Lords Chamber

Monday 13th July 2026

(began 2 weeks ago)

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None Portrait Oral questions: Whether practices such as regenerative agriculture align with the sustainable farming incentive payments
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Beg leave to ask the question
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None Portrait Oral questions: Impact of artificial intelligence on employment in the UK
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Second, Oral Question Lord Khan of Burnley. Paper.
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None Portrait Oral questions: Publication of the White Paper on water reform and protections for chalk streams
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Fourth, Oral Question Baroness Grender. >> Lords, I beg. standing.
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None Portrait Business of the House
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commitment and consideration. Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill. >> My Lords. >> I beg to move the motion. >> Standing in my.

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Name on the Order Paper. The question is that this motion be agreed to. My Lords, perhaps we could have

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My Lords, perhaps we could have a bit more of an explanation from the government as to why this is being taken, not on the floor of being taken, not on the floor of the House, but actually in Grand Committee. This is a major piece of legislation which affects every legislation which affects every rail user up and down the country. It was first announced in the first It was first announced in the first King's speech of this session, and unusually repeated in the second King's Speech.

So it's not as if this is something new. This was supposed to be a priority. It's a priority, which is taking a long time to deliver. I think it has incredibly important consequences and should not be discussed in committee, but should be discussed on the floor of the House. And perhaps the Minister will give us an explanation as to why the government wants to take this into committee, rather than deal with it on the floor of the House, as we usually do with most of the

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controversial pieces of legislation before your Lordships House. Yeah.

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Yeah. Lords, can I echo my noble friends concerns? I'm a relatively new member of this House, but I. I new member of this House, but I. I did believe that significant pieces of legislation were taken on the floor of the House, and it was less significant legislation that was significant legislation that was taken in Grand Committee. So I really don't understand why this government appears to have downgraded this legislation, particularly when it involves the biggest change to our transport system for more than 30 years.

It involves a very substantial amount of taxpayers money and support. And actually, the bill also contains what I think can only be described as a poison pill for a future government which seeks to, to, to tie the hands of the next Parliament on the specifics of governance going forward. Surely all of those things merit a debate in committee on the floor of the House.

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Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just before the. Minister rises. And I, I forgive me as. A newer member.

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A newer member. Of the House than my noble friend, and I'm afraid we have managed to appear as former transport secretaries in threes. And hopefully that won't be a precedent. But I'd echo what my two precedent. But I'd echo what my two noble friends have said. This is a it's supposed to be, according to the government, a flagship piece of the government, a flagship piece of legislation. It is controversial, even though setting up GBR has some element of cross-party consensus.

There's actually, as demonstrated at the Second Reading debate, quite a number of areas of controversy and it is a bill which touches upon everybody in the House. Potentially. It's not a narrow piece of legislation. It's a very broad one, and I would have expected it to be taken on the floor of the House. Now, I think the Minister will be pleased to know that usual channels were sufficiently persuasive to hold us back from dividing the House on this matter, but there may be less successful in holding us back when we reach Report stage, unless we hear a convincing

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explanation from the Minister today. He's been in the House for a

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He's been in the House for a little bit longer. I would be really concerned about us seeing the work that's done in Grand Committee is being downgraded or second best. From my point of view, second best. From my point of view, the the work done in Grand Committee is equally as important. Committee is equally as important. And I do feel that, you know, for technical, detailed scrutiny of a bill, it's a really good opportunity. And if there are any areas that need to be voted upon, then there is always report.



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Yes. Right. My Lords, can I following on

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My Lords, can I following on from my noble friend, can my noble friend the Minister, just confirm friend the Minister, just confirm whether any member of this House can attend Grand Committee, and it is sort of also recorded and can be is sort of also recorded and can be

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watched back. Yes. I sat through the Second Reading of this bill. The first debate was 30 people spoke, and then there were a whole raft of amendments which were put in by Lord Hunt of Wirral and Lord Sharpe of Epsom,

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and then Lord Fox frontbench of the Liberal Democrats. Pardon? We're talking.

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About the railways. numbers. Look to help.

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Look to help. To help the noble Lord. We're discussing the Railways Bill commitment motion at present. What I want to say is the

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What I want to say is the numbers towards the end of that bill was not as big as people bill was not as big as people suggest. You go and look. In

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Hansard, numbers were less. My Lords. What a joy. It. Is to hear from three former

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Is to hear from three former transport secretaries I worked for. transport secretaries I worked for. And. And I predict hearing from a former former deputy chair of transport for London that I worked transport for London that I worked for shortly as well. I know as well as many in this chamber do, that passengers and taxpayers have have had enough of the current failed system and change to our railways can't come soon enough. I want to get on with the business of fixing the railways by starting the scrutiny of this bill as soon as possible.

Divisions like this simply delay the job we're all here to do. It's perfectly normal for bills to be committed to Grand Committee. Each session, a significant number of bills are committed to a grand committee, many of which propose proposed significant legislative change in the last session. In the previous government's programme, much important legislation was scrutinised in that way, as my noble friends have confirmed, grand committees not allow standard of scrutiny. And of course, any noble Lord can still participate. And proceedings, as my noble friend just said, are broadcast.

Its use means the house's time can be managed more effectively. It does not hinder, curtail or prevent detailed scrutiny of legislation, and the Bill will return to the

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chamber for Report stage. The question is that this motion be agreed to as many of that be agreed to as many of that opinion say, content. Content. The contrary not content. The contents have it. My Lords, we now come to have it. My Lords, we now come to some instruments previously debated in Grand Committee, electricity capacity amendment and Transitional Provision Regulations 2026. Lord Whitehead. My Lords.

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Whitehead. My Lords. I beg to. Move the motion. Standing my name on the Order Paper.

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The question is this motion be agreed to as many of that opinion say, content. Content. The contrary not content. The contents have it reach amendment number two

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regulations 2026 and one other motion. Baroness Hayman of Ullock my Lords, I beg leave to move the

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Lords, I beg leave to move the motion. Standing in my name on the Order Paper. En bloc. The question is. The question is

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The question is. The question is that two motions in the name of Baroness Hayman of Ullock be agreed to En bloc as many of that opinion say content. Content the contrary not content, the contents have it. Criminal Justice Act 1988. Offensive Weapons Amendment. England and Wales Order 2026 and one other motion Lord Hanson of Flint.

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I beg to move the motion. Standing in my name on the Order Paper. Be moved.

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En bloc question is that two motions in the name of Lord Hanson of Flint be agreed to. En bloc as of Flint be agreed to. En bloc as many of that opinion say, content the contrary not content, the contents have it. Wireless contents have it. Wireless Telegraphy Act 2006. Directions to

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Telegraphy Act 2006. Directions to Ofcom Revocation Order 2026 and one other motion. Baroness Ramsey of Wall Heath. My Lords.

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I beg to move the motion. Standing in my name on the Order Paper. En bloc.

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Paper. En bloc. The question is that the two motions in the name of Baroness Ramsey of Wall Heath be agreed to Ramsey of Wall Heath be agreed to En bloc as many of that opinion say, content the contrary not content, content the contrary not content, the contents have it. Children's Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026. Establishment of Schools Consequential Amendments Regulations 2026. Baroness Blake of

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Leeds. My Lords, I beg to move the motion. Standing in my name on the Order Paper.

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Order Paper. The question is this motion be agreed to as many of that opinion say, content. The contrary not say, content. The contrary not content, the contents have it. Third Reading of the Steel Industry

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Nationalisation Bill Lord Leong. My Lords. I will.

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I will. Begin by making a short statement on legislative consent. The government engaged with all
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Lord Leong Portrait Lord Leong, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Labour)
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of May. Since then, my ministerial colleagues and officials have engaged at pace to address the engaged at pace to address the issues that have been raised. I am pleased that the Scottish Parliament granted legislative Parliament granted legislative consent to the Bill on 23rd of June. I place on record my thanks to UK Government and Scottish Government Government and Scottish Government Ministers and officials for working consecutively, constructively and consecutively, constructively and at pace to reach that outcome before the Scottish Parliament rose for recess in Wales, a legislative consent memorandum was laid on 1st July and a legislative consent motion has been tabled for debate in the Senate on 14th of July.



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Tomorrow, I am happy to report that the government has been able to To address the concerns raised by Welsh Ministers regarding the by Welsh Ministers regarding the Bill. If the government did make the decision to exercise the powers in the Bill, we would of course in the Bill, we would of course want to consider the appropriate governance. If a steel undertaking which had its principal place of which had its principal place of business in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland, where were to be using the powers in the Bill, the government would seek appropriate involvement for relevant devolved government to ensure their views are considered in discussions where appropriate.

This reflects the government's commitment to consulting the devolved governments, where decisions impact devolved policy areas. While acknowledging that the specifics of company governance would need to reflect the specific circumstances of an undertaking. The responsibility for the management of the company would always rest with the board, who alone would possess voting rights and the right to make decisions. This would ensure that a devolved government could have involvement in shaping how a future steel, a future asset, is governed, whilst respecting the board's responsibility for the management of the company.

Importantly, the arrangement also recognises the Secretary of State's ultimate accountability to Parliament of border spending of UK government funds and the running of a nationalised undertaking. As a result of this commitment, my understanding is that whilst Ministers will be recommending that legislative consent be granted to the Bill when the consent motion is debated tomorrow in Northern Ireland, the Department for the economy had a memorandum on 26 of June indicating that consent was not currently being sought by the executive from the Assembly.

The government regret that it has not been possible to secure legislative consent from the Northern Ireland Assembly before Third Reading. We also recognise that the pace of this Bill has made the consent process more challenging. The government sincerely regret that we were not able to engage with the devolved governments before the bill was introduced. However, the bill, by its nature contains commercial and market sensitivity sensitivities. Those sensitivities limited the extent to which the government could discuss the proposed approach in advance.

Since introduction, we have sought to engage openly and constructively in addition to official level discussions. Minister McDonnell met Minister Archibald on 17th of June and offered further engagement to address any concerns and support the legislative consent process. My Lords. Steel is a vitally important industry for the whole United Kingdom. This government are determined to ensure to secure the future of UK steel making capability. For that reason, it remains important that the Bill extends to all parts of the United Kingdom.

Notwithstanding the present position on legislative consent in Northern Ireland. My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a third time.

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The question is this a third time

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opinion say, content. The content, the contents have it. My Lords, I beg to move that this bill do now pass.

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this bill do now pass. The question is this bill do now pass.

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pass. My Lords. Steel the shape our nation's history. It has built railways, bridges, factories, ships, railways, bridges, factories, ships, homes, energy, infrastructure and defence capability. It remains essential to our future, to growth, to resilience, to national security, and to the critical infrastructure on which our country depends. This. This legislation is one part of the government's wider commitment to the steel sector. It gives us the tools to act decisively. If strategic steelmaking capability is at risk. It supports our objective of restoring confidence, protecting jobs, strengthening domestic capability and securing a sustainable future for UK steel.

My Lords, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to noble Lords from across the House who have contributed to the scrutiny of this Bill. In particular, I would like to thank the noble Lords Lord Sharpe of Epsom, Lord Hunt of Wirral and Lord Fox for their constructive, professional and friendly way in which they have engaged throughout. I am genuinely grateful. I also thank the noble Lords who have spoken with deep knowledge of industry, constitutional practice, devolution, public finance, workers interests and the wider economy.

Their contribution has helped ensure that this House has done its job properly. Finally, I thank the Bill but will team my private office officials from across government, the devolved government officials who have engaged with US parliamentary counsel and the House authorities for their work in supporting the passage of this legislation at pace and under considerable pressure. My Lords, this House has sent a clear message the United Kingdom must be able to act when a strategic industry is at risk. We must protect steelmaking capability, support workers communities and safeguard the critical supply chains on which our

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national resilience depends. Thank you. The question is this bill do now pass as many of that opinion, say, pass as many of that opinion, say, content. The contrary not content. The contents have it.

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My Lords, I begin by thanking my noble friends Lord Sharpe of Epsom and Lord Redwood, and the noble
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Lord Hunt of Wirral Portrait Lord Hunt of Wirral (Conservative)
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and Lord Redwood, and the noble Lord Lord Fox, for their considerable contributions and the expertise they have demonstrated throughout our consideration of this Bill. I also pay tribute to the two committees of this House that have contributed so much to our understanding of this urgent matter. In their excellent reports, in particular, the Select Committee on the Constitution and the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee. I would also like to extend my thanks to Lord Leong, the noble Lord, the Minister, who has throughout taken a very close interest, not only in the case for the government taking the action they have, but also in understanding our concern on a number of aspects.

And I do thank his officials and the Bill team for all their hard work. Although significant differences remain between us, the Minister has always engaged constructively with the concerns raised from all sides of the House, and I believe the bill has been improved as a result of that engagement. Working together, we have secured a more credible sunset mechanism. Any extension of the principle transfer powers will be limited to two years and will require the affirmative approval of both houses.

We have secured provisions requiring the Secretary of State to consider the likely costs before exercising the share transfer power or the property transfer power. We have also ensured that the relevant environmental, pension and health and safety liabilities must be properly reflected in the independent valuation process. We particularly welcome the greater parliamentary control secured in relation to clauses 39 and 45 regulations under clause 39, concerning the consideration in terms attached to continuity obligations will be subject to the affirmative or made affirmative Procedure Regulations under clause 45 concerning the enforcement of obligations arising from share or property transfers will be subject to the made affirmative procedure, rather than the negative procedure originally proposed.

The Minister's commitment to a debate in both houses on the Steel Strategy, and the impact of this legislation is also very welcome. So, too, are the Minister's assurances that any exercise of transferred powers will require an impact assessment and that quarterly written ministerial statements will be provided for at least the first year in which a steel undertaking remains in public ownership. Those statements will give Parliament the information it needs to scrutinise operational performance, public expenditure and the consequences for workers, communities and the wider steel industry.

Nevertheless, my Lords, a great deal of work remains to be done. Nationalisation may provide the government with an emergency power, but it is not an industrial strategy. It cannot substitute for commercially viable businesses for competent, market aware management and, above all, for sustained private sector investment. The state well, I came into the House 50 years ago and we had experience of state ownership in the 1970s. And I have to tell the House that provides no grounds for confidence or complacency.

We must not allow what is intended to be temporary public ownership, to default into an expensive and permanent arrangement. The long term future of British Steel will depend on the United Kingdom once again becoming an attractive and affordable place in which to invest, produce and employ people. That requires us to confront the fundamental barriers facing steel and other energy intensive industries. Ministers have got to address our internationally uncompetitive industrial electricity prices. They must examine the cumulative burden of the Emissions Trading scheme and the carbon border adjustment mechanism.

They must consider the costs imposed by their employment policies, as well as the ever expanding burden of regulation, reporting and compliance. Unless those underlying problems are addressed, nationalisation will merely transfer the consequences of uncompetitive business environment from private shareholders to the taxpayer. It will not resolve them. Our objectives, I believe, must therefore be clear to secure the private investment that the steel industry so desperately needs in order to preserve strategic domestic steelmaking capacity and skilled employment, but also to minimise the exposure to taxpayer.

So we do welcome the improvements made to the Bill and the assurances placed on the record by the Minister. But we will, however, continue to scrutinise closely the use of these exceptional powers. The costs that arise from them, and the government's progress in returning any nationalised undertaking to an investable, competitive and commercially viable future. Yeah.
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Lord Fox Portrait Lord Fox (Liberal Democrat)
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My Lords, I agree with the Minister that this Bill is an important element in securing the important element in securing the future of this vital steel industry. It is, of course, a first step. There is an awful lot to do, but this bill leaves your Lordships House in a better state than when it arrived. For example, it's now mandatory for overall costs of nationalisation to be taken into consideration by the Secretary of State when assessing the public interest. Environmental legacy costs must be fully assessed by the valuer.

There will be parliamentary debates and quarterly written ministerial statements, and the management of any nationalised of a business that is nationalised will be quizzed by select committees, and the Steel Council will be better represented by the steel users. These are all important steps, my Lords, and much of it are improvements on parliamentary accountability, which was the mission we set ourselves on this bench at the beginning of this debate, but that couldn't have been achieved without co-operation and debate.

And I echo the Minister. I thank the Minister, his team and the departmental team for their openness, availability and flexibility, and I thank the Minister in the Commons, too, for the time that he spent. I thank the noble Lord Sharpe and Hunt, who were, as ever, remain a amiable debate company. As we went our way through a Bill. But finally, I'd like to thank you, Liz Abbott in the Lib Dem whips office, who. Support for me has been absolutely superb, my Lords.

As I say, this bill has been materially changed and I hope that the Commons accept our changes and we don't have to see this bill here again. It's a first step, and I wish the Minister well on taking the next steps.
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Baroness Finn Portrait Baroness Finn (Conservative)
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My Lords, I apologise to the House and to the Minister for having to wear these glasses today. I've been advised to do so on medical advice. Before turning to the questions raised by the statement. I want to first express my deepest sympathy with the civil servants and families caught up in this failure. Many of those affected will have given more than four decades of their lives to public service. They have planned their retirement in good faith, and, having left work, may now be entirely reliant on their civil service pension to meet ordinary household bills and maintain the standard of living for which they have worked and saved.

They should not be forced to borrow, depend on relatives or postpone retirement because the state cannot administer the pension it promised them. The damage being done to their finances, health and confidence is unprecedented and entirely unacceptable. And I thank the noble Baroness, the Minister, for giving the House the opportunity to question this important statement. Our first concern must be the people affected. The more than 6700 pension quotations still outstanding for past retirement dates, and the more than 4100 bereavement cases on which capita can take action.

Behind every figure is a retired public servant, a grieving family or a household left in uncertainty. They must remain at the forefront of the government's response. The Paymaster General has emphasised that the capita contract was signed in November 2023 under the previous government. That is a relevant fact, but it cannot be the end of the matter. The Cabinet Office retained institutional responsibility throughout a two year transition between governments and critical decisions on readiness, data migration, contingency planning and the go live of the contract.

On the 1st of September 2025, were taken after repeated warning signs. The issue is not only who originally signed the contract, but whether the Cabinet Office acted as a capable and sceptical contracting authority on these benches. Our concern is not ideological, and we remain agnostic as to whether a service is delivered in-house or by a contractor. Either way, the government must remain an intelligent and accountable customer. The National Audit Office reported in June 2025 that capita had already missed three of the six transition milestones that they're then due that the Cabinet Office had withheld £9.6 million of payments, and that the service planned for launch had been simplified because important functionality would not be ready.

It also found there were no fixed innovation or digitalisation milestones against which the promised benefits could be managed. In October, the Public Accounts Committee warned that there was a clear risk that capita would not be ready to take over as planned, and concluded that the Cabinet Office had not shown that it could effectively manage the outsourced administration of the scheme. The evidence given to parliamentary committee since the collapse is more troubling. Still, senior Cabinet Office officials have acknowledged that they relied heavily on assurances from capita that there are lessons to learn, and that the department is still not fully confident in the quality of Capitas management information.

Independent technical auditors are now being brought in to test the data, systems and assumptions. That is welcome. But it raises the obvious question why was that independent specialist verification not completed before the system was permitted to go live? We welcome the withholding of £9.9 million from capita and the intervention of the Pensions Recovery Task Force, but a recovery taskforce, however necessary, is a remedy for failed contract management. It is not a substitute for proper assurance before launch. Can the Minister therefore tell the House who authorised the go live decision? What objective? Go or no go criteria were applied.

Which criteria capita had failed to meet and whether any requirements were waived. Will the government publish the relevant readiness assessments, assurance reports and risk decisions subject only to genuinely necessary commercial redactions? My Lords capita has now missed both its end of April and end of June. Recovery milestones scheme members should not be asked to rely on another unverified promise. What firm dates have now been set for clearing the overdue retirement quotations and actionable bereavement cases? And have those dates been independently stress tested by people with the technical and operational expertise to verify that they are deliverable? There are also wider questions about supplier management across government.

Will capita be referred to the Department Review Service, or will it continue to be permitted to compete for public contracts without such a review? And why was capita selected in February as the preferred bidder for the DWP led Synergy Shared Services contract? While serious concerns about the pension transition were already evident. What cross-government assessment of capita delivery risk was undertaken before that decision was finalised? Finally, my Lords, I welcome the provision for interest where full pension benefits are paid more than one month late and the ability to seek redress for other losses through the complaints process.

However, compensation delayed can compound the original harm. What service standards will apply to those complaints? How quickly will consequential losses be assessed and paid, and how will the Cabinet Office ensure that capita not affected pensioners and not the taxpayer, ultimately bears the cost of this failure? My Lords, this is a corporate failure by capita, but it is also a grave failure of public sector commissioning assurance and contract oversight. Civil servants have spent their working lives serving the country. Were entitled to expect Cabinet Office to test promises and verify systems and manage risk before transferring a service on which their livelihoods depend.

The government must now resolve the individual cases, urgently, compensate those who have suffered loss and demonstrate that the machinery of government has learnt the fundamental lesson outsourcing responsibility does not outsource accountability.
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Lord Pack Portrait Lord Pack (Liberal Democrat)
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Yeah yeah yeah yeah. >> Yeah yeah yeah yeah. >> My Lords. >> Capita's failure to meet its end of June deadline following the of June deadline following the previous end of April. Missed deadline is obviously extremely disappointing. But this isn't just a story of corporate failure or missed KPIs or missed dates in the calendar. It's the story of so many individual cases of heartbreaking distress, especially for those whose loved one died unexpectedly, and they are now left in limbo in uncertainty and in many cases, facing financial hardship as well.

Now, to be fair, the government's rhetoric on this has been fairly robust, not only in reminding us of when the original contract was signed, but also, for example, the Minister in the statement says, I quote, I will continue to apply the most stringent commercial levers. And I noted that in the discussions in the joint committee meeting in the House of Commons last week, there was some discussion of the pros and cons, for example, of sacking capita outright from this contract. But one of the other stringent commercial uses, of course, that could be applied is this question about whether capita should be placed on the Debarment list, whether their failures in this case so significantly undermine our confidence in their ability as a company to deliver on their promises that it wouldn't be appropriate to award them any new future contracts.

That is also a step that might help concentrate mine somewhat when it comes to resolving the current problem. Now, of course, adding any company, and I think this would be the first company to be added to the Debarment list I appreciate is not a step that should be taken lightly, but the scale of repeated failure in this case is quite striking. And it is the scale not just of failure, but the scale of repeated, broken promises. Capita clearly made commitments on technology, and then to meet remedial deadlines that it hasn't met.

And those commitments were not just made sort of off the cuff, casually at a junior level as the Cabinet secretary, so sorry, as the Cabinet Office's permanent secretary set out in her evidence in the House of Commons last week, these were very serious commitments made at senior level that haven't been delivered on. So given this record from capita, could the noble Lady, the Minister, tell us, is the government going to consider commencing the process to review, adding capita to the Debarment list? Turning to the existing contract and its problems, the Cabinet Office has, and I think this is very welcome, said that it is doubling its capacity to deal with pension complaints that are, you know, going to increase following these many problems.

And of course, the Pensions Ombudsman, a little bit further down the track, can expect a surge of complaints working its way through the system to them as well. And although there have been comments and commitments about how capita is paying some of the costs of dealing with this mess, I don't think it's been made clear yet. And I hope the noble Lady, the Minister can therefore clarify, is capita going to be paying for the extra costs that the Cabinet Office and in due course, the Pension Ombudsman will be incurring for dealing with the complaints that are arising from this mess? And given the dependency on capita for getting the McCloud remedy cases resolved, and indeed, the extra pressure of legal deadlines in those cases, can I ask what extra steps is the government now taking, given Capita's failure to deliver on that end of June deadline and the obvious doubts that therefore causes about their capability of delivering what they promised in other key areas? That's a question.

Of course, that also applies to Capita's recent recently won synergy contract. But finally, to return to the main sort of pensions fiasco, the Minister in the Commons said the government is imminently expecting a new update and a new set of promises from capita. Well, given that we are shortly going to be going into recess, could the noble Lady, the Minister, also update us on what the government's intentions are to ensure Parliament is fully updated on those new plans before recess commences?
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Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent Portrait Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent, The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Labour)
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Yeah, yeah.

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Baroness Griffin and noble Lord Lord Pack. I want to pay tribute to Lord Pack. I want to pay tribute to our fantastic public servants. There are many members of your Lordships House who have worked extremely closely with members of extremely closely with members of our Civil Service, and they deserve, at the very least, the security and at the very least, the security and dignity of a decent pension, which is their entitlement and their deferred salary rather than what they are currently experiencing.

We are talking about people who have dedicated their careers to our public services, and it should be non-negotiable that they deserve a pension service that is reliable, efficient and secure. We are, after all, discussing what is their deferred salary and how many experiences have simply been appalling. When the standards they deserve are not upheld, the government will not hesitate to decide to act decisively to protect their interests. The failure of capita to meet its critical operational recovery milestones follows a complete non-delivery of promised automated technology and artificial intelligence infrastructure.

Capita senior leadership team gave explicit personal assurances to Ministers, as well as to very senior civil servants ahead of the handover that they were fully capable of managing the workload. Yet they were clearly completely unprepared and allowing the system to become overwhelmed and the backlog to peak at a staggering 120,000 unresolved cases. The operational reality since the transfer to capture on the 1st of December has fallen far short of the required standard. As of the end of June, there are still more than 6700 outstanding requirement, requiring retirement quotations for past retirement dates and over 4100 unresolved bereavement cases on which capita could and should have taken action.

The stories of members and grieving families falling into hardship are distressing and entirely unacceptable, which is why a specialist pensions recovery taskforce was to was established to take strategic oversight of operations to ensure no one faces financial anxiety alone. The Emergency Transitional Support Loan Scheme has been expanded, with over £15.6 million in interest free funds already issued to over 2842 members who need financial support. While we very quickly try to fix what's so horribly broken without the vital support of the Cabinet Office, Pensions Recovery Task Force and the 140 strong government surge team, what progress that has been achieved would simply not have happened.

This intervention was essential to inject immediate operational capability when the system was overwhelmed to reassure your Lordships' House, as both the noble Baroness and the noble Lord have asked, public money will not be used to fund corporate failings. We will claw back every single penny of these surge costs directly from capita, and there is no intention to remove a single member of the team until the service is permanently fixed and fully restored to contractual required. Standard levels, as the noble Lord Lord Pack asked, however, about the Pensions Ombudsman, I believe we will be several months away from that, but we are having a meeting over the summer to look at all the cost concerns and I'll ensure that those costs, potential costs are considered as part of any arrangement.

Transitioning to capita was assessed as the operationally lower risk path to safeguard scheme continuity, given that remaining with the previous provider, my CSP had become commercially and operationally unviable. The only alternative proposal demanded astronomical costs and the total removal of all standard service level agreements for the contract, all while the backlog of cases was increasing by 10,000 cases every month while my CSP were in charge. Crucially, ahead of the handover, explicit personal assurances were secured directly from capita chief Executive, that they possess the necessary operational capacity to manage the transferred workload successfully.

My Lords, it is remarkable considering that ahead of the transition, the chief executive of capita even promised that technology improvements would create a flagship a flagship use case for the largest AI enabled pension scheme in the country. It is now clear that the non-delivery of technology has been a fundamental part of Capita's inability to to deliver. Because those guarantees have been broken. The milestone payments totalling £9.9 million have been withheld. We've instructed capita to provide a full rectification plan by the 14th of July tomorrow, and every right is reserved to take further formal action, including potential litigation or direct control.

Step in remedies capita as both the noble Baroness and noble Lord highlighted, capita has missed both its end of April and end of June. Milestones to return service to standard, contractually required levels. My Lords, these were milestone deadlines they themselves agreed to. They were not imposed upon them and they failed to meet their own deadlines. Their current working assumption is to systematically clear the remaining past retirement, quote, an actionable bereavement backlogs throughout July and August to provide robust oversight on the ground.

We are deploying an independent technical auditors immediately to review data integrity alongside a remedial adviser appointed at capita sold expense to force daily rectification with regards to synergy, well, individual public sector deals like the DWP synergy contract are governed under separate legal regulations. This crisis highlights the limitations of outsourcing under the new public interest test, introduced on the 17th of June. Outsourcing by default will end, and this pension scheme remains a prime candidate to be bought permanently. Back in house, I was asked some specific two specific questions by the noble Baroness, Lady Fin and by Lord Pack regarding Debarment and the Procurement Act of 2023.

