Civil Aviation (Consumer Protection and Regulatory Reform) Bill [HL]

Viscount Goschen Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 16th June 2026 Grand Committee

[Lord Harper (Con)]

I note that point; it is important when you look at the margins. It is clear that relatively small changes to the regulatory burden will have a direct impact. Businesses with relatively low margins have a relatively low ability to absorb those extra costs, which means that they flow through on to ticket prices and fall on passengers and those who use freight services. The briefing from Airlines UK, which I suspect all Members have received, makes the point that the cost remains the single biggest barrier to flying, which is why it is important that we keep the cost burden as low as we can. Pricing people out of flying is not, ultimately, very sensible.

Let me touch briefly on the other amendments tabled by my noble friend Lord Moylan. Amendment 23 is specifically about the desirability of promoting economic growth. The Minister was nodding but it would be helpful if, when he responds, he sets out that that encompasses not just passenger transport but freight providers. A significant amount of freight goes in the belly of passenger planes, of course, so those two services are absolutely interconnected. It would be helpful if the Minister could confirm that.

On Amendment 24, I strongly agree with my noble friend. This seems a very unobjectionable amendment to me. In effect, it would ensure that Ministers have to be transparent. It would not mean that they could not align our regulations with those in the European Union, but it would mean that they have to think about why they are doing it first. It would also mean them having to set out their rationale for us all to see and having to be transparent about the costs and benefits of doing so. There may be good reasons why we may wish for our rules to be aligned with those in the EU, in which case Ministers should have no problem with setting out the rationale for doing so and why they have decided to make the changes that they have, so that we can all see them.

I agree with my noble friend Lord Moylan that what we do not want is an automatic, knee-jerk approach where, as soon as the European Union changes its rules, we assume that we have to change ours as well, even if we are not clear about the benefits and costs of doing so. This is a transparency measure, basically, and I cannot think of a good reason why the Minister could not accept it—or why, if he does not think that it is drafted well enough, he could not come back on Report with a similar amendment of his own.

My final point concerns the Government’s target to reduce the administrative costs of regulations. I am not sure what exactly they are using as the definition of “administrative costs” but of course—I am not going to rehearse this argument now—this Government have already increased the costs for businesses significantly through the Employment Rights Act. Their own impact assessment said that that Act had a cost to businesses of around £5 billion. It means that, if they are going to reduce the administrative costs for businesses by 25% over this Parliament—I assume that that is a net reduction—if they increase costs in one area, they will have to reduce costs by more than 25% in other areas in order to hit the overall cost reduction target of 25%.

Again, this is a transparency measure that insists that the Government have to track how they are doing against that target and whether they are on track. If we are two years through a five-year Parliament, we should be able to look at the 25% target; that is roughly 5% a year and, if the Government have not already reduced costs and are not on track to reduce them by 10% by this point, they clearly do not have a hope of doing so by the end of the Parliament. This is a welcome piece of transparency, which is why I support it.

Finally, I think that my noble friend Lord Davies is right explicitly to flag the importance of general aviation, not just to the very significant number of people who use general aviation services, both purchasing services and flying themselves—it is also a very important sector in generating pilots and those who are skilled in aviation services, which then goes into the wider sector. An explicit recognition of the importance of general aviation, reminding people of its importance, is very welcome, and his amendment has served us all by putting that on the record.

[Viscount Goschen (Con)]

My Lords, I start with a couple of declarations of interest. I am a current pilot of light aircraft. I also own and operate an aircraft and am a member of the Light Aircraft Association, and I have worked and continue to work extensively in the civil aerospace, defence and related fields, supporting those industries. Many decades ago, I was a Minister for Aviation. There are no new issues, perhaps, apart from the effects of withdrawal from the European Union 10 years ago. I sympathise and empathise with the Minister, and I shall of course be very supportive.

At this point, I would just like to make two points, or perhaps three. First, I apologise to the Committee for my absence at Second Reading. However, as I was not a Member of the House of Lords at the time, perhaps the Committee will excuse me and allow me to speak.

I make what is perhaps a rather generic point at the outset. We are considering important affairs with this Bill. The UK has a strong reputation for regulation in the aviation sector, with the reputation of the Civil Aviation Authority being very high in the UK and internationally. Of course, aviation is an international activity and I think that we need to tread extremely carefully when it comes to regulation in this field. Yes, when I was in government there was a transfer of competence, in the technical sense of that term, to the Commission and of course, since that position has been reversed, there has been a transfer of competence, again in the technical sense of the term, back. But we have tremendous skill in aviation regulation in this country and we need to be extraordinarily cautious when looking at such issues as design of aerospace and others. The law of unintended consequences is at play.

