if the Minister will not consider this for the future, does he not think that there is a moral case for students who have lost their fees and are severely out of pocket at least to be refunded the VAT element that they paid, which has gone or may still go to the Treasury for a service that they have not received?

[Jesse Norman]

I am not making policy from where I stand; I was speaking as a former Treasury Minister about the general attitude towards VAT and the general problem that no Government of any stamp can compel a private company to pass a saving on to consumers. Indeed, whether or not savings are passed on is itself a function of the competitive conditions in the sector. I will come on to what the CAA can do later in my remarks, but although I understand my hon. Friend’s concern about the cost of VAT, let me remind him that the taxpayer will be a significant loser from the failure of these companies. I recognise a certain strength in his point about individual students being recognised; if he wishes to raise that point with the Treasury or with Baroness Vere, he is very welcome to do so. However, the general policy, as far as I am aware, is the one that I have enunciated for the Government.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tim Loughton]

I will not take up too much more of the Chamber’s time, because I spoke fairly extensively to start with, but I would certainly like to thank hon. colleagues who have brought to bear their own experiences and those of their families, particularly from the Northern Ireland angle, and from Dundee and the large and important training school that the hon. Member for Dundee West (Chris Law) spoke about in detail.

As I started by saying, this is not a localised issue; it is a UK-wide issue, and we have had three parts of the United Kingdom represented in contributions today, for which I am grateful. But I must say that I am disappointed by the Minister’s response. I fear that he spoke rather more with a Treasury hat on than with his more recent Transport Minister’s hat on. He does seem to be in a state of denial about a very real and serious problem, which is recognised by the industry. He just does not seem to acknowledge that flying schools are in a state of decline and the number of pilots that they have the capacity to produce is substantially declining.

I quoted, again at the outset, that around 2,500 pilot licences were granted in 2015, whereas this year, they are anticipated to be one fifth of that, at 500. That is not a healthy, vibrant business as it stands.

[Jesse Norman]

I do not think that that number is correct. Let me put that on the record.

[Tim Loughton]

Okay, well, those are the figures that have been provided by those in the industry. The three flying training schools that have gone under produced many hundreds of pilots a year. That represented a substantial part of the capacity within the United Kingdom. Therefore, I am afraid that this is not a localised problem, involving just a few individual schools. There are serious fears for the sustainability of many of the surviving large schools in particular.

I will not rerun all of the issues that we came up with earlier, but there are serious problems that I hope we will be able to air in more detail when we meet the Minister about the immediate problem of the hundreds of students who find themselves without a course, without the funds to find an alternative course, and without an awful lot from the CAA. I am afraid that that has been the experience, hence the request for the CAA to step up and step in rather more proactively than it has. We need an acknowledgment that students who pay fees up front are vulnerable to the flying schools going out of business, and are without the protections we take for granted when we buy goods and services or embark on educational courses elsewhere. Again, I take issue with the Minister’s challenging that this is some form of education. The clue is in the title: these are flying schools, which are training people, in the air rather than on the ground, to provide a vital public service on which this country relies.

It is not just the training schools and their immediate employees that will be suffering. It is the local economies—the economies of smaller regional airports that rely on the flying training schools for a great deal of their revenue, from touchdown fees or the purchase of kerosene. That is often the most profitable part of the business of those small airports and crucial to their survival, not least my own in Shoreham.

Contrary to what the Minister says, the implications go beyond just the three individual cases of flying training schools that have gone under in the last 10 months. I am grateful that we have had this airing of an issue that has not had a great deal of publicity but which has a great many implications, well beyond the constituencies represented today and the three specific training schools I have mentioned. I hope we can take those points further when we meet the noble Baroness, which I think is next week. I will be happy if any colleagues here wish to join me in that delegation along with BALPA. I am grateful for the time in the Chamber.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered flying schools.

Rail Ticket Offices

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Thursday 6th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Huw Merriman]

It is because we want to give that better customer experience, so that more passengers are seeing more staff at the stations to help them with information, make them feel more secure and welcome, help them purchase a ticket, and do so in a manner where those passengers are used to transacting across the space. I very much hope the hon. Lady will see a better staff experience as a result and therefore even more people will be attracted on to rail.

