Drones: Consultation Response

Alan Brown Excerpts

Monday 7th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)]

I thank the Secretary of State for sharing the parts of the statement he felt like sharing in advance. He was previously warned about the need for tougher legislation by my predecessor as Scottish National party spokesman, my hon. Friend the Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey (Drew Hendry), the shadow Minister, by myself and by the British Airline Pilots’ Association, so why did he ignore those warnings and delay legislating in this area? What new evidence has actually emerged from the consultation confirming the need for additional enforcement powers, other than the blatant reaction to the Gatwick incident? How many of the 5,000 responses to the consultation related to enforcement?

How much was spent on overtime over the holiday period to get the consultation response document ready for the first day back so that the Secretary of State could pretend that he is suddenly in charge? How did the Government come up with a 400 feet-high and 1 km-wide exclusion zone? Using two different methods of measurement is a complete recipe for confusion. What consultation was undertaken at that time? What was BALPA’s view? What was the view of the Civil Aviation Authority and NATS when the previous exclusion zone was proposed? How has the Secretary of State now suddenly arrived at a 5 km exclusion zone? Why did the Government not meet the stated target of a draft Bill by summer 2018? What updates on that lack of progress did they ever give to Parliament?

Given that legislation regarding the use and deployment of drones is reserved to Westminster, what support will the UK Government offer to Scottish airports to allow them to comply with any changes? Will that include financial support? The Secretary of State mentioned that the Home Office is legislating for and developing the appropriate means of using the new technology, so which is the lead Department? Will all the legislation come in one new Bill? How do we know that the planned timetable will be met?

Under this Secretary of State’s watch, we have had the east coast mainline bail-out, the Northern rail fiasco, the Thameslink rail fiasco, delays to High Speed 2, contracts awarded to Carillion, and a ferry contract awarded to a company with no ferries. Today, his Department could only muster 89 lorries out of a planned 150 for a pretend no-deal scenario planning exercise. When we factor in the drone legislation fiasco, when is he going to move aside?

[Chris Grayling]

Well, it is difficult to tell whether we got more nonsense today from the SNP or from Labour. The hon. Gentleman appears not to have noticed that we legislated last summer to tighten up the rules around drones. He asked whether we had been working overtime over the Christmas period. I have to say that the consultation response was finished before Christmas, work on draft clauses for the drones Bill is substantially completed, and we have now brought forward this, which was well prepared over many months, so that question was nonsense as well.

The hon. Gentleman talked about the approach to the exclusion zone around airports. We judge that it is necessary to provide as much protection as possible to the flight path into and out of an airport, which is why we end up with something that looks more like the Transport for London sign, with bits sticking out either side to provide extra protection for the approach and landing areas, than a pure circle around the airport. As for Scottish airports, they have been a part of the discussions that I had over the Christmas period and will be a part of the discussions that Baroness Sugg will be having later this week.