On a specific point, relating to my noble friend Lord Davies of Gower’s amendment, there is a curious grouping of general aviation with the overall purpose of the Bill. Notwithstanding that, we have a strong GA sector in this country, despite the costs of operating in the UK and despite the weather that we deal with here. General aviation is important; it is not always the highest-profile issue to government and regulators, but it is important. It is important on its own merits and important as a feeder of pilots, skills and engineers into the broader sector. If we lose or damage that, it will be very difficult indeed to recover.

The noble Lord, Lord Davies, has done the Committee a service by emphasising the importance of general aviation. It is very wide: from training, police helicopter operations, offshore operations and the plight of small airfields, it is a broad subject. But it is important and we must not just view aviation in this country as airline-related, which is incredibly important. It is much broader than that, and I look forward to the deliberations of the Committee as we progress through the Bill.

Civil Aviation (Consumer Protection and Regulatory Reform) Bill [HL]

Viscount Goschen Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 18th June 2026 Grand Committee

[Viscount Goschen (Con)]

My Lords, I start by repeating my interest, which I declared on Tuesday, as a current pilot, aircraft owner and operator. On Tuesday, we had a good debate around general aviation, when my noble friend Lord Kirkhope and others took pains to explain the benefits not only to the economy, through the contribution that GA makes, but the broader aviation ecosystem, as it were, particularly in pilot training. Anything that is done to reduce opportunities for pilot training in the UK will have an easy to define effect, which will be the export of pilot training to Europe, where some countries have a different regime and much better weather, the United States and elsewhere. We have to regulate and legislate carefully; the law of unintended consequences is very active in this field.

Access to airspace is critical to the operation of general aviation. I refer to and support my noble friend Lord Kirkhope’s Amendment 65 in both of the thrusts that it seeks to take forward. First, it would protect the importance of GA when it comes to decisions being made around airspace design. It would be easy for the interests of general aviation to be minimised or not taken fully into account, and once decisions are taken it is very difficult for them to be reversed. Yes, much of the country is open, class G airspace, but there are real pinch points and that situation is likely to become exacerbated, rather than made any easier. One example would be around the area of Farnborough, which is close to the London airspace around Heathrow and so forth. I therefore plead for the interests of GA to be considered properly in the design, or redesign, of airspace.

Like my noble friend Lord Kirkhope, I recognise the technological advantages of change that is coming so rapidly. It is difficult for us now to be able to consider what life is going to be like in five years’ time. We support all the advantages that can come from that, including the safety advantages. When I was training as a pilot, one of the biggest concerns was getting lost. It took up quite a lot of my time thinking where one was, particularly in less than perfect weather. Nowadays, with GPS systems, you know precisely where you are at all times. That has taken away one of the excuses, but the safety benefits are extraordinary, and they will continue to come, as the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, said. I flew an aircraft with a big orange button on the front. If you pushed the button, the aircraft could land itself should the pilot become incapacitated. It was way beyond my knowledge and expertise, and I would not be allowed anywhere near such a machine now. The point is that that technology exists today.

The reasonable points that my noble friend made around charges were not special pleading in any sense. He is saying that the charging regime has to be proportionate; it really is as simple as that. There have been issues in the past. I took pains in my remarks on Tuesday to pay tribute to the CAA, but sometimes the cost, for example, in giving approval to small general aviation airfields that are regulated as full airfields can be disproportionate. It is a system that would suit a much bigger airfield and the result is that the airfield in question is no longer regulated, because it is much easier to move to a deregulated situation. However, that has implications for training and what can be done in such a field. What we are saying is this: be cautious and careful, and take into account the advice and interests of what really is the grass roots of aviation, which has been a major part of our success as a nation in the broader aviation industry.

Amendment 62, from the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, is on the importance of hearing the professional pilot’s voice. I would be very surprised if any consultation did not take into account the views of those who know what they are talking about on large-scale commercial aviation. Exactly how that should be done and the mechanism for it I will leave to others to decide and opine on, but the noble Lord gave a powerful voice to BALPA, as we heard on Tuesday.

In recollecting the discussions around BALPA, I remember our late and much missed colleague Lord Clinton-Davis, who was a powerful advocate for BALPA. I spent many happy hours at the Dispatch Box with him as opposition spokesman in this field, and indeed he was earlier a Minister.

This has been a balanced debate and we very much look forward to the Minister’s response.