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is a good Minister and a good friend, but I think even he knows he has a tough gig this morning. To use his Beatles analogy, can he not just let it be? I queue up at my ticket office every Monday morning. There is always a queue of people wanting route advice, people with disabilities who cannot use the machines and people wanting refunds. I have to queue because I have an open flexible ticket, as many Members do, that I cannot get from the machine. Will roving members of staff be subject to statutory regulation? At the moment, ticket office staff are the only staff subject to statutory regulation, so I might not even be able to find a roving member of staff to take me to the machine, to request a ticket that the machine will not give me. It is not going to work, is it?

[Huw Merriman]

The Beatles analogy rather flew past me, I am afraid. Let me repeat the statistic to my hon. Friend: 99% of all tickets can be purchased from a ticket machine or online. In terms of the 1% we need to work on, I have asked the industry and officials to speed up the process, so that more tickets can be purchased in that manner and ticket machines can be changed so that that can occur. I seek to work with my hon. Friend to convince him that that is the right approach.

As the former Chair of the Transport Committee and having spent all my time on transport since I became a Member, I would not be making this statement if I did not believe this was the right thing for the railway and for passengers. That matters to me hugely. I am not a stooge; I do this because I think this is the right thing to do, it will create a better passenger experience and it guarantees our future in rail.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Thursday 30th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Trudy Harrison]

The hon. Member is absolutely correct. The 30 e-scooter trials have been hugely successful across England and will inform how we legislate, but let me assure her, and thank her for the opportunity to say, that we will share our data. We will publish it and the findings, and we will of course work with the Administrations across Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland.

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

7. What recent progress has been made on developing options for the upgrade of the A27 between Shoreham and Worthing.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Robert Courts)]

National Highways is currently finalising option proposals for the A27 upgrade scheme. We expect that the proposals will be put to public consultation later this year.

[Tim Loughton]

The Minister will be aware that the A27 between Worthing and Shoreham is so congested that at times it resembles the biggest car park in the south-east of England. Last week, National Highways produced a summary of all the failed suggestions it has come up with. At the same time, Transport for the South East came up with much more imaginative proposals, including tunnelling options at some pinch point junctions, which many of us have been suggesting for the past 25 years. What do we need to do to get Transport for the South East’s proposals translated into action, after waiting decades for these improvements?

[Robert Courts]

I thank my hon. Friend for the powerful points he has made. The Department is very aware of the draft report by Transport for the South East, and I thank it for that report. The proposals are being considered carefully and looked at closely by the Department, and I know that the Roads Minister will respond in detail in due course.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Thursday 3rd February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Wendy Morton]

We absolutely do take passengers—[Laughter.] We absolutely do take passengers very, very seriously. I assure the hon. Gentleman of that, and I am not taking any nonsense such as the language he is using, not given the amount of support that this Government have shown to the rail industry throughout the omicron situation and the covid-19 pandemic more broadly.

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

Clearly taking its lead from South Western Railway, Southern has suspended all direct trains on the Brighton line into Victoria, meaning that my constituents along the south way have to change twice, which they calculate is adding about a third to their commuting times. That is completely unacceptable. Given the special funding arrangements between the Department for Transport and Govia Thameslink Railway, what compensation can be given to my constituents or, better still, what pressure can the Minister bring to bear on that company to provide a decent service again, at last?

[Wendy Morton]

I share my hon. Friend’s frustration and, as I said in response to earlier questions, we have been supporting the industry heavily throughout covid-19. During the omicron part of the pandemic, the industry has been handling staff absences, but this is absolutely about getting those services back up and running as soon as possible. I assure him that that is what we continue to focus on.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Thursday 24th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

What recent progress his Department has made on researching alternatives for alleviating traffic congestion on the A27 between Worthing and Shoreham.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Rachel Maclean)]

We have committed to improvements on the A27, including the sections around Worthing and Lancing. Highways England is working to identify options to go to consultation next year.

