Working Conditions in the Private Hire Industry

Lilian Greenwood Excerpts

Wednesday 5th July 2017 Westminster Hall

[Frank Field (Birkenhead) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the regulation of working conditions in the private hire industry.

I am immensely pleased to introduce the debate under your chairmanship, Mrs Moon. I hope that the Minister can be more accommodating on this issue than his colleague was in the previous debate. Indeed, I shall begin by buttering him up, if I may, although I realise that there is a limit to what buttering up will do in the House of Commons, particularly of this Minister. During our parliamentary lives, we have often debated, and debated well, across the Chamber, and I know perfectly well that if he is able to make or clarify the Government’s position before the Taylor review is published, he will do so. However, I also know that he is a loyalist and will probably be the last Minister standing who believes in collective responsibility, so the buttering up must be accompanied by a sense of reality about how far Ministers can go in helping to clarify Government policy.

My aim in this debate, as I hope the Minister knows, is not to have a preview of the Taylor report—although if he wished to give one, that would be wonderful—but to ascertain whether he can help the transport executives to clarify the powers that they have to give licences to companies such as Uber. I shall dwell in a moment on where I see Uber both contributing positively and being a destructive force for many people’s living standards.

I begin the debate with a reference to a report on Hermes, “Wild West Workplace”. That and two subsequent reports have my name on them, but also that of Andrew Forsey, who works with me. The truth, as MPs know, is that it is often the other name on the report who has actually done the work, and I pay tribute to Andrew for the extraordinary way in which, among all his other activities as chief of staff in my office—including steering me away from elephant traps and helping me to make as positive a contribution as I can to the House of Commons—he can take on work of this nature.

The second report, “Sweated Labour”, was on Uber, and the third one, which will be published tomorrow, is “A new contract for the gig economy”. I want to record in this debate that when Andrew and I—it was very much Andrew—completed the first report, “Wild West Workplace”, we wrote to the Prime Minister, and we said that the circumstances that we had described had shocked me and my guess was that they would shock her. They were certainly at variance with her statement when she became Prime Minister about the sort of society that she wished to create and the protections that she wished to extend to those who were weakest.

If we look at any of the three reports—if people would like copies of “A new contract for the gig economy”, which is published tomorrow, they can by all means have them—we see that four forces are pushing down wages in this area. Let me explain what I am not saying, and I hope the Minister will accept this. Nothing I have ever said or published does not admit that Uber-type conditions certainly serve a large part of consumers’ wishes for quick and cheap transport, or that perhaps many Uber workers are very content with their lot, as shovelled out by Uber under what I think is a bogus self-employed contract. I am talking about people who regularly write to Andrew and me, giving more examples of how bogus the self-employed contract that they are forced to work under is, and of the appalling conditions that those employers get away with. As we know, they not only get away with paying incredibly low wages to some workers; they do not pay their fair share of taxes, so I would hope that the Chancellor of the Exchequer would be on the Minister’s side. If we are interested in VAT, national insurance and income tax returns, we should be rather keen on what the Minister says today and what the Taylor review will come up with, I hope, next week—perhaps the Minister will be able to give us a date for its publication.

Wages have been pushed down for those who suffer worst in this gig economy in four ways. The first is the very low fares, which have been cut in recent years, which some people think is great fun because they can get home cheaply. Second are the high rates of commission demanded by the company, which now vary clearly between newer workers trying to make a decent living out of being a driver, and older drivers, who—thank God—are more protected, although now that I have made that statement, perhaps that image will be challenged by people who contact us after the debate. Third is the cost of renting a vehicle that meets Uber’s very strict requirements, and fourth is the cost of refuelling and maintaining those vehicles. Those are the downward forces in the economy that make it very difficult for people to make a decent living and, indeed, as I shall argue, to make a living in which they are covered by the statutory minimum wage.