[Lord Harper (Con)]

My Lords, I repeat my declaration of interest that I made on Tuesday as the non-exec chair of RVL Aviation.

I will say a word or two about the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Grayling, and strongly support what he and the noble Baroness, Lady Bray, said. I wanted to ask the Minister to flesh out a bit the answer to the question that I asked at Second Reading. There are already consultation processes, as the noble Baroness, Lady Bray, mentioned. There is no specific one for the exercise of the direction power. I am keen that, if there are extra processes, they fit well together; we do not want one set of consultations at one stage and then, if the Minister decides to do some direction, another set. When the Minister responds and, I suspect, urges the noble Lord, Lord Grayling, not to press his amendment, I would welcome a clear exposition of how the current position works, how it would dovetail with any use of the power of direction that Ministers are taking in Clause 4, how they would expect to use it and how that would fit with the existing consultation mechanism. I am keen that we do not invent another consultation mechanism.

If that power of direction is taken and is used—although the Explanatory Notes say that they do not expect the Government to use it very much, as it is a backstop power—it is almost certainly going to be used in difficult or controversial circumstances, because it would not be needed otherwise. That is the position set out in the Explanatory Notes. It would be helpful to understand how that end-to-end process works. It may be that the Minister should come forward with an amendment on Report that sets out how the power would be used and consulted on, or at least how it will dovetail with existing consultation mechanisms. I am not clear about how that would currently work.

Finally, I back up the remarks made by the noble Lord, Lord Kirkhope, and the noble Viscount, Lord Goschen, about the charging mechanism. I want to set out some of the views from the International Air Transport Association. IATA strongly supports, as I do, and welcomes the Government’s intention to do airspace modernisation but has concerns about the charging regime. It thinks that the drafting is too broad and ambiguous, and risks undermining the international charging principles that exist.

IATA is also concerned—a concern shared by the noble Lords, Lord Kirkhope and Lord Moylan—about replacing the words

“operators or owners of aircraft”

with the undefined “persons”. It thinks that that significantly expands the pool of liable entities and breaks the link with service provision. It understands the need for flexibility for future entrants but think there should be a narrower definition that encompasses those but is not as broad as the one that exists.

IATA is also concerned about revised Section 75(7), which allows charges to be levied on the basis that services are merely

“available for use or benefit”,

irrespective of the actual use. That represents a fundamental shift away from usage-based charging, which is the agreed international regime.

IATA has a number of concerns, not about the principle of what the Government are doing. It recognises that there will be new users and technologies, and the need to change how charging is done, but there are some accepted principles about the user paying for these things. As the noble Lord, Lord Kirkhope, and the noble Viscount, Lord Goschen, said, that should be done proportionately, but it is not sufficiently backed up by the broad wording in the Bill as currently set out.

It would be helpful if the Minister could say what the thinking was behind the drafting; whether the Government agree with IATA’s views about whether the Bill is in accordance with existing principles; and whether the Bill would be improved by a tighter definition that absolutely encompassed new technologies such as drones and other potential things in the future but was not so broad, and explicitly reintroduced the link between the usage of airspace and the charging, rather than simply the theoretical benefit. The Bill would be improved if those changes were made, and I look forward to the Minister setting out the Government’s thinking about how its wording was arrived at.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Harper (Con)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 102A, also supported by the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Gower, who is unfortunately not able to be with us today. He was here for day one in Committee, and he wanted me to place on record his support for this amendment.

As the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, has set out, the airfield advisory team is something that existed and has recently been disbanded. It would be helpful for the Minister to confirm that that is indeed the case, give the reasons for disbanding it, and say whether, in the light of the amendment, he would reconsider that decision. My understanding is that it was a useful forum for the CAA and the Department for Transport to engage with airfield operators to discuss relevant issues, and for them to communicate with those operators, but, perhaps more importantly, for airfield operators to feed back their concerns and ask questions of the regulator and the department.

Unless there was a very good reason for getting rid of it, having those forums for users of the services provided seems a very good thing. My understanding is that the airfield operators would very much welcome that advisory team being re-established. I would be pleased to hear what the Minister has to say.

[Viscount Goschen (Con)]

My Lords, I support the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, in this group of amendments.

We are fortunate to have air ambulance services operating in the United Kingdom. It is important to stress that these are typically not government-provided services; they are supported by charitable organisations and others. When one needs the service, one needs it very much indeed—that is probably the best way of putting it. The speed of response, particularly in rural Devon where I live—the air ambulance is based in a field that I am very familiar with—means that it is a tremendous service. It is able to get around the county swiftly and provide much needed services for people who have been involved in serious road or agricultural accidents, have been carried out to sea, or whatever.