[Tim Loughton]

As anyone setting out for Chorley from the south coast will know, Mr Speaker, the Worthing to Lancing section of the A27 is one of the most congested roads in the whole of the south-east. In 2014, we were allocated £70 million as part of road investment strategy 1. Seven years on, with several thousand additional houses nearby and with a new IKEA attracting 2 million customer journeys a year about to open, nothing has happened. Now, apparently we have just been allocated £20 million in the Budget for delivery of something between 2025 and 2030. Could we please have a bit of levelling up for infrastructure in Sussex urgently?

[Rachel Maclean]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising this vital issue. It is of course right and critical to get the right solution for the right place. Highways England is actively working on the project and, in particular, working closely with stakeholders, because this is a very sensitive area. I hope my hon. Friend will welcome the fact that Highways England is engaging and working closely with stakeholders on detailed options for the A27. There will be a consultation on all those next year.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Thursday 12th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

The Secretary of State and I met the TransPennine leadership not so long ago to put the very points that my right hon. Friend has just made. As he knows, there has been quite a big change at the head of that franchise. We are working with the new management to ensure that the new trains operate correctly and that the service his constituents would like is actually delivered for them.

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

While rail fares remain too high, the cost of disruption to our commuters when services go wrong, as is so often the case with Southern, is considerable. Although Delay Repay has been helpful, it does not reflect the true cost of taxis, hotels and loss of work that our constituents have been suffering. Can the Minister tell us whether the new ombudsman is going to tackle the issue and make sure that we have a compensation scheme that accurately reflects the costs that our commuters and constituents suffer?

Oral Answers to Questions

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Thursday 30th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[George Freeman]

My hon. Friend is a brilliant advocate for Ynys Môn. I can confirm that commitment, and she is right that it will have a big impact on cycling and walking.

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

Very complementary to cycling and walking are electric scooters, which are increasingly popular and commonplace in cities across the continent—they have just been legalised in Germany—yet they remain illegal in this country. Can we at last have a review to regularise the situation, because they are environmentally friendly and could make a huge contribution to reducing congestion, and it is a hip and cool thing to do?

[George Freeman]

Again, I seem to be a purveyor of good news. My hon. Friend will be delighted to know that as part of our innovation strategy we will shortly be announcing that we want to test scooters as part of a mixed economy for sustainable transport.

Exiting the European Union (Transport)

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd July 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Michael Ellis)]

I beg to move,

That the draft Cableway Installations (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019, which were laid before this House on 2 July, be approved.

These regulations will be needed in the event that the UK leaves the EU without an agreement. They are being made under powers conferred by the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018, and will give clarity and certainty to industry by fixing deficiencies that will arise in two pieces of legislation when the UK leaves the EU: namely, EU regulation 2016/424, which is a directly applicable EU regulation; and the Cableway Installations Regulations 2018, which implemented the EU regulation.

It may be helpful if I provide some background. Cableways are a mixture of funicular railways and aerial transport systems such as ski lifts for the transport of passengers. They are important for tourism and communities, and we support their continued success. The majority are in snow sports resorts in Scotland, but they also include the Emirates line in London. Those that entered into service before 1 January 1986 are classed as historical, cultural or heritage installations—for example, the Great Orme Tramway and the Babbacombe Cliff Railway—and are excluded from the scope of the 2018 regulations and the EU regulation.

The EU regulation is in part directly applicable in the UK, so it forms part of domestic law. The 2018 regulations supplement the EU regulation where further detail is required—for example, on the authorisation process for the construction or modification of and entry into service of cableway installations, and in providing for the enforcement of the regulatory framework. The EU regulation and the 2018 regulations ensure conformity of standards of cableway components across the EU; require the Secretary of State to notify the EU Commission of the notified body responsible for carrying out conformity assessments to ensure that cableway systems, subsystems and their components meet EU standards; and require the Secretary of State to set rules on the design, construction and entry into service of new cableway installations.