Noble Lords would appreciate. We are in the middle of a contractual dispute, so we are following each element of our contract. Therefore, I cannot comment in detail upon next steps regarding any contract, but all strategic suppliers remain under constant review and we will not hesitate to use our powers under the Procurement Act to investigate and, where appropriate and proportionate, exclude poorly performing suppliers from future procurements. With regard to the McCloud remedy implementation raised by the noble Lord Lord Pack, this is a complex programme requiring revised statements for approximately 74,000 pensioners and 21,000 deferred members.

We are working hard with capita to aim to keep to our target for issuing the majority of revised option statements during 2027. We are applying rigorous commercial pressure to ensure these public servants receive the correct pension adjustments they are owed. I'd also like to take this opportunity, my Lords, to confirm to members of your Lordships' House that current recipients of the pension scheme have not been affected by what? By this appalling contractual failure. It is people who are seeking to access the scheme where the problems are.

But I think it's important that, given how many people are subject, are members of this pension scheme, that we don't scare current recipients about what's happening. In conclusion, my Lords, behind every statistic says the noble Baroness Griffin rightly pointed out, every statistic there is is not a number. It is a family. It is a retired civil servant, a human being not receiving their core pension pension entitlement. This is simply unacceptable. We will continue to use every commercial lever at our disposal to ensure that members receive what they have earned.

Your Lordships' House will receive a comprehensive formal update in October on the definitive findings of the independent audit and the longer term structural options for the scheme.
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Lord Davies of Brixton Portrait Lord Davies of Brixton (Labour)
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I thank my noble friend for repeating the Commons statement, and as my noble friend knows, I've been asking questions on this issue for most of this year, so I therefore welcome the attention that it's now been receiving from the ministerial team and the work that they are doing now. Of course, the issue of outsourcing will have to be dealt with and the role of capita, but I'm sure my noble friend agrees that the priority now is to get the payments to the people who need them.

Now, I, I attended the statement in the House of Commons and listened to the stories being repeated by MPs of the problems faced by the recipients. I went to the Joint Committee meeting for as long as I could bear it, and it. That is real human problems here. We all know this now. It's of course good that interest is being paid on. Late payments and loans are being made in terms of the interest rate. It's backed Bank of England plus 1%.

But that's actually the rate paid when the government pays people money, when the government claims people claims money from people, they charge a higher rate of interest. And my view is that in these circumstances is the higher rate of interest that should be payable by capita. So perhaps my friend could look at at reconsider it. But the more important thing is that. The statement the. The Minister said in reply to a question, members will have the opportunity to ask for other losses to be covered as part of the complaints process.

I think we've got beyond that stage now. These people deserve compensation for the mental stress and anguish that they have. They have suffered, and really, we should be expecting capita to give them cash compensation for the the problems which they have created.
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Lord Balfe Portrait Lord Balfe (Conservative)
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My Lords, as a.

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By declaring an interest?

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I am a member of this scheme. In 1978. Let no one say that the 1978. Let no one say that the British became bad Europeans lately. In 1978, in a last minute endeavour to put off direct elections, Jim to put off direct elections, Jim Callaghan persuaded the Council of Ministers that instead of having a common European pension and salary, any peace would be paid in pension by their member state. And that lasted until, believe it or not, 2009.

Now, of course, he hadn't thought it out. And when he came back, the the then capital, the then Civil Service Pension Scheme, based in Basingstoke, was told to organise pension, which they did, and after many years the European Parliament members pension scheme for British members up to 2004 is run by capita. It's run as an adjunct to the MP scheme, except that it is contributory, but it's not funded. In other words, the money is not invested.

So I have been either a manager or chair of managers of that scheme ever since 1979. I'm now. I then became chair of the European Parliament's own scheme. I have found that there has been complete obfuscation between the Civil Service and capita as to what we can be told. So my plea to the Minister is, please, can you ask for greater transparency? Because I find it completely unacceptable that I can read the obituary of a colleague in the paper and then be told by capita that its information, protected by the GDPR, and they can't tell me who's died, even though I can tell them.

So what I ask the Minister to do is to try and get some greater clarity so that the present managers, who are only seven of them, can at least find out who their pensioners are, whether they're still alive, and any other salient facts, because it's just not acceptable.
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None Portrait Legislation: Civil Aviation (Consumer Protection and Regulatory Reform) Bill - report stage
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Report to. Bill Lord Hendy.
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Lord Moylan Portrait Lord Moylan (Conservative)
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My Lords, I beg to move that this report now be received. >> The question is that this report be now received, as many as are in that opinion will say content, not content the contents have it. before clause one. Amendment one. Lord Moylan.

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My Lords, this is what I would refer to. As essentially an administrative bill. That is, it administrative bill. That is, it doesn't make large changes to the way in which civil aviation operates, but it does change very significantly the way in which decisions will be made in future decisions will be made in future about how civil aviation operates. And it does that necessarily because many of the decisions that have been made in the past and up until now have been carried out under European Union legislation.

And since we happily left the European Union, a substitute for that decision making has to be found. My concerns about this bill throughout committee have been that the new system has been, in many ways, a terrible botch, and one of the features of it has been that very large powers are being taken away, so to speak, from the European Union and given to the Civil Aviation Authority almost without supervision or ministerial oversight. They are, in other words, being transferred to unelected bureaucrats.

It's as if the government had been completely deaf to what we voted for when we voted to leave the European Union. If I come to amendments 1 to 3, I intend to be fairly brief. But a few words of introduction, I think, are important. In this particular case, the background to amendments 1 to 3 are, and I say this I have to say this frankly, the catastrophic government we have suffered from in the last two years, so catastrophic that they have had to depose their own party leader and Prime Minister and go outside Parliament to seek a substitute in order to reset the government and try to recover from what was.

It has been a complete disaster. In that context. It seems to me quite wrong that the government should be seeking our trust to take these powers with almost no parliamentary scrutiny, to pass many of the powers to the Civil Aviation Authority, with very little ministerial oversight and say to us, say to Parliament, you can trust us to get it right. I'm afraid the basis of that trust has gone, and that is why we have two amendments in this group, one of which, amendment one seeks to give a purpose to the bill and to set out what it is, should be the guiding principles underlying the bill, and competition and the economy are important.

Now, I know that governments generally don't like purpose clauses. In fact, I have to admit, as I think most noble Lords know, that even the public bill office doesn't like purpose clauses. But I have reinforced and buttressed amendment number one with amendment number three, which gives very specific guidance to the government on what it needs to take into account when making decisions in section one under clause one to do with passenger protection, and they focus very much on the opportunities that aviation gives us for economic growth and on the necessity to that end of competition and competitiveness in the sector.

It is astonishing. Very often one talks to members of the government and says, well, what about the economy and competitiveness? And they look at one as if as if one were talking about something rather from Mars. They're all for growth. But when you actually say the mechanics of growth involve such thing as competitiveness and light touch regulation, they wonder what you mean. It's as if the only route to growth was, in fact, the expenditure of public money, money that we have now, in fact, run out of.

In fact, the Minister has said, and I don't think it should it's a matter of controversy that the aviation sector, indeed like other transport sectors, is an important infrastructural base for economic growth and we need to have the capacity to give the country the aviation services they need. So requiring the government to have regard to those factors and to avoid overregulation seems to me a very reasonable piece of guidance to them in putting this together, and I would very much hope that the noble Lord, who, it must be said, have, has clearly listened carefully to many of the points that have been made in committee and has tabled a raft of amendments, many of which I have to say, might have gone further.

But they have come some way in the direction in which I have been arguing, and I'm grateful to him, for I and other noble Lords have been arguing not just I, certainly Lady Grey Thompson and Baroness Lady Grey Thompson and so forth. So he has listened in committee. I want to I want to acknowledge that at the outset. But he has not listened on this point, and it's time, perhaps, that he should. He still has a chance to redeem himself. I must say that if he.

If he fails to do so, I'm very likely to test the opinion of the House on amendment number three. My Lords, I beg to move.
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Lord Harper Portrait Lord Harper (Conservative)
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Lord Moylan with his two amendments. Some general remarks about them, Some general remarks about them, and then to specific points, if I may, which are questions to the Minister. The first point, which I won't labour at length we dealt with it at. Committee is the importance of growing the aviation sector itself, which is the focus of the noble Lords amendment number of the noble Lords amendment number one, making sure it's competitive and that is important to have that as a focus, because there are those some inside this House, inside your Lordships House, but also those outside who want to stymie and stifle the aviation sector.

And I think that would be a retrograde step. And I should say at this point, I should should have done it at the beginning of my remarks, declare my interest, which is in the Register of interests as the non-executive chair of aviation. So if that 1 or 2 moments too late. But in the nick of time, the second point I wanted to raise was on his amendment three, which is also about economic growth more widely, which therefore links the importance of growing the aviation sector and its role in growing the economy.

And I just wanted to put this point on the record, because lots of the debate I suspect will have will be focussed on, rightly, the impact of many rules on passengers. But it is worth just remembering the very significant role that aviation plays in trade and the the value, not just the volume, but the value of imports and exports to and from the United Kingdom. Very significant. And it's important to our overall competitiveness, particularly in high value sectors, that aviation remains strong to promote the wider economy.

The two specific questions to the Minister are these he'll remember at committee, we had a debate prompted by an amendment that I had tabled around the business rates impact on airports following the revaluation and the very significant rises in business rates that had hit airports, multiple factor increase in those rates. And we had a debate about it. And the Minister referenced the fact that there's a review going on, and I just wanted to put on record the importance of this issue in relation to my noble friend's two amendments.

For this reason, there has been some talk, and I recognise it is only speculation at this point from the the man who will be Prime Minister next week, that he favours an increase in business

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rates on what are loosely defined Those out of town warehouses,

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Those out of town warehouses, large premises in order to generate revenue, in order for the government to be able to cut government to be able to cut business rates for the high street. And what I wanted to ask the And what I wanted to ask the Minister specifically was ask him to rule out, or at least make it clear that his Department will be clear that his Department will be making it clear that for for this purpose, I'm not going to go widely into the debate on business rates, but airports should not be included in the category of large out of town warehousing sites.

There should not be facing a significant increase in business rates in order to pay for reductions. But on the high street, and I would ask the Minister to give whatever commitment he's able to at this stage about that, because I think that will be a retrograde step. The review that's taking place, I hope, will conclude that the very significant rise in business rates that's hit airports is not good for the sector, not good for passengers or freight users, because those costs are all just loaded onto the users.

And I hope the Minister can rule that out. The second area is just to reflect on the point that Lord Moylan has tabled in both of his amendments, which is about the importance of economic growth. The government has said on a number of occasions that economic growth is its number one priority. Now, the problem with that assertion is that since the general election, if you look at GDP growth per head, there has been almost none. The economy has grown a little bit, but it hasn't kept pace with the rise in the population.

So there hasn't really been any economic growth. The Prime Minister to be has started to talk about good growth, which implies there is something on the other side of the ledger about growth. And I just wanted to make the point that growing the economy should remain the number one priority of this government and in fact, any future government. It's the basis on which we generate prosperity and which we raise taxes. And I just want to therefore reinforce my noble friend's point, having on the face of the bill, both growing the sector but also recognising its importance to growing the economy.

Both remain very important. So I, like my noble friend, will listen very carefully to the minister's response to this group and then decide whether, if my noble friend decides to push this to a vote, whether I'm able to support him at the moment. My inclination is that he should, and I would.
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Baroness Foster of Oxton Portrait Baroness Foster of Oxton (Conservative)
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My Lords. >> I'd like to support the comments made by. >> My noble friend Lord. >> Moylan, and I. >> Don't think this.

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Is actually. A very simple solution.

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To what we're now trying to do. Certainly before we were covering all of the legislation in covering all of the legislation in the European Union, it was fairly straightforward for many decades in straightforward for many decades in this country, where the CAA, as a regulator, had sole responsibility for all of the technical issues and for all of the technical issues and other things, obviously, coming under the auspices of the government, of the Secretary of State and certain experts and committees that were in place when we started to debate and bring in a lot of primary legislation, which obviously was implemented in all of the member states, including the United Kingdom.

And just from my time when I entered the European Parliament in 1999, all of these huge subjects, whether we're looking at security, passenger rights, traffic rights, airspace restructuring, mandatory reporting slots, flight time limitation, flight time limitations were all debated, and everything else that was related were all debated by the transport committee. It wasn't a small committee. These committees are not small committees that are were in the European Parliament, but everything was debated very carefully, with different points of view.

Experts were brought in and the the time it took basically to take through a piece of legislation would be a couple of years. It was the same system in terms of 2 or 3 readings at least. So that brings me to where we are, because we do have a different system. And it's quite clear to me that the CAA is our primary regulator. It is a an excellent regulator, in my view. We were always seen in the United Kingdom as being one of the basically paramount countries in terms of regulation, in terms of both maritime and the and the aviation sectors.

So really, it's how is this going to work? Because we've got civil aviation on the one hand, which is the correct regulator. And then throughout this entire bill, we are then referring all of the time to. And the Secretary of State will decide, and the Secretary of State will decide. So the Secretary of State decides. But that doesn't seem to be anything that's sort of in the middle of that. Which brings me to then how do we then bring back very difficult decisions and quite complex decisions back, for example, perhaps onto the floor of the House or into a committee? Well, in the European Parliament, what we did do when we believed it was a very important issue.

It could be something like passenger rights or security. We didn't go along with the delegated acts argument because, of course the delegated acts. Once something was then updated, this meant that the commission could then implement those changes without coming back to the Parliament. So we very often insisted on a number of these subjects that we had implementing acts. So whenever a piece of legislation, be it things like security or whatever needed to come back. Passenger rights slots needed to come back to be updated normally within a few years.

It came back to the parliament and therefore that is where it withstood scrutiny by the members of that committee who could call in the experts who were required. So there is a bit of an issue over this bridge. How do we bridge this to ensure that when we do require scrutiny, when we do require some of the areas of civil aviation to come into Parliament for more discussion and for more debate, that there is a easy way that this is happening.

And this is not a criticism from me of the Civil Aviation Authority. As I have said, they are an excellent and excellent authority. So I will throw that to our noble friend the Minister, or have great regard for as he very well knows, because I think it's something that needs some clarification. And my final point, it was just on growth. My noble friend has covered this issue well already. I don't really see anything, though, in the bill that shows where we can create growth.

There seem to be many areas where we want to seem to as, as my noble friend has said, perhaps increase taxation on the industry, business rates on the industry. There are other members of this House who would like to see the industry basically restricted, which is not what I would like to see. So again, I think we need to be very bold and very forthright to make sure that this industry is hugely important to the economy. It's hugely important. It's one of the most successful industries that we have ever created, basically in this country, and factors from around the world from imports, exports, as well as the movement of free movement of people.

And so I'd like to see here more, I think, from from the Minister on how we really can achieve growth here, because some of the restrictions I see that are being proposed by others will

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certainly not lead to continued success that we would all like to see. My Lords. This.

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This. Is a very strange bill. It's a bill in search of a purpose. It's a bill in search of a purpose. It's a bill which proposes and transfers substantial powers to a regulatory body, but it gives us no road map body, but it gives us no road map of how those powers are going to be used. So in the debates we've had used. So in the debates we've had so far and in the proposed amendments, look, we're looking at this afternoon, it's inevitable that there are going to be amendments to try and give the bill a purpose, amendments to try and limit the use of the powers because their their use has not been explained, and proposals to try and get some better regulation directly into the face of the Bill, given the absence of any suggestion for improvements in the legislation that we we have before us, including, I think, some very good proposals we come to later to improve the lot of disabled travellers, for example, and I can
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Lord Redwood Portrait Lord Redwood (Conservative)
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understand why people want to get something worthwhile into a bill which is otherwise. This rather strange transfer of powers to trust this independent body. And we know this independent body. And we know there's no urgency about this, because we know from the impact assessment that there aren't going assessment that there aren't going to be any costs or benefits for the foreseeable future. And we know that the CAA is going to be given that the CAA is going to be given about a year after the successful passage of this bill, if it goes through to contemplate and review.

Now, I rise to support my noble friend because I think he is trying to give this bill an overriding purpose, which should be entirely at one with the manifesto and the plans and the stated intentions of both the outgoing and the incoming Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I think we all agree across parties that it would be good if our economy grew fast, and that it has been growing since the great crash of 2000 and 809, and we can all see, surely, that this requires sector by sector response, as well as changes in general economic policy that are not the subject of this debate.

And I think my noble friend is right to try and make growth and competitiveness. The twin aims and the Minister, I suspect, is very sympathetic, but he will need to get colleagues and others to cooperate in speeding up work to try and ensure that the aviation sector, normally a fast growing, modernising, important sector, particularly in an island country that needs good transport links, should be one of the attractive means of increasing our activity, our growth, creating more and better paid jobs.

And this legislation covers issues that could make a very material contribution to that faster growth. It covers the question of airport slots. Well, are they going to be more of them, and is there a policy to try and create more capacity? What is the government view on airport expansion? Is there going to be more expansion of smaller and regional airports to take some of the strain off the main centre in London? What is the plan for London and when are we going to have the very large number of slots expanded, because it's clearly under great pressure of demand.

There are regulations mentioned but not detailed in this legislation on the charging. And we've already heard from my noble friend about the possible tax charges on certain types of business premises. But what we really need to hear from the government is what is the charging policy going to be for scarce airport space, particularly in London, where we are becoming uncompetitive against Schiphol and Paris and Frankfurt and some of the other continental airports who are our natural competitors. And if you become not very price competitive, then you start to lose the interlining and air switching business, which can be handled by a big intersection airport like Amsterdam, just as well as can be handled by Heathrow.

So we need a bit more guidance on how these regulations might develop and might be included. So I would just urge the Minister to take 1 or 2 of the veils off and give us some idea of how these policies on improve regulation for costs of use of airport, for amount of airport space, for the allocation of slots, and for the general conduct of air traffic in our country might be deployed. Because I do find it odd that two years into a government with a very strong majority and a strong mandate for quite a limited manifesto, doesn't seem to have those burning desires to, for example, get our aviation sector really growing quickly because it doesn't answer the questions about these very basic things.

How much airport space, how do you allocate the slots? What is the pricing? How much support do you give to the industry? What will the regulatory impact be on that industry? Because we all want safety regulation. We all want good regulation so that the customer gets a decent deal, but we don't want so much regulation that it throttles the industry here and means that an extremely mobile and fast moving industry can shift its assets the following day to another hub airport somewhere else, taking a

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lot of the business away. My Lord, I wanted to make a very

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My Lord, I wanted to make a very brief intervention on this group and and thank Lord Moylan for and and thank Lord Moylan for amendment one, but express concern that it's a conflict with amendment that it's a conflict with amendment three. Both of the little clause sees. The reason for that is amply sees. The reason for that is amply explained by Lord Redwood. He started by saying this bill is a bill in search of a purpose, but then went on to say, we're going to improve the lot of disabled people, amongst other things.

And I'm very grateful that he said that, because in amendment three, 1BC asks the Secretary of State to make it an absolute priority to consider the impact of the regulations on the burdens imposed on air transport service providers and airport operators in complying with the regulations. And, my Lords, I think part of the journey of disabled people in buying a ticket for flying and then going through airports, various and actually
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Baroness Grender Portrait Baroness Grender (Liberal Democrat)
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group of amendments, specifically amendments one and three, tabled by amendments one and three, tabled by the noble Lord Moylan. And I thank both front benches for having met both front benches for having met with us over the past few days. In the run up to the Report stage, all the insight and information and the insight and information and conversations have been very much appreciated. I also would say to appreciated. I also would say to the noble Lord Moylan that I admire his attempt to insert an overarching economic growth purpose into the primary heart of the bill, which I see as a valiant attempt.

I hope he will in turn, look kindly on some of my valiant attempts later on in further groups. Also, the government, as he rightly says, should be stretching every sinew to pursue growth as we did in the wake of the economic crash of 2008 and the extremely difficult days of the coalition government. And in fact, I had the enormous privilege of being an unelected bureaucrat. One might describe me as sitting in the Cabinet meetings and watching those proceedings.

And there was not a week that went by where economic growth wasn't discussed. And that was a good thing. But technically, I think this is primarily, unless I have misread it or misunderstood, a lot of the committee stages that we've done. This is a safety and consumer protection framework, primarily with slots and modernisation as part of it, and by mandating that the Secretary of State has regard to promoting economic growth when regulating passenger rights under clause one, I worry about subordinating the safety and the dignity of the travelling public to the commercial margins of what the noble Lord Harper committee stages himself.

Described as a low margin industry, and through this bill, I feel it would be vital to reflect that the low margins of ordinary and we talked about this in Committee stage, the low margins of ordinary passengers who have to, for instance, jump through hoop after hoop to get what is by right. Their compensation means that in turn, it is their low margins. The ordinary passengers, low margins that become the ones that bear the financial consequence and burden. And that is what worries me.

I enormously respect and have found it very interesting and educational to hear the noble Baroness Foster's expertise and experience, both with her knowledge and understanding of this, and her knowledge and understanding of the workings of the European Parliament, which was very helpful and useful in the committee stages as well, and I thank her for that. I do worry that overloading the CAA with a greater economic growth remit, because it already has one, creates a bit of a conflict.

And as we have heard, the regulator is being granted vast new powers without robust parliamentary oversight to anchor those powers in competitiveness rather than passenger first, has a danger in, in our opinion, of inviting a race to the bottom. And we'll talk a bit more about that in the next set of amendments in consumer standards. So I agree with some of the commentary about how little this bill is, how it needs more detail. It's something that we have tried to test out in committee stages and, you know, kind of some of the amendments when they come up and the government amendments have in some ways achieved that.

But on this one, we are not going on the same journey as the Conservatives. At the very least, we would add in an environmental remit if we were expanding that remit. And so we will not be joining. We will be listening, like Mark, the noble Lord Harper. I didn't realise he wasn't on a conservative whip this evening and and listening with some

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interest to what the Minister says. Sits down. Can I just reference one of the points that she made about perfectly talking about disabled people? Two points. One is just to recognise that the amendment my noble friend Lord Moylan has put down just says the government has to consider the government has to consider the burdens. I would say there are two things. First of all, if you make air travel more. Or better for disabled people, you're actually going to grow the top line.

You're going to have more people flying and higher revenues. And the second thing is simply that Minister has to consider those costs, may still consider they're the right thing to do. So I don't think there's the contradiction in the way that she

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perhaps set out. Well, I thank the noble Lord.

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Well, I thank the noble Lord. And we we think that driving for this particular principle cuts this particular principle cuts across the the stronger consumer rights that we have been talking about all along in Committee stage. So.

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My Lords, before addressing these amendments, I thank all noble Lords for their continued contributions to the Bill. It is clear that we share a common goal improving the aviation sector. The government has carefully reflected on the arguments put forward during the bill's passage. The amendments in my name respond to that constructive engagement, and I hope they will be welcomed by all Lordships turning to amendment one,
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Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill Portrait Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill, Minister of State (Department for Transport) (Labour)
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I thank the noble Lord Lord Moylan for bringing it forward. We discussed in committee how the bill will promote economic growth. Having considered the arguments made then, and indeed the noble Lord Moylan speech just now, and Lord Moylan speech just now, and that of the noble Lord Redwood and others, the government's position remains unchanged. I fully remains unchanged. I fully recognise the intention behind the amendment, which is to ensure that, alongside consumer protection, we alongside consumer protection, we continue to support a competitive and growing aviation sector.

Those are objectives that the government strongly supports. As I set out in committee, growth and competitiveness are already central to the government's aviation agenda. Beyond this bill, we are also taking forward airspace modernisation, supporting innovation through the future of flight programme, embedding a pro-growth approach across regulation and backing airport expansion where it can deliver economic benefits and meet planning and environmental requirements. The amendment also seeks to protect the rights and interests of air passengers. On that point, the government has listened carefully to concerns raised during the bill's passage and has brought forward amendments requiring the Secretary of State, whilst exercising the powers in clause one to have due regard to strengthening air passenger rights and to principles relating to dignity, accessibility and support for disabled passengers and those with reduced mobility.

We have done so because these considerations are directly relevant to the exercise of those powers. I agree with the noble Baroness Brinton that this issue is important and relevant to economic growth. However, I do not consider amendment one necessary. Economic growth, investment and competitiveness are already important considerations in aviation policy and regulation, and these priorities are reflected in the Secretary of State's engagement with the Civil Aviation Authority. On the authority. I note the noble Baroness Foster Foster of Oxygen's view from her extensive experience that the CAA, the CAA is an excellent regulator.

The noble Baroness Paul, I hope. Note my amendments later on on the proposed delegations and controls when we get to that section of the Bill. More fundamentally, amendment one would require the Secretary of State to give statutory regard to specific set of objectives when exercising powers under the Bill. Whilst those objectives are important, they are not the only relevant consideration. As I noted in committee, this list does not include safety, which is fundamental to aviation and underpins the measures in this bill, nor does it capture the full range of factors that may need to be taken into account in particular circumstances.

The government's view remains that it is better to preserve the flexibility to balance all relevant considerations, rather than elevating a limited set of factors in legislation. I think that's also what the noble Baroness Grender referred to. And I also note, as she did, that the Civil Aviation Authority is already subject to a statutory growth duty, which requires it to have regard to economic growth and the exercise of its regulatory functions. Turning to the Second Amendment in this group, amendment three, the government agrees that economic growth is a priority.

However, consideration of growth is already embedded across government decision making. Policy proposals are assessed for their impact on growth, and departments are required through options appraisal and impact assessment processes to demonstrate those effects before a decision, before decisions are taken. I listened to the noble Lord Harper carefully, and he referred to the call for evidence about the valuation methodology which which will involve constructive engagement with the aviation industry ahead of the 2029 revaluation. I note his view that the airport shouldn't be considered as out of town warehouses.

And we'll see. We'll see what happens with government in the future about that. For all those reasons, I'm unable to support the amendments, and I respectfully ask the noble Lord to withdraw them.
16:54
16:55
None Portrait Amendment:2 Baroness Grender (Liberal Democrat)
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Lordships pleasure that >> Lordships pleasure that amendment one be withdrawn? Amendment is by leave withdrawn. Amendment is by leave withdrawn.

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Amendment two Baroness Grender. My Lords, I rise to speak to amendment two standing in my name. Throughout the passage of this bill, these benches have pursued a consistent and, I would hope, unwavering approach that passengers must come first. Whether we were debating information rights, delay compensation or the powers being conferred on the Secretary of State. Our test has always been the same. Does this provision leave the passenger better protected, or does it leave the door open to erosion of standards that they currently enjoy? This amendment is a direct continuation of that approach.

It does not seek to load new obligations onto the government. It simply asks that when Ministers use the powers this bill grants them, they cannot use those powers to quietly lower the bar. The principle underpinning this amendment is non-regression, where government takes power to make new regulations. The existing baseline of protection should not be capable of being diminished through that power. It is not novel. Section 20 of the Environment Act 2021 already requires a Minister before Second Reading of any bill touching environmental law to confirm it will not reduce existing environmental protection, and if they cannot, to say so, and explain why that single duty has kept the floor from moving.

Air quality standards inherited from EU law were carried through, not diluted, and remain in force today. I see no reason why passengers travelling by air should be treated as deserving of any lesser assurance than that already extended to the air they breathe. This amendment, therefore, asks nothing exceptional of the Minister. It does not fetter the government's ability to modernise, to update or to respond to changing aviation sector developments, all of which this Bill quite rightly enables.

What it does provide is an assurance in the Bill itself that modernisation will not become a euphemism for dilution. Passengers who currently benefit from certain consumer protections, certain standards of information, certain rights when things go wrong, should be able to trust that those protections form a floor, not a ceiling that can be quietly lowered by Statutory Instrument or with little scrutiny or even less public attention. I hope Minister will recognise the modesty of what is being asked here and the strength of precedent behind it.

If the government are confident, as I'm sure they are, that these powers will be used to enhance rather than diminish passenger standards, then this amendment costs them nothing. It simply puts that confidence into the bill in black and white, so that it does not rest on ministerial assurance alone, but on the statute itself. And therefore I beg to move, turning in this group to amendments eight, ten and 11. Also, in my name, we address the most basic issues of safeguarding. Amendment eight requires that airlines and airports provide specific support for those who require assistance from a carer.

And I think in doing this, we need to acknowledge that the Minister has moved a long way in terms of the amendments that have been tabled in this area. Amendments ten and 11 ensure that families and those requiring assistance are never separated during their journey. If you book a table in a restaurant, you don't arrive to discover that your child is put on a different table. Now, I know there is one bad actor in here, but one bad actor. An air company can get away with it at the moment because there's no restriction.