I welcomed it when George Osborne initiated the minimum wage strategy in the previous Parliament. It is very important to try to cover and protect people at the bottom of our society. I saw the then Chancellor of the Exchequer’s move as a very welcome one, but we know that it is failing by the way Uber and other companies get round regulations on how people earn, what they earn, the hours that they undertake, and their employment status.

The Government responded to Andrew’s report by establishing the Taylor review, which is to report soon. We hope that it will accept the main recommendation on which Andrew and I have been campaigning, which is that the definition of hours of work is immensely important in this area and that, on the basis of a satisfactory definition of hours worked—satisfactory to the workers rather than to Uber—the minimum wage should be applied on an hourly basis.

That brings me to the real kernel of the debate—the part to which I would love the Minister to respond. Uber and similar companies are registering in London, Leeds, Liverpool and Glasgow, getting the necessary licences from those areas’ transport executives. Is it because the legislation is uncertain or difficult to interpret that these transport executives are not saying, “These are the minimum conditions that you, the company, must meet if you wish us to grant you a licence to operate in our area”? I would like to hear the Minister’s view, but I think the position is quite clear.

It would take just one transport authority to say, “This is the interpretation.” We have not heard any of them say that, although, thankfully, here in London Sadiq Khan has said that he is unsure about Uber and is giving it a very short licence to continue to carry out its business while this essential issue is debated. Is the Minister in a position to give us a clearer ruling on the encouragement that he might give to transport authorities to recognise that they do have powers, and to such companies to behave within the culture that the Prime Minister spoke of when, perhaps unexpectedly, she became Prime Minister?

Before I conclude, I shall be more than happy to let any hon. Member make an intervention.

[Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)]

My right hon. Friend has touched on some troubling issues in the current employment market, particularly in relation to private hire vehicles. The Law Commission looked at some of those issues in its 2014 report, but new factors have since emerged, including Uber’s increased share of the market and the Deregulation Act 2015. Does he agree that there is a clear case for looking again at the regulation of the taxi and private hire sector more generally, even as we await publication of the Taylor review?

[Frank Field]

Yes, I do. I am grateful that I gave way, because my hon. Friend has put it better than I could have and has raised another question for the Minister.

Let me conclude. There have been two great movements in our recent history as a country. One was the movement of people from the countryside into towns. When that happened, decent people sought to find out what was happening to their fellow citizens, because they were horrified by the exploitation that they suffered. There were local statistical societies in all our towns, and the theme was taken up by the House of Commons in Select Committee reports, by the House of Lords, by royal commissions, and by the Government, who set up a national statistical service.

The second big movement, which has occurred in our lifetimes—one is sometimes unaware of just how big it is—has been the falling away of the bottom of the labour market. We are now in a situation that I would have thought inconceivable when I first came into the House in 1979. People are scrambling around for jobs. When I was growing up, there was the idea—almost a law of nature—that our economy would produce jobs that gave people wages that allowed them to marry and begin their families securely. For an increasing number of our fellow citizens, that world has long since passed.

I will not be controversial, as the previous debate was, but what has been happening at the bottom has been much affected by what the Government call welfare reform, but I prefer to call welfare cuts. However, in the spirit of the Minister—who I know is one of those Tory Members who has a sense of what the human spirit is about and why we are here—I ask him to help us in just one small area: the protective role that transport authorities could play.

I also hope that the Minister will reply in the spirit of the Prime Minister’s pledge to throw a new form of protection over the bottom end—the vulnerable tummy—of English society, which has lost out so greatly from the changes documented to us by our constituents. If we cannot be moved only by a wish to extend human dignity or to make a further commitment to the Prime Minister’s pledge, I hope the old money—the till—will play some part for the Chancellor. The way in which these companies are constructed means that they are fiddling: they do not pay their dues in VAT, national insurance or income tax, which means the rest of us have to pay for them. They are now registering returns on their very limited capital that are out of this world and should be tamed. In the west, with our democratic traditions, we usually look to government as one of the instruments for taming the wildness of wild capitalism. I happily turn over to the Minister.