The 2018 regulations and the EU regulation contain a number of elements that will be inappropriate after the UK leaves the European Union. If left unamended, these would render the 2018 regulations and the EU regulation deficient in certain respects post-exit. This instrument will ensure that the legislation on cableway installations will continue to function correctly in the future—as I am sure the House would approve—providing clarity and certainty to providers.

Before I turn to what the instrument does, let me highlight the fact that it has been developed in close co-operation with the industry and the Health and Safety Executive. We have also consulted the Scottish Government; Ski Scotland, which represents the snow sports industry; and Transport for London, given its particular interest in this area. No major concerns were raised by any of those organisations regarding the approach being adopted in this instrument.

The current legislative framework gives cableway operators reassurance that the components used in new cableways, or for maintaining or repairing existing cableways, are safe and that they comply with EU standards. Given the reassurance provided by the current standards, we have no current plans to diverge from them. However, if the UK ever wanted to diverge from EU harmonised standards, the instrument contains a power for the Secretary of State to designate standards in future. The instrument enables the Secretary of State to designate standards by means of a technical specification for cableways installations, their systems or subsystems, and publish that standard in a manner which he considers appropriate.

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

I am listening intently to the Minister’s remarks about this extremely interesting and important SI that we are about to pass. Has he considered the impact of climate change on the use of cableways in, particularly, Scottish ski resorts, which are probably the biggest users of such technology? These regulations may be completely redundant in a few years’ time if we have no snow and no ski resorts because of climate change.

[Michael Ellis]

I am so grateful to my hon. Friend for raising that point. Of course, everything that I do in the Department for Transport considers these important issues of climate change, and my officials are very alive to this issue.

Drone Users: Registration

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Wednesday 10th July 2019 Westminster Hall

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered a registration scheme for drone users.

I am grateful for the opportunity to raise this issue. I recognise that it may appear to be something of a specialist subject, but I was rather swamped—or perhaps I should say swarmed—with a barrage of emails and letters from drone-operating constituents in May and June. That coincided with the Civil Aviation Authority’s consultation document on the charge proposal for a drone registration scheme. The consultation closed on 7 June and the Government’s response is awaited. It would be useful to hear from the Minister when a response is likely, given that the intention was that the registration scheme should open on 1 October, a date that is not far away.

I suspect that many other hon. Members will have been approached about the CAA proposals, because the activity in question is quite big. I have met a number of constituents who are involved, and I had not appreciated the magnitude of involvement in operating drones and model aircraft. There are an estimated 170,000 operators in the UK, including 600,000 model aircraft operated by 40,000 members of the four main UK model flying associations, the British Model Flying Association, the Large Model Association, the Scottish Aeromodellers Association and FPV UK—the association for radio-controlled model and drone flying. I fear we may get lost in acronyms as we continue. As I have said, it is a big activity, and the numbers involved compare with just 20,000 manned aircraft on the UK aircraft register. A lot more people fly model aircraft than real ones, and the figure is likely to grow.

The number of drones has risen exponentially because of the greater availability and easier affordability of multi-rotor drones over the past six years or so. You and I, Mr Robertson, can go into high street shops and buy one of those craft for under £100. Whether we would know how to operate the thing is another matter—which is what I want to come on to discuss.

The activity generally has a good safety record and largely responsible memberships affiliated to the various clubs; indeed, the most recent fatal accident involving a model aircraft occurred way back in 2003. The evidence given to the Science and Technology Committee on 26 June by Andy Sage of NATS, who categorised drone operators as “clueless, careless and criminal”, was unfair, inaccurate and insulting. I am pleased that he subsequently apologised for those comments. This is a growing and legitimate activity, and we need to be able to accommodate it. However, at the same time, I think we all recognise that it brings with it criminal or potentially damaging and intrusive opportunities, of which a small minority will take advantage, and are doing so.

The most high-profile issues around drone usage arose last year, in my neck of the woods at Gatwick airport, which was shut down for several days before Christmas because of sightings of drones that might have interfered with passenger aircraft. It remains something of a mystery as to exactly what drones were involved; nobody was prosecuted. More recently, we have heard from direct action groups such as Extinction Rebellion, which I have to say I get on well with in my constituency, about using drones to disrupt flights. I certainly condemn that, but it is an issue that we have to take into account.