We have heard far too many heartbreaking stories as well, of passengers with disabilities being treated as the lowest priority. It is not a premium or a luxury service to have your carer with you or your child with you. It is a statutory baseline that we would like to see written on the face of the bill. Amendment 36 seeks to mandate transparency during the frequent and exhausting periods of flight delays. It is not enough to rely on patchy guidance.

Operators must have a statutory duty to provide timely, accurate and accessible information, ensuring that the silence at the gate is replaced by clear communication. And just to explain that this was written whilst waiting at a gate at an airport. Having witnessed someone being shouted at who was on crutches, who hadn't managed to take his stuff off the plane because we'd all been removed from the plane because of an engine failure. It was appalling. And that was two weeks ago.

Finally, amendment 64 creates a two year reporting cycle to assess how these new regulations have actually impacted passenger protections. Given the skeletal nature of this bill, Parliament needs a formal mechanism to judge whether the government's promises of strengthened rights have actually materialised. For instance, at the baggage carousel, I turn now to other amendments. In this group. We on these benches welcome the government's amendments, particularly G 19, G71 and G72. The removal of the compensation cap for damaged wheelchairs on domestic flights under G 71 is a great step forward for accessibility for a disabled person.

A wheelchair is not merely luggage, and we have heard in Second Reading and in committee stages. And I urge any noble Lord who is here, who hasn't been there to hear these cases, to go back and read it. It is it puts makes your hair stand on end. It is a vital extension of their body and their independence. Well, we welcome the new duty to consult in G 19. I must echo the concerns of my noble friend Baroness Brinton.

Her amendment 25 is essential. We should not be debating the desirability. And I thank the Minister for reaching out on this issue and providing a bit of additional information, but he will recognise that we're still concerned about this, and I'm sure my noble friend will come in on it. It should be an absolute statutory duty. We also strongly support, of course, her amendment 22, which ensures that specific level of support required by carers, is a central part of that consultation. We also support amendment six from the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of Cradley, including allergies and hidden disabilities.

Within the scope of assistance is a common sense update that reflects modern passenger needs and the reality of travel for many thousands of families. On amendment four, tabled by the noble Lord Lord Moylan. While we support efficiency, his focus on a 25% reduction in regulatory costs, we worry in. In the same way that we did in the first group, that it risks subordinating passenger dignity to commercial margins, but look forward to hearing his arguments and making that case.

Amendment 26, in an attempt to ensure that these greater rights are for all passengers. And I thank the noble Lord Moylan for explaining this amendment in advance, and I look forward to what the Minister has to say to it. My Lords, the Minister has described this bill as a waypoint. Let us ensure that this waypoint leads towards a sector that is accessible by design and anchored in passenger first principles. Going back to the previous debate, you get economic growth when people want to buy the product, when people feel safe to buy the product, and when they find it an enjoyable experience to buy the product.

And so all of these are incredibly important elements to that. And as ever, as we have said already in committee stages, we mustn't sign a blank cheque. That leaves the travelling public vulnerable to the patchy enforcement that we've seen in the past.
17:03
17:04
Baroness Kennedy of Cradley Portrait Baroness Kennedy of Cradley (Labour)
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we discussed in the committee, there are far too many barriers to air travel for people with medical conditions, non-visible disabilities and allergy, and in particular, food allergy. Amendment six asked the government to recognise this and ensure that these passengers are covered by the bill so that they can travel more safely, more easily and with greater confidence. The government have rightly said that aviation must be accessible to all passengers, and all noble Lords will welcome that. But however important, however important statements of intent are, it is action that matters and though not perfect.

That is why I do support the government. Amendment 19, as it should put in place the building blocks for action. Action for the government that should lead to action by the aviation industry. In supporting it, though, I do want to press my noble friend Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill on four areas. The first is the time frame for the consultation, and I strongly support amendment 20 from the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, which removes what I might call the. We are able to drag our feet.

Caveat my words, not the noble Ladies. The consultation amendment 19 does not have to start for a year, and could last for years. The caveat risk giving the impression that the government intends this consultation to take a long time. I'm sure that is not the intention. Therefore, can my noble friend Lord Hendy, indicate how long the government expect the consultation to take and commit to meeting two months after Royal Assent, so that officials can update all interested noble Lords on their plans? Secondly, and I'm sure other noble Lords will echo this, can the noble.

Can, my noble friend, outline how the consultation sits alongside the excellent work of the Aviation Accessibility Task and Finish Group, chaired by the noble Lady, Lady Grey Thompson. That group met for many months, brought people together with disabilities and medical conditions, including allergy consumer representatives and the airline industry. Its final report made 19 practical recommendations. The implementation of these recommendations recommendations must continue at pace. Many do not require legislation. They require clear guidance, effective policy and a willingness from the airline industry to deliver that change.

So that end, will my noble friend Lord Hendy, arrange a meeting for noble Lords with the co-chairs of the Accessibility Implementation Group to discuss what can be done now without waiting for legislation to improve air travel, and especially obviously for those passengers with allergy. Thirdly, the Equality Act, from recent conversations with officials and other legal professionals, it is clear that the interaction between the Equality Act and aviation specific regulation is complex. Regulation 1107 covers disability assistance in air travel, while the Equality Act may apply to allergy and other medical conditions that fall outside that regulation, for example, an airline's allergy policy could potentially amount to indirect disability discrimination or a failure to make reasonable adjustments if it places passengers with allergy at a particular disadvantage without objective justification.

The legal position for passengers and for airlines themselves needs clarification. So can I ask my noble friend Lord Hendy, to seek that clarification from the relevant Ministers on how the Equality Act applies to air passengers with allergy and other medical conditions, and if there are gaps between the two legal frameworks and legislation is needed to provide greater clarity or protection, can my noble friend confirm that this will fall within the scope of the consultation under amendment 19? Finally, I wish to thank my noble friend Lord Hendy for writing to the FSA to clarify the application of Natasha's Law to Airlines when a response is received.

Whatever the answer, further discussion will be inevitable. If the food labelling rules do not apply. We need to understand why and whether there is a gap to close again. Hopefully, part of the consultation under amendment 19. However, my hope very much is that they do apply and therefore we need to understand how the FSA, the CAA and passengers and allergy charities can help ensure the rules are properly, properly applied. I therefore hope my noble friend will be willing to convene a meeting with interested noble Lords, the FSA and other relevant organisations on Natasha's Law and Airlines.

My Lords, in conclusion, amendment six is about ensuring that passengers with medical conditions, including allergy, are not invisible within the Aviation Accessibility framework. I welcome the progress we've made both inside and outside the chamber and the government amendments in this group, and I look forward to my noble friend, Lord Hendy's assurances on the four points I've raised him.
17:09
Baroness Brinton Portrait Baroness Brinton (Liberal Democrat)
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Through the Deputy Chairman for >> Through the Deputy Chairman for pointing out that amendment 25 appears on the schedule, both in this group and the next. And indeed, this group and the next. And indeed, I'm planning to speak on it in the next. I think I probably also ought to say that I was hoping that Lord Hendy might have moved his amendments 18 and 19. Where to? To go with those in Group three that Lady Grey Thompson and I had moved. That hasn't happened.

So as a result, I will speak to my amendments relating to his amendments in this group. I might cross refer to them very briefly only in the next group, but it would be unfortunate if they were debated completely separately. And I want to start by thanking Lady Kennedy of Cradley for her contribution and to say I absolutely support everything she has said. I mean, I have seen the consequences at a Lib Dem party conference event where there were some nuts not at that event, but in the same room at some previous event on someone who reacted very badly for it.

And it is. What is absolutely clear is that Natasha's law must be implemented, and if the current regulations don't do that, then there must be later regulation to make sure that that happens. My Lords, I have one amendment in this group, amendment 22, which seeks to ensure that a disabled or elderly person who travels with a carer is not separated from them whilst they're receiving assistance at the airport. And I echo the points made by Lady Grender on the importance of treating carers more, more generally.

My Lords Committee stage. This was particularly brought home to me a fortnight ago in terminal two at Heathrow, where a very, very elderly couple were waiting. She was in a wheelchair. He was not. They were both concerned about their journey. They were told in somewhat terse terms by the assistance person, that the assistance person couldn't take both of them through together, and so he had to go back and make his own way through security on his own. He wasn't even given the option of following behind, which is usually the case.

His wife was looking very distressed by this, and he had to reassure her that he would see her in a few minutes. Now, this behaviour by the assistant staff was uncalled for. The staff member didn't even ask the husband if the husband was able to go through security on his own, and nor did she ask if the wife was OK with that. Had one of them had memory loss and I suspect one of them might have, then actually this was really distressing. It would have been difficult, but the only thing the staff member saw was a wheelchair and an excess person, and trying to streamline their journey.

And that's why, my Lords, amendment 22 is important. And I also noticed in the ghetto in Heathrow, two, I steal Lady Grey Thompson's term for anybody who goes to the assistance area knows exactly what it's like. I think it's a temporary area. And in order to talk to people waiting, people have to talk round corners, which is not very clever. But more importantly, there is not one space for a wheelchair. I thought I'd found one sat there and then watched as wheelchairs without people in were wheeled past me and over my toes on one occasion, because actually it was the route for other wheelchairs, not mine.

So all of this fits very much with my noble friend Lady Grinder's concerns in amendments eight, ten and 11 about people with caregiving duties more providing remedy for a particular journey through an airport that with assistance staff, as I've said, make assumptions about the non visibly disabled person travelling and their carer. Amendments 18 and 19 by Lord Hendy sets out the arrangements for a consultation on the protections that should be in place for people with disabilities, reduced mobility and nut allergies, and who should be doing what.

And again, I'm very grateful to his response on this between committee and Report stage. However, as he knows, I have some very, very specific concerns on the wording in amendments 2023 and 25, all of which seek to amend Lord Hendy amendment 24. Amendment 20 proposes to leave out the bracketed section at the end of subsection one of amendment 19, which says, But the Secretary of State need not complete the process within that period. My Lords, I think this is a real threat to the whole process being thrown into the long grass.

And I do hope the noble Lord, the Minister, can reassure me that this is not the case. Amendment 23 tries to amend amendment 19 in subsection four C at the end of line 26 by changing the word or at the end of the line and replacing it with the word, and retaining all means. A Secretary of State could choose not to consult either groups representing disabled passengers, or not to consult with individual passengers themselves at all. Now, it may be that consultation needs to cover the lived experience of individuals, as well as hearing from the strengths that are available from disability groups.

It would be a shame if that were really all. Let's hope that an is possible. Finally, amendment 25 amends Lord Hendy amendment 24 on matters to which the Secretary of State must have regard and in line five of the amendment, it says the desirability of strengthening the rights of persons who purchase or use air transport services in particular, where the person whose rights would be affected are, or include disabled persons or persons with reduced mobility, end quote. I'm concerned that here the word desirability is or should be redundant.

Worse, it actually weakens the position of disabled passengers or those with reduced mobility because it sets those disabled rights in the wider context of all persons who purchase or use air transport services. My Lords, this is dangerous. It invites those organisations involved in the process of the journey of a disabled person to balance it with other services. And that, my Lords, is where the problems creep in because the focus is on the overall service to everyone, not the standards needed to provide the right level of support to disabled people.

And if the noble Lord will, the Minister will bear with me. I want to use one very brief illustration of another government department that does exactly this all the time, and that is the Department for Work and Pensions. If, as a disabled person in a wheelchair, you say you need flat access to your interview, they do not guarantee that that is available. This has been the case, my Lord, for years. It is still happening today, but because the priority is solely about getting the person needing to be interviewed in front of the assessor, it means that often people turn up and discover they cannot get to the room.

And worse than that, they are then marked down as not having attended. My Lords, that is the sort of leeway that is written into the use of the word desirability here in this particular amendment, and I hope that the Minister can explain how the rights of disabled passengers would not be affected by the use of that word in amendment 24. My Lord.

**** Possible New Speaker ****

My Lords, my Lords, apologies, I just be very. Quickly I rise to just be very. Quickly I rise to speak in support of amendment six to which my name is attached, and also to support the amendments in also to support the amendments in the name of the noble Lady Baroness Brinton. And as noble Lady Baroness Brinton. And as noble Lady Baroness Kennedy said, I did chair the Aviation Task and Finish Group. Aviation Task and Finish Group. Those people who have allergies don't easily fit into the current system of support going through airports.

And while it's better understood in the outside world, within the aviation industry, I still think there's a very long way to go. And this is a case, literally, which is life and death. And as a noble Lady, Baroness Bennett said, we have to ensure that people are able to travel safely and easily. I very much look forward to the noble Lord. The minister's explanation of the government amendment 19 and as noble Lady Baroness Brinton said to some extent it does cross into the next group.

But since we had our last debate, I've been contacted by several people who have been separated at the airport from people who is needed around them. And there's one particular instance where a young woman was separated from her family. This young woman can only communicate by an iPad, needs family support to operate that. And she was left in an absolutely terrifying situation where she felt she had all her communication ability taken away from her. And we can't continue to let that happen.

It's simply just needs a little bit of empathy, some support, and just thinking differently about how we do this, because actually it is about
17:19
17:19
Lord Moylan Portrait Lord Moylan (Conservative)
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I was going to ask if the House would indulge me to to speak now, would indulge me to to speak now, rather than at the end of the debate, because I have amendments in this group, and it may be the case that other noble Lords wish to comment on them after I have spoken to them. Before I come to those amendments, can I briefly refer to two others? The first is to express my support for the amendment tabled by noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy.

I'm pleased that she seems to have reached an accommodation with the government. The other is to refer to amendment 71 in the minister's name, which removes the cap on compensation for loss of wheelchairs. But it's important to note that, as I understand it, this only applies to domestic flights, and the reason it has no international effect is that matters such as compensation, are subject to an international agreement administered by the ICAO, based in Montreal, and would require probably, I suspect, all parties, or at least a majority of parties to the treaty to make that amendment.

I think what I'd want to hear from the government is that they are going to make this a priority and a commitment on their part that even though it might take 20 or 30 years to persuade everyone to change their mind, that this will now be a goal for the government and that it will be on their agenda at every meeting of the ICAO, until gradually things chipped away at. And they may well get somewhere in the course of time.

But unless they start, they will never get there. And it would be very good to hear the Minister say that he is going to start. I have three amendments in this group. Number four refers to. Well, the noble Baroness, Lady Grender, in saying that she couldn't support it, somewhat gave the impression that I had invented the target of reducing the costs of regulation on business by 25%. It is the government's target, and the only purpose of the amendment is to oblige the government to achieve its own target in relation to the aviation sector.

And if the government says that they don't want to accept the amendment. Of course, I understand governments don't like having their hands tied, but would the government at least say that that is still their target and that it is the policy of the Ministers to make that reduction in respect of the aviation sector that civil servants in the Department for transport are under clear instructions to achieve and deliver that reduction in costs, and that the Civil Aviation Authority will have it as a primary objective.

If they did, I would regard the purpose of my amendment as having been met. I hope the noble Lord, the Minister will say that my my other two amendments are really quite sort of technical. Amendment 21 in my name makes an amendment to amendment 19 in the name of the noble Lord, and it does so by deleting one word from it. Now the effect of the amendment. Number 19 in the name of the noble Lord is to require consultation, and it's a good amendment, I welcome it.

It responds to the debate we had in committee, but to require consultation by the Secretary of State when exercising his powers under section one of the Bill. But it goes on to say that this this obligation to consult only relates to matters in in subsection three and then A to E, so it is only those parts, those matters that arise under subsection one, which are the subject of consultation. Cunningly, I noted that if you notice that if you take out the word concerning and and replace it with not excluding.

Sorry if you add the word concerning but not excluding, then you will take the whole of subsection one into scope. So it would allow the government to consult on other matters that are dealt with by section one, not simply the ones mentioned here. Now, I think that's an improvement to the noble Lords amendment. It's not in any way damaging or wrecking it. It welcomes it and it tries to improve it by it. It allows the government to say, to keep its focus on the five items mentioned in the amendment, but it says that it could consult, it has scope and a statutory basis for consulting on the other matters as well.

So I hope the noble Lord will be willing to accept it. My other amendment might be regarded as slightly more controversial. It is amendment 26, but it relates the government amendment number 24, and it proposes the deletion of the words, in particular, the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, has already got her own amendment in relation to this. This government amendment which she has spoken to. But I just explain what I'm trying to achieve and. And it marks clear blue water, if you like, between myself and what the noble Baroness, Lady Grender, said in her opening remarks, it's the thrust of the noble Baroness argument that there should be no regression from standards in relation to consumer protection.

Bear in mind this whole argument here is about consumer protection. There should be no regression in standards in the future. I think that's a very bad principle. This clause effectively introduces what the noble Baroness is looking for. It is a non regression. Statement in relation to consumer standards, and then says in particular in relation to disabled people. But it doesn't. It actually covers everybody because disabled people are only picked out as being in particular. Now I don't think we should be introducing a non-regression standard.

It's simply the case that what counts as consumer protection changes over time, and things that might be important to consumers now might be less important in the future. I mean, if we had non regression of safety standards, we would still be having men with red flags, walking, walking in front of motorcars. But things change. Things are adapted. And also what matters to consumers change. And sometimes trade offs are necessary. So by removing the words in particular from the government's amendment, the effect of doing that is to retain the non-regression clause in respect of disabled people.

And having listened now, but also in committee, to what the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton Noble, Baroness, Lady Grey Thompson, has said I have no hesitation about the ripeness of doing that, but it removes the effect of a non-regression clause in relation to those who are not disabled. And although that does mean I disagree with the with the noble Baroness, Lady Grender. That is what political difference is all about. And we are in favour of a commercial and flexible approach to aviation, which is, after all, one of the few genuinely private, private and successful enterprises

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we have in this country. My Lords. I'd just like to comment comment

**** Possible New Speaker ****

I'd just like to comment comment on my observations of this particular group. It's a wide ranging group and there are very ranging group and there are very varied regulations that are part of it, and I think we must be very it, and I think we must be very careful that we don't try and mix them all together. Regulation, the them all together. Regulation, the former regulation, EU regulation 261 was about delays and compensation. 1107 was about passengers with reduced mobility.

And we're having appears to be conversations here where it's all being mixed into one. And that's not how obviously we can legislate now these regulations that are already in place. And I was very involved with it as a member of the European Parliament. And we put in place over the last 20 years our robust regulations. They have they have fared well, and where we have been let down, in my view, is not the regulations themselves, but it is about certain bodies in certain airports who are not being compliant and ensuring that they are fulfilling their obligations.

When we listen to the examples, for example, of a passenger with reduced mobility in a wheelchair, being separated from a carer or from a relative, that is not allowed, this should not be happening. And I think if I just gently remind our colleagues, those that were in committee the other week, it was not it was not, ironically, the airlines themselves that wanted to put into place the responsibility for passengers with reduced mobility. They took away. It was the commission.

The European Commission took away the responsibility for passengers with reduced mobility to be looked after by the airlines themselves. That was part of what you got in your ticket. That changed about 20 years ago and it was put into the hands of the airports. And as I said at the time, this is not going to be reversed now. It's a massive operation. But what we are seeing, we are seeing some very, very good practices where people are actually looked after very well.

They're not left on aircraft, their wheelchairs are not being damaged. But we're seeing far too many examples over the last years of people being treated very badly. And it's not acceptable. So I do not believe it's beyond the wit of man. I don't think we need a consultation about it. I don't think we need to go into too much further regulation. It is about those authorities complying to the regulations that are currently laid down, and it doesn't just affect us in the UK.

They are reciprocated when you travel, when passengers travel to third countries, into Europe and into the states and around the world, there are regulations that also come under ICAO, where the airlines and the airports need to be compliant. My final point is just on the point about the compensation or the damage that
17:31
Baroness Foster of Oxton Portrait Baroness Foster of Oxton (Conservative)
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could be paid for a damaged wheelchair, for example. And my my noble friend, the Lord Moylan is correct. It's the Montreal convention, actually, that over overseas, all of the the whole of overseas, all of the the whole of the whole of the aviation industry, the airline industry, in terms of the airline industry, in terms of what they had determined should be given for damage for baggage, etc. given for damage for baggage, etc. what we would have to do, and it's quite correct.

Is there a way then, for example, that we in the United Kingdom could look at that, but it would only be technically for for domestic, for, for, for domestic flights. And it would probably be something long term that I think that we could aim for. And one, one final point is people, it's children and adults being separated. I don't see any reason why a family should book a holiday or book a flight, and they then get there. Of course, we know we can pay extra for extra legroom on a number of the airlines these days, but they get there and then their children are separated.

I don't see I think that's not good enough. But by the same token, we also have there are differences. We have what are called unaccompanied minors. And these are children that will be flying without an adult. And this is where the rule generally was that we placed somebody who worked in the airline industry, that we always placed a young person next to a female. Now people may go, oh my goodness me, is this discriminatory? No, it wasn't. It was just at that time and for many years it felt most appropriate and children felt a little bit more comfortable, perhaps.

But it was the crew themselves that were really looking after those young people while they were on the aircraft, without their parents or their guardians. So again, I think there are very simple solutions. I think that the legislation and the rules are already in place, and I think it behoves the government, and I would support them absolutely to ensure that. And the civil aviation can come down really with a ton of bricks to ensure that the airlines and the airports and the airports in particular, A lot of these cases are actually complying with the regulations that are laid down.
17:33
Lord Redwood Portrait Lord Redwood (Conservative)
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My Lords, I think Baroness Grender poses an interesting question when she said that she question when she said that she thought that this mixture of amendments in this grouping created a tension, and that may be amendment four was not compatible amendment four was not compatible because it was trying to reduce the administrative and regulatory burden, whereas some of the other amendments were trying to achieve better outcomes, particularly for disabled passengers, by improved regulation. But I think these two things are perfectly compatible.

I think most of us in this House benefited greatly from learning from the expertise of noble Lords and Baroness, with experience of service for disabled passengers, and we would want the regulations to be of the best quality to to give the best opportunity for good outcomes. However, we've also heard from Baroness Foster with experience of the airline industry herself, quite a lot of the bad cases that have been described is bad practice by a commercial business, maybe already violating existing rules, but certainly violating normal standards of good conduct and probably doing damage to the reputation of that business, because not only with the disabled people, but all their families and friends as well, who would be singularly unimpressed by what's occurred.

So we need a cultural improvement, clearly, in the case of some commercial airlines, and it may be that some of the proposed improvements in the regulation will help achieve that. But if you look at the whole burden of the cost and complexity of regulation, I think you can see that that great weight of business and economic regulation, as CAA and others call it, is exceptionally complicated and is now producing a cost problem for aviation using the facilities of United Kingdom Kingdom airports and trying to build businesses from a United Kingdom hub and headquarters base.

And it is that regulation, which is doing a lot of that business damage to our growth and competitiveness and is encouraging the growth of an alternative like Schiphol. So I think that is what the Minister and his colleagues in other economic departments ought to be most interested in, and that is why I'm I'm attracted to my noble friend, Lord Moylan's proposal that the government should either put on, on the face of this bill, its own general target for deregulation, or should it be, at least in the course of this debate, say that aviation is not excluded from what is a perfectly attainable and sensible aim? And for all those noble Lords who think the EU gets a lot of these things right, the EU is, of course, following exactly the same stated policy because it, through a number of reports, has come to the conclusion that is massively overregulated and therefore not competitive compared with, say, the United States of America.

And it too is trying to set itself the target of a 25% reduction in the volume and cost of regulation, because it thinks that would be a good start in trying to restore some of the lost jobs and the slower growth, which is undoubtedly incurring as a result of over complicated and excessive regulation, and particularly of business regulation and economic regulation of the kind which afflicts the United Kingdom aviation industry. So I would hope this House would look favourably upon my noble friend's proposals and would see that they are perfectly compatible with the excellent idea that we need better

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treatment for disabled passengers. Well. Just very briefly on this group, I wanted to comment on my noble I wanted to comment on my noble friend Lord Moylan's. Amendment number 422 parts to it. The first part, as he explained very carefully to the House, the 25% reduction in administrative costs is the government's own target. And we discussed this at committee and at committee. I asked the Minister at committee. I asked the Minister if he was able to set out for the committee the progress that the
17:37
Lord Harper Portrait Lord Harper (Conservative)
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government has made in the areas that are the responsibility of his Department in achieving that 25% cost reduction. Clearly, we're two years into a five year parliament, years into a five year parliament, so if the government was on track, other things being equal, one would have expected a 10% reduction in cost or an explanation about why it was going to be loaded towards the was going to be loaded towards the back end of the parliament. And we didn't get a lot of information in this space.

So I'd be grateful if the Minister could just explain to the House what work is going on in the Department for transport to track progress in reaching that 25% reduction in administrative costs, and what information is currently available and published by the department. To hit that target. And again, as Lord Moylan said, if we we received a lot of that information, it would make the necessity to have that amendment on the face of the Bill. Not necessary. The second and final point is just to reflect on the point that I made on the earlier group.

Lord Moylan wording of his amendment in part B, one B is very sensible. It doesn't rule out the imposition of costs, but it does challenge the government to make a judgement about whether the cost increase is disproportionate to the consumer benefit. So it absolutely would allow some regulations to be introduced, which had a cost, but it would require the government to look at the benefit that those regulations delivered to passengers and assess whether that balance was correct. In other words, the benefit to passengers outweighed the costs that were levied on the the airlines.

And I think that's a good test to ensure the government has to do. What we don't want to do is have costly regulations, which have a big economic burden, but actually don't result in a significant increase to benefits to passengers. So I think that is actually perfectly sensible point, and one which I think addresses the perfectly sensible point that the noble Lady Baroness Grender made about making sure that the focus on economics didn't lead to a economics didn't lead to a reduction in passenger support.
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Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill Portrait Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill, Minister of State (Department for Transport) (Labour)
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My Lords. amendments, I thank noble Lords for their constructive engagement with the government on passenger rights and accessibility, both in both at committee, in meeting sense and then in in meetings since and then in the debate today. In particular, I thank the noble Baroness Brinton Lord Reay Thompson Kennedy of Cradley Ramsey, of Wall Heath Griffin of Princethorpe Finlay of Llandaff, Foster of Oxton, and the noble Lords, Lord Holmes of Richmond and Lord Blencathra. Their contributions have greatly strengthened the government's approach to accessibility in this bill, including the government amendments on these.

On this topic. I turn firstly to Government amendments 18 and 19 and 7172 tabled in my name. These amendments are intended to ensure the Bill fulfils its potential to strengthen air passenger rights, with particular emphasis on improving protections for disabled and less mobile passengers. Amendment 19 places a statutory obligation on the Secretary of State to consult on accessibility issues and identify what changes may be needed to existing law. Any necessary reforms could then be made through clause one.

The consultation will cover issues raised in your Lordships' House, such as compensation for breaches of assistance duties, protections for passengers with allergies and complaints handling, but it will not be limited to those matters. The government will consult disabled passengers, persons with reduced mobility and their representative organisations alongside airlines, airports, the Civil Aviation Authority, passenger rights advocates and wider stakeholders as appropriate. This will support a genuinely pan disability approach grounded in lived experience and expert evidence. We will begin the consultation as soon as possible after Royal Assent, whilst allowing sufficient time to consider the full range of accessibility issues.

It will focus on legislative reform and sit alongside the non-legislative work already undertaken through the Aviation Accessibility Task and Finish Group, chaired by the noble Baroness Grey-Thompson, to whom the government is grateful. Amendment 18 is a technical amendment enabling government amendments on accessibility and amendment 71 and 72 deal with commencement. I turn now to amendment two, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Grender. The intention of clause one is to strengthen and enhance air passenger rights, and this aligns with our obligations under the Trade and Co-operation Agreement to achieve a high level of consumer protections.

I recognise the noble Baroness intention to ensure this clause is used only to make things better for air passengers. However, such a requirement could limit what the clause be used for, which may ultimately work against passengers interests. The government shares the noble Baroness's objective, noble Baroness Bi objective of strengthening passenger rights, and has tabled amendments to support that aim, including some which will be discussed in the next grouping. I turn next to amendment four, tabled by the noble Lord Lord Moylan.

Government is committed to reducing administrative burdens. The bill is expected to reduce business costs over time, as set out in the Published Impact assessment I did in answer to the noble Lord Jopling Committee, give some examples of changes made within the Department towards this target. However, it would not be appropriate to place a fixed numerical target in primary legislation as targets may change over time. It is, however, the government's overall target. It is not split by Department but aviation. To be clear, it is included.

I also reject if there is any notion that these amendments adversely affect efficiency because they will facilitate disabled people playing a full part in economic life and making their contribution. I turn to amendment six, tabled by my noble friend Lady Kennedy of Cradley, and the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson and Lady Brinton. The government is clear that aviation must be accessible to all who wish to travel. Clause one has been drafted deliberately, broadly to support a pan impairment approach. It relies on existing legislative definitions that would already capture all the conditions and impairments specified in the noble Baroness amendment.

