Civilian Use of Drones (EUC Report)

Earl of Liverpool Excerpts

Tuesday 8th September 2015 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Liverpool (Con)]

My Lords, I start by thanking my noble friend Lady O’Cathain, chairman of the committee, for enabling us to have this debate today and for her guidance, leadership and support throughout every process involved in compiling the report entitled Civilian Use of Drones in the EU. I also associate myself with her remarks thanking our clerk, Alicia Cunningham, our policy analyst, Paul Dowling, and the committee assistant, Deborah Bonfante, as well as our special adviser, Tony Henley, who all in their own way played a vital part in helping in our deliberations.

My noble friend’s introduction was wide-ranging and I therefore intend to restrict my remarks primarily to the innovative use of drones and some safety aspects. The drone, UAV and RPAS market is incredibly exciting. As we have heard, it is doing so many different things, and it could best be described as technology on steroids. Novel ideas for their use include fast movement of blood, plasma and medicines where it is urgently needed. Alec Momont, a graduate student of Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, has developed a drone with a defibrillator attached for rapid deployment to someone having a heart attack that is able to home in on his or her location using the GPS signal of the mobile telephone used to call up the service. Drones with day and night vision cameras are being used to spot refugees trying to cross the Mediterranean into Europe. This year at Henley Royal Regatta, a drone equipped with a camera was used to film a large number of the races to great effect, perhaps heralding the use of this technology at other sporting events in future. Then we have heard it said many times that Amazon plans to deliver packages to our doors some time in future by a drone.

As this new technology develops, we have to be mindful of the inherent dangers that come with it. I believe that invasion of privacy and safety are the two issues that need to be addressed, and I am pleased to see that the Government have taken these on board in their excellent response to the committee’s report.

I am going to go off-piste for a moment and mention a certain Captain Chesley Sullenberger. The reason for this will, I hope, become clear later on in my speech. On 15 January 2009, he was piloting an Airbus A320 with 155 people on board that took off from LaGuardia Airport in New York; about three minutes into the flight, it was struck by a flock of Canada geese, two of which were ingested into the engines. The aircraft was at just 2,800 feet at the time of impact and was effectively a glider from that moment on. By some miracle of happenstance, Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger was also a glider pilot, and his quick thinking and skill enabled him to carry out a textbook ditching into the Hudson River, and everyone survived. It became known as the “Miracle of the Hudson”, and a short time afterwards a new cocktail was developed named a “Sully”, which consisted of two shots of Grey Goose vodka and a splash of water.

Now to the reason for recounting this amazing story. About three weeks ago, I was going through the television channels and chanced upon the American channel ABC, where Captain “Sully” Sullenberger, now a retired airline pilot and in his new role as an aviation safety expert and accident investigator, was discussing the dangers of drones to commercial aircraft. He said that in America today there are an average of four sightings of drones a day in close proximity to airports and/or aircraft and that, unless some means can be found to curtail this, the danger of one being ingested into a jet engine becomes not a matter of if but when. He went on to say that the consequences of this happening would be far worse than a bird strike because the metal components in the battery would effectively become shrapnel, which would penetrate the cabin area and cause massive damage to the airframe and flying controls.

Every effort must be made to guard against something like this happening. I was therefore delighted to see that the Government have responded positively to our recommendation in paragraph 232 by setting up a cross-government working group with various RPAS and drone manufactures and operators to find ways of using geo-fencing in the UK as a means of making it impossible for drones to fly in or near sensitive areas such as airports or heli routes, such as heli route H4, which goes above London, where pilots must follow the River Thames at a height of 1,500 feet, depending on position and advice from air traffic control.

Having said that, I believe that this industry has immense potential to work for the good of mankind and is limited only by the horizons of man’s imagination. With that in mind, we must do everything we can to ensure that it develops safely and does not suffer a serious setback as a result of a major accident or terrorist attack.