[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Mr John Hayes)]

What a delight to respond to the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Frank Field)! He knows that I admire him almost as much as I admire Lord Birkenhead, F. E. Smith, whom we have discussed from time to time and who said that

“glittering prizes”

were available

“to those who have stout hearts and sharp swords.”

The right hon. Gentleman has both those qualities, as he has illustrated once again by bringing these important matters to our attention.

I had a long speech prepared for me by my civil servants, whom I hold in very high regard, but I am never inclined to deliver speeches written for me by anyone else, and I am certainly inclined to try to answer the right hon. Gentleman’s specific points. It seems to me that Westminster Hall debates have to fulfil a greater purpose than simply parroting what the Government have already thought or said. They have to move policy on, do they not? At least, that is how they should operate. We will try to make sure that that happens today.

In a way, the right hon. Gentleman has already set the scene for me, but perhaps it is worth affirming some of what he said. I am aware of concerns about the changing character of the landscape for taxis and private hire vehicles. He is right that technology has played a big part in that, and technology has a consequent effect on consumer expectations and demands. Supply changes to meet those demands but it stimulates changing demands, too, and that is precisely what has happened in this area.

Taxis play an important part in the life of London. I use taxis a lot, as do my family. My son, who is in the Public Gallery today, is a devotee of London cabs, like many others before him and, I hope, after him. London taxis are iconic. One thinks of London—indeed, the whole kingdom—in terms of certain totems and emblems. One of those emblems is the London black cab. The right hon. Gentleman described my concern for the human spirit, but I also have a profound concern for aesthetics, inasmuch as they are part of how we perceive the world: how we come to terms with our own consciousness of reality. London cabs are a part of that.

London cabs provide a vital service, not just to tourists but to Londoners. It is true that the tourist looks to the London cab for the reasons that I have given—they see them as iconic. If a tourist comes to London, they want to ride in a black cab just as, if they went to New York, they might want to ride in a yellow one, but cabs also provide valuable utility.

The history of London cabs is that people know what they are going to pay, they can be confident of the driver’s ability to get them where they want to go as quickly as possible and London cabs have a good record on safety and security, which of course are important matters when one gets into a vehicle with a driver one has not previously known and perhaps not even met. Those things are of profound and lasting importance.

None the less, requesting a vehicle via an app, whether a taxi or a private hire vehicle, is increasingly popular with the public—and unsurprisingly so. The desirability of being able to call up a vehicle as required is obvious, and that is having a quite significant effect on the market, as the right hon. Gentleman described. The difference, as I am sure those in the Chamber know, is that in addition to dealing with pre-booked journeys, a taxi can ply for hire in the area in which it is licensed. That cannot be done by a private hire vehicle.

These things lead to different models of ownership and employment, as the right hon. Gentleman said. The emergence of a different set of protocols, if I can put it in those terms, in that area is also significant. He mentioned the various reports—I have read them all, by the way, including “Sweated Labour” and the Select Committee report. The Committee did a great service in looking at these matters closely, in respect of not just taxis and private hire vehicles but more widely.

The right hon. Gentleman will be aware of all those reports, as I am, and of the ongoing legal case regarding the employment status of drivers in the private hire vehicle sector. He made it clear at the outset that his expectations of me were set very low—I do not know if you noticed that, Mrs Moon; I thought a bit too low, given what I will say later—and made it clear, in his usual spirit of fairness and reasonableness, that there is a limit to what I can say. I certainly cannot say anything that might prejudice that legal case, which is ongoing.

What I can say is that the emergence of so-called disruptive businesses—I use the term in its strict sense; I hope it will not be misinterpreted—through the application of new technologies enables new ways of working and creates new products and services. As I said, it is a different relationship between supply and demand. That has an appeal to certain consumers and provides a service that perhaps has not been provided before. However, those benefits must be balanced against the impact on those who work in these new ways. Greater flexibility in working arrangements can increase employment opportunities for those who have other commitments or aspirations, but we must equally be aware of the negatives. Nor must we regard the traditional private hire vehicle driver and operator relationship through rose-tinted spectacles and perceive it as some sort of ideal where operators work solely in the interests of drivers.