I was concerned to hear, as the noble Lord stated, that the industry had concerns about the rules and regulations and procedures under which they operate, and felt they could be enhanced. From my own anecdotal experience of hearing from the air ambulance service, I know it is always given priority, formally and informally, by other users and by ATCs. I am concerned and surprised that there are such problems, and I look forward to the Minister responding. On whether those requirements should be written into the Bill, I am not going to fall into the trap, much criticised earlier in our proceedings, of doing the Minister’s job for him. We will let him do some heavy lifting on that.

Similarly, on Amendment 102A, I am not familiar with the precise detail but it is clearly important that the CAA takes fully into account all the voices and interests of those with a great deal of expertise in small airport operation. Again, whether that needs to be written into the Bill or not is something that we can consider later. If the noble Lord succeeds in achieving his objective of easier access to the Scilly Isles, no doubt he will be carried shoulder-high by his fellow islanders.

[Baroness Pidgeon (LD)]

My Lords, the amendments from the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, are worthy of support and raise some important points. I am grateful to him for bringing these important matters before the Committee and for his persistence on these issues.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)]

My Lords, I have Amendment 78 in this group. I shall only say a few words, and I suppose the very few words I could say are that, if we are to get new powers that may affect pilots, we wish to be consulted. In many ways, it is as simple as that. Hopefully, the Minister can give us a better feel for what this piece of legislation will be used for. I find myself almost agreeing with the noble Lord, Lord Moylan. If we are to have powers where we are not clear what they will be used for and what their extent will be, there are two sensible outcomes: either you do not bother with the powers, or you have an appropriate set of checks and balances to make sure that the powers are sensible.

[Viscount Goschen (Con)]

My Lords, my noble friend Lord Moylan has done the Committee a service by bringing to our attention some of the conflicts within the Bill in terms of rule and regulation-making powers. I should add that I am a member of the Delegated Powers Committee. I have previously been a member of the Delegated Powers Committee, but I was not a member at the time that its report on this Bill was made, for reasons that I explained on Tuesday—I was not a Member of the House at the time.

This a highly complex subject and complex field, and it is very easy to get tangled up in it. Some of the principles that my noble friend has elucidated are extremely valid. The other point is that one perhaps needs to be careful what one wishes for, because I could see hundreds of very technical regulations—technical in the technological sense of the term—coming before your Lordships’ House for scrutiny. None the less, my noble friend has made the particular point around the Government choosing which regulatory process to utilise, and I think there are some real difficulties in that.

Civil Aviation (Consumer Protection and Regulatory Reform) Bill [HL]

Viscount Goschen Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 13th July 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Barber of Ainsdale (Lab)]

My Lords, I will speak briefly to Amendment 69 in my name. I begin by declaring my interest as the current president of BALPA. This amendment proposes an annual report by the CAA on pilot licence holders. I am grateful for the chance to discuss the issues and the trends lying behind this proposal with my noble friend the Minister.

We know that there are significant numbers of commercial pilots approaching the mandatory retirement age of 65. We have ambitions for real growth in this sector, which could increase the demand for pilots. Yet there are real concerns about the difficulties of potential pilots accessing the necessary training, given the significantly high costs involved, so a careful monitoring of all these issues is justified. This amendment proposes one way of addressing these concerns about trends affecting the whole sector, but I know that the Minister has been thinking about these challenges and I look forward to hearing his thinking on the most appropriate way to respond.

[Viscount Goschen (Con)]

My Lords, very briefly, I support my noble friend Lord Kirkhope’s Amendment 41. I declare my own interest as the holder of a private pilot’s licence and as the owner and operator of a light aircraft.

I thought my noble friends, both on Report and earlier in Committee, set out very convincingly a compelling case for general aviation. General aviation really is the grass roots and lifeblood of aviation in any country. So much training is done here in the United Kingdom. It is incredibly important that the UK has a strong training sector. It is up against it in terms of cost and regulation to a degree, as well as weather, competition from courses offered in the United States, Europe and Spain, and so forth.

My noble friend is quite right to stress the importance of general aviation. It is not just training; it also encompasses business aviation, aeromedical services, light charter flying, utility operation, helicopters and so forth. It is a vital sector. It is important that we have a strong reservoir of skills, in both ab initio and commercial pilot training, on which the broader commercial aviation sector in this country can be based and which it can take benefit from.