There is a growing problem of drones flying drugs and other illicit goods into prisons, and just last week we heard that Wimbledon has had to team up with a technology company to prevent drones from flying overhead and disrupting play, which is becoming a common challenge for many other major sporting events. There is also potentially a nuisance problem of certain drones invading people’s privacy in residential areas, creating noise and flying dangerously close to crowds.

Drones are subject to existing laws, such the Air Navigation Order 2016, but there are few prosecutions. I think that most people acknowledge the need to bring in more robust rules to regulate the use of drones, but how should those rules work? They need to be fair and proportionate, which is why many of my constituents quite rightly have concerns, and I share those concerns.

[Stephanie Peacock (Barnsley East) (Lab)]

rose—

[Dr David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op)]

rose—

[Tim Loughton]

I will give way to the hon. Lady first, and then to the hon. Gentleman.

[Stephanie Peacock]

I am grateful, and I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing the debate. On those concerns, does he agree with my constituent, a model airplane enthusiast who is concerned that, while the regulation around drone usage and the problems it can cause should be tackled, people who fly model airplanes should not be caught up in this and are now being asked to pay £16 a year? Perhaps we should look at an exemption for model airplane use.

[Tim Loughton]

I agree. If the hon. Lady bears with me, I will come on to exactly that point. However, it is £16.50, not £16, just to be pernickety.

[Dr Drew]

To build on that point, people who fly radio-controlled model airplanes feel that the way this has been handled has ignored them, and that they were only brought in at the last moment. I hope the hon. Gentleman will talk about why they should be handled very delicately, because they have never been involved in any criminal activity but almost feel that they have been criminalised.

[Tim Loughton]

I entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman. I will come on to precisely that if he hangs around.

As I say, I think most people acknowledge that we need more robust rules. Back in 2018, the Government decided to mandate a drone registration and education scheme in the UK, to strengthen the accountability of drone users and their awareness of how to fly their drones safely and responsibly. Fortunately, it was agreed—after different thinking originally—that the scheme should register the operator, not every individual aircraft or drone, which could have made it a much more bureaucratic exercise. To that end, the Government propose that everyone in the UK operating drones or model aircraft between 250 grams and 20 kg in weight must register by the end of November this year and take an online safety test, or face a fine.

The scheme will be run by the Civil Aviation Authority which, as the hon. Member for Barnsley East (Stephanie Peacock) said, proposes an annual £16.50 charge per operator, supposedly to cover the cost of running the scheme. That is based on an estimated 170,000 assumed registrations, which would raise something like £2.8 million —not a small sum. The CAA claims that it needs to cover the costs of the IT service hosting the system, IT security packages, a major national drone safety and registration requirement campaign, variable costs linked to user volumes and the ongoing upgrade of drone registration services, although there is not a lot of detail on those ongoing costs and why such a large amount of money is required.

I agree with the hon. Lady. One of my constituents’ main concerns is why the charge is £16.50, and why it is levied every year. Why not just an up-front registration fee, without the need to re-register? The United States scheme costs just $5 for three years, in Ireland it is €5 for three years, and France brought in a free scheme, so £16.50 seems disproportionate, given the experiences of comparable countries. Why is it is as much as £16.50? Why not a one-off fee? What are the ongoing costs? Will it go up from £16.50? These things have a curious habit of going up but never going down when schemes begin. Is it fair to charge a teenager £16.50 for using a drone when Amazon, which in years to come will probably operate fleets of hundreds of drones to deliver goodies to everybody, will also be charged £16.50? Those are my first questions to the Minister.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Tim Loughton]

Of course. It would not be a debate without someone giving way to the hon. Gentleman.

[Jim Shannon]

The hon. Gentleman is most kind. I congratulate him on introducing the debate. He, I and others in the Chamber recognise that drone use has led to contraband being taken into prisons; it comes up in Justice Questions nearly every month. Does he recognise the real need to register and approve all drone users to stop contraband going into prisons? It is important that we deal with criminality and those who use drones for criminal purposes.