By contrast, a more detailed statutory list risks unintentionally excluding passengers whose impairment or condition is not specifically mentioned. The government recognises the importance of adequate protections for passengers with allergies, travelling by air allergies and wider accessibility issues can be considered through the consultation required by Government Amendment 19, which I have already outlined. Persons with allergies must be consulted as part of that process. Any reform shown to be necessary will then be made using clause one. I will ensure noble Lords continue to be engaged as that consultation develops.

This consultation will sit alongside the excellent work of the Aviation Accessibility Implementation Group, which is focussed on non-legislative work with the industry to improve accessibility across the sector. In answer to my noble friend Baroness Kennedy of Cradley, I am happy. I will be happy to arrange a meeting with the co-chairs of the group to also discuss what more could be done in a non legislative capacity. My noble friend has also raised a point about the application of the Equality Act in relation to persons with allergies, and the interaction between that legislation and the aviation specific legislation.

I will raise these issues with my noble friend Baroness Anderson of Stoke on Trent for further consideration, and I will write when I when I've had that discussion. As I stated at. Committee and raised by the noble. My noble friend, again, I have written to the Food Standards Agency, and I'm awaiting the response. I will ensure a follow up meeting is arranged with the agency. Noble Lords and the Civil Aviation Authority to continue discussions on this important matter, which can help feed into the work of the consultation.

I turn now to amendment eight, the noble Baroness, Lady Grinders amendment on carers, alongside her other amendments relating to seating arrangements, family travel and information. I fully understand the concerns that sit behind these amendments. However, these issues can already can already be considered through the consultation required by amendment 19 and where evidence demonstrates that legislative change is needed. Clause one already provides the necessary powers in relation to children. The CAA has already issued guidance on seating arrangements. If evidence shows that such guidance was or is not working effectively or delivering the right outcomes.

Further action could be considered through secondary legislation for passengers who are required by airlines to travel with an accompanying person for safety reasons. Existing legislation already requires airlines to make all reasonable efforts to seat those passengers together. The CAA has also made it clear in their guidance that airlines should, where necessary, move other passengers in order to meet that requirement. Should there be evidence that airlines are not complying, the CIA's new direct enforcement powers under clause two would enable it to take appropriate action.

Similarly, in relation to disabled passengers and passengers with reduced mobility seating arrangements and the role of accompanying persons could be considered through the consultation required in amendment 19. I turn to the noble Lord Moleyns amendment 21 in respect in response, subsection three E already provides that the consultation may cover any other matters that appear to the Secretary of State to be of particular importance, which makes it clear the listed topics are not exhaustive. Concerning also reads more naturally, where a list of specific topics is being introduced and not excluding is a less familiar formulation.

For a statutory consultation duty in respect of the noble Lord Moylan amendment 26. The effect of his of his amendment is to change the due regard to only the due regard to only relate to disabled and less mobile passengers, rather than passengers in general, as drafted in particular, signals that the Secretary of State must give attention to the impact on these passengers. Specifically, removing it reduces the overall aim of the amendment. In. In. In response to the noble Baroness Brinton amendment 22, the government believes this is unnecessary.

Subsection three E already provides that the consultation may cover any other matters that appear to the Secretary of State to be of particular importance, meaning the list of topics is non-exhaustive and the consultation can already address the level of support provided by carers without this amendment. I also agree that passengers should be able to travel with dignity and ease, and the government has tabled further amendments in the next group relating to the principles that should guide the exercise of powers under clause one, and I will speak to those shortly.

The Civil Aviation Authority has already issued guidance to airports, making it clear that where passengers wish assistance can be provided by friends and family members who should also have access to relevant facilities, such as separate security lines. Furthermore, where passengers require specialist assistance such as such as the lift to access an aircraft, the CIO has made it clear that accompanying persons who are needed to provide support should also be able to access that assistance. And in response to my noble friend Baroness Kennedy of Cradley, in the consultation process under amendment 19, my department will convene a meeting no more than two months after Royal Assent for noble Lords in order that they can understand what the government has done, is doing, and will do, because the intention is not to delay this at all.

For these reasons, I hope noble Lords will feel reassured by the commitments and safeguards I have outlined, will not press their amendments and will support government the government amendments in this group. I will have more to say about the international issue in the next

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group. I press him on his point about

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I press him on his point about the government's plan to reduce administrative burden on business by 25% in the debate we had in by 25% in the debate we had in committee. He said that the Department for transport was working closely with the Department for business, which I presume owns for business, which I presume owns this target across government, and the Minister's nodding assent. Can he just set out for me what expectation has the Department for business set out for the Department for transport about what it expects the DFT to deliver? Because unless each department is going to deliver something, the government has no hope of hitting this target.

And if he isn't able to tell me that now, he did commit in the debate we had in committee to write to me with further information, which I don't think has yet happened, and I'd be perfectly happy if he were to furnish that information for me in

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writing. I think the noble Lord is right. I'm pretty sure I did commit to write to him. I'm pretty sure I write to him. I'm pretty sure I haven't yet, and I'm pretty sure I

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will do shortly. My Lord, I'm. I'm going to be very brief because a whole load of very brief because a whole load of people seem to have arrived for a particular purpose, but I'd just like to thank the noble Lord Moylan like to thank the noble Lord Moylan for mentioning ICAO and some of the international progress that we need
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18:04
None Portrait Amendment:5 Baroness Grey-Thompson (Crossbench)
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some crossover with the last groupings. I would like to thank the noble Lord, the Minister, for his time and his availability, who has managed to assuage some of my concerns, my amendments in this group around appropriate training of how to assist disabled people about storage and handling of mobility equipment, data gathering and complaints, and just referring back to the previous group. While there may be rules in place and procedures, disabled people still experience way too many difficulties trying to get on or off an aeroplane.

It's also too difficult to complain. Quite often, passengers are passed around when they buy a ticket. They think the contract is with the airline, but when things go wrong it can be combination of the airline, the airport or indeed the crew that do the handling. If there's one thing I would hope for with this would actually just disabled people would stop being patronised when they fly. That would be a big step forward. It was helpful to listen to the noble Lord Minister about government amendment 19.

In terms of the consultation. And the reality is disabled people have quite high expectation, but we have to be realistic. Some of the things that we really need, which is appropriate compensation if mobility equipment is destroyed or go missing, or how equipment is tied down in planes relies on international jurisdiction. So I would ask the noble Lord Minister to keep that level of pressure up. We we could do better throughout the whole world, actually, in terms of how disabled people are treated.

And complaints shouldn't be so complicated and it shouldn't be so long or difficult to get compensation or to get equipment repaired. From a personal experience, Schiphol or London City are the best airports in the world. Other people may have a different experience of that, but the voice of disabled people is really important. We should really be learning from the best. So I will be watching the consultation closely. But my Lords, the industry can and should do better. So I look forward to listening to the Minister's comments about the government amendments in this group.

My Lords, to move.

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Amendment proposed clause one, page two, line three, paragraph e and insert the words as printed on and insert the words as printed on the Marshalled List.

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the Marshalled List. Will attend in his. Officials who've met with us to discuss issues relating to standards to provide assistance to disabled provide assistance to disabled people throughout their journey, and why this desperately needs to be remedied formally. And I signed
18:07
Baroness Brinton Portrait Baroness Brinton (Liberal Democrat)
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be remedied formally. And I signed Lady Grey Thompson's Amendment five, which specifies a minimum standard for training and service delivery. And I've spoken at length on not just at Committee stage and Second Reading, but on other bills and other debates about the approaches, different approaches taken on when you get to check in on your batteries in, in a wheelchair. And I have to say that that is one of the areas that really needs training on when checking staff don't understand the difference between lithium batteries, which you can carry on and must carry on yourself, and acid batteries, of which I have two bus batteries on my chair, then you've got a problem because you cannot have a sensible conversation.

So that's the sort of training that is vital. And part of the problem is that the moment you start to very politely question the person who is asking, you are deemed to be a troublemaker, and then everything goes downhill from there. So it's part of most disabled travellers experience to be told repeatedly that they're wrong. I absolutely found this even last week when I was last at Heathrow a fortnight ago, where staff just knew better until I produced the air regulations and showed them chapter and verse on batteries, at which point they did have the grace to apologise.

But sometimes they have not done so. I may be very odd, but I always have a copy of the e ATA regulations with me. Amendment five also ensures transparency and service delivery through the collection and publication of data regarding damage done to mobility aids, medical life and sustaining equipment. And I just want to pick up on the point here that the committee. I had laid some amendments to formalise an informal arrangement for the UK government's role on I-corps, which was mentioned in the previous group.

It is absolutely vital that the Montreal Agreement is reviewed and that the responsibility for regulations is removed from IATA. I find it mind numbingly astonishing that the trade association for the air craft carriers are also responsible for the regulations. In no other area would we allow that to happen. No other area. So I-corps has a key role. I'm sorry that it has felt that it didn't need to push more, but act as a support group for disgruntled people.

It needs to go further. It's absolutely vital that the Montreal Agreement is reviewed and that e ATA regulations are taken away from the ATA. Finally, amendment 25 amends Lord Hendy amendment 24 in this group on matters to which the Secretary of State must have regard and in life five of the amendment. It says the desirability of strengthening the rights of a person who purchase or use air transport services in particular. Now, we had this debate before, but I know that Lord Hendy is going to to respond on, on, on this in this one, I'm really concerned that the word desirability is or should be redundant.

And worse, it weakens the position of disabled passengers because it sets disabled rights in the wider context of everyone who purchase or use transport services. As I said earlier, this is dangerous and I just hope that the noble Lord will really try and remedy this, because I am worried that it will create a worse problem than we have now, and what we have now is not good enough.
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Lord Blencathra Portrait Lord Blencathra (Conservative)
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Yeah. Absolutely right. five, and this is the only amendment I shall speak on in this on this Report stage. I can tell the House I've now beaten Frank Gardner's record for being left on a plane. My on the on the 24th of June, the flight back from Basel. June, the flight back from Basel. Basel 45 minutes late. We touched down at exactly 9:10 at Heathrow. At 9:15 the plane came to a stop. The switch. The suite. The seat belt signs were switched off and we were parked somewhere out in the sticks.

The pilot said the bus hadn't arrived yet. There'd be a few minutes. The first bus arrived 20 minutes later at 25 to 10, the high lift wagon to take me off on other disabled passengers didn't turn up till 10 to 10, but it turned up simultaneously with the food wagon. Now, since the plane was on a turnaround for Budapest, the food wagon was given priority over getting the passengers off. So at 10:05, I and others were taken off in the high lift wagon. At 10:12, my wheelchair was loaded and then we set off in a 15 minute magical mystery tour around various tunnels at Heathrow.

And I can tell you, at 10:25, I was deposited at a door in terminal five, and at exactly 1030 I got to passport control. Things then speeded up considerably. But after all that delay, my luggage was was still delayed, so I want to give them. That's an example. I've got a few more I want to give to the Minister to show how. There's two things I think, in this amendment are essential. That is training and returning the wheelchairs and the bodies to the aircraft door or to where they're supposed to go.

I'd say to my noble friend on the front bench, friends on the front bench, I'm not calling for some massive gold plated regulatory regime here, which will put up costs. I'm calling for some of the current law to be enforced and for improvements to be made. And of course, I do accept that if we pass some gold plated regulations here, it will make no difference because the cartel, the cartel of airline operators who will simply not adopt it anywhere else in the world.

So on training, I serve on the Council of Europe, and for the last 15 years, I've had hundreds of check ins countries all over Europe. There has been one occasion only, and it happened last month at Heathrow, where the guy at the check in desk actually had, for the first time ever, the information I supplied at least 48 hours beforehand. Every other time you send in the information to the airlines, the size of your chair, the weight of the chair, the batteries, blah, blah, blah, you get to check in and they haven't got on the computer.

So then you get asked the questions again and again and again. And Baroness Brinton is right. Batteries, batteries, batteries. Now, of course, they're right to be paranoid about lithium batteries. If you put a lithium battery in the hold in a wheelchair or, or in your phone, it's highly dangerous. But there are only two types lithium batteries, which are removable, and there's all the other bolted on batteries. The lead acid, once sealed lead acid sealed non-spill, which are not removable. So they ask you, is it lithium? And you say, no, it's not.

Can you remove it? Well, no, you only remove lithium batteries. You don't remove these. But would you. But surely you could remove it. No, you can't remove it. And luckily one's wife says after that question has been asked 20 times, keep your temper, stay nice, and I tell you. And on most occasions I have managed to do so. And there is no point getting aggressive because they haven't been trained. Minister, that is the vital thing. For God's sake, make sure the airlines tell them about the batteries dying to teach them how to lift the chairs.

I'm not sure about the noble Lady Baroness Brinton chair, but many of these chairs. The seat is not bolted to the chassis. It sits in a sort of piston and a shaft. And of course, when some people want to, when baggage handlers or or we want to move a chair, we grab it by the arms, grab those wheelchairs by the arms, and you rip the seat off and pull out all the wiring. Now, I have been fortunate in my little chair, smaller than the one I've got here, has not been destroyed in the last 7 or 8 years because I now plastered it with labels.

Labels don't lift by the arms, read labels. And here's the braking lever. Here's the freewheel lever. Here's how to move the thing. I have to do that and baggage handlers haven't destroyed it, so they need to be taught about the chairs and how to lift them and move them. And of course, these days there's a whole range of collapsible ones. And I perfectly well accept that the airlines should be entitled to say to the passengers, fill in this form about the specifics of your chair, not just the weight and dimensions and batteries, but the lifting instructions and necessarily attach labels to it.

So, my Lords, the the that flight from Basel was delayed because someone had a battery booster in their hold luggage and you say, what a stupid thing to do. But it wasn't in some ways the passenger's fault because the flight announced the plane was smaller than normal. We can't get all your cabin baggage on board, so we're going to put it in the hold. And a randomly picked on people and said, right, we're labelling that with the tag. It's going in the hold, going in the hole, going in the hole.

And after we're banged in the hole, someone then realised, oh my God, I've got a battery booster in it. So the containers were unloaded and then I had a wonderful window seat to watch how the suitcases were treated. And my Lords, I now have to buy a new suitcase because when my suitcase was dropped in the corner and the wheel was shoved up inside it, I now need to buy a new suitcase. It was getting a bit clapped out to begin with, but that was the way the baggage handler handled stuff.

Now, I don't expect this government or any government to be able to teach baggage handlers how to handle baggage properly, but the airlines must have a responsibility to make sure it's done. It's done properly, if at all possible, and also if you are going to permit passengers to have a little carry on suitcase of this size and a rucksack bag or whatever, then it's not good enough when you turn up at the airport to say, I'm sorry, your bags now going to be bunged in the hole because the aircraft is too small to take your luggage.

That is not acceptable. And mentioning rucksacks. The other thing I'd love airlines to do, and I saw this in Venice where you board those air, the water taxis and there's big signs out. Do not wear your rucksack on board because you belt people as you travel around the number of times sitting on a plane near the front and you get belted in the face by some idiot with his big rucksack walking down the planes. Airlines should be told and made to make sure that people do not wear their rucksacks down.

The planes, however, as I said, would be. Now the final point is getting the chair and the people back. I don't care whether my chair goes to outsize baggage or comes back to the aircraft door. What we must have is the returning to where they say it's going to go now. The. Now, the problem seems to be mainly at Heathrow and other airlines airports. The check in says, would you like your chair returned to the aircraft door? Yes, please. But they haven't a clue that the the airport.

You're going to have that facility. So you get the other place. Oh, no, we don't do that. Your chairs are not outside baggage. A couple of times pilots have pushed me to through passport control because my chair hasn't turned up. And the pilots were. Well, the pilots had to get rid of me or the plane wouldn't have taken off for the next for the next place. So it wasn't all kindness and generosity on their part. At Frankfurt a month ago. And Frankfurt is too big and horrible.

An airport at Frankfurt. A month ago I had the tickets and returned aircraft door. I got off in the. And the. The crew said, your chair hasn't turned up Lord Blencathra. I'm not sure what's happened to him. And then there's very helpful chap from the disabled assistant thing came along and said, I'm here to take you and your chair, Lord Blencathra I said, my chair hasn't turned up. What. That's not good enough, he said, I'll go and speak to baggage handlers.

So he went to speak to baggage handlers and was told basically to sod off. They would send the chair to baggage control when they're ready, and this helpful chairman said, this is not acceptable, sir. I'm going to speak to the pilot. And he marched off onto the plane, spoke to the pilot. The pilot came out and spoke to me and said, I'm going to get your chair back. And two minutes later, the pilot and the baggage handler had brought my chair back. Now that is service. And I must admit, I wish we'd done at Heathrow at times, because when we go back a few weeks ago, four of us were loaded in wheelchairs and one little guy turned up with one wheelchair.

We were wheeled up intermittently from the plane and left upstairs somewhere till a buggy came along for for 4 or 5. For the four of us, that is simply not acceptable. I conclude by saying, I perfectly well understand if there's a thoroughly disabled passenger who needs a little wheelchair, then they may have to wait and it will take five minutes to get them in and take them off. Then that person may have to wait until the others come off. What really, really annoys me is when they say, oh Lord Blencathra your chairs outside, but please wait till everyone else goes well, I won't because I can stagger off and onto that chair and only help hold up people by a few seconds.

If someone's been told the high lift wagon is here. But please wait till everybody's off before you board it, why? That is simply not acceptable treatment. When I can stagger around and walk a bit, I find it unacceptable to be told wait till all the able bodied people are off. So my sole Minister. Those are examples. These are cast iron examples. I have happened to me dozens and dozens and dozens of times as Baroness Brinton will testify and Baroness Grey-Thompson will testify.

It should not be rocket science to bring in sufficient training to the airlines and their operators to prevent that happening time and time again in future. Therefore, I support the amendments.

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My Lord, it's a pleasure to. Follow my noble friend Lord Blencathra, who tells it always Blencathra, who tells it always very much as it is, and I think we should all probably follow the wise should all probably follow the wise entreaties of Lady Blencathra to be entreaties of Lady Blencathra to be nice. And I say that knowing that as an ex Chief Whip Lord Blencathra
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Lord Holmes of Richmond Portrait Lord Holmes of Richmond (Conservative)
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as an ex Chief Whip Lord Blencathra is always nice. I say. I say that with an ex-chief whip to my left, an ex-chief whip right in front of me, and as far as I know, other ex-chief whips dotted around the house. I'd say to the noble Lord the Minister as well, with Lady Kennedy of Cradley amendments, bear in mind her connection to that aforementioned role of not ex, but Chief Whip. My Lords, I rise to support the amendments in this group and indeed nod to the previous group and thank the Minister for his engagement throughout this process, and particularly between committee and report.

There's a lot that can't be done directly by the UK government, whichever party that happens to be, because of the international nature and the Montreal Convention. I'll come to that in a bit. But the amendments that the government have brought forward would not have been brought forward were it not for this Minister, not any transport Minister, but this Minister and I thank him for all the work he's done on this bill when it comes to accessibility and inclusion, and indeed on bills in the past, and might I say, with railway bills yet to come, it's clear that many of the provisions will apply domestically, and that is obviously a fraction of air travel.

But it's an important fraction and it's a fraction that matters. Ultimately, all of this could be got right. We wouldn't need to talk about disabled people. We wouldn't need to talk about wheelchair users, guide dog owners, passengers with restricted mobility. We wouldn't need to talk about any of this if there was passenger customer service, because all this is is just quality passenger and customer service. But because that isn't the case. We see illustrations which bite most hard on disabled people, and largely because not only is there not the passenger experience, the customer experience that should be there, but because I believe largely it's problematic because none of this is planned experientially.

It's planned operationally, and that is never the way to plan anything. If you want it to be human, dignified, and have all of the values that we ascribe to of fairness and equality and respect. So if things are planned operationally, it's hardly surprising that it feels often as if disabled people are being treated like cargo to be just moved in whatever fashion is determined from one place to another. Or indeed, as Lord Blencathra and others have pointed out, not be moved.

So to miss the flight to be left on the flight long after it's landed and all the passengers have left the plane. If you plan from an experience experientially from the outset, you necessarily bring in all of the human dimensions and you bring in inclusive by design, an inclusive culture led on, which then flows through the whole experience. And if you plan experientially, you don't have all the difficulties that come when one provider, one operator, ceases their part of the deal and another one takes over, or indeed does not, because that passenger experience is planned right from the first moment that any of us even think about potentially buying a ticket right through to where we clear customs baggage and continue our onward journey at that destination airport.

If you plan operationally, each operator plans their bit and many, many things fall down as those operators aren't connected together in a seamless, quality passenger experience. So yes, it's training. Yes, it's information and accessible forms. Yes, it's thinking about every beat point of that journey. But a journey planned experientially, the amendments that the Minister has brought forward go some way and certainly set the right tone, and we need to ensure that that runs through all the consultation and the subsequent regulations.

I thank him again for it, and I put one final ask to him. Would it not be a good idea for the UK to seek to convene an international airline and all operators involved in air travel in London bring them to this town? Not because we're saying that the UK are the best at this, not because we're saying UK exceptionalism, but to try and start this international dialogue, to move forward with the Montreal Convention, to bring other like minded nations around that table, to move things forward, because it's good to make a difference.

In the UK, it's small but significant, but the government can. I hope the government will play a leading role amongst other like minded nations, using all of our convening power, all of our soft power, to make some movement in this area because it has gone on too long and it's unacceptable that just at the point you step airside, all your rights fly away.

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Yeah. My Lords, I just want to, first of all, support amendment five in of all, support amendment five in the name of the noble Baroness Grey-Thompson. But I just wanted to Grey-Thompson. But I just wanted to say something about. Because I travel back and forth every week to Belfast, and I do want to say that Belfast, and I do want to say that we should also be saying there are some really excellent people some really excellent people working with disabled people and wheelchairs, and I see it on every every week, and I think it would be a little bit remiss if we kind of have the public thinking that we are all here saying that it's absolutely terrible, because what I
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Baroness Hoey Portrait Baroness Hoey (Non-affiliated)
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see sometimes is some over, over, almost over the top in terms of how almost over the top in terms of how people are treated, quite rightly. But we do have to recognise that, But we do have to recognise that, that it's not all bad, as perhaps that it's not all bad, as perhaps some of the Who, you know, said it is important we have minimum standards because each airline does standards because each airline does seem to be different. And I see that travelling on Easyjet and British Airways and Easyjet, I have to say, does an excellent job.

If if if they know in advance and they have all, you know, they really do put out, I think they do extremely well. And I would hate to think that those people, many of them young people working for the first time. And yes, training is important, but many of them working in their first job, I would hate to think that they're listening to this and thinking that we are condemning all of them for being heartless and not doing the right thing.

And of course, a lot of it is up to the airlines as we know. And then one, one final point, you know, we do more and more. I was talking to a couple of airline people recently who told me that more they're increasingly getting people who aren't in wheelchairs, who have some mobility problems and are getting wheelchairs in order to get onto the plane. Now, my mother needed that when she was travelling at 95, back and forward to see me, and she went at easy on on Easyjet, I think it was from Stansted and there were three other people getting wheelchairs for my mother, as well as my mother having to go that long distance because it is a long distance to walk.

If you have a mobility problem or you're very elderly. And when it got to Belfast, my mother waited, obviously, as everyone does, and in the end she was the only person got off and got or got the wheelchair. So she said to the young man, what's what's happened? Where? Where are the others? There were three others and he, he turned round and said, you would be surprised how many miracles there are the flight. And I think that's just something we need to bear in mind that more and more airlines are being pushed to take lots of people, and I can't say whether they need it or not.

But, you know, that's just one other factor in this whole issue. But the amendment five actually does talk about minimum standards. And I think that's very important, and I would support that. But I just thought it was important to log up that not everyone is treated

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badly by those using wheelchairs. I just wanted to raise one issue, which is the point that Lady which is the point that Lady Kennedy of Cradley, raised on the previous group, which is the interaction between specific interaction between specific regulations we put in place for the aviation sector and wider ranging legislation, like the disability aspects of the Equality Act, and specifically a question for the
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Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill Portrait Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill, Minister of State (Department for Transport) (Labour)
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At the beginning. There we go. government amendments in this group. If I may, I'll start with amendment 24, tabled in my name, which establishes duties and principles establishes duties and principles to guide the future use of clause one. It's intended to ensure that the power is used wherever possible to strengthen air passenger rights and to address barriers faced by disabled passengers and those those with reduced mobility. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Grender and Lady Brinton, and the noble Lord Russell for their time and expertise to strengthen broader air passenger rights, which has helped lead to this amendment.

This amendment seeks to ensure that all air passengers are treated with dignity and have their individual physical and mental health needs respected, and that those with disabilities or reduced mobility are afforded access to sorry, access to air transport services equal or comparable to those afforded to other passengers. The examples we have heard, and in particular, the powerful speech by the noble Lord Blencathra, sets out exactly why we need to do better. I hear the noble Baroness Hoey, and I'm sure noble Lords agree that there are many individual members of staff who are good.

But what we've also continuously heard is terrible inconsistency and unacceptable inconsistency. And that's too clearly a frequent experience. I turn next to amendment 25, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, which would amend government Amendment 24. I understand the noble Baroness's concerns. However, I want to reassure her that the use of the word desirability does not allow the Secretary of State to shy away from the obligation to have due regard. I want it to be clear that clause one is intended to strengthen and enhance air passenger rights, and that this duty reinforces that it requires the Secretary of State to have due regard to improving passenger rights every time the power is used.

However, the impact of policy changes must always be considered holistically. For example, safety cost, deliberate deliverability and wider impacts. The word desirability ensures the regard to strengthening air passenger rights is properly weighed against those other factors, so that government can act on the full picture. The second government amendment in this group removes the compensation cap for damaged or lost mobility aids on domestic UK flights. Many wheelchairs and mobility aids are highly customized, specially, highly customized specialist pieces of equipment that can cost many thousands of pounds well in excess of the current Montreal Convention.

Liability limit. Removing a cap for domestic UK flights allows passengers to recover the full cost of repair, repair or replacement that reduces the barrier to travel, gives passengers confidence and gives carriers a far stronger incentive for careful handling. I turn now to the amendments tabled by noble Lords. I begin with the amendment for the noble Baroness Grey-Thompson and Brinton Noble, Lord Blencathra, and my noble friend Lady Kennedy of Cradley, seeking minimum standards for passengers who need assistance. I recognise the intention behind the amendment and the important issues identified by the Aviation Accessibility Task and Finish Group under the leadership of the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson.

The government greatly values that work and will inform, will ensure it informs the next stage of policy development. As I noted previously, Government Amendment 19 requires a statutory consultation on accessibility issues following Royal Assent. That consultant. That consultation will consider all the matters raised in this amendment, alongside wider issues affecting disabled passengers and passengers with reduced mobility, with any necessary reforms capable of being taken forward under clause one. I turn next to the amendment on complaints procedures. The government agrees that passengers should have a clear and effective, should have clear and effective mechanisms for raising concerns when standards fall short, particularly disabled passengers and passengers with reduced mobility.

However, the detail needs careful consideration. Legislating now risks creating a provision that is either too vague to enforce or too rigid to work well. Government amendment 19 therefore identifies complaints procedures as a specific area for consultation with clause one, providing powers for any resulting reforms. The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, has also tabled an amendment seeking clarity on the timing of the consultation under Government Amendment 19. Let me be clear, as I said in the last group, we will begin that consultation as soon as possible after Royal Assent.

The wording is not designed to delay the process, but to ensure the Secretary of State has sufficient time to consider the full range of accessibility issues properly before reporting on the outcome. As I said in the previous group, we will meet interested noble Lords two months after Royal Assent to show what has been done, what is being done and what will be done under this. Under my amendments. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, for amendment 23 concerning who should be consulted.

She is absolutely right that consultation must be informed by those with relevant expertise and lived experience. This government is committed to the principle of nothing about us. Without us, the clause uses a non-exhaustive list so the right people can be consulted on the right issues, without requiring every listed group to be consulted on every matter. We will draw on expertise, including from the Disabled Persons Transport Advisory Committee, to identify who should be engaged at each stage. My Lords, enabling the government amendments in this group and the previous group, we recognise that aviation operates within an international framework of conventions, agreements and regulatory arrangements.

