Civil Aviation (Consumer Protection and Regulatory Reform) Bill [LORDS] (Second sitting)

Noah Law Excerpts

Tuesday 20th October 2026 Public Bill Committees

[Keir Mather]

It was a pleasure to visit Bristol airport to see its impressive and ambitious plans to facilitate new international routes and to modernise its terminals. It wants more people to use the airport, so it is incumbent on us all to think about how we can best facilitate that. With the new Prime Minister’s increased focus on pushing power out into every local community in the United Kingdom, local mayors and local authorities will also have an enormous role to play in ensuring that we have the right public transport connectivity to our airports so that more people can benefit from being able to travel cheaply and comfortably to airports in their local areas.

[Noah Law (St Austell and Newquay) (Lab)]

Similarly to my hon. Friends who have just spoken, we have serious issues at Newquay airport about connectivity, so I welcome the suggestion on local transport connectivity that promoting alternative modalities will be part of the review, but to what extent will the Minister join up that review with the other work he is doing more broadly to support smaller regional airports through, for example, the review of the public service obligation, which is so necessary for airports like Newquay to be able to bid in a more flexible way?

[Keir Mather]

My hon. Friend is right to point to the fact that PSOs serve as a lifeline for many regional airports, and provide important economic and business connectivity to the nation’s capital from many regions of the United Kingdom, including his own, which is serving as a catalyst for regional economic growth. We of course need to think about the intersection of these questions, and how we can work with local mayors to create robust public transport systems that can get people to the places they want to go, to facilitate economic growth across the entire United Kingdom. My hon. Friend makes the point well.

I thank the hon. Member for Didcot and Wantage for tabling new clause 6, which seeks to require the Government to publish proposals for a cap on airport drop-off charges within six months of Royal Assent, and to specify that the cap must be £5. The Government have committed to reviewing the impact on airport users within 12 months of Royal Assent. The new clause would cut across that proposal by requiring the Government to bring forward proposals for a specific £5 cap before the review had completed, effectively predetermining the outcome before evidence had been adequately considered. For those reasons, I cannot support the new clause and ask the hon. Gentleman not to press it to a vote.