I am aware of the concerns raised by the right hon. Gentleman and others about the risks in respect of employment. Let me lay my cards on the table: I take a very strong view about the rights of workers. I am proud to be a member of a trade union. My father was a shop steward. I have enjoyed very close relationships with the trade unions throughout my time in each of the six Departments in which I have been a Minister, and continue to do so in the Department for Transport.

One problem with this sector is that because of the character and nature of employment in it, significant numbers of people may well be under-represented or not represented at all by any body that can make a case on their behalf. That puts people at a considerable disadvantage. They may not even have reasonable expectations of what their entitlements ought to be. They may not know that they are being underpaid if they do not have the opportunity to express through the kind of collective arrangement that a trade union brings their entitlements—I hesitate to use the word “rights” for philosophical reasons that I will not go further on about today, because we do not have time.

Lawful entitlements to fair treatment are at the heart of what good employer-employee relationships are all about, and that is what the right hon. Gentleman has once again implicitly advocated by bringing the matter before us today.

[Lilian Greenwood]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Hayes]

I will. It is good to see the hon. Lady, who is now becoming such a regular feature in my transport life that I would have been disappointed had she not been here.

[Lilian Greenwood]

I listened carefully to what the Minister said about employment rights. Does he agree that because of the nature of mobile applications, there can be a temptation for employees, who feel under undue pressure, to work excessive hours? That can have a severe and detrimental impact on not only their health and wellbeing but, potentially, the health and wellbeing of other road users.

[Mr Hayes]

The hon. Lady is right. The relationship between the app or gig economy operators and their drivers is very different from what we have experienced previously. She is right, too, that that brings challenges and may even bring significant risks. I do not want to say too much, because a legal case is ongoing and the Taylor report, to which the right hon. Gentleman referred, is also awaited.

What the House needs to know is that I am very conscious of this matter. I do not come to it with any prejudices, apart from the prejudice that I have described, which is that people should be treated fairly in their place of work. I have always believed that and will do all I can to ensure it happens.

Road Infrastructure

Lilian Greenwood Excerpts

Wednesday 5th July 2017 Westminster Hall

[Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)]

It is always a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Gillan. I congratulate the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman) on securing this important debate. We heard about the need for improvements to the A21 and the A259. Given that the road investment strategy is reaching a critical phase, this is a timely discussion.

Improving road infrastructure is a priority for many of our constituents. I was proud to be part of a cross-party campaign to secure the widening of the A453—the main trunk route between Nottingham and the west midlands. The project has improved the lives of thousands of my constituents.

I want to focus on two of the immediate issues confronting the Department for Transport: the delivery of the road investment strategy and the condition of local roads. The investment strategy was launched to significant fanfare. More than £15 billion was promised for investment in motorways and major A roads. Unfortunately, two years on, the progress report is decidedly mixed. Highways England is failing to meet its target for maintaining road conditions, as the Office of Rail and Road warned in February. The pledge to resurface 80% of the strategic road network, which was so widely trumpeted, is also set to be missed. I hope the Minister will update hon. Members on what the actual figure is likely to be.

Most seriously, the delivery of new capital investment schemes worth £11 billion is also in doubt. Many hon. Members might be familiar with Network Rail’s current problems. Major projects were committed to at an early stage in their development when there was a limited understanding of their costs and deliverability. I am concerned that a similar story looks to be playing out on our roads. In the ORR’s February update on capital planning, the regulator warned that there are significant differences between the initial cost forecasts and the latest estimates, and that the investment strategy

“is not fully demonstrated to be affordable”.