There are limits to what any one country can achieve through domestic legislation alone, but that, as we've heard this afternoon, is not an argument for inaction. Rather, it's an argument for leadership. These amendments are a significant step forward for United Kingdom passengers. We have long been a leader on accessibility, and the government will use its influence internationally to press for higher standards for disabled passengers, specifically through our work at the International Civil Aviation Organisation and the European Civil Aviation Conference, we will use appropriate fora to champion the UK's approach to accessibility, promote improvement of standards and seek international alignment.

We will take every opportunity available to raise these important issues at all relevant meetings, starting with those following Royal Assent, such as, but not limited to, the E, c, a C subgroup on the transport of persons with reduced mobility and the ICAO working Group on Accessibility and International Civil Aviation by strengthening passenger rights at home and by placing accessibility at the centre of our approach, the United Kingdom can continue to use our influence internationally and in our engagement with partners across the sector to advocate for higher standards of accessibility worldwide.

I note the suggestion of the noble Lord Holmes of Richmond to convene an international meeting, and I will go back and discuss with the aviation Minister and the Secretary of State in the other place, when we might when we might do that on enforcement. The noble Lord Harper asks about standards in enforcement, and both are in fact needed, and hence the powers in this bill for the enforcement by the Civil Aviation Authority, who cannot currently impose penalties. And that's the reason for clause two in the bill.

Taken together, the government amendments relating to air passenger rights provide a significant and practical step forward for passengers, particularly disabled passengers and passengers with reduced mobility. I therefore hope the House will support the government amendments in this group, and that noble Lords will feel reassured that the issues raised in their amendments will be addressed through the consultation process and the powers provided by the Bill. On my own position, I will echo the words of the noble Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson. I only wish for everybody else the experience I

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have myself when I travel by air. Thank you. Can I make two very brief

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Can I make two very brief interventions? First of all, it was neglectful of me, in fact rude of me not to thank the noble Lord, the Minister for the government Minister for the government amendments, particularly Government amendment 24, which have implemented, I think will deliver nearly everything we've been asking nearly everything we've been asking for. I also echo the wise words of my noble friend, Lord Moylan and Lord Holmes of Richmond, to thank Lord Holmes of Richmond, to thank the Minister for all the work he's been doing to help disabled passengers over the last ten, 15 years.

I'm grateful for that. And the second point is this the point about delays at check in are that what annoys me most is not just the delay I suffer, but the delay. The people behind me suffer and the grumbles and the muttering I get and the. And the hateful looks. A normal person, an able person checking in may take 3 or 4 minutes. If I'm held up for 15, 20, 30 minutes. There's ten people behind me who have formed a hostile opinion of everybody in the wheelchair, and it's a horrible, horrible feeling that I've held them up as well.

So the top priority for me is to speed up that check in process through training. So we don't just hold up the disabled people, that we don't

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antagonize a dozen people behind us. I thank the noble Lord for his noble thoughts on both the points

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noble thoughts on both the points he raises. My Lords. I'd like to thank all noble

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I'd like to thank all noble Lords who've taken part in this grouping this afternoon. Also thank the officials who worked on the the officials who worked on the targets and finished group. And also this bill. The reality is the disabled person, you have to know disabled person, you have to know all the rules, every single one of them, whether it's rules of an airport or an airline or different jurisdictions. And jumping on and
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Baroness Grey-Thompson Portrait Baroness Grey-Thompson (Crossbench)
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off a plane just really isn't so simple. I learnt a very long time simple. I learnt a very long time ago that I actually try and book my flights with airlines, which does have a tight turnaround because have a tight turnaround because there's a chance you might get off because leaving you on costs them quite a lot of money. And I quite a lot of money. And I definitely also learnt that I never move from my seat because they're not allowed to move you without not allowed to move you without permission.

I don't move from my seat until I have line of sight of my own wheelchair, because as soon as you're off the plane, you've lost every bit of power that you have in the system, and it's a great shame that the noble Lady, Baroness Brinton, has to travel with the arterioles. I mean, that should not be anything that any person has to do. But again, that is the reality of what it's like. The noble Lord, Lord Holmes, talks about experiential support, and I think this is something important.

We need to be looking at this from a slightly different way. If during the 2012 Paralympics, we could get thousands of disabled people going through one airport pretty much on and off in a couple of days, we should be able to do it the rest of the time. I know they increased staff and did lots of the things, but the way disabled people were treated at that point was absolutely amazing. The noble Lady, Baroness Hall, is right. There have been a big increase in requests, and I think we need to be smarter about how we think about how people are supported, because I think anyone who's disabled has flown, has seen support required to get on a plane, and then people are able to skip off at the other end, and that can't be the right way to do it.

Certainly, I don't think charging passengers is the right way to do it, but I think we have to think differently about what the end to end support looks like in terms of batteries. And I know the noble Lord. The Minister offered a meeting, for instance, in the subgroup of the implementation group are working very hard on batteries. That's co-chaired by David Leighton and Tony Jennings. I think it would be worth setting up a meeting with the interested peers as part of that.

But, my Lords, I'm going to closely watch the consultation, the meetings that we're going to have going forward. But, my Lords, I beg leave to

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withdraw my amendment. Chris, pleasure. This amendment be withdrawn. It is by leave withdrawn. Amendment six. Baroness Kennedy of Cradley not moved. Kennedy of Cradley not moved. Amendment seven, Lord Moylan.

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Amendment seven, Lord Moylan. My Lords, I rise. To speak to a number of

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To speak to a number of amendments in this group. In my name. May I say that nearly all of
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Lord Moylan Portrait Lord Moylan (Conservative)
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these amendments are technical in character. None of them would make character. None of them would make an enormous difference to the bill, although perhaps the last one would. There is not the slightest prospect There is not the slightest prospect of the noble Lord the Minister, accepting any of them, nor do I accepting any of them, nor do I intend to divide the House on any of them. Therefore, I think it would be of assistance to noble would be of assistance to noble Lords if I go through them and mention them only briefly, so that they're aware of the good things that the government is casting aside and taking no notice of.

So the first are amendments seven and 12. These relate to the fact that the government has decided that they are going to have the relevant aspects of the aviation sector, in particular consumer protection regulated by two bodies, the Civil Aviation Authority and the Competition and Markets Authority. And it has no particular way of ensuring they work together effectively, or who it is who takes the lead on one rather than the other. None of this is vouchsafe to us, but the Minister is going to have a sort of balancing power at the top to sort it all out ad hoc.

We made the argument in committee that it would be sensible to have one regulator that dual enforcement is never a good idea, especially where potential criminal penalties arise. And we have tabled these amendments to put an end to it. But as I say, the government, I think, is not going to pursue pursue that line. Amendment 15 raises a cause of concern for the many noble Lords who are worried that the only idea. Ideas that the Department for transport has.

Continue to come from the European Union, and it puts restrictions and limitations on the ability of the government simply to adopt or use these powers simply to adopt European legislation and continue to be compliant with European legislation as it changes, which indeed it is expected to do, because I understand the European Union is reviewing some of these aviation regulation areas at the moment. I was moved to table this because I was shocked, shocked. I have to tell you, my Lords, when I picked up the final, the final version of the impact assessment that the Department prepared to go with this bill, a document that is at least two inches thick, I would think.

And you only have to get to page three to discover that they're saying how wonderful it is that this legislation will give us the powers to continue to align with any changes the European Union makes in the future, because we don't have those powers or those powers expire this month. So we wouldn't be able to align with the European Union. But now we're going to be able to the department, we have to have a civil service and and a government which actually realizes that we are not part of the European Union.

There is no prospect of our being part of the European Union for a very long time indeed, if ever, and I don't think it will be ever, and that we have to come up with some policies of our own that are good for this country. That's the substance of amendment 15, amendment 16, 17 and 29. Address some of the many, many instances in the bill where the negative procedure for Statutory Instruments is preferred over the affirmative procedure, and there are also, and I'll come to these separately in their appropriate case, two massive.

Henry the Eighth powers in the bill. Now, I'm not going to press these further at this stage, because to give the Minister his credit, the credit that's due to him, he has himself tabled amendments which in some cases will move negative procedures over to affirmative procedures. Indeed, in one case, he has actually signed my own amendment having an effect on that. So he has he has come some way to meet the criticism that I've met, that I've tabled in committee.

So I won't press the fact that he hasn't come all the way, though I'd be delighted if he, even at this last moment, announced that he would change his mind and perhaps accept these amendments. Amendment 32 finally, perhaps has a little bit more hope, perhaps, of being adopted, I don't know, under the current approach of the bill, the only way that the civil aviation, the only way that someone subject to a civil aviation decision can appeal against it is to the High Court.

The courts are chock a block with demands on them at the moment. It seemed to me sensible to create an intermediate sort of mediation stage where someone aggrieved by a particular decision against them would have the opportunity to have an independent mediator appointed to seek to resolve the issue, and an amendment was tabled to that effect. The Minister was very dismissive of the whole idea in in committee and obviously believes the High Court is has nothing much to do and and can be able to take these things on.

And that's the appropriate place. But a lot of money can be wasted and a lot of testosterone wasted going to the High court when some of these things could be sorted out better through more of a mediative approach. And that was the purpose of the amendment. So those are my amendments in this group, and I think they're all, as many of the other amendments I tabled in committee. They are intended to improve the operation of the bill and the operation of administrative law.

And with that, I beg to move.

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Amendment proposed clause one. Page two. Line four leave out or

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CMA. My Lords, I rise briefly to talk about the two amendments in my name, about the two amendments in my name, amendment 13 and amendment 14, and do so I just declare again my do so I just declare again my interest as a. As an adviser to Atkins in the UK and Ireland. But
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Lord Grayling Portrait Lord Grayling (Conservative)
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Atkins in the UK and Ireland. But let me start by just saying I have a lot of sympathy with my noble friend in the front benches. Comments about various aspects of the Bill, and I think in particular his comments about the European Union. We should not simply be looking to match the European Union going forwards. And indeed, I'm very much in favour of having high standards which are not tied to the European Union, where we can do better and we should do better without doing damage to the commercial viability of the UK industry, which has seriously consider taking that kind of step.

And indeed, while mentioning briefly the international side, could I just say to the Minister, in the light of the Easyjet takeover proposals, I would urge him and his colleagues in the department to use the most muscular approach on this. It would not be normally possible for a UK airline to buy a US one. We need to make sure that the rules and ownership are properly and rigorously enforced, I think I urge him to do that, but my two amendments are simply desired, designed to try and put some limitation on the powers that would reside with the Civil Aviation Authority.

As a result of this bill, I'd always envisaged the changes upon leaving the European Union is to likely to lead to a degree of deregulation, a relaxation of restrictions, and the Minister knows that during the Committee stage I raised a number of concerns with him about the extent of the powers to enforce, to enter premises, to impose penalties. These two amendments are simply designed to put some limitations around the freedoms of the regulator to take enforcement action, so they only do so in what are genuinely serious situations.

And I would ask the Minister, I know he's not going to accept these amendments, but I'd ask him to give some thought to how this is applied in regulations going forwards, because, of course, we need the ability of a regulator to take serious action in a serious situation. But what we don't want to do is to create a situation where we have undue levels of enforcement, enforcement on small matters in a way that is over onerous. On the commercial independence and freedom of businesses.

We want common sense. These two amendments are designed to apply common sense, and I hope the Minister will be able to take that principle going forwards. And then finally, if I could just make comments about my noble friend Lord Young's amendment, I'm sure he'll be speaking to in a moment. Given the impact on the airlines of the failures when they do happen in the air traffic control system, I do think he makes makes an important point that is worthy of consideration by the government.

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for that trailer. The reason behind amendment 65 in my name is what happened on August the 28th, 2023, when the air traffic system run by Nats failed. There was an independent review which looked into the debacle. And I want to quote very briefly from the report, this is what they said from CAA estimates over 700,000 passengers were affected by cancellations and delays ascribed to the incident,
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Lord Young of Cookham Portrait Lord Young of Cookham (Conservative)
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including approximately 300 000 impaired impacted by flight impaired impacted by flight cancellations, approximately 95000 by long delays over three hours and at least a further 300 000 by at least a further 300 000 by shorter delays. The review went on to estimate the costs involved and again, I quote based on the again, I quote based on the information provided by the airlines most affected by the incident. The panel has estimated incident. The panel has estimated that the cost to airlines were approximately £65 million.

In addition, substantial costs were incurred by passengers, airports, tour operators, insurers and others. The panel was unable to accurately quantify these costs. It is likely that the total cost was in the region of 75 million to £100 million, and the quotes now, noble Lords may be surprised to learn that the company responsible for those losses, Nats, with the turnover of over £1 billion with profits of over £200 million in each of the last two years, has immunity from those losses.

Those losses, instead, are borne by the airlines, who are tied in to a monopoly provider. And to my mind, this is a manifest, wholly indefensible position that flies in the face of natural justice. And that's what my amendment seeks to remedy. My Lords, after our exchange on the subject in committee, the Minister sought to justify the status quo. In his letter to me dated July the 6th. And again I quote from that letter it is important to consider the ownership structure of matters in this context.

The government and therefore the taxpayer, owns 49% of the business, 42% is owned by a group of major airlines, 5% is owned by Nats staff through a trust, and the remaining 4% is owned by the company that owns Heathrow Airport. And he went on to say, were Nats to be made responsible for paying compensation, almost half of the cost would fall to the taxpayer. Just over 40% would effectively fall to a different group of airlines, not necessarily those affected, and a small proportion would fall to staff.

And he concluded I do not believe that by levying the costs onto these groups, it would effectively raise the standards and quality of air traffic control. Now, I want to come back in a moment to the question of ownership, but the final sentence that levelling levying costs doesn't raise standards is a flat contradiction of government policy. The principle of penalising an organisation that provides a public service for failure and using that as an incentive, is at the heart of the government's policy.

For example, towards the water companies. One of the first bills this government introduced was the Water Special Measures Bill, the House of Lords, introducing new automatic penalties for offences committed by water companies, giving regulator's new powers to recover costs for their enforcement work with the precise objective of improving performance. My Lords, that policy applies more widely. Ofgem finds energy suppliers for poor performance. Network rail has been fined by the author for safety breaches. NHS trusts can be fined by the Care Quality Commission so that defence that fines don't improve performance fails by the government's own standards.

I turn now to the issue of ownership. The Minister argues that because the majority shareholders in Nats are taxpayers and the airlines, this is somehow a reason for suspending natural justice. It doesn't matter who the shareholders are, they hold the equity in the company and we all understand what that means. When the company does well, you do well. And when the company does badly, you don't. And as the owners, they are responsible for appointing those who run the company.

What the Minister wants is for the equity shareholders of Nats to have all the benefits, but to be insulated against any downside. Worse than that, he wants the financial costs of Nats poor performance to be borne by other shareholders, namely those who happen to have shares in the airlines who had no responsibility for the debacle. So that defence falls. I turn to the next paragraph in the minister's letter again, I quote. I would also note that Nats is subject to a robust regulatory regulatory regime overseen by the CAA.

This includes performance targets linked to delays and a financial penalty mechanism where those targets are not met. My Lords, this is what the independent review into the debacle said about that robust regulatory regime, and particularly the financial penalty. It was, in their words, a relatively modest penalty associated with not meeting some of the performance targets. We don't know what the penalty was, but it appears to have been £1.3 million. That indefensible position was actually confirmed in a written answer from the noble Lord, Lord Henley of Richmond Hill.

I quote there are annual incentives for Nats linked to its performance. So if if this falls below target levels, it may incur penalties. However, Nats is not penalised for individual incidents such as the technical failure of August 2023, so that defence falls under my amendment, the penalty would come out of profits and go to the airlines. My Lords, the final argument he uses is this. I'd also add that under the current regulations, long delays and cancellations that are caused by air traffic management decisions are considered extraordinary circumstances and therefore compensation is not due to passengers.

In those cases, this reduces the financial burden on airlines and equates. Now, Minister would be pleased to hear that. I entirely agree with that. He's absolutely right. It reduces the compensation payable by the airlines to the customers. But it was still £65 million and there were further costs to the airlines. The aircraft were in the wrong place and the crew ran out of hours. That reduced compensation of £65 million is wholly within the capacity of Nats to afford it. The Minister was kind enough to have a meeting with me earlier today, and in fairness to the Minister, he's always been generous with his time.

But he explained he had no mandate to give any concession. But, my Lords, the House should give him that mandate. The current position is wholly indefensible, and unless the government has in the meantime acquired some room for manoeuvre, I propose to test the opinion of the House when we reach my amendment in the later group.
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Lord McLoughlin Portrait Lord McLoughlin (Conservative)
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My Lords, I'd also like to add >> My Lords, I'd also like to add my support to the amendment in the name of my noble friend, Lord young. name of my noble friend, Lord young. I think one of the things that I do find slightly worrying, actually, in the letter from the Minister to in the letter from the Minister to my noble friend, is that he says that were Nats to be made responsible for paying compensation, almost half the cost would fall to the taxpayer.

Well, that's a fairly interesting line of defense from the Minister, because we're about to renationalise the railways and any, therefore, cost delays on delay and repay will fall to the taxpayer. So are we going to see a future policy from the government that does away with any delay and repay repayments to the passenger? If the faults are now going to impact on the taxpayer? So I think there's a very interesting scenario there. And I just wonder why there is a difference in the way in which the government are approaching delays that are caused by an organisation that serves airlines, as opposed to one which may well, in due course, serve the rail passenger.

So I think my noble friend Lord young has ably put out the case and the inconsistency in where the government is, and I very much hope that, should he test the opinion of the House, we do help give the Minister that mandate to go back, renegotiate this and come forward with a proper proposal which will give the right compensation to airlines in due course.
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Baroness Grender Portrait Baroness Grender (Liberal Democrat)
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When it arrives with a little >> When it arrives with a little bit of hesitation. So I'm just going to double, triple check if I start the frontbench responses. start the frontbench responses. Nobody else wants to speak. OK, Nobody else wants to speak. OK, fine. So I thank the noble Lords Moylan, Grayling and Young for raising these important issues and debates. And I begin by addressing the theme of parliamentary scrutiny. We on these benches support the spirit of amendments 16, 17 and 29, tabled by the noble Lord Moylan.

These amendments seek to mandate the affirmative procedure for regulations and indeed, we attempted to make similar amendments during the Committee stage, and the bill does delegate vast unscrutinised powers to the Secretary of State to redefine passenger rights. So it's only right that Parliament retains the ability to debate and approve these changes before they take effect. And I have already mentioned previously signing a blank cheque that allows for the fundamental alteration, particularly of consumer standards, via negative procedure.

But like the noble Lord Moylan, I also acknowledge that the Minister has changed on that and indeed signed one of the noble Lord Moylan amendments on this issue. I won't revisit or rehearse some of my comments in committee about the need to deliver on the threat on a fatal amendment, which we've got into in in the past, which is the only way sometimes of dealing with some of these procedures, which is having, you know, the kind of strength and muscular possibility of delivering on that.

But I fully recognise that both the conservative benches and the Labour benches have a long standing tradition of not doing that. We also welcome Government Amendment 28, which requires the CAA to report annually on its enforcement functions. We see this as a necessary step towards the transparency we've been calling for in the committee stages. However, while we welcome the technical corrections in G 30 and G 31 regarding the concurrency arrangements, we remain concerned by the potential for regulatory fragmentation and probing amendments seven and 12, rightly asked by both CAA and the CMA require overlapping powers, we believe the regulator must have teeth, but those teeth need to be clearly seen and clearly defined.

So I look forward to hearing the noble Lord the minister's response on that. On amendment 13 from the noble Lord, Lord Grayling. Well, we support proportionality, confining financial penalties only to systemic failure, we feel, is a risk leaving individual passengers in the lurch. And we worry that in some way it might defang the regulator in a way that prioritises industry margins over individual dignity, a common theme that I've already pursued in previous groups on amendment 65 by the noble Lord young.

I have read more over this weekend on this issue than almost anything else to do with this bill. I would say that from these benches, we we we still have an open mind on this issue is the only thing that I can say, and I look forward to hearing the noble Minister. I mean, honestly, we would normally follow the noble Lord through hellfire, but I've I've had discussions with, you know, Commons colleagues. I've I've read everything that I can on this issue.

We're we're waiting to hear the minister's response on it. It's the only thing that I can say. And finally, we note on amendment 15 requiring a statement on international alignment. As we've already argued previously, any divergence from EU standards must be used as a lever for. We believe, enhancement, not a race to the bottom. As I've described in previous groups. If we are to move away from established protections, the public deserve a clear technical explanation of why that divergence is in their interest.

So I look forward to the debates that this has thrown up, and look forward to hearing the Minister's response to these amendment.
19:14
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill Portrait Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill, Minister of State (Department for Transport) (Labour)
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30. >> My Lords, I will begin by amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Grayling, on financial penalties and powers of entry. penalties and powers of entry. Clause one does not in itself create financial penalties or powers of entry. It simply enables powers of entry. It simply enables such powers to be conferred by future regulations if evidence shows they are needed, their scope should be determined when those regulations are made on the basis of the evidence available at that time, it would not be appropriate to fix a systematic failure test in primary legislation now, particularly as the CAA already addresses breaches causing collective harm rather than individual disputes, powers of entry would require reasonable grounds to suspect a breach and would only be used where less intrusive methods have proved had proved insufficient.

Similar powers already exist for other regulators, including the Financial Conduct Authority and the Information Commissioner's Office, but not for the Civil Aviation Authority. Appropriate safeguards are essential, but are best considered when any regulations are laid to help the noble Lord, I was assured, having asked by a former chief executive of the Civil Aviation Authority, who the noble Lord knows well that these powers will be essential to allow the CAA to effectively use the powers it is being given through this bill to enforce consumer regulation, compared with some of the difficulties it's faced with that in the past.

I turn now to the amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Moylan. Amendment seven and 12 concern the respective roles of the civil, the Civil Aviation Authority and the Competition and Markets Authority. The CIA has sector specific expertise and will generally lead on aviation matters. However, the CMA can investigate consumer harm across markets, including where issues in the wider travel market overlap with aviation. It also has concurrent powers with the Civil Aviation Authority, and may act in the aviation sector where necessary.

If an enforcement gap is identified in future, regulations can determine whether powers should apply to the CAA, the CMA or both. Those decisions are best made when the regulations are brought forward, rather than being prescribed in primary legislation. The noble Lord has also tabled amendment 15 on assessing the impact of any alignment with EU or international air passenger rights standards. I agree that any regulations must be right for the United Kingdom. However, existing government processes already meet the same impact assessments already integral to policy making and include consideration of the effects on businesses, consumers and government, as well as the justification for intervention.

Secondary legislation is also accompanied by explanatory material, setting out the reasons for making the regulations, I now turn to amendment 16 and 17 on parliamentary scrutiny. The Bill adopts a proportionate approach, reflecting the different significance of regulations made under clause one. The highest level of scrutiny is reserved for measures with the greatest impact, including regulations creating criminal offences or financial penalties. Amendment 29 would make the concurrency regulations in schedule one subject to the Affirmative Procedure Regulations under new section 179 A brackets two are administrative governing how enforcement authorities coordinate where more than 1st May exercise direct enforcement powers.

The negative procedure is therefore appropriate. Finally, the noble Lords amendment seeking an independent review stage for notices issued by the CIA would add an additional procedural step to an enforcement process that already contains important safeguards. The Digital Markets Competition and Consumer Act 2024 already sets out the process the CIA must follow before issuing a final notice, including giving the business time to make representations if a business disagrees with the Civil Aviation Authority's action. The court system is the proper route of appeal.

An additional review stage would add administrative burden and risk unnecessary delay. Turning to the amendment 65, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, I have heard his strong arguments, as always, elegantly put, supported by the noble Baroness Foster of Oxton and noble Lord McLaughlin. I am grateful, however, to the noble Lord, Lord Harper, for the helpful contribution he made in committee, setting out why the previous government chose not to pursue the approach proposed in this amendment. It was, after all, on his watch at the Department of Transport when the.

When the significant failure at gnats took place. Having considered the matter carefully, this government shares that assessment and does not believe this is the right course of action for the following reasons. Firstly, safety must remain the overriding priority for air traffic controllers. Air traffic control decisions must be taken solely on safety grounds, not with one eye on financial penalties. Secondly, the amendment would create new financial risks to gnats. Costs would ultimately be borne by the airlines through higher charges or shareholders.

The cost of compensation for airlines being funded by airlines is circular, and risks some airline airlines compensating others for the disruption. They had no role in. Compensation costs being borne by shareholders carries a similar risk, since the airline group owns just over 40% of Nats, but also exposes the taxpayer through the government's 49% stake in Nats. Neither of these is appropriate. Thirdly, the existing regime already provides accountability. Nats is regulated by the Civil Aviation Authority, with delivery related targets and a penalty mechanism that reduces airline charges where targets are missed.

The government has acted to improve performance at Nats following the 2023 outrage, at which the then government supported Geoff Halliwell's independent review, Nats has taken steps to prevent a recurrence and strengthen resilience, and the CIA is over overseeing implementation of the review, with two reports to Parliament on the. On this. For those reasons, the amendment is not necessary. Would not improve resilience. I will refrain from quoting the noble Lord Harper, but in. In. In column Grand Committee 66.

He set. He set out in committee very clearly. Why the decision? Why the government of the day took the decision that it did. This government agrees with him, and I would therefore ask the noble Lord to withdraw him. I turn to the Government amendments. Amendment 28 on reporting follows constructive engagement across the House, and I particularly thank the noble Baroness, Lady Grender, for her for her input. The amendment requires the Civil Aviation Authority to report on its use of consumer protection enforcement powers, including those granted by the bill.

The Secretary of State may specify matters that the Civil Aviation Authority. Civil aviation that the CAA must address in that report. As Parliament entrusts the CAA with these important powers, it is right that Parliament, passengers and industry can see how they are being used and what they are achieving. This is particularly important for accessibility, where strong legal protections must be matched by effective enforcement and clear accountability. Regular reporting will show where progress is being made, where further improvement may be needed, and how passenger protections are delivering real world benefits.

Amendments 30 and 31 are technical amendments that clarify the concurrency notification requirements, where more than one authority may exercise direct enforcement functions in relation to the same commercial practice, they clarify when the CMA must notify other relevant authorities, supporting coordination and avoiding uncertainty or duplication. For the reasons I have stated, the government is unable to support the amendments tabled by noble Lord, and I hope. I hope the House, however, will support the government amendments which improve transparency and provide greater clarity in the operation of the enforcement framework.

Finally, I note the comments of the noble Lord Grayling on the position on Easyjet, the aviation Minister and the other place is currently considering that position.
19:22
Lord Moylan Portrait Lord Moylan (Conservative)
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My Lords, I am of course, overcome with disappointment that overcome with disappointment that the noble Lord has been so disdainful of the many excellent disdainful of the many excellent amendments that have been advanced in the course of this debate, and I'm not proposing to debate them I'm not proposing to debate them further, except to say, if I may, first of all, that he has waived his trump card in the shape of the noble Lord, my noble friend Lord Harper, at your Lordships house.

I have to say, from our point of view that it is rare, almost inconceivably rare, but nonetheless possible that my noble friend can have made a mistake. And and and in that in that context, if my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham chooses to divide this house, as he has intimated he would on this point, then we will be supporting

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him. I beg leave to withdraw. Is it your Lordships pleasure

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Is it your Lordships pleasure this amendment be withdrawn. The amendment is by leave withdrawn. My nose. I'm going to be on my feet for a short while before we get to the next group of amendments. Amendment eight Baroness Grender not moved. Amendment nine. Baroness not moved. Amendment nine. Baroness Grey-Thompson not moved. Amendments ten and 11. Baroness Grender not moved. Amendment 12. Lord Moylan not moved. Amendment 13. Grayling not moved. Amendment 14 Lord Grayling not moved. Amendments 15, 16 and 17.

Lord Moylan not moved. Amendment 18 Lord Henry of Richmond Hill, moved formally. The question is amendment 18 be agreed to. As many as are of that opinion will say content. The contrary not content. The contents have it after clause one. Amendment 19 Lord Henry move formally. Amendment 20 as an amendment to amendment 19. Baroness Brinton not moved. Amendment 21 as an amendment to amendment 19 of Moylan not moved. Amendment 22 as an amendment to amendment 19. Baroness Brinton not moved an amendment 23 as amendment to amendment 19 not moved.

The question is that amendment 19 be agreed to. As many as are of that opinion will say content. The contrary, not content. The contents have it. Amendment 24. Lord Henry move formally the question. Amendment 25 an amendment to amendment 24 not moved. An amendment 26. An amendment to amendment 24. Moylan not moved. The question is that amendment 24 be agreed to. As many as are of that opinion will say content. The contrary not content. The contents have it.

