Air Traffic Management and Unmanned Aircraft Bill [HL]

Viscount Goschen Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords & 2nd reading (Hansard)
Monday 27th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Goschen (Con)]

My Lords, I declare two interests. In the course of my professional activity as an executive search consultant, I work with a number of aerospace and defence companies, some of which are involved in UAV or counter-UAV and related technologies. I also hold a humble private pilot’s licence and am the owner and operator of a light aircraft. I recognise that I am in the presence of far superior former commercial and military pilots in your Lordships’ House; none the less, perhaps I have a perspective to offer.

This is essentially a technical Bill. So far, the only criticism I have heard has been from the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, concerning why it was not brought forward more quickly. We can look forward to a good and typical House of Lords territory investigation of a technical Bill, but which of course has important policy consequences.

I support the Bill and commend the Government for bringing it forward. As we have heard, it addresses two largely but not entirely separate subjects: management of airspace and the arrangements for regulating the operation of UAVs. Part 1 of the Bill has flowed from pressure to manage our airspace efficiently and effectively and to modernise it. The term “modernisation” seems appealing, but this is a detailed field and any changes to the way in which our airspace is designed and operated have to be made on the basis of hard data. We have seen a tremendous growth in commercial air travel and in the performance of commercial and military aircraft. Among the biggest changes have been in computer technology, both airborne and terrestrial, and, in the advent of satellite communications, the associated global positioning system and related systems.

In the cockpit of my 1930s-designed aircraft I have the same pre-war flight instruments and gauges with which it would have come from the factory—a VHF radio which is more or less the same in operation as one made decades ago—but I also have a Mode S transponder, which identifies the aircraft in flight to an interrogating radar, and a highly sophisticated GPS-driven app which provides extraordinarily rich user-friendly navigation and traffic data that an airline pilot of the 1990s would have thought extremely impressive.

The technology has changed but the design of the airspace remains the same. In these days of high demand for air travel and major environmental pressure to reduce fuel burn and to control noise, there is clearly scope for enhancing the way in which aircraft are managed in controlled airspace. There is no argument against that sentiment, which has led the CAA to develop its airspace management strategy, from which the first two parts of the Bill are derived. This document was developed with a good deal of input from stakeholders utilising public consultation.

While it is clear that modern aircraft monitoring technology—both airborne self-reporting and ground-based—and computing power will fundamentally change what is possible from an airspace management perspective, looking further into the future our commercial airliners, as the noble Lord, Lord McNally, noted, already have a great deal of highly sophisticated proven automated flight systems, including for landing. One can envisage a point in the future where ATC and aircraft are more heavily controlled by computer systems than by human-to-human interface via open VHF radio, which is an archaic and poor way of communicating data. I sympathise and empathise with the noble and gallant Lord, hearing all this chatter on an open system, whereas only discrete pieces of information are intended to be communicated from the ground to the air and vice versa. However, that future gazing is perhaps for another day.

As one would expect with a subject such as this, much of the output is highly complex technical detail which, no doubt, will be discussed off the Floor of your Lordships’ House by specialists rather than on the Floor in terms of policy development. However, that is not to say that there are not important matters for the House to consider.

I support the overall thrust of Parts 1 and 2 of the Bill, regarding the Secretary of State’s ability to give directions to third parties to co-operate with airspace management proposals. After all, we are talking about a national system that is part of an international system, and which requires an integrated rather than a piecemeal approach. It also requires taking full account of local factors, so it is a hybrid between a fully integrated and a local system. There is a great deal of detail to cover.

My primary interests in the Bill relate to general aviation and the interests I declared earlier. General aviation covers the recreational use of light aircraft, gliders, balloons, microlights and related businesses such as flight training, which is vital to our national economy and to producing the flow of professional pilots that the industry will need in the future and for the UK sector’s competitiveness. |The Government have in the past made formal statements about the value to the UK economy and to the commercial aviation industry of a thriving general aviation sector and about the importance of safeguarding the necessary infrastructure such as airports and airspace.

With that background, I wish to make just a few detailed points. First, the voices of all stakeholders, including general aviation, should be heard when considering the classification and design of airspace. The CAA is not often commended by various parties, but it is a highly professional organisation that serves the United Kingdom extremely well and is known for high standards and deep knowledge. It is to be commended for the way it has gone about consultation, but weight should be given to the voices of all parties going forwards. It is no surprise that many airport operators wish to control ever more of the airspace around them, which can lead to unintended consequences as general aviation is sometimes forced into narrow bottlenecks of uncontrolled airspace.

Secondly, reclassification decisions should be taken only on the basis of an objective analysis of detailed data on a given subject. If it is decided that certain airspace should be reclassified as controlled, then proper arrangements should be put in place for all suitably qualified parties to be allowed access, under control, into that airspace. It is not acceptable for operators to deny GA access on the basis that they have insufficient resources to cope with the traffic in the airspace they have requested. That would seem to be a reasonable and balanced approach.

I was very pleased to hear the Minister emphasise in her introductory remarks that the reclassification of airspace should not be in one direction only. If it is shown that controlled airspace is not being used by controlled traffic, it should be released to uncontrolled use. There has been something of a ratchet effect going in one direction, and I was very pleased to hear that the Minister understands the argument that such airspace should be released when not required.

What is the Civil Aviation Authority’s plan for the network known as the lower airspace radar service, which assists traffic operating at lower altitudes? There have been a number of changes to that service. I know these are complex questions—the Minister might care to write to me in due course, rather than take up the time of the House.

Much of the debate we will have in Committee and on Report will concern drones. Clearly, the technology has developed extraordinarily rapidly and there is a potential benefit to society, commerce and the country; we should not forget that when we are considering the regulation of drones. However, regulation is required; we need a more robust system. The noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, and other noble Lords talked about the incursion at Gatwick, which was as clear a demonstration as one could possibly want of the chaos that can be caused by a highly sophisticated £1,000 drone controlled by an iPhone from many kilometres away. We can only presume that the technology will keep developing and that the pace of development will accelerate. Drones will be lifting greater cargo and in due course, as we have heard, they will be lifting people and becoming autonomous flying systems. It is therefore essential that we put in a framework. It is extraordinarily difficulty to future-proof it, as the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig of Radley, told us; none the less, the Bill is an excellent start and I commend it to the House.