There is currently an £800 million gap in Highways England’s capital works budget, on top of the £140 million of extra funding that the Department granted last year. Those overruns are at least partly due to headline-grabbing claims taking precedence over realistic pledges. I therefore suggest that those who are dusting down their bids for a bypass do not start to celebrate just yet.

Internal Highways England minutes that I obtained through the Freedom of Information Act blamed the cost increase on a

“lack of focus on affordability in an environment where an emphasis has been placed on the imperative to deliver as quickly as possible”.

Given that 60 projects—more than half the total—are due to begin construction in the final year of the road investment period, there will be an exceptional strain on Highways England and external contractors. The regulator said that there is “limited evidence” that the construction timetable is “deliverable or efficient”. That could have a knock-on effect on investment in the roads investment strategy, too, so we need to look at which projects are priorities within the strategy.

[Julian Sturdy (York Outer) (Con)]

Prioritisation is very important, but, moving away from Highways England, does the hon. Lady agree that local authorities find it difficult to allocate funds to produce feasibility studies and business cases to move projects forward? There has been a problem in my constituency with moving forward the York outer northern ring road, which is regularly congested—many constituents call it a car park. Does the hon. Lady agree that if the bypass fund is properly targeted, it might allow local authorities to move some of those long-term projects forward?

[Mrs Cheryl Gillan (in the Chair)]

Order. May I remind Members that interventions should be short?

[Lilian Greenwood]

I will come on to the role of local authorities, but there needs to be certainty about costs and affordability.

To return to the national network, there was a clear case for ending spending on removing the hard shoulder from more than 500 motorway lane miles. Those proposals were taken forward despite an inadequate evidence base, safety fears, concerns from the emergency services, and drivers’ unwillingness to use the former hard shoulder lane, as evidenced by Atkins’ recent review, which the Department commissioned.

It was reported last week that the Transport Secretary has ordered changes to the roll-out of the scheme, including the fitting of more refuge areas. Will the Minister confirm that those reports are accurate? If so, will there be a formal statement to the House? What is the expected cost of those changes? The Transport Committee raised that issue and suggested that

“the proposed schemes be replaced by schemes based on the M42 Active Traffic Management design.”

It may be slow, but we know it will be safer.

The priority for many drivers is the fixing of damaged local roads, not the strategic network. Potholes do not just impair the quality of driving, extend journey times and damage vehicles; they are a real safety risk for drivers and cyclists. Everyone is a road user, so tackling the poor condition of our local roads should be a national priority.

[Fabian Hamilton (Leeds North East) (Lab)]

It is projected that by 2020 the spending on roads will be £86 per head, whereas the spending on cycling will be reduced to just 72p per head. Does my hon. Friend think that, when we are talking about road infrastructure, we should include cycling, which the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman) mentioned?

[Lilian Greenwood]

My hon. Friend is a doughty advocate for cyclists. Of course, when planning investment in our roads, we should consider the needs of all road users, including pedestrians and cyclists.

According to the Department’s own data, spending on routine maintenance has fallen by 30% in real terms since 2010, and the situation is set to get even worse. We have to consider the amount of funding available, especially in the light of the emerging problems on some of Highways England’s projects. It is time for Ministers to look again at whether we have the right mix of national capital spending and local revenue allowances.

I am conscious of time, so I will just mention a couple of things. This is not just about spending more; it is about being smarter—that relates to the point made by the hon. Member for York Outer (Julian Sturdy). With annualised budgets, councils are forced to adopt a rather limited patch-and-mend approach, with the result that the busiest roads often receive temporary repairs over and over again. In the longer term, that is a highly inefficient approach to maintenance. The Department should look at the case for granting local authorities their highways budget up front for a period of five years, which would enable the entire resurfacing of the worst affected roads. It should not be in the business of writing blank cheques, but that mechanism could allow longer-term planning to take place.