Amendments 27 and 28. Lord Henry move formally. The question is. Amendments 27 and 28 be agreed to unblock. As many as are of that opinion will say content. The contrary, not content. The contents have it. Amendment 29. Moylan not moved. Amendments 30 and 31. Lord Henry move formally. The question is amendments 30 and 31 be agreed to en bloc. As many as are of that opinion will say content. The contrary, not content. The contents have it. Amendment 32.

Lord Moylan not moved. Amendment 33 after

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clause three. Amendment 33. Lord Warner. My Lords, I shall endeavour to be brief. Nobody, I think, in your be brief. Nobody, I think, in your Lordships House can fail to have been affected by the growing been affected by the growing scandal of rapacious drop off charges being charged by airports charges being charged by airports for people who have to arrive. Some choose to, but some have to arrive choose to, but some have to arrive at the airport by car, sometimes to drop off, and sometimes indeed to collect a passenger who might be a relative or a friend.

These charges have got higher and higher. They are a burden that people are not expecting. Many passengers, particularly families, older passengers and disabled passengers, do not have a realistic alternative to being dropped off at the terminal. Yet the policy direction appears to be to make that more expensive and the airports are stepping up to it with great enthusiasm. Only last month, the Department for transport published a strategic vision for transport to an expanded Heathrow airport.

This was a non-statutory document to accompany the now renamed Heathrow expansion Heathrow Expansion National Policy Statement, which was issued for consultation. This document came with it to give us the government's picture, the strategic vision of what transport would look like at an expanded Heathrow Airport. I have read it. There is. I know very little about what transport is going to look like as a result of reading that document. It is. It is very vague and it contains no commitments.

But there is one thing in it which is absolutely nailed on. Now, even before we have a deliverable plan for Heathrow expansion, and that that is that there are going to be increased terminal drop off charges or a fee to access Heathrow owned roads. At the same time as motorists have been looking for relief from higher costs, including after His Majesty's Opposition forced the government to U-turn on its planned fuel duty rise. The Department of Transport is now openly floating higher terminal drop off charges and road access fees for Heathrow.

This cuts against the government's stated concern for disabled passengers. The government has gone some way, as I said earlier in this bill, to improve protections for disabled passengers in aviation, no good strengthening rights inside the airport while supporting surface access policies that make it harder and more expensive for disabled passengers, or those assisting them to get to the terminal in the first place. Amendment 33 in my name. And there is a similar amendment in the name of noble Lord, Lord MP, which I'm sure he's going to speak to now.

But amendment 33 in my name. Simply ask for a review of the impact of airport drop off drop off charges on airport users. That is the least that we could expect. My Lords, I beg to move.

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Amendment proposed after clause three. Insert the following new clause. Review of airport drop off clause. Review of airport drop off charges as printed on the master list.

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list. My Lords, in support of the arguments advanced by Lord Moylan, we discussed this at committee and we discussed this at committee and for those who regularly use airports, this phenomenon of
19:29
Lord Empey Portrait Lord Empey (Ulster Unionist Party)
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airports, this phenomenon of airport charges, I recall, started off at one point not that long ago, and in fact, some airports had a basket and you kind of threw the pound in and the thing opened and that was it. Now it is a significant expense. Moved on to three points. Five points. Some airports are now eight points 50, and some are even more. And the way this is going is is in one direction. Now look, businesses have to survive.

They have to make money. We understand that. But in the if I could refer the House to the arguments put forward at the beginning of this Report stage about economic growth, this is. Not only is it a business cost, it is a cost. It is a tax on tourism. It is. It is an inhibitor. It is becoming a very significant issue. And when you add in parking charges and so on, we would all love people to be able to get to airports by public transport and so on.

But very often public transport is not integrated into airports. And we've all seen that on other parts of the world. If you go to a ski pole or something, the trains run through the terminal and and so on. But that is not the case in many cases. And if you have a rural area from if you come from a rural area, realistically, if you've got a family going on holiday load of kids and a load of stuff, there's very little opportunity to save here.

And of course, Lord Moylan makes the point about disabled passengers of whom we have spoken significantly. But it's not confined to people with physical disabilities. Of course, it is a charge on everybody, and I think that is just that. Risk is, in my opinion, gets completely out of control. My amendment slightly different to Lord Morton's in terms of the time and so on. But it's neither here nor there. The fundamental point is that this is now a revenue stream that didn't exist a relatively short period of time ago.

It's rapidly increasing, and it will continue to increase, either because the airports feel it as a way of making money or because some people think policies. If we force people away from the drop off and on to public transport, that has its own advantages. But that only applies in limited cases. And it is certainly not universally spread around the country. So, in short, I think we have to take a step to to take to get this matter under control.

And I it's not a dramatic change in policy, but if we are focusing on economic growth, it is a business cost. It is no different, in fact, to to any other charge. And I sincerely hope that the Minister will reflect and acknowledge the fact that this is an area of activity which is growing and which currently is out of control.
19:32
Baroness O'Loan Portrait Baroness O'Loan (Crossbench)
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My Lord, my Lord, I just want to support the noble Lord, Lord Moylan support the noble Lord, Lord Moylan and the noble Lord, Lord MP, on this issue of parking charges in this issue of parking charges in Belfast City Airport, which I use every week, there is a £4 charge just to drop someone off, but if you're longer than ten minutes it becomes over £20. So the alternative is to use the short stay car park. And I'd just like to tell, you know, the Lords what I paid over five visits for eight minutes.

I paid £12. This was in 14

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days. In June. For eight minutes I Paid £12 for 12 minutes. I paid

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Paid £12 for 12 minutes. I paid £650 for 20 minutes. I paid £7 for £650 for 20 minutes. I paid £7 for 812 minutes. I paid £8 and for 13 minutes I paid £8. So I wrote to the airport and asked them how I the airport and asked them how I was supposed to know what I was going to have to. I had already going to have to. I had already checked the website, which tells you it costs £4 to drop someone off and doesn't tell you if you don't do it within ten minutes, etc.

so I got an email back from the airport and what was said to me was this. And it was really quite, quite And it was really quite, quite strange. So I lost a. I do apologise, but what he said to me was that we have introduced flexible drive up rates in our short stay car park, meaning prices may vary depending on peak times and availability. He says prices displayed on the boards are three on site car parks provide flexible options.

I can't understand what is meant by. We have introduced flexible drive up rates and prices may vary depending on peak times and availability. The amount that we're being charged seems to be a figure that's pulled out of a hat. I don't think this is satisfactory, and I think there is a need for regulation on this because customers coming into the airport, particularly the elderly, the disabled, have a difficulty in managing to get out quickly. And another aspect of this is that people who have to wait for baggage depend on the availability of baggage handlers to put their baggage onto the carousel in order to allow them to get out to the pick up point where somebody is picking them up.

And sometimes you can wait 10 or 15 minutes and then you're into big money charges.
19:35
19:36
19:38
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill Portrait Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill, Minister of State (Department for Transport) (Labour)
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In it. Yeah. Moylan and Lord MP for tabling their amendments on airport drop off charges. I will address them together. My Lords, I understand the concerns behind these amendments. Passengers should have a clear, accessible and should have clear, accessible information about travel options to and from airports, including drop off, short stay parking and free alternatives. The government expects airports to act transparently and fairly, and reinforces this through regular engagement with the sector. However, these amendments are neither necessary nor proportionate.

Most UK airports are privately owned and responsible for managing their roads and parking. Their arrangements are already subject to consumer protection law, competition law and industry standards, with enforcement and redress where practices are misleading, unfair or non-compliant. There are also established mechanisms to review airport drop off charges where concerns arise. The CIA has already examined airport surface access, including competition, consumer issues and the transparency of information on options and charges, and found insufficient evidence to justify a competition or consumer law investigation.

Private parking operators are expected to comply with the sector's code of practice, including requirements on clear signage, accessibility, penalty charge notices and appeals. The government will continue to expect airports and operators to provide clear, accurate and accessible information before passengers travel. And I would say to the noble Baroness O'loan that if the information at Belfast City Airport is as unclear as she describes, she has a valid a valid complaint. Drop off and parking charges also support airports, wider commercial and operational management.

They can reduce congestion, improve traffic flow, support surface access strategies and fund passenger facilities, including cleaner transport options. Restricting them in primary legislation risks shifting other costs to passengers and undermining airports ability to manage congestion effectively. Almost all airports that charge for terminal drop off provide free alternatives, such as shuttles. Airports should ensure these options are clearly communicated in advance so passengers can make informed choices for those reasons, which whilst I understand the noble Lords concerns, I ask them to withdraw

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their amendments. For the noble Lord, says Stein. He used the phrase competition. But He used the phrase competition. But is it not the case that in the vast majority of cases we're talking about monopolies, we're not talking about there's nobody to compete with because, you know, you have no choice. So if you want to go to Heathrow, you oh, you've got Heathrow, you oh, you've got Gatwick as an alternative. But it's it's miles away. So there is really no competition here.

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no competition here. If I may say so, to the noble Lord. I think I'm referring to

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choices in the method of access to the airports rather than choices of the airport themselves itself. My Lords.

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My Lords. I thought that was a deeply unsatisfactory answer and actually failed to address the amendment. The noble Lord said there was no case for restricting these charges in primary legislation. Who was proposed that nobody has proposed that the noble Lord, Lord MP and I that the noble Lord, Lord MP and I have asked for a survey, an examination, a report to be done in the. On the effect of these drop off charters, there's no. No proposal to restrict them, and I think that's a deeply unsatisfactory answer.

So I'm afraid I have to say that I will insist on testing the opinion of the House and moving my amendment

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number 33. A question is that amendment 33

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A question is that amendment 33 be agreed to. As many as are of that opinion will say content. To

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the contrary, not content. Not content. The question will be decided by a division, and I will advise the a division, and I will advise the House when voting is open. My Lords, House when voting is open. My Lords,

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Well, Well, yes. Well, yes. But.

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Well, yes. But. Well, yes. But. That Well, yes. But. That is

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Well, yes. But. That is the
19:44
19:52
Lord Empey Portrait Lord Empey (Ulster Unionist Party)
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Lords, we discussed this again >> Lords, we discussed this again at committee, but I think that all of us who use the aircraft on a regular basis, but more importantly, those who fly them and crew them are living their lives in a capsule where you have artificially filtered and artificially pressurised air. Now, we have had examples over the years of. Oil sales leaking in engines, and vapour has come into the cabin, and that has been down largely either to design faults or poor maintenance.

Now I have a close relative who works in the industry and spends his time in a cockpit, and we do know that in that compressed environment, a the effects of breathing in that air, sometimes it can be contaminated and in mineral oils that the engine comes air is bled from the engines and pressurised and in some cases heated and then brought into the cabin. Now, it is true that pilots quite frequently do have a separate air supply to the passengers, but ultimately it all comes from the same fundamental source.

So the question is, is contamination from these oils that are a there to help the engine, but they actually have the effect of breaking down that oil into its components, some of which can be toxic. Now, what we're trying to do here is establish, and I'm simply asking for the Secretary of State to review, to establish the responsibility for standards of air quality on civil aviation planes. Now, if people are doing long journeys, and in fact, we're now seeing longer journeys than ever, people flying 14, 15, 16 hours.

And in an aircraft, this is extremely important because for those who earn a living in those environments, people who spend vast parts of their lives in an environment. And we've had this, I mean, in, in industry, it's not a new phenomenon. We've we've had it in mines, we've had it in factories, we've had it in all sorts of environments. So I don't see why an aircraft, in addition to being a location where passengers are carried, it is also location where people work.

And therefore, it seems to me not unreasonable that we pay significant and serious attention to this to ensure that we guarantee, as far as it is possible, the health and safety of the people who work in the industry and the people like the rest of us who use them. So I don't think it's an unreasonable thing to ask for. It doesn't impose, I think, any huge burden on the Secretary of State, other than to review. And also we need clear lines of responsibility.

And I hope the Minister can address this, because it's not only carrying out a review as to what the health implications could be of long term exposure to pressurised air, but it is also the fact that if we want to encourage people to join the sector and encourage people to use it, then there must be satisfied of what the health and safety standards are. And I've also asked in to be to provide guidance for implementing a strategy for this establishment of standards of air quality and civil aviation planes.

I think the Minister will find that that is not a burden on his department. I think it's just perfectly sensible and reasonable thing to do. It's somewhere we all spend a lot of time, and some would spend more time in aircraft than others. But if you work in one and that is your career, whether you're a pilot cabin or a member of the cabin crew, you are spending the most of your working life in that environment. And I think it's not unreasonable that that is reviewed and examined by the Secretary of State and any necessary steps taken.



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I beg to move. Amendment proposed after clause three. Insert the following new clause responsibility for air quality standards on planes as

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Prince John. The Marshalled List. I will. Now remind the House that I am president of the Carbon Monoxide president of the Carbon Monoxide Research Trust and this is a critical issue over cabin air quality. My amendment 37 and I am grateful to my noble friend, Lord MP, for the way he's introduced
19:58
Baroness Finlay of Llandaff Portrait Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (Crossbench)
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this group and for co-signing. My amendment creates a statutory duty on air operators to install on air operators to install continuous active monitoring for carbon monoxide and volatile organic compounds in the cockpit organic compounds in the cockpit and passenger cabins, providing an immediate alert to the crew and immediate alert to the crew and direct data reporting to the Civil Aviation Authority. I would like to thank the noble Lord, the Minister, thank the noble Lord, the Minister, Lord Henley of Richmond, for meeting with me last week and for the very constructive and open discussion we had.

I hope he will be able to confirm that the Civil Aviation Authority do have the powers to act on cabin air quality, and that they are willing to meet to see how we can best ensure this aspect of passenger and crew safety, as then we would not need to seek to put these powers on the face of this primary legislation. It has been interesting, going back over some disaster reports, as the possibility of carbon monoxide and volatile compounds seems not to have been fully considered in some instances, even when pilot hyperventilation was noted, along with questions over the possibility of fumes in the cockpit cabin.

Air quality is critically important as we become increasingly aware of the dangers of low level carbon monoxide exposure, particularly over prolonged periods, I would just remind the House that Hepa filters deal with viral and similar similar particles in recycled cabin air, but they do not capture gases. And anyway, the carbon monoxide and volatile organic compounds are coming into the air intake, into the cabins, directly from the air, from the engine turbines, i.e. before the filters are even dealing with recycled air.

In Grand Committee, the noble Lord, the Minister referred to the Committee on Toxicity, reporting that normal levels of chemicals found in cabin air are not likely to be harmful, but a fume event is not a normal occurrence and we have to take a precautionary approach. It's a mechanical failure for which carbon monoxide is an easily detected indicator of contaminated cabin air. Operators must report and investigate any suspected leaks, but the paradox is that any an operator cannot report a suspected leak of carbon monoxide without any monitoring, as the gas is colourless and odourless, which explains why carbon monoxide exposures are undetected and unreported without monitoring.

Yet the strangest paradox is that in 2025, the CAA mandated active carbon monoxide monitoring for small piston engine light aircraft. It is considered absolutely essential to protect the passengers and crew in light aircraft. But why not afford similar protection to passengers on a commercial airline? There are now two types of monitor readily available for large commercial aircraft. One is installed permanently behind the instrument panel and transmit continuous real time Co levels, giving a time stamped history of air quality.

Another provides an audible alert at dangerous carbon monoxide thresholds directly to the pilot's headsets and intercom system. A much more sophisticated model is in development. It's an advanced mass spectrometer capable of identifying the precise chemical footprint of pyrolyzed synthetic oil, including neurotoxic organophosphates, before contamination enters the cabins and is being developed by the Fraunhofer Institute and Airbus. For the airlines themselves, monitoring cabin air, carbon monoxide would provide a commercial advantage given the increasing awareness of air quality across society today.

The protection of passengers and crew against acute neurotoxin exposure from a bleed air event should not be an option kept under review. It must be an obligation. Without this amendment, we would be allowing the CAA to abandon its responsibility to keep the crew and passengers breath safe during air travel.
20:02
Baroness Foster of Oxton Portrait Baroness Foster of Oxton (Conservative)
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Loads. I would like to support the comments made by the noble Lord and the noble Baroness, for the and the noble Baroness, for the rigorous way that any airline in this industry monitors the air supply in their aircraft, but I also think that we need to keep some context on this subject. There were a number of years ago, some instances with the BA one, four, six aircraft type, and I think it was well known in the industry. And there appeared to be issues, certainly health issues, by pilots who flew on that aircraft for a period of time.

I am former crew and spent 25 years actually on aircraft. Some of them were a lot older than the aircraft are these days, and less sophisticated, I suspect. But I am not dismissing that this subject is one that has to be taken very seriously, and neither is the airline industry, and neither neither is the aerospace sector. I've worked very closely with the aerospace sector. I was head of European affairs for the aerospace, space and defense industries for four years when I was in Brussels and had obviously been with British Airways for many, many years before that and dealt with all of these issues as an MEP.

So as I say, I do take it very seriously, but what we must not do is really put passengers, predominantly passengers and crew themselves in a position where they're actually very worried about going to work. The sophistication, the obligation on the airlines as well for the maintenance standards, which they have legal requirements to follow, the maintenance standards and the timing, obviously, for the aircraft to have their servicing, etcetera, is extremely rigorous. And if an airline was not doing that job, they wouldn't be they wouldn't have certification for very long, I assure you.

So whilst I certainly would agree and take on board that this is a serious issue, I do believe that it needs to be taken in a proportionate way because what we do not want to do, actually people will be watching this probably on BBC Parliament or Parliament live if they're not doing something else. That's more interesting for, for example, is to frighten the life out of people who are going on holiday or they're doing business. So I would just say that as a as a gentle sort of conversation to have about this notwithstanding, obviously the authorities have a responsibility to ensure that flying is safe and that the environment that both the crew and the cabin crew work in and the

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passengers is as safe as can be. My Lords.

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My Lords. This group of amendments addresses the most profound structural shift in this bill the delegation of aviation rule making delegation of aviation rule making to the Civil Aviation Authority. I turn first to amendment 62, which turn first to amendment 62, which we're pleased to see now carries the minister's name alongside the name of the noble Lord, Lord Moylan.
20:05
Baroness Brinton Portrait Baroness Brinton (Liberal Democrat)
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name of the noble Lord, Lord Moylan. This is a vital victory for parliamentary scrutiny. It mandates the affirmative procedure for regulations specifying the limits of the CAA's new rule making powers, ensuring that this House retains its right to debate and approve the scope of what is being delegated. And we similarly welcome Government Amendment 58, which requires ministerial directions to the CAA to be laid before Parliament. For too long, the single guiding mind of the aviation sector has operated one step removed from democratic oversight.

However, we must go further to prevent the creation of an all powerful and potentially unaccountable regulator. We support the spirit of Lord Moylan's Amendment 57, which would remove the CAA veto over the Secretary of State's statement of priorities. It's a constitutional nonsense to suggest that a Minister must secure the agreement of the body they are intended to oversee before setting their strategic objectives. We also support the Government Amendment 56, which correctly identifies that the Secretary of State must retain responsibilities for matters of public interest, including environmental protection and the needs of disabled passengers.

Regarding technical safety, we offer our strong support for amendments 34 and 37 from the noble Lord, Lord MP and the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff. The monitoring of aircraft, cabin air from carbon monoxide and other toxins is not a luxury. It is a fundamental safety requirement and if we are to grant the CAA more agile powers to update safety rules, those powers must be used to address the very real concerns of flight crew and passengers regarding air quality.

Similarly, Lord MP amendment 66 regarding the enforcement of flight time limitations is essential to ensure that operational efficiency never comes at the cost of pilot fatigue or of public safety. My Lords, let us all ensure that as we delegate these powers, we do not defang the regulator or emasculate Parliament. We must fill this skeletal bill with the future of sorry, the furniture of transparent reporting and mandatory safety reviews, and I urge the House to support these measures to ensure that the UK remains a safety led aviation hub that respects both the expertise of the regulator and the sovereignty of this House.
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Lord Moylan Portrait Lord Moylan (Conservative)
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My Lords, may I start by saying to both the noble Baroness, Lady to both the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff, and the noble Lord, Lord Empey, that they have raised some very important points indeed, which can only arouse the sympathy and interest of all members of your Lordships House. Air cabin quality is crucial to safety. And without committing myself to the wording of either amendment, I'd like to say that I don't think this subject can be allowed to rest today, and the government is going to have to commit to come back to it in a way that is credible and convincing.

However, the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, is correct in saying that this group of amendments is largely about administrative matters and their administrative matters related to clause eight. Now the. Although we've tended to focus so far quite properly on the consumer protection parts of the bill, which are in clauses one and two. We're coming now to that part of the bill where the Civil Aviation Authority is authorised to make rules. These rules were obviously made either by Statutory Instrument or by the means of European Union legislation, and the complaint from the Department for transport is, well, they don't have enough time to do the Statutory Instruments.

It's all too much. Couldn't we give by statute, give the power to the Civil Aviation Authority to make these rules for us? I'm not making that up. That is actually the complaint that has been made. There are too many Statutory Instruments, so we want to give it to the unelected bureaucrats, the regulators and so on, especially as we're not following we're not receiving new regulations from the European Union anymore, which would be a different matter. So many of the amendments in this group are about that administrative process and trying to reverse some of the original draft of the bill, giving these powers, without any accountability to the Civil Aviation Authority.

But I do thank the Minister for his letter on this and for engaging in the concerns that were raised at committee on this point. I also welcome the fact that the government has tabled amendments to give effect to the recommendations of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee and the government, the committee in committee. We were clear that the Bill should set out the principles underlying the exceptions to delegated rule making and government amendment. Amendment 56 now seeks to do that, and government amendment 58 also addresses an important scrutiny point by requiring directions to the CEA to be laid before Parliament.

And I'm also grateful to the Minister for adding his name to my amendment 62, which ensures that the Secretary of State's power to define exceptions to the CAA rule making powers is subject to the affirmative procedure rather than the negative procedure. I turn to amendments 59 and 60. If the CAA is to make detailed aviation rules directly, industry must be able to find and understand and rely on the rules in force. The Bill says that the CAA may publish its rules by.

Really isn't good enough to say that they may publish their rules. This amendment simply says that they must. I don't have to publish them in hard copy. They can be published on the internet, but it must be possible, even if the rule book is very thick, which the noble Lord told me, told me, told us in committee was the case. It must be possible to publish it and keep it up to date. Otherwise how can anybody rely on be sure that they are actually keeping the rules.

But the part of the clause eight, though, that really upsets me and I am quite upset about it, because I think it's a constitutional outrage. And it was referred to by the noble Baroness. Lady Brinton is the part that says and it's in it's in the section on page 12 where section 61 F is being added into the into the existing legislation, the Civil Aviation Act, 1982. It says that in relation to these new rulemaking powers, the Secretary of State must issue a document that sets out his priorities and objectives and deals with matters relating to the exercise of the functions.

That's good. All in favour of that. But then it goes on to say, and that document, by the way, is going to contain guidance. Now I assume this is statutory guidance. This is this will be statutory guidance. But it says quite clearly it clearly in subsection two, it will contain guidance, for example, on consultation guidance about how the CAA should interpret and apply environmental principles and so forth. So I'm sure that's I imagine that's statutory guidance, but it then goes on to say further down, the Secretary of State may not issue the document without the agreement of the CAA to the contents of the document.

I think this is absolutely unprecedented. Now in committee, the Minister said. Well, it was a new way of working, which certainly is, and he said that it was more like a contract. Now, I think this is this is very misleading. It is perfectly possible for the Department to end all the Secretary of State to enter into contractual type arrangements with the Civil Aviation Authority. I have no objection if they do, that. These types of contractual type of types of arrangements exist in various parts of public life.

It might contain key performance indicators, it might contain all sorts of things. I'm not going to attempt to enumerate them. And it would say, this is your task. This is what we expect from you. This is what you're going to do in exchange for the funding and so on. So that is a contract. I understand that and this is not precluded by this, but overarching all of that. There must be a power always for an accountable Minister to issue guidance to to an arm's length body or executive agency, to issue binding statutory guidance without having to seek their agreement to the contents of the guidance first.

Otherwise, where does ministerial accountability come into it? If the Minister has the power to issue that guidance unfettered, then he can come to the despatch box and say to your Lordships, this is the guidance I have imposed on them and I am willing to defend it. If he cannot do that without their agreement, then he can only come to the despatch box potentially, and say, this is the guidance I have issued, but I don't agree with it. It wasn't the guidance I intended to issue in the first place.

I've had to amend it in order to get the agreement of the Civil Aviation Authority to the guidance that I've issued. It's monstrous and constitutionally monstrous and completely unprecedented. My amendment 57 does away with it altogether, and I fully intend to test the opinion of the House on it. Unless the Minister moves as he has moved on. So other so many other matters, I congratulate him, but unless he moves on it, I think we shall be here late testing this

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question. My. My Lords. My Lords, I'll begin with

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My Lords, I'll begin with amendments 34 and 37, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord MP and the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff. The department takes cabin air quality seriously. Commercial aircraft must already meet certification requirements for ventilation and cabin air flow, and operators must report and operators must report and investigate suspected toxic cabin air incidents. CIA's medical experts review such incidents and can take action where necessary. The Committee on Toxic Toxicology's most recent review in 2024 concluded that reported concentrations of chemical contamination in aircraft cabin air are unlikely to cause adverse health effects in aircrew following either acute or long term exposure.

But I understand the points made by the noble Baroness Finlay of Llandaff, and on which she made a strong case when, when when we met. Nevertheless, if necessary, the Civil Aviation Authority could use the new powers in clause eight to make further regulations relating to air cabin air quality. As discussed with the noble Baroness. I am happy to facilitate a meeting as soon as possible between noble Lords and the Civil Aviation Authority to discuss this matter and existing evidence, and, depending on the outcome, I would be further prepared to meet them myself if that were needed.

I hope this reassures noble Lords that they will feel able not to press their amendments. I turn next to the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, which will require which would require aviation safety regulations to be made by the Secretary of State rather than Civil Aviation Authority. This would undermine a core purpose of the bill and maintain the status quo as drafted. The bill will enable the Civil Aviation Authority to make aviation more quickly and efficiently, reducing the current backlog, which has been an issue since we left the European Union and since we left the European Union Aviation Safety Agency.

Previously, that agency's regulatory changes became law via implementing regulations. And although the existing body of EU
20:18
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill Portrait Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill, Minister of State (Department for Transport) (Labour)
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laws transcribed into UK law, any additional changes have to be made by Statutory Instrument which has by Statutory Instrument which has caused the backlog. Any government would have run into this. These problems without the reforms being problems without the reforms being brought forward in this. In this bill, it also preserves the Secretary of State's power to make Secretary of State's power to make rules by Statutory Instrument and to intervene through backstop powers where appropriate. I therefore ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.

I will now turn to amendments giving effect to the recommendations of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, which the government has accepted in full. I am grateful to the Committee for their scrutiny and recommendations which have strengthened the Bill. I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, for tabling amendments to give effect to this and indeed his amendment 62, because he got to that subject first. We support, which makes the reserving power in to the government has already has also tabled amendment 56 in my name to give effect to the committee's recommendation to clarify the principles underlying the exceptions to delegated rule making.

These. This sets these principles out on the face of the bill. It will. It would require the Secretary of State to consider matters such as national security, the wider public interest and passengers interests, including accessibility. When deciding what should remain reserved to the Department. I hope noble Lords will support this. The noble Lord, Lord Moylan. Next amendment 57 would remove the requirement for the Civil Aviation Authority to agree the Secretary of State's priorities and objectives. The Civil Aviation Authority is the UK's independent aviation safety regulator, and I placed real emphasis on that independence from government, as the CIA's experts will deliver the rule making programme, the CAA must be satisfied that it's deliverable, requiring it to implement priorities with which it disagrees would undermine that independence.

But where disagreement arises, the Secretary of State can still reserve matters and make regulations herself. I therefore ask the noble Lord to withdraw the amendment. Indeed, were there to be a disagreement. Amendment 58, tabled in my name, requires any directions issued by the Secretary of State to the CAA under clause eight, to be laid before Parliament, as well as published this report. This response to concerns raised in the Civil Aviation Authority to republish the entire rule book after every change.

However, minor Civil Aviation Authority already publishes its rule book online and will keep it updated. Republishing the full approximately 12000 page rule book for minor changes would be disproportionate and costly. Instead, the Civil Aviation Authority will update individual rules as they change and publish consolidations. Where appropriate. The noble Lords amendment would remove the power to make consequential amendments relating to the CAA rules as safety rule making moves the CAA. The government needs a mechanism to keep related legislation consistent with the new framework.

