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.