Before I finish, I will say a quick word about suicide prevention, which has perhaps not received widespread attention but which should be prominent on the Department’s agenda. Obviously, every death is a private tragedy, and the recovery stage can be a traumatic process for staff. With about 1,000 suicide attempts on the strategic road network every year, we urgently need a national road suicide prevention strategy. We know from the railways that we can be effective and make a difference, but the best time to incorporate changes into new infrastructure is at the design stage. The Highways England health and safety five-year plan commits the organisation to establishing a suicide prevention group and developing an action plan by March 2018, but that is three years into the investment strategy. That is not good enough and I urge the Minister to prioritise the issue and to instruct Highways England to bring the work forward.

Many challenges confront road infrastructure in this Parliament, and on some important points the Department needs to change course. I appreciate that many hon. Members are waiting to speak, but I hope the Minister will address the points I have raised when he replies to the debate.

Chris Gibb Report: Improvements to Southern Railway

Lilian Greenwood Excerpts

Tuesday 4th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)]

I know that there are colleagues who are yet to speak whose constituencies have borne the brunt of the appalling state of Southern rail so I will do my best to be brief. I would like to say a few words about the impact of the Southern situation on my constituents and some of the wider issues raised by the Gibb report.

It might surprise hon. Members to hear that delays on Southern can impact on trains in Nottingham, but the linear nature of the rail network combined with forthcoming changes to the Thameslink timetable could have a hugely damaging effect on inter-city midland main line services. The Gibb report rightly states:

“Sometimes funding availability has prioritised elements of the system, without considering the welfare of the overall system.”

This appears to be the case on the midland main line, where Thameslink, long distance and freight services share the same track south of Bedford.

The December 2018 timetable change will increase the service frequency through the Thameslink core to 24 trains an hour. On paper, that is a welcome improvement for passengers, but, in an indictment of disjointed and fragmented railway planning, the new timetable is not integrated with the east midlands franchise. The intensity of the new timetable will impair the ability of operators to recover after periods of disruption. As the Gibb report points out, this problem is compounded by GTR’s theoretically efficient but brittle rostering practices. This means that a single service disruption in Brighton can cause reactionary delays that travel up the line and on to the wider network, paralysing trains hundreds of miles away.

It has been reported in the technical press that there could be a nine-minute journey time penalty for services operating from Nottingham to London St Pancras, and a 12-minute penalty for journey times from Sheffield. That is obviously a real concern for passengers and the business community in Nottingham. I understand that it is not too late to make amendments to the timetable and I ask the Minister to commit to addressing the issue.

The Gibb report is long, technical and in places contentious. There are many issues arising from it that could be discussed, but I want to say a few words about the section on level crossings, which are a continued source of delays on the Southern network. The legislation that governs the closure of dangerous level crossings is archaic and hugely inefficient. It is therefore welcome that the Gibb report says that the recommendations of the Law Commission should be adopted as a new Bill. The issue has a long history and I have pressed Ministers on it in the previous two Parliaments.

Dangerous level crossings are the main cause of external risk on the railways and a major contributor to delays. The issue was referred to the Law Commission by the Government in 2008, and the commission’s recommendations were published in September 2013. In January 2015, the then Liberal Democrat Minister of State, Baroness Kramer, said in another place that the Government wanted to bring forward legislation as soon as possible. Two and a half years later, however, and nothing has changed. On the back of this report, will the Minister give a commitment today to finally bring forward this necessary legislation?

Finally, we need to talk about the lack of transparency that has characterised the Government’s approach to the prolonged period of exceptionally poor service on Southern. As the Transport Committee said in October:

“Until”—

it—

“recently managed, after several attempts and considerable time and effort, to extract information from the Department, GTR’s contractual performance benchmarks, and data relating to GTR’s performance against them, were entirely opaque.”

There are questions about the transparency of the report itself. We know that the final version was submitted to Ministers on 30 December, so the claim that the document could not be released until June because of purdah is, frankly, unconvincing.

In the minutes of the rail national taskforce meeting held on 23 November, it is recorded that Peter Wilkinson, the Department’s franchising director, said that the

“Gibb report had been drafted but was not yet signed off”

by the Secretary of State. The meeting was also told by an individual with the initials “NB”, who may be Nick Brown, GTR’s chief operating officer, that

“GTR had had a lot of input to the review.”

When the final version of the report was published, its sweeping statements about the general state of rail industrial relations and the undesirability of direct operations surprised some observers, especially as several hon. Members on both sides of the House had backed some form of state intervention. We need to know what Govia’s involvement was in the drafting of the report and whether it extended beyond the provision of factual information. We need to hear why first the approval of the draft report, and then publication of the final version, appears to have been delayed. It is vital that the travelling public can place trust in these reports, so will the Minister give the House a specific and unqualified assurance that the Department did not seek to pressure, amend or otherwise influence the report in any way to politicise its content?

The situation on Southern has complex causes, but the imperative must be to end the years of misery that passengers have endured. The Government have a role to play in ending it, and part of that role must be to generate less heat and more light in the months ahead. We do not have to endorse the Gibb report in full to acknowledge that it has made some sensible and practical suggestions. It is vital that Ministers now take all reasonable steps to get the Southern rail network moving again.

Air Travel Organisers’ Licensing Bill

Lilian Greenwood Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Monday 3rd July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hayes]

First, I apologise for ascribing Luton airport to the constituency neighbour of the hon. Gentleman, and not to him. As he will know, in a previous ministerial job, I was able to visit Luton South and to enjoy his hospitality there alongside the local authority. Luton is playing a bigger part in this debate than we may have expected; both Luton Members have contributed to it. As he will know, the fund is administered by the CAA, with trustees appointed by the Secretary of State. It builds up and is invested accordingly.

As we speak, there is about £140 million in the fund. If a major holiday company collapsed, it would be essential that there were sufficient moneys in the fund to cover that collapse. That could happen more than once in a short period; that is not inconceivable. The critical thing is that the fund is never short of money. The guarantee is that we will protect consumers and get people home safely from perhaps far-flung destinations and that they will not lose out as a result of things that they could not have anticipated or affected.

If it is helpful, I will be more than happy to provide the whole House with a further note on how the fund has changed and grown over time. I have mentioned what it is comprised of. I think it would be helpful for me to make available to the Library, and therefore to the House, more details of the kind the hon. Gentleman has asked about. It will help to inform further consideration of these matters as we move from Second Reading.

[Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)]

The Minister is right to say that there is cross-party support for greater protection of consumers, but he also mentioned safety. Could he take this opportunity to tell us whether Transport Ministers intend to introduce legislation to deal not just with the dangers posed by laser pens, but with the dangers posed by drones, which we have heard about again today?

[Mr Hayes]

The hon. Lady will know that that, too, was raised in our discussions on what was originally known as the modern transport Bill—or at least apocryphally known as such—and became the Vehicle Technology and Aviation Bill. She will also know—because of her keen interest in transport matters and her enthusiasm to take those matters further with an election, to which I will not refer more than obliquely—that we are consulting on those matters; the consultation has finished and we will bring our conclusions to the House and elsewhere very shortly. However, she is right to say—I am happy to put this on the record—that that is a matter of some concern. Existing legislation provides some protection. For example, if a drone were interfering with military aircraft or a secure site, existing legislation would cover that to some degree, but there is a case to do more, which is why we have consulted on the matter. I know that she will give the results of the consultation and our response to it her close attention, as she always does.

Let me move on; as I said, I do not want to prolong this exciting speech too much. As I said, the scheme also acts to compensate consumers who might be caught up in a failure. I have talked about the fund which is administered by the CAA to ensure that consumers are returned home, and since the 1990s the ATOL scheme has been the primary method by which the UK travel sector provides insolvency protection under the UK and Europe package travel regimes. Today the scheme protects over 20 million people each year, giving peace of mind to holidaymakers in Luton and elsewhere.