This standard power will be used only to enable and facilitate the CAA rule making function. Secondary legislation made under this power will be subject to normal parliamentary scrutiny, including the affirmative procedure where primary legislation is amended. Finally, the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord MP seeks a review of flight time limitations. The CAA already ensures cabin crew and pilots comply with legal flight time limitations, and has enforcement powers to support that role. The CAA is reviewing flight time limitations with stakeholders, so it would be premature to create new provisions before that work concludes.

Flight time limitations are in DFT owned secondary legislation and if changes were needed, the CAA could propose amendments or the department. My department could act directly. I hope this reassures the noble Lord that the matter is already under active review.

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Noble Lord, the Minister sits down on the flight time limitations down on the flight time limitations and who then takes charge of this? I think the noble Lord Tunnicliffe I think the noble Lord Tunnicliffe may remember prior to 2012, when the flight time limitations were the flight time limitations were then dealt with by the European Union, we came under what was called cap 371. That's a civil called cap 371. That's a civil aviation authority. Were always responsible for the flight time limitations for pilots and cabin crew.

So to revert back then, obviously, EU flight time limitations that came through the European Parliament and those limitations then were expected to be they were in force then EU wide. But of course we're now reverting back. So I would see in my view that the CAA would take back control of flight time limitations under the normal civil aviation

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procedures. Absolutely. To the noble

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Absolutely. To the noble Baroness, far superior knowledge to mine. And I think what that I think what she's referring to is the review that's being currently undertaken.

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undertaken. My Lords, can I take this opportunity to thank the Minister opportunity to thank the Minister for the offer of a meeting with the CAA, and I see from her head, about to nod off her shoulders that Baroness Finlay is agreeing that that's a good idea. So I thank the Minister for that. I think it's a
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Lord Empey Portrait Lord Empey (Ulster Unionist Party)
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helpful contribution, and I want to say, Baroness Foster, I would not say, Baroness Foster, I would not wish at any point to frighten people away from aircraft. After all, I feel I almost live in one as all, I feel I almost live in one as it is, so we all use them, and they. it is, so we all use them, and they. But we must remember, is that as well as a conveyance for passengers, it's a workplace. And that's the big difference.

And we. We learn about minute contamination. If you look back at the regulations that were in force on what was supposed to come out of the nuclear power plant in, in, in, in, up in the northwest of England, and the levels of contamination was allowed. Initially, people said it did no harm to anybody, but now it's down to about a thousandth of what it used to be. So these things evolve with time and knowledge and so on. But nevertheless, the Minister, I think, has made a fair and reasonable offer.

And I think that that is is most helpful. So as far as amendment 34 is concerned, I'm not moved.

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Withdrawal. Is it your Lordship's pleasure this amendment be withdrawn. The amendment is finally withdrawn. Amendment 35, finally withdrawn. Amendment 35, Lord MP not moved. Amendment 36. Lord MP not moved. Amendment 36. Baroness Grender not moved. Amendment 37. Baroness Finlay not Amendment 37. Baroness Finlay not moved in. Clause four. Amendment 38. Baroness Grender.

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Baroness Grender. Lord amendment 38 is a measure designed to install necessary statutory guardrails around the new last resort direction powers introduced by clause four. We must be clear about the technical shift this clause represents. It amends the air traffic Management and Unmanned Aircraft Act 21 to allow the Secretary of State to compel the actual implementation of airspace changes, rather than merely their development. While we on these oh so crowded benches, acknowledge that our ground based navigation systems are antiquated, effectively remaining unchanged since the 1950s, we can't allow technical modernisation to bypass community consent for residents in communities such as Richmond, where the noble Lord resides.

These directions are far from operational tweaks. They are powerful levers over airport capacity, a redrawn flight path or a redistributed traffic flow can fundamentally alter the noise and environmental footprint for thousands of people living below. My amendment would mandate three specific duties before a direction is made. A requirement to consult affected persons and communities, and the completion of full environmental
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Baroness Grender Portrait Baroness Grender (Liberal Democrat)
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and noise impact assessment. We have received reassurances from the Minister that this Bill is not Minister that this Bill is not intended as a vehicle for airport expansion, and we take those assurances, especially from this noble Lord, the Minister in good, good faith. However, as I have good faith. However, as I have argued throughout the committee stages, good faith is no substitute stages, good faith is no substitute for legal guarantee. And and I have you know, my heart breaks that even the very thought of this.

But no Minister right now can guarantee they will even be in the same post by this time next week, let alone the continuing threat under a a very blunt instrument known as the first past the post system, where a reformed government with hugely damaging notions on environment and climate issues could come into power without these mandatory assessments. On the face of the bill, the public lacks a formal mechanism to distinguish between a technical modernization and a quiet unscrutinised increasing capacity.

Operational reform must not become a back door for expansion at Heathrow or elsewhere that has not been presented to Parliament as a discrete, clear policy choice. We have heard evidence that communities experience significant annoyance and sleep disturbance, even at lower noise levels than previously assumed. It is therefore essential that any exercise of ministerial power that has the practical effect of facilitating increased capacity is preceded by meaningful transparency. My Lords, airspace modernisation should be a resource for the entire nation, not at all.

For industry margins, we must ensure that as we redesign the skies and the principle of which we wholeheartedly support and recognise needs updating. But we can't leave communities on the ground in the dark, for want of a better word. I beg to move. Sorry.

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Amendment proposed clause four, page four. Line 27 at end. In certain words, as Prince John Marshalled List.

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Marshalled List. My Lords, I rise to speak to my amendment 39. We had a very interesting conversation about this issue at at committee, but I will
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Lord Tunnicliffe Portrait Lord Tunnicliffe (Labour)
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issue at at committee, but I will repeat it a little bit. Essentially, aviation is dangerous. There was this phrase that people in flying training come across that if God had meant meant to and women, of course, to fly, he'd have given them wings. And he didn't. So after that, there's an uphill battle flying. It's more accurate, perhaps, to say flying is potentially dangerous. A failure in aviation safety can become a catastrophe. Very few passenger aircraft take off with less than 100 people on board, so any crash is about all in one moment, killing 100 or more people.

Simply flying the aircraft, of course, is quite straightforward, but the challenge in aviation is flying the aircraft whilst taking account of all the other issues. Principal amongst these is whether weather in England can occasionally change very dramatically. The other issue is failure. And the other essential issue that binds all these things together to make the pilot's job very difficult. You can't park virtually any other sort of transport. If something's going wrong, you can stop and sort it out.

The key imperative of flying an airplane is to make sure you don't become a glider. And that really weighs on your soul as it approaches. And it's. In an inability to be able to take the problem away. But you've got to fly the aeroplane. You're accepting the weather forecast, but it's very marginal. You then listening for what's going to happen. And you've got to think about your fuel. So bringing those things together, it's bringing those things together for when you have a failure, an engine failure, for instance.

And how do these very difficult to describe pilots, but they're certainly not essentially having a brain the size of a planet. They're reasonably ordinary people. And how do they cope with this difficult environment through procedures and training? Now, I have never flown an aeroplane where with an engine on fire particularly, I've never flown an aeroplane where the engine was on fire just as we took off. But when I was a professional pilot twice a year in a simulator, I had to prove that I could do that.

And this was just as a mere co-pilot. Training and procedures is what's changed. Something which is intrinsically dangerous into something that everybody now assumes is routinely safe. What we are facing with this airspace reorganisation is really dramatic. The total concept is not to have navigation aids on the ground. The total process is to use GPS to know precisely where the aeroplane is, to know how high it is, and that gives you a whole new set of flexibilities.

Now, these flexibilities are mutually beneficial. Of course, we're doing it. Or the CAA or the airlines are doing it to achieve greater capacity, and they are going to do that by the aeroplanes getting closer together, because you can now pick routes which are closer together and know the aircraft is going to follow those routes. It's really, really very exciting. But the key thing is who who are going to have to cope with when it goes wrong. The pilots who are best equipped, not solely equipped, lots of people are involved, particularly on the technical side, and improving the integrity of the stuff and all that sort of stuff.

But the people who will be at the centre of anything going wrong will be the pilots. And whilst my amendment doesn't say pilots, it says technical professionals or something because I'm told what's what not to say. The whole point is that just as consultation for. People on the ground is important and the wider issues, it's important to have to take aboard this group of people in this development. Now, I am reasonably confident that I will not be moving this this amendment because, as many others have spoken about this bill, the Minister has kindly spent time with myself and some colleagues debating this thing.

So whilst I it is down. He told him it could be moved and voted on and so on. I think before we get to that, the Minister will have said enough to satisfy me, to satisfy me. People who are concerned like I am to satisfy professional bodies, particularly pilots, professional bodies. But they are. No doubt the air traffic controllers will also want their two penn'orth properly. Properly. This. His words, I believe, will be sufficiently helpful that I will not be forced to move to move the amendment, I said.
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Baroness Bray of Coln Portrait Baroness Bray of Coln (Conservative)
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I welcome this opportunity to stress the importance of establishing a meaningful establishing a meaningful consultation with those communities directly affected by the likely expansion of flight paths and expansion of flight paths and airports as a result of this bill, and I hope the noble Lord, the Minister, will give us an assurance Minister, will give us an assurance that this important issue is recognised by the government and can outline what plans they are developing for a genuine process to achieve this, the noble Lady Baroness amendment contains some really important proposals, and I want to add a brief comment specifically about the necessary quality and depth of the consultation process.

It should not be a one off procedure to take place after expansion plans have already largely been settled. Communities need to be engaged from the outset, when options are still genuinely open. And to be clear, while the expansion of flight paths is perhaps the main concern, there is also the likelihood that more flight paths will lead to busier airports, attracting more traffic on surrounding roads, greater pressure on local transport and on public services. This must also be part of the consultation process.

The will, of course, be occasions when, having weighed up all the competing considerations, the government or the relative authority decides an expansion should proceed despite local objections. That is always a possibility, but those affected communities will still deserve a clear explanation of why their concerns were outweighed by other considerations. This is essential if public confidence in the process is to be maintained. I look forward to hearing what assurance the Minister can give us today on this.
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Lord Grayling Portrait Lord Grayling (Conservative)
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Very briefly, I raised the issue >> Very briefly, I raised the issue of consultation at Committee stage, and the Minister gave me what I thought was a very helpful response, thought was a very helpful response, but he did only refer to that. He was very clear. He said that in a was very clear. He said that in a case where the government took a decision, that a particular approach would already have been subject to detailed consultation. But my question is this. That was only one particular approach.

In a situation where there could be 3 or 4 different options for an airport,

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what view does he have about the The government's job in explaining why its chosen one of explaining why its chosen one of the different options available. And that's where I think we do get down to the basic principle in down to the basic principle in Baroness Brenda's amendment, that the government can't simply take the government can't simply take decisions out of the blue without detailed explanation and without some degree of to the communities some degree of to the communities affected and discussion of the communities affected about why they've taken a particular decision out of maybe 2 or 3 options.

So I'd simply ask the Minister accept that his very helpful response to me, in light of the comments I made in committee. But can he now set out for us how the government will approach a choice between numerous options, and to what approach it will take to consultation in that situation.
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Lord Moylan Portrait Lord Moylan (Conservative)
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My Lord, some very important points have been made about consultation. I just want to be consultation. I just want to be clear that I understand that what the points are that are being made are these amendments, I believe, are these amendments, I believe, are not about airport expansion. And I would say about airport expansion that especially as it's subject to a process under planning law, the development consent order, there will not be a shortage of consultation as a result of that development consultation order.

In the case of Heathrow, certainly if it if it expands, the consultation will take place. I'm not. I think, in fact, the amendment that the noble Baroness, Lady Grender, has put forward is not about expansion, but it's about airspace modernisation. And although I wouldn't want to commit myself to the wording of her amendment. In particular, I do think she has a point. The government needs to be quite clear about and needs to reckon, you know, what the difficulties are, and that is that the reorganisation of flight paths will have the effect of having winners and losers.

And it's not simply that flight paths might be moved from one corner, one, one area, one approach to another. Part of the purpose of flight. Airport of airspace modernisation is is in fact to concentrate flights. There could be quite a lot of winners, but some very bad losers as a result of this. And I do think they need to be. The government needs to take people with them as they do this. There is a strong case for doing it. We support modernisation, but I don't think the government can leave its successor with in a position where people haven't actually been given a chance to be brought along.

My amendment number 39 A in this in this group is about charges for air traffic and air navigation services in clause clause six, and I drew attention in committee to the sheer incoherence. I thought of the drafting of this clause and the government has come forward with an amendment which improves it somewhat, but it slightly misses the point. It still leaves it saying something quite incoherent, and I offer this only because I like to see properly drafted legislation.

There's no politics in this. It's just, you know, the government should be doing its job properly in the first place. It says persons may be specified if the service is concerned are available for their use. Note that phrase available for their use or benefit. And it's immaterial whether or not the services are actually used or could be used by them. Now it's immaterial whether they use. I understand that it's available for your use, but you didn't use it.

We're still going to charge you. That may be right or wrong, but that's what the law says. That's that's that's the situation. How can the services be available for their use? But they could not be used by them. You could still be charged for them. Even if you couldn't, they could not be used by you. How is that consistent with them being available? I don't understand it. I just think it's very poor drafting. Anyway, I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say.

I'm glad he's corrected. The other part of it that was incoherent. And so we're we're getting somewhere slowly. Maybe he'll come forward with some sensible amendments at Third Reading. So the bill actually makes

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sense in in some key areas. My Lords, I turn now to the next

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My Lords, I turn now to the next group, which concerns airspace modernisation, consultation and charging. I begin by thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Grender, for tabling her amendment. And I've also heard the noble Lord Grayling also heard the noble Lord Grayling and the noble Baroness Bray on this matter. I've considered this carefully, but the government's position remains unchanged. Environmental assessment and consultation are and will remain fundamental parts of the airspace change process. Nothing in these powers removes or weakens existing
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Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill Portrait Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill, Minister of State (Department for Transport) (Labour)
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requirements for thorough consultation or for robust assessment of environmental and assessment of environmental and noise impacts. Any procedure or policy the CAA puts in place or any decision it makes to change decision it makes to change airspace must be exercised in accordance with the duties set out under section 70 of the Transport under section 70 of the Transport Act 2000. These require the Civil Aviation Authority to take account of the Secretary of State's guidance on environmental objectives, as well as the interests of any person in relation to the use of airspace.

In practice, sponsors of airspace change must undertake detailed assessments of potential impacts, including noise exposure and greenhouse gas emissions, and consult meaningfully with affected communities, airspace users and other relevant stakeholders. The CAA then scrutinises these assessments before any proposal can be approved. In response to the noble Lord Grayling, my understanding is that the CAA will only bring forward one proposal at a time. The direction powers introduced by the Bill therefore apply only after those steps have been completed.

Their purpose is to ensure that a properly approved and strategically important airspace change decision made in accordance with the CAA statutory duties, cannot be frustrated by a single reluctant party. The amendment would duplicate existing consultation and assessment requirements for decisions that have already been subject to detailed scrutiny. It would introduce unnecessary delay and cost and risk undermining approval, undermining approved airspace changes that can deliver significant benefits in relation to delays, emission and noise, and for local communities. For those reasons, I ask the Baroness to withdraw her amendment.

The noble Baroness withdraw her amendment. I turn next to the to the amendment from my noble friend, Lord Tunnicliffe. I thank him for tabling it and for the helpful discussion we've had on this issue. Safety is, and will remain the first priority for the management and design of airspace. It's the first duty of the CAA, and nothing in this bill weakens or removes that requirement. The government deeply values the expertise of pilots and other aviation professionals on safety matters. As I've explained, the Secretary of State's direction powers apply only after rigorous assessment and consultation, including, in all relevant cases, engagement with pilots, air traffic controllers and other safety critical critical groups.

We welcome the views of the British Airline Pilots Association as part of that consultation process. However, a specific duty to consult that association in all cases would be neither appropriate nor proportionate. Following consultation, a detailed final safety assessment must be submitted to the CAA. The amendment is therefore unnecessary. Safety is already embedded in the statutory framework and approval process. Whilst the Bill is concerned only with ensuring approved changes may be delivered. My Lords, I turn to amendment 40, tabled in my name.

This would amend clause six to ensure that it accurately reflects the intended operation of charging arrangements for air traffic and air navigation services. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, for raising the concern that someone could be charged for a service from which they receive no benefit. That is not the intention of this clause. Clause six will enable the CAA to set charges fairly and efficiently for air services that support the integrated use of airspace by new users and new technology like drones alongside existing aircraft.

The amendment makes clear that a person may be charged only where they receive a benefit, direct or indirect, from the air service. A direct benefit might arise where an airspace user receives a service through their equipment to avoid collisions. An indirect benefit might arise from improved design of the airspace, or where services provided to other users support the safe and efficient use of their airspace block for all users. Finally, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, for his supplementary amendment. This would prevent a person being charged for a service which they benefit from, but which they do not use directly.

The government does not believe that would be the right approach. The Transport Act 2000 already recognises that charges may apply to those who benefit from a service, even where they do not or cannot use it directly, and the bill maintains that principle. Removing this wording could also create incentives for users to delay adopting technologies that improve safety and efficiency, simply to avoid the possibility of a charge. More broadly, it risks creating inconsistencies between traditional airspace users and emerging users, including drones, which will increasingly operate within shared airspace and benefit from these services.

I also reassure noble Lords that the bill does not affect existing safeguards for charges. Under the Transport Act 2000, the Civil Aviation Authority is already subject to duties to consider relevant interests and promote efficiency when setting charges before charges are set, the CAA must consult the affected parties and those materially affected have a right of appeal. This established process will continue to apply in future. For these reasons, I believe the government's existing amendment 40 sufficiently clarifies the charging intent and I hope noble Lords will support this, and

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the noble Lord will withdraw this amendment. Mr. Down again his misconceived. The

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Down again his misconceived. The point. It is not a case that you can be charged for something that can be charged for something that you don't use. He says that's a well established principle. I've well established principle. I've already said that that might might be rough justice, but if it's what the law says, it's what the law the law says, it's what the law says. What he has to explain is not is how something can be available, because it has to be available before there can be any charge at all.

How it could be available and yet be something which the person being charged could not use. Perhaps I turn it round and ask him what does he understand by the word available in that case? And as I say, bear in mind, unless it's available, there's no charge at all. That's the first condition.

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I think I have explained that to the noble Lord. I certainly feel I have.

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Excellent.

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My Lords, I particularly thank noble peers for participating in this. I'm sure that we're all keen this. I'm sure that we're all keen to move on to the next group and. And the noble Lord. The Minister
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Lord Kirkhope of Harrogate Portrait Lord Kirkhope of Harrogate (Conservative)
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proud of the fact that I've been flying planes now for over 40 years with a licence. I say with a licence just as well to add that bit on. In the course of those 40 years, I have seen how much more onerous the responsibilities and the costs have been on those who have participated in general and business aviation in this country and elsewhere. Regulations have, I think, in many cases, rightly been tightened to guarantee safety, but also the sheer cost of operating aircraft has increased dramatically, as have the costs that have been incurred by those who have established training organisations around the country.

The reason for my amendment tonight is quite clear. I want to make sure that and incidentally, I'd like to congratulate the Minister, if I may. Presumably others have been doing that all evening. I want to congratulate him on the fact that he has been enormously receptive to the views of myself and others who have been promoting the question of general aviation during the course of this bill. I think I, in my long experience here in the other place as well, I can narrow down the number of Ministers who have been as receptive and helpful as he has been to a comparatively small number.

He has been very helpful indeed. But I think we have to test him just that little bit further. Whatever he is going to say in response to my amendment tonight, I would like to make it clear, and it is set out in the amendment. But it isn't just a question of the words that we receive here in the deliberations on this bill. It is actually what happens next. Our wishes are that not only the government should acknowledge the work that is being done in general aviation, the successes of general aviation and the importance of general aviation, but that the CAA also recognises that and is much more vocal and helpful than it has been in the past.

I have to point out to the Minister that many, many of the pilots that operate today in the commercial world are taught at training organisations of sometimes at very small airfields around our country. The amount of contribution that is made to therefore, to the airline business by that initial training is very difficult to estimate in terms of its its value. But undoubtedly many of the people that I know who fly commercially did start out in the training organisations at comparatively small fields around the country.

And so in a way, my amendment is an attempt not only to get an acknowledgement, a greater acknowledgement on a permanent basis, but also then to look at the economics. The second part of my amendment asks that there should not be a disproportionate cost to general aviation in relation to air and navigation charges. And indeed, my noble friend Lord Moylan has just actually touched on this point in his question to the Minister, where he has asked about the nature of the availability or the charging for these services.

In my amendment, it specifically states that there should not be any impediment through charges which are disproportionate to the use made by air traffic and navigational services by general aviation. Now, that is quite clear. It is not just a question of availability, it is a question of the actual use. And we want to make sure that what has happened so far, which I think is reasonably satisfactory, in that the charges are proportionate to the use, is continued and there is no extra penalty put on G A and business aviation, which to which we owe so much.

I beg to move.

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This proposed. Clause six, page six, line 28. At the end. Insert the words as

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At the end. Insert the words as printed on the Marshalled List. My Lord, I rise to speak briefly

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My Lord, I rise to speak briefly to amendment 69, standing in my name, and begin by declaring my interest as current president of Balpa. This amendment proposes an Balpa. This amendment proposes an annual report by the CAA on pilot licence holders, and I'm grateful
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Viscount Goschen Portrait Viscount Goschen (Conservative)
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earlier at committee, set out very convincingly a compelling case for general aviation. General aviation general aviation. General aviation really is the grassroots. It's the lifeblood of aviation in any lifeblood of aviation in any country in the United Kingdom. So much training is is done here. It's incredibly important that the UK has a strong training sector. It's has a strong training sector. It's up against it in terms of cost, in terms of regulation, to a degree, in terms of whether competition from courses offered in the United States, in Europe and Spain and so forth.

So, my Lords, I think my noble friend is quite right to stress the importance of general aviation. It isn't just training. It also encompasses business, aviation, aero, medical services like charter flying, utility operation, helicopters and so forth. So it's a vitally important sector. It's important that we have a strong reservoir of skills, particularly in the training, both ab initio and commercial pilot training, from which the the broader commercial aviation sector in this country can be based and which it can take benefit from.

But in order for general aviation to thrive in my mind, it requires three things. It requires a benign and constructive and proportionate regulatory environment. It requires access to airspace, and it also requires facilities in terms in particular of airfields. And there's a great pressure on airfields, which people with an interest in aviation might see as large, green open spaces. Others may see them as potential development opportunities. So I think the environmental issues are not perhaps as straightforward as they might initially seem.

So, my Lords, my noble friend really called for a continuation of that benign, constructive regulatory environment that includes charging and the law of unintended consequences could be quite strong here. If there was a significant change to the charging regime, for example, for for air traffic services, the access to airspace. This is an important part of this bill. We are discussing a bill which is really in front of your Lordships, partly in order to help the CAA deliver airspace modernisation, and I think general aviation community accepts and indeed benefits hugely from technological advancements.

We've talked an earlier stage, for example, around GPS, and we know that unmanned aircraft are going to play a greater and greater part in the economy of the United Kingdom. So, my Lords, it's pretty straightforward. GA needs proper access to air to airspace. It needs the regulatory environment that I've discussed, and it needs access to it needs access to airfields. The noble Lord, the Minister, Lord Hendy at committee, was very receptive to these arguments, and I understand since then that he's continued to be so.

So I very much look forward to the noble Lords response to my Noble Friends amendment.
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Baroness Foster of Oxton Portrait Baroness Foster of Oxton (Conservative)
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I'd just like to support Lord Kirkhope and Lord, this is an extremely, extremely important extremely, extremely important sector, and most people don't know that actually GA is the largest that actually GA is the largest sector than commercial aviation worldwide. And I'd just like to add one particular point. There's a one particular point. There's a huge amount of hostility to private jets. Very often when the discussion of aircraft and aeroplanes and, and rock stars, you know, flying around the world, people go, oh gosh, they're terrible.

You know, they're doing terrible things to, to the environment. Actually, aviation is responsible for actually 3% of CO2 emissions worldwide and 4% in Europe. So they're not dismissive about that. So it is hugely important. And I think sometimes the narrative we as politicians should also be thoughtful when we are discussing this very important issue, because GA, as my noble friends have said, is absolutely key in so many in so many areas. That's just the point I wanted to add for information.



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Just very briefly, the one thing that the government could do for general aviation is to take steps general aviation is to take steps to designate smaller airports. As for general aviation, and important to retain for general aviation, to retain for general aviation, because one of the things I'm very aware of is the pressure to redevelop smaller airfields. There redevelop smaller airfields. There may be a case in a small number of cases, but the loss of those that are used extensively by general aviation will do significant damage
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Baroness Grender Portrait Baroness Grender (Liberal Democrat)
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On amendment 69, as the noble Lord Barbara's were, I tabled a similar amendment in Committee stage, but at the time, even as I was speaking, I recognized and understood that there was far understood that there was far greater expertise in the room in this area, and I haven't been disappointed yet again this evening in that we in principle, support amendment 69. We cannot ensure safety in a workforce vacuum. As the Belper Briefing identifies, the sector faces a looming retirement cliff due to the mandatory retirement age of 65.

House of Lords please note this amendment requires an authoritative annual assessment of future workforce requirements, enabling the industry to address supply issues, particularly for commercial pilots, well ahead of time. By requiring these reports on demographic trends, we ensure that the move towards agile regulation is supported by a transparent understanding of the human capital required, and this mirrors, of course, best practice elsewhere. As I think I commented in committee, for instance, the Nursing and Midwifery Council provides a similar operation and this also provides transparency to this House regarding amendment 41.

In the name of the noble Lord Kirkhope, we must recognise that general aviation is the front door to the industry. It underpins pilot training and contributes 4 billion to our economy. Yet smaller uses are too often quietly squeezed out by disproportionate charges. This amendment provides a kind of vital. A tramline for that, and I and we welcome it and look forward to hearing the noble Minister's response.
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Lord Moylan Portrait Lord Moylan (Conservative)
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My Lords, any debate, any debate on aviation is enriched by a on aviation is enriched by a contribution from my noble friend Lord Kirkhope of Harrogate. I'm Lord Kirkhope of Harrogate. I'm very grateful to him for what he said. I must say also, I greatly. I think the House has benefited from the speech made by the noble Lord, Lord Barber of Ainsdale. I have some slight concerns about his amendment. I appreciate that there may be a crisis in the supply of pilots.

I'd be very anxious if the government were to become involved in workforce planning in this sector. I understand entirely that his amendment doesn't quite call for that, but the last part of it points in the general direction that the CAA should be taking an active role in this, and I think they're having a very bad thing. Aviation is a very successful part of our private economy, and it should be for the industry itself to take responsibility for recruiting and training the people that it needs in order to operate.

I think that's the first principle. But he does an important service in bringing to the House's attention the cliff edge that is allegedly that is being faced, and I look forward to hearing what the

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Minister has to say. My Lords, I begin with amendment 41, and I thank the noble Lord, Lord Kirkhope of Harrogate, for this and for his kind remarks. I also clearly heard the noble Viscount Goschen and other noble Viscount Goschen and other noble Lords on this subject. General aviation is an important part of the UK's aviation industry, the UK's aviation industry, covering a wide range of services, public service, commercial and recreational activities. It plays
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Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill Portrait Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill, Minister of State (Department for Transport) (Labour)
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recreational activities. It plays an important role, as the noble Lord remarks in introducing people to aviation, to aviation and helping to develop the skills pipeline for future aviation careers. Clause six seeks to provide the CAA with greater flexibility as to who can be charged for air traffic services provided under a licence. This will ensure that as the UK's airspace evolves, the costs of providing those services can continue to be recovered fairly and proportionately, in line with the well established user pays principle.

As the noble Lord will be aware, these costs are currently recovered primarily from commercial airlines. Whilst general aviation is largely exempt, any future changes will be subject to the CIA's statutory consultation process, with affected parties retaining rights of appeal. The Civil Aviation Authority also has an obligation under the Transport Act 2000 to further the interests of operators and owners of aircraft, including in relation to the availability and cost of licensed air traffic services. This would naturally include and does considering impacts on the sustainability and growth of general aviation.

Given those existing safeguards, the established charging process and the fact that there are currently no plans to introduce new charges for general aviation users, I do not believe the amendment is necessary. I turn to the amendment from my noble friend, Lord Barber of Ainsdale, requiring the CAA to report on anonymised demographic trends amongst commercial pilot licence holders, demographic trends amongst skilled aviation personnel are a matter of interest to the industry, the government and the Civil Aviation Authority. Civil Aviation Authority already collects demographic information on commercial pilots and other skilled personnel.

