Aviation: Regulatory Burden

Viscount Goschen Excerpts

Tuesday 21st January 2014 Grand Committee

[Viscount Goschen (Con)]

My Lords, I, too, congratulate my noble friend Lord Rotherwick on bringing forward this short debate today. There cannot be anyone better qualified in Parliament to discuss the concerns of general aviation. It may not be broadly known that not only is my noble friend a pilot, a board member of the LAA and a vice-president of the General Aviation Alliance but he also builds aeroplanes with his bare hands and then flies them to the ends of the earth. This is adventurous stuff, and we are very lucky to have his wise counsel and guidance this afternoon.

I make a short declaration. I have a UK private pilot’s licence and I operate a vintage aircraft that comes under the Light Aircraft Association permit to fly regime. About a hundred years ago, I had some responsibility for aviation policy in the UK, and I am very pleased to see that considerable progress has been made on the issues that we were grappling with in the mid-1990s.

It is a privilege to be able to fly in the UK and internationally. We talk of the privileges of our licence, and I think that the general aviation community is always aware of that fact. It is a very law-abiding community. The initiative that we have been talking about this afternoon is really about aligning regulation with the safety-critical issues that the GA faces and making sure that there is a proper match.

The CAA has been criticised in the past by the GA community for taking perhaps a too heavy-handed and too costly approach to issues such as airfield regulation. However, the initiative that we are discussing today represents a profound change in approach. While we recognise that the detail of general aviation is of interest to some noble Lords, a real success story in terms of a deregulation initiative—a partnership between the industry, participants, the Department for Transport, the CAA and other areas of government—is really to be highly commended.

All those who have participated and who take an interest in this sphere will feel that real progress has been made, and this is a good news story. We can always guarantee that it will get very little promotion and broader discussion because it is a good news story rather than a bad news story. But the Government say that they are committed to deregulation—Governments have said that for a long time—and will actually bring forward sensible, carefully and clearly thought through proposals that demonstrate that, and they are to be commended. Mr Haines at the CAA is to be commended, too, and the LAA itself, which is a major player in this environment, also needs to take some of the credit. There are lessons to be learnt more broadly, way outside of aviation, for areas where the burden of regulation can be carefully considered and stepped back from in certain areas where there is no loss to safety.

It is well worth reading the documents produced by the Government and the CAA. I shall read a short quote from the foreword to the government document, which says:

“Regulation often appears too prescriptive, impractical and inappropriate for the general aviation sector … Safety regulation should therefore impose the minimum necessary burden and empower individuals to make responsible decisions … The package of measures we have agreed will overhaul the GA regulatory framework, moving it from a prescriptive, bureaucratic regime to a light-touch, proportionate system”.

That is a major change, and I believe that it represents major progress.

The CAA’s initiative of bringing forward its own specialist GA unit is an important one. I was drawn to one sentence that features in Mr Haines’s introduction to the CAA’s document. At the end of the third paragraph, he says that it wants to,

“help create a vibrant and dynamic GA sector in the UK”,

and that it will,

“work with other Government Departments to identify the potential for funding to develop new technology”.

I believe that that represents a significant change as well, in that it takes the CAA’s declared remit more into the promotion of general aviation than the mere observing and regulating of it.

There is also a commitment in the CAA’s document to use the legal process as a “last resort”. I welcome that approach as well. It must be sensible in a detailed technical environment such as this to use regulation when it is really required but in other cases pursue the guiding principles that have been established. Principle one is to deregulate wherever possible. This means that there should be removal of CAA oversight where not required, and that we should,

“identify what within the GA sector might be removed from EASA oversight”—

that is, European oversight—as well as easing,

“the definition of ‘commercial activity’”.

The second guiding principle is to maximise delegations, which have worked very well in the past with the LAA and the BMAA, and I believe will continue to do so.

In the final analysis, this is an ongoing process. It is not a one-off deregulation report saying, “Let’s get on with it”. The Government have set up the CAA and its own panel to prompt it to continue and keep the pressure on, examining everything that comes forward. There is a significant European aspect to this with EASA; it is a highly complex field. We do not have time to talk about it today.

I conclude with genuine congratulations to all those who have been involved. I hope that we can learn broader lessons for regulation in other spheres.