Air Travel Organisers’ Licensing Bill

Vicky Ford Excerpts

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

[Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Luton South (Mr Shuker), who cares passionately about Luton airport in his constituency, and to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Redditch (Rachel Maclean), who has just given an outstanding maiden speech. I thank her so much.

In a modern and outward-looking Britain, it is significant that the first piece of legislation in this new Parliament is a Bill making it easier for consumers—our constituents— to travel overseas and for people from other countries to travel to Britain. It is also significant that this first Bill is about consumer protection, because this Government believe that we should put people first.

The ATOL system offers protection to holidaymakers if their tour operator goes bust. The UK is proud of having had the system in place since the 1970s. It is robust consumer protection that gives confidence to people booking their holidays and, therefore, contributes to our vibrant