[Tim Loughton]

I completely agree, which is why I said I think we all agree that we need more robust regulations and a registration scheme. I think most users do not dispute that but they do dispute the proportionality and cost. The scheme needs to be effective, because there is criminal activity in prisons—terrorism and other things, as I mentioned. How it will do anything to deter people who use drones to drop drugs and other illicit goods into prisons is not clear. A small minority misuse drone technology, and if we are going to operate a scheme it should not penalise the vast majority who operate legitimately but should be quite clear about how it will clamp down on criminals using drones for completely illegitimate activities.

What does registration actually offer to the operator, other than a confirmation of compliance? Membership of the British Model Flying Association, through the various recognised clubs, usually includes public liability insurance cover and proper training and oversight from qualified instructors, and clubs tend to police their own members because they want everybody to operate responsibly and within the law. Why is the CAA effectively trying to reinvent the wheel when the current membership scheme works well in the existing clubs? It could just oblige all operators to register through a club, rather than through the CAA-run scheme.

The scheme could also be operated by the police, who could choose to contract it out to local clubs, when clubs prepared to take that on are available. Where they are not available, the police could operate it themselves, or through somebody else. That is how they do driving awareness classes and similar schemes in various parts of the country. The model is already there.

[Sir Roger Gale (North Thanet) (Con)]

I am delighted that my hon. Friend has taken the opportunity to raise this issue, which is of considerable importance to a relatively small number of people. All Members have constituents who are highly reputable model aircraft operators who have carried out their hobby for years and years without any problems whatsoever. We now face a completely different animal, the drone, which he rightly says is used for commercial as well as nefarious purposes. There surely has to be some way of separating those two. My gut feeling, as I think is his, is that members of reputable clubs ought to have some kind of different treatment.

[Tim Loughton]

I have some sympathy with that and it is the thrust of what I am coming to. The scheme as it stands will put everybody in the same pot, treat everybody in the same way, when actually the activity is already policing itself, with existing members of model clubs, very well. How can we expand that expertise and build on what we already have, rather than trying to come up with something completely new? That is the thrust of my argument.

Under European Aviation Safety Agency rules in France, for example, there are powers to delegate registration and regulation to recognised local model flying clubs. We would likely want to go down the same route in a few years’ time, so why not start on that basis now? Surely we should be running a complementary scheme to that of other European countries. In the UK, the CAA already delegates powers to the British Hang Gliding and Paragliding Association, the Light Aircraft Association and the British Gliding Association, among others, so there are already precedents.

The various flying associations had been working constructively with the CAA and the Department for Transport, but they now claim that they have been rather stonewalled, as they put it, by both those parties, particularly since the beginning of this year and post the Gatwick episode. That is unfortunate. They believe, as the hon. Member for Stroud (Dr Drew) said, that the model flying community is being unfairly vilified for the actions of a small handful of unlawful drone operators. It is easy to see why they believe that; I have a great deal of sympathy with that view.

Other concerns have been raised. The online test is a simple, multiple-choice static test. It is not really a competence test, whereas if it were carried out by clubs, they could ensure that it was a proper test. They could be there in person to see that the operators really did know what they were doing. There are many grey areas in the law about flying over private property or public land and about enforcement of the law about flying too close to crowds. Again, proper instruction and tips and recommendations from flying clubs seem to be a good way of ensuring that we have responsible operators.

Should there be differentiation between commercial operators and private hobby operators? As I have said, Amazon is likely to be operating loads of drones commercially in future. Surely it should be subject to a higher and more expensive level of regulation. I recently saw the first unmanned air taxi being trialled in Dubai. I am sure that use of such vehicles will become the norm before long. It looks a little scary at the moment, but anyway, that is the speed at which technology is advancing.

[Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)]

I am very glad that my hon. Friend has raised this matter. In 2017, I led a debate in this place on drones and airprox incidents with drones, which had risen from three in 2015 to about 70 in 2017. Can my hon. Friend confirm that those were nothing to do with model aircraft, but were all to do with drones? The safety record of model aircraft is completely different and therefore they should be put in a different category or, as he says, dealt with through the reputable clubs, of which my constituents are also members.

[Tim Loughton]

To an extent. The exact statistics are that out of 55 airprox incidents—near misses—in the six months to May 2019 in the consolidated drone, balloon and model category, drones accounted for 49, unknown objects—Martians or whatever else—for five, and balloons for one, so model aircraft were not anywhere near the level that drones were at. It is therefore clear why most model aircraft flyers, who do not class themselves as drone operators but will be caught up in the new system, feel particularly aggrieved.

There are concerns about STEM—science, technology, engineering and maths—education, because model flying and drone flying can be the gateway to STEM skills, providing a bottom rung to aviation by which young people can be inspired to pursue technical careers. I have been round many schools, and in my constituency I have Shoreham airport, which is working with schools on some of the skills in relation to aircraft, model aircraft and so on. We want to encourage that.

There is some inconsistency in relation to age criteria for licences for various activities. In this country, people have to be 16 to get a motorcycle racing licence, only eight to get a level 1 powerboat licence, and 14 to be a solo glider. It is unclear how the 18 limit originally suggested in this case will work. Who will be responsible for a minor if damage is caused when they are operating a drone uninsured, for example?

There is quite a debate in the industry about the potential impact of a single drone colliding with a passenger aircraft—that is a different debate for another day—and the various options of interfering with radio signals for potential terrorist activity and so on.

There is the issue of geofencing, which means having a capability to receive and transmit a GPS signal to show where a drone is, so that it would appear on the radar of anyone seeking to detect illicit drone use. However, the mass technology is not available on a viable commercial basis for that just yet. The issue is whether the new scheme is proportionate, affordable and effective in supporting the legitimate model aircraft and drone operating community, while isolating and facilitating better policing against a small number of unlawful drone operators and those determined to use drones for various forms of criminal activity.

There still seems to be a divide between that view and the CAA and the Department. A letter—curiously, it was not signed, but was written by “The Drones Team” from the Department for Transport—sent in reply to one of my constituents, who made many of the points that I have made, said that

“the principle that the Government set out in our January consultation response still stands. Any alternative approach for model flyers must be achieved without imposing undue burden on the state and the taxpayer, whilst also being efficient and enforceable, without compromising the integrity of the policy. A blanket exemption from registration and competency tests or having the associations register their members into the registration system, as suggested in many of the consultation responses submitted by model fliers, will not meet these criteria.”

That is unfortunate because certainly the industry will say that it can meet those criteria and it is prepared to be flexible.

The chief executive of the Association of Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems, whom I met earlier this week, has said:

“We support registration, e-conspicuity and the requirement for airspace management…This will become increasingly important over the coming years as the use of drone technology increases and it is embedded into roles across multiple sectors. Drones will be acknowledged as delivering substantial benefits in the emergency services, environmental services and the commercial environment as well as providing a great recreational pastime enjoyed by many thousands of users.

The issues we have are not with the concept of Registration but the quality, cost and therefore value for money that the current registration proposal appears to deliver to government and to the users required to register.”

I agree with that. It does seem that the DFT and the CAA are trying to reinvent the wheel and failing to harness the huge experience and network capability of existing legitimate, respected and experienced model flying aircraft operators. It seems a no-brainer to me that they should be talking with them much more closely and using what is there already, rather than coming up with a completely new and, on the face of it, rather bureaucratic and disproportionate and costly scheme.

I have posed several questions to the Minister. I hope that we can come up with a proportionate and workable system, so that this legitimate activity can continue safely. I hope that, while respecting the rights and safety record of those legitimately involved, a new system can show how it will be easier to clamp down on just the sorts of criminals that the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) mentioned and others who would use technology with malign intent. We should not let the illegitimate activities of the very few spoil what has become a widespread and enjoyable recreation and a technological advance that many people will be using for good in years to come.