This supports robust regulatory decision making, enables the CAA to identify relevant trends, and allows it to publish data on licence holders where it considers that useful. Indeed, the CIA has published annual data on different categories of licensed pilots, including commercial pilots broken down by age and sex. Since 1994, the proposed requirement to publish such statistics and analysis with a particular frequency could impose additional costs on the CIA, and these would have to be met from the CIA's scheme of charges and thus be a burden on the aviation sector.

For those reasons, I consider the amendment unnecessary and would ask my noble friend to withdraw it. But more broadly, I would like to reassure the noble Lord, as well as my noble friend, Lord Barber of Ainsdale and Lord Tunnicliffe, of the importance that government places on maintaining a robust pipeline of flight crew, particularly pilots. The department is addressing workforce challenges through targeted programmes such as general aviation, such as generation aviation and through evidence based assessments of skills needs, and the department will shortly commission a skills gap analysis across all aviation professions.

As a follow up to analysis that was conducted in 2023. This will consider factors including retirements and sector growth, helping to identify emerging workforce pressures at an early stage and in response to the noble Lord Grayling, the government recognises and values the important role aerodromes play in their local communities. That's why the National Planning Policy Framework ensures planning authorities consider the economic, leisure, training and emergency service roles when making planning decisions about them. I, I, I hope no.

I thank noble Lords for their engagement on this matter and as a result, I trust they feel reassured and feel able to withdraw their amendments.
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Lord Grayling Portrait Lord Grayling (Conservative)
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I had very much hoped and expected that in the wake of the decision to leave the European Union, and as the government now moves to change the legislation around the slots regime, we would be taking a light touch approach to this. And instead, I still regard what the government is doing as unduly onerous and unduly micromanaging. And I simply, as evidence, refer to subsection four on page eight. The regulations may make different provision for different purposes. That's not the kind of a line in a piece of legislation that a government does not, not intended to micromanage.

The slots regime would have a need to introduce. So what I've sought to do in these amendments first. First of all, is to set out very specifically what I think government should be doing and where the line should be drawn, and amendment 42 and amendment 43 in particular, focus on, I think, the key responsibilities, the allocation of slots at a new airport, the allocation of additional capacity created an existing airport or at a new airport, but only where the affected carriers have failed to reach a commercial agreement themselves.

Hopefully, since these are private businesses dealing with each other, this is not something where government should need to have any involvement at all. It should be a matter for the airport and the airlines to come up with a plan. And where that is not possible, there is a need for refereeing. Absolutely accept that. But the first port of call should be to allow the commercial businesses to reach an agreement themselves. And then thirdly, and this I pay tribute to Lord MP for having, I think, given us all a nudge in committee where there's a need to ensure that there is connectivity within the United Kingdom.

I do think this is important. I do think we need to ensure, through the various tools available to government, that we don't have parts of the United Kingdom unduly cut off. That's got to be done enormously carefully. My amendment 48 requires quite a decent process before the government intervenes in that. But there are places Northern Ireland, in particular parts of northern Scotland, where actually having some degree of protection of connectivity within the United Kingdom is important. Whether or not easy alternatives, whether road journeys are incredibly long or where sea journeys are involved, or where the rail links are not realistically easily available.

So I do think that's a key part of where government does have a role to play. And then, of course, the last one, which we'd all accept is what you do in a situation of international crisis, as the government has done recently with new regulations around the Iran war, to ensure that we don't require airlines simply to fill slots by flying planes to no effect whatsoever. Those, to my mind, are the only things that government should be doing around the slots regime, and I really would challenge the Minister to explain why the government believes it needs to do more than that, and amendment 47 also puts a requirement on government to consult extensively before making any changes to the airport slot allocation regime.

However, I would then pay tribute to the Minister because my amendment 50, which draws upon something I said at committee, which is. It does not seem right to me to have a situation where there is a criminal regime around airport slots. I really don't understand why you're criminalise somebody over a dispute of airport slots. I'd actually tempered my amendment down. Amendment 50 simply says the regulations can't create an offence punishable by imprisonment. The Minister has outdone me on that.

It's gone one stage further because his new clause 49, his new amendment 49, actually says that the power to create criminal offences altogether is withdrawn. I'm grateful to him that for that it is the right thing to do. These are civil matters that should be dealt with by a civil court. He's absolutely done the right thing in responding to that and I'm grateful to him.

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As clause seven, page seven. Leave out lines 18 to 22 and insert

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the words is printed on the Marshalled List. My Lords, I'd like to support

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My Lords, I'd like to support the comments made by the noble Lord, my noble friend Lord Grayling. And my noble friend Lord Grayling. And just to reiterate, as we had a very good debate in committee, the fact
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Lord Empey Portrait Lord Empey (Ulster Unionist Party)
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Our Lords. Thank Lord Grayling >> Our Lords. Thank Lord Grayling for his amendments, and some of them are entirely complimentary to them are entirely complimentary to what I want to achieve. I've been battling on this for a long number of years. I fully understand the point that Baroness Foster made about the value of an airline and. And the slots are worth a lot of money, many millions of pounds. And in many cases, depending on the. The time. And I can only see in the short term those values rising.

So it is not that I would want the Minister to be using Hobnail boots to interfere with the slot regime, but there could be circumstances and it's not impossible where let us say we're in an international market. Most of the airlines that have the slots, say at Heathrow are international. Effectively, the shareholdings of those could change. Let us suppose, for example, that a group like IAG were to be purchased by a Middle East consortium. They may say, well, we're looking at all the slots.

How can we maximize our profit from the use of them? And let us take another example regional airports. It's not a Northern Ireland issue. Scott. Let us suppose they decide. Well, we don't really need to have flights from Manchester to Heathrow. We could get rid of those. And then the question would be how would people get to the Cabinet? Would they have to take the bus? You know, this is the sort of thing. It's an extreme example. But the point is, a future shareholder could decide either to stop using a regional airport or to reduce the service to the point that it creates economic difficulties on the region.

Now, that requires a certain degree of interference by the state, because having no adequate regional connectivity isn't simply a commercial matter, it is a matter that can affect regions, it can affect business, it makes regions could make regions less competitive, and therefore that has an impact on jobs, on quality of life. So when I had a private member's bill twice through this House and got through twice, we were then part of the European Union and the Minister said, it's a European competence.

Therefore, there's really nothing I can do. So that was that. But now we're in a different situation. We can do something. All I want the Minister to be able to say is that in extremis, sufficient power exists, or we will make sure that sufficient power exists, that we will ensure that the regions are not disadvantaged over as a result of slots being removed from them and given to transatlantic or worldwide routes. It's not a difficult problem. Lord Grayling's amendment in a later group 67, would give the Secretary of State a power to intervene, taking into account of certain things, and therefore I would have thought that it would be perfectly possible to have a consensus on this, because nobody wants to see regions isolated, nobody wants to see them disadvantaged.

We have an opportunity now. It's within our own power. And I do accept entirely that we don't want to be messing around with the economics of a particular airline, but there could be circumstances where the regions were put at risk, and I hope the Minister will be able to satisfy me or Grayling and others that this isn't going to isn't going to happen, and that he and his Secretary of State will have the powers to intervene if necessary.
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Lord Moylan Portrait Lord Moylan (Conservative)
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My Lords, I have two amendments >> My Lords, I have two amendments in this group, and I'm grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Grender, for saying that she'd support them. for saying that she'd support them. Both of them are change from the use of the negative procedure to the affirmative procedure for the the affirmative procedure for the making of regulations. I shan't say anything more about them. Both. Noble Lord, Lord Grayling, and the noble Lord. Lord, my noble friend, Lord Grayling, the noble Lord.

Lord MP. I have made very important points, and I have great sympathy with the noble Lord, Lord Grayling, who's trying to ensure that the government interferes as little as possible with the allocation of slots. I equally understand what the noble Lord. I don't think there's a tension with what the noble Lord, Lord MP says about the importance of maintaining regional connectivity. In fact, as I recall, it isn't that long ago since the noble Lord, the Minister was the czar of Regional connectivity and wrote a very important report about it for the government.

So I look forward to hearing what he has to say, drawing on his experience and

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knowledge of the subject. Well said. Good morning.

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Good morning. My Lords. I am grateful to noble Lords for these amendments and for the thoughtful debate we have had the thoughtful debate we have had on the slots regime. Let me deal first with the amendments. In the name of the noble Lord, Lord Grayling, before turning to those Grayling, before turning to those the noble Lords, Lord MP and Lord Moylan. Firstly, the amendments in the name of Lord Grayling, which
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Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill Portrait Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill, Minister of State (Department for Transport) (Labour)
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the name of Lord Grayling, which seek to limit intervention slot allocation to specified circumstances. I certainly understand the intention behind the amendments, but we believe that they would unduly constrain the flexibility that the Bill is designed to provide. The airport slots regime operates in a complex and rapidly changing environment, and future circumstances can't be anticipated. Limiting intervention to a prescribed set of scenarios could impede timely and effective action in the public interest, particularly in exceptional, unforeseen circumstances. The government therefore, considers it preferable to retain a sufficiently flexible regulation making power, subject to the appropriate parliamentary scrutiny of any regulations made under it.

I turn to amendment 47, which would require statutory consultation before any regulations on slots are made. The government recognises the importance of proper engagement before changes are made to the slots regime. I can commit that where new policy is developed under this power, there will be appropriate consultation, including with industry and where relevant communities. However, it will not be appropriate to place an inflexible statutory consultation requirement on the face of the Bill. This power may need to be used in response to urgent disruption in the aviation sector, as we saw during the pandemic and in those circumstances, the government must be able to act swiftly and proportionately.

I turn next to amendment 48, which seeks to require consultation, transparency and regard to commercial allocation for the slots regime. The government does not believe this amendment is necessary. A core principle of the slot allocation regime is that slots are allocated by an independent coordinator in the UK. This role is carried out by Airport Coordination Limited. This principle is reflected in global guidelines, which require coordinators to act independently so that scarce airport capacity is allocated fairly, neutrally and without bias towards any airline, airport or government.

That independence helps preserve conflicts of helps prevent. I'm sorry, conflicts of interest protect new entrants and maintain confidence in transparent global system. I now turn to amendment 50, which questions whether criminal offences are needed under the slot allocation regime. I do not believe that this amendment is necessary, as the government has tabled an amendment to remove the power for any amended slots regime to include provision for new criminal offences. But I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Grayling, for prompting a debate on this matter.

I will now discuss amendments 45 and 49 tabled in my name. These amendments provide greater clarity and place a clear limit on the regulation making power. In particular, they remove any ability for future regulations to create new criminal offences. At the same time, they preserve the effective operation of the existing slot allocation regime. They make clear that where the existing regulations are restated, any offence already contained in those regulations may also be restated. This strikes an appropriate balance. It avoids conferring an unnecessarily broad power to create new criminal offences, whilst ensuring that restatement of the current regime does not inadvertently remove or undermine existing enforcement mechanisms.

The amendments, therefore, support legal certainty, maintain continuity in the regulation of airport slot allocation and respond proportionately to concerns about the scope of the delegated powers on slots. For these reasons, I hope the noble Lord Grayling will not press his amendment and that he and other noble Lords will support my own my amendments. I now turn to the amendment from the noble Lord MP, which seeks to require the adequate slots at hub airports allocated to flights from regional airports within the UK.

Government recognises the importance of strong regional connectivity and is committed to ensuring that people and businesses across the country benefit from effective air links, including access to major hub airports. However, the slot allocation regime gives airlines rights to equivalent slots in future seasons where usage requirements are met. This amendment could therefore require the reallocation of slots currently held by incumbent operators, raising legal and practical concerns. And of course, the slot regime only applies where capacity is constrained for the.

For those reasons, I hope the noble Lord feels able to withdraw his amendment. Finally, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, for his amendments, which seek to require that all regulations relating to slots be subject to the affirmative procedure. I recognise the noble Lords desire for parliamentary scrutiny. However, the provision is already tightly constrained. The negative procedure is used only where there is a significant threat to public health or another substantial reason. As is noted in subsection two brackets F of section 34 A, and only to make temporary changes to slot usage requirements.

Requiring the affirmative procedure in every case would risk delaying the government's ability to respond swiftly to disruption in the aviation sector, where timely intervention may intervention may be essential for that. For that reason, I hope the noble Lord will

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feel able to withdraw his amendment. Before the noble Lord sits down.

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Before the noble Lord sits down. Could I just get some clarification Could I just get some clarification on this point about amendment 46? I understand let us assume that as this at this point in time, this at this point in time, regional connectivity is adequate,
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Lord Grayling Portrait Lord Grayling (Conservative)
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absolutely anything it wants in this field. So the issue is about a this field. So the issue is about a government that wants to be able to control everything, and us trying to say there are only a certain to say there are only a certain number of things it should be involved in. And I have to say, I do agree with Lord MP that regional do agree with Lord MP that regional connectivity is one example. You know, one could imagine a situation, and I made mention earlier to the and I made mention earlier to the Minister of the Easyjet situation, where a lot of the commentary has been around the value of that business being much higher by breaking it up and stripping out new plane orders.

And the rest. As we know, slots at Heathrow have huge value, and you could well

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imagine a situation where slots that were important Within the United Kingdom were auctioned off for another purpose. auctioned off for another purpose. So yes, yes, I believe in a more constrained slot regime or more constrained government involvement constrained government involvement in the slot regime. But I'm not arguing, and I have not argued that it should have no involvement in it should have no involvement in that regime. And I think the regional connectivity is one where Lord MP has made some very good and Lord MP has made some very good and very important points.

But I can see that the government tonight is not going to concede on this point. I would simply ask the Minister to reflect further ahead of Third Reading, particularly on the regional connectivity point. But but other than that, in the interests of progress this evening, I beg leave to withdraw my

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amendment 42. Is it your Lordships pleasure this amendment be withdrawn. The this amendment be withdrawn. The amendment is withdrawn. Amendment 43. Lord grading not moved. Amendment 44 not moved. Amendment 45. Lord Hendy, move formally. Questions. Amendment 45 be agreed to. As many as are of that opinion will say content contrary not will say content contrary not content. The contents have it. Amendment 46. Lord Empey not move. Amendment 47. Lord Grayling not moved. Amendment 48 moved.

Amendment 49. Lord Henry move formally questions amendment 49 be agreed to. As many as are of that opinion will say content the contrary not content the contents have it. Amendment 50 Lord Grayling not moved. Amendment 51. Baroness Grender.

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Home stretch. My Lords, I turn to Group ten and amendments 51 and to Group ten and amendments 51 and 63 in my name. Throughout these proceedings, the Minister has offered various reassurances from the despatch box that this Bill is not intended to be a vehicle for not intended to be a vehicle for airport expansion, either directly or indirectly. We take those words
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Baroness Grender Portrait Baroness Grender (Liberal Democrat)
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or indirectly. We take those words in good faith, particularly from him, but as I have argued previously, good faith is really the same as an absolute guarantee for the communities who live daily with the noise and emissions of a flight path. Verbal comfort. Comfort is an insufficient shield against the vast unscrutinised delegated powers contained in this legislation. Amendment 51 addresses the technical reality of clause seven regarding airport slots. While the government maintains that slot coordination itself cannot increase capacity, it is undeniable that slots are the strategic levers that manage how expanded capacity is utilised.

If the government proceeds with its publicly stated ambition for a third runway at Heathrow by 2035, the regulatory framework we build today will be the one that governs those new movements. We cannot allow the rules of the game for slot allocation to be rewritten by a secondary legislation, without a statutory requirement for community consultation and mandatory environmental and noise impact assessments. The Minister points to the forthcoming review of the Airports National Policy Statement a MPS as the proper venue for such scrutiny, but scrutiny of a statement is a far cry from a legal duty on the face of the Bill.

Without these safeguards, a future Minister could quietly facilitate expansion through the back door of delegated slot regulations without ever returning to this House for a discreet policy debate. I therefore beg to move. This leads to amendment 63, which provides the ultimate safety catch. It specifies that no power in this act may be used for the purposes of, or in connection with, the facilitation of airport expansion. This is a necessary boundary because the bill's reach is so broad, touching everything from airspace redesign to the CAA.

New rule making functions. If expansion is truly not the intent of this bill, then the government should have no hesitation in accepting this clause that makes the limitation explicit and enforceable. Indeed, it should be welcomed as a useful and helpful contribution. My Lords, the residents overflown deserve the certainty that can only come from primary statute. We must ensure that the redesign of our skies and the reform of our airports are anchored in democratic consent and environmental transparency, not left to the administrative discretion of an unelected regulator or the temporary reassurances of a Minister.

I therefore look forward to hearing

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the minister's response to these two amendments. The proposed clause seven, page

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The proposed clause seven, page eight, line 16 at end. Insert the words as printed on the Marshalled List.

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My little. My Lords, the noble Baroness makes some very important points, and I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say in reply.
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Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill Portrait Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill, Minister of State (Department for Transport) (Labour)
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airport expansion in Grand Committee, having considered the arguments put forward, then the arguments put forward, then the government's position remains unchanged. This bill is concerned with aviation, consumer protection with aviation, consumer protection and the aviation regulatory framework. It's not a bill about airport expansion. The measures in airport expansion. The measures in the bill are needed, regardless of whether any airport expansion proposal comes forward and proposal comes forward and regardless of the outcome of any such proposal, the government is supportive of airport expansion, where it can deliver economic and connectivity benefits and meet the relevant environmental and planning requirements.

However, decisions on airport expansion are taken through separate planning processes and not through this bill. Indeed, during committee, the government published the draft Heathrow Expansion National Policy Statement for consultation. This underlines the fact that airport expansion proposals are considered through dedicated planning processes with their own consultation, scrutiny and parliamentary oversight. The Bill does not alter those processes or predetermine their outcome. The government is concerned about the practical effect of amendment 63. Its scope is not limited to Heathrow or indeed to any specific airport expansion proposal.

By preventing proposals, by preventing powers from being used in connection with the facilitation of expansion, it could create uncertainty around routine regulatory functions that are not themselves about approving airport expansion. For example, slots regulation does not create airport capacity. It manages capacity once it's been approved through the planning processes. However. Amendment the amendment could potentially call into question the use of such powers where they relate to approved airport expansion. Regardless of the consultation requirements on slots. Regulation put forward an amendment 51.

The government is committed to meaningful community consultation and robust environmental and noise assessment before any airport expansion proceeds. These requirements are already addressed through the statutory planning process. As I said, slot regulations do not determine whether airport expansion takes place. The bill simply ensures that, where necessary, slot regulations can be updated to make effective use of new capacity at coordinated airports. The amendment would therefore add little as consultation and assessment on airport expansion already take place through the planning system, before slot allocation becomes relevant.

I would therefore ask the noble Baroness to withdraw their amendments.
21:43
Baroness Grender Portrait Baroness Grender (Liberal Democrat)
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My Lords, I thank the noble Minister for his infinite patience Minister for his infinite patience on this issue and for being at all times accessible for discussions on times accessible for discussions on it. I wish to associate myself with all the other comments that we've heard this evening, thanking him for some of the movement that we've managed to have, particularly in other areas, and particularly in the earlier parts of the debate. My reason for doing this now is that I don't intend to speak on the next couple of groups, and therefore, this is an opportunity for me to say thank you to the noble Lord, the Minister for for having been and to his officials for having been so accessible throughout the process.

I understand his objections to this. Like the noble Lord MP, it's possible that we will return to this. It will not astonish him to hear. But that said, I beg leave to withdraw my

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amendment. So your Lordships pleasure. This amendment be withdrawn. The amendment. The amendment is by leave withdrawn. Amendments 52, 53, leave withdrawn. Amendments 52, 53, 54, and 55 were not moved, and amendment 56. Lord Henry move amendment 56. Lord Henry move formally questions. Amendment 56 be agreed to. As many as are of that opinion will say content contrary not content. The contents have it. Amendment 57 Lord Moylan. Moved amendment 58. Lord Hendy move formally.

The question is amendment 58 be agreed to. As many as are of that opinion will say content. The contrary, not content. The contents have it. Amendment 59, 60 and 61. Lord Moylan not moved. Amendment 62. Lord Moylan move formally. The question is amendment 62 be agreed to. As many as are of that opinion will say content. The contrary, not content. The contents have it after clause nine, amendment 63 and 64. Baroness Grender not moved. Amendment 65.

Lord Young.
21:45
Lord Young of Cookham Portrait Lord Young of Cookham (Conservative)
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Lords. grateful to all those who supported amendment 65 several hours ago, and I'm grateful to the Minister for replying. And I recognise his hands replying. And I recognise his hands were tied. My noble friend Lord Moylan, said that the Minister Moylan, said that the Minister played his trump card by quoting my noble friend Lord Harper, a former Secretary of State, in his defence. I don't know if you can trump three times, but three former Secretaries of State took a different view to Lord Harmer.

So I would argue that that was indeed over trumped my. The Minister produced three arguments in defence. First of all, he said safety was preeminent and this is why that shouldn't be. Find safety is preeminent. It's preeminent for the National Health Service, for rail, for water and for power. All those utilities are subject to penalties if they underperform. There is no conceivable reason for exempting Nats from the same regime. Then he said that any fines on Nats would result in higher charges for the airlines.

I could not have been clearer in my speech that any fines should come out of Nats profits and not be added to the base for charging for the airlines, the biggest fine they could have had so far, £63 million profits for the last two years £200 million. His third reason was that my amendment was not appropriate. My Lords, the Liberal Democrats indicated they were going to listen to the Minister before deciding what to do. I hope they share my disappointment at the minister's reply, and such Lib Dems as still may be in the House will support my amendment.

I beg to test the opinion of the House.

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The question is amendment 65 be agreed to. As many as are of that

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agreed to. As many as are of that opinion will say content contrary, not content. Not content. The question will be decided by

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The question will be decided by a division, and I will advise the House when voting is open. My Lords, House when voting is open. My Lords,
21:47
None Portrait Division
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Lords. Lords. The Lords. The question Lords. The question is Lords. The question is that amendment 65 be agreed to. As many as are of that opinion will say content.

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Not content. Contents will go to the right by the throne and the not content to

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Yes.

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The The question The question is The question is amendment The question is amendment 65 The question is amendment 65 be My My Lords, My Lords, there My Lords, there have voted contents 41 not contents 118 Amendment Amendment 66 Amendment 66 Lord Amendment 66 Lord Empey Amendment 66 Lord Empey not Amendment 66 Lord Empey not moved. Amendment 67. Lord Grayling not moved. Amendment 68.

Lord Grayling not moved. That amendment 70 in that group, which will now be debated after the manuscript amendment and amendment 69. Barbara Ravensdale not not moved. Not no. No. 69 so not not not moved. Manuscript amendment 69 a Lord Berkeley. My Lords, the amendment is long and it has been circulated. Normally you read everything out when it's a manuscript amendment. So with the leave of the House, if it is moved, it will not be read

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out in full. Yes. Lord sir.

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Yes. Lord sir. I apologize for the manuscript amendment. It was something went wrong with the public bill office, but I. I should be very brief at but I. I should be very brief at this time of night, and I just want to emphasize that we've been
21:58
Lord Berkeley Portrait Lord Berkeley (Labour)
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to emphasize that we've been talking about general aviation for much of the for much of the day, much of this afternoon. And there's been some really useful comments, both from the noble Lord, Lord Kirkhope and Lord Barber, my noble friend, Lord Barber and Viscount Goschen, and some good answers from the Minister, for which I'm very grateful. However, general aviation still needs one thing that hasn't really been mentioned so far, and that is the Global Navigation satellite system, which enables people to train or do whatever they need to do with in in places of bad visibility.

And my reason for putting this amendment down was I, I received at the end of last week, a very interesting paper from the. Royal Aeronautical Society called Gnss services Supporting Civil Aviation in the UK. It's eight pages long and noble Lord, I'm not going to read it out. Read it out all. But it really. It gives the history of Gnss from when we left Europe and therefore left the egnos to where we are now.

And it basically. Since then it says that the Cabinet Office, with a lot of other departments, have been looking at alternative systems to to agnostic, and one of which was Inmarsat, which I've actually visited their place and the House of Commons. Select Committee took evidence on the UK space strategy and the UK satellite infrastructure, basically, and I quote, we urge the government to publish a national strategy and set out what ground and space based components will be used.

But nothing much seems to have happened. And the conclusion from this paper is that we've we've lost 15 years development by not going ahead with Egnos, and Egnos is still there, and I'm told it can be reinstated very, very cheaply. Cheaply, in fact. Somewhere between 30 and 40 million. Whereas the alternative could be somewhere, according to this paper, somewhere between 7 and 10 years away. We really do need this for training pilots and other people involved in navigating in area when the visibility is bad.

And it's just not just for people having joyrides, it's business passengers training and why don't we do it? So that's why I've put this amendment down in the unlikely hope that my noble friend, the Minister in his reply, will say yes, but I hope it keeps. It adds food to the thought, and I shall send him this paper so he can study it in more detail. I beg to move.

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Amendment proposed after clause nine. Insert the following new clause as printed on supplementary clause as printed on supplementary Sheet. My Lords, I'd like to support this amendment by Lord Berkeley. It's co-signed by Lord Davis of Gower, but we had had discussions on this certainly over discussions on this certainly over the last couple of years. I was a rapporteur when I was a member of
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22:06
Lord Moylan Portrait Lord Moylan (Conservative)
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My Lords, very briefly. Or it could be at length. Amendment 70 could be at length. Amendment 70 removes a Henry the Eighth power, Henry the Eighth power, which allows the government to rewrite allows the government to rewrite primary legislation. It does so on the grounds that the government itself has said, or the Department has said in their memorandum to the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee that it has identified all of the legislation which is affected by this bill. Therefore, it does not need a Henry the Eighth power to make amendments to bills where it.

Which may yet appear because it has already identified all of the bills and, I must say, not just identified them, but made the corresponding adjustments to ensure that this bill is in conformity with existing legislation or that amendments are made to it through this process. So the the power is entirely redundant. It is also offensive. So in general to your Lordships House that Henry the Eighth power should exist. The noble Lord. The Minister has been so good about accepting, at least in part, so many of my suggestions in the course of Committee and today on the report, but it would, I think, just be the cherry on the cake and would, would, would, would seal his reputation with all benches in this House if just at this last minute.

And before we conclude, he would rise to his feet

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and simply say that he accepts the amendment. My Lords, I beg to move. Amendment proposed.

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Leave out clause ten. Go on, go. For it.

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Well, how disappointed the noble Lord Moylan's going to be without Lord Moylan's going to be without clause ten. Any amendment to existing legislation which is consequential to this bill, however minor or technical, would require minor or technical, would require further primary legislation that would be an unnecessary and disproportionate use of
22:08
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill Portrait Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill, Minister of State (Department for Transport) (Labour)
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parliamentary. And this annual Lordships House is time. This clause is needed to ensure that the statute book appropriately reflects the changes made by this bill, and avoids any potential inconsistencies following the inconsistencies following the bill's enactment. Powers of this nature are well established. Feature of legislation. They ensure that the statute book continues to operate coherently once Parliament is enacted. New legislation, and that this clause is drafted no more broadly than is necessary. I can reassure the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, that this clause is both necessary and appropriately limited.

Excuse me. It cannot be used to make substantive policy changes or revisit decisions taken by Parliament in the Bill, where it is used to amend or repeal primary legislation. Regulations are subject to the affirmative procedure, ensuring scrutiny by both houses. For those reasons, the government remains satisfied that clause ten strikes the right balance between ensuring a functioning statute book and providing appropriate parliamentary oversight where where primary legislation is affected. I would

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therefore invite the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment. My Lords, you can always tell

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My Lords, you can always tell when the noble Lord is speaking in his own voice, or when he's his own voice, or when he's speaking merely as a tool of departmental officials. I'll leave it to noble Lords to decide which which category that speech fell into. But for the moment at least,

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into. But for the moment at least, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment. Is it your Lordships pleasure this amendment be withdrawn. The amendment is by withdrawn in clause 12, amendment 71 and 72. Lord Henry, move formally. The question is. Amendment 71 and 72 be agreed to unblock. As many as are of that opinion will say content. The contrary, not content. The contents have it. My Lords, that concludes the Report stage of the Civil Aviation, Consumer Protection and

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Regulatory Reform Bill. My Lords, I. adjourn. adjourn.
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None Portrait Oral questions: Whether practices such as regenerative agriculture align with the sustainable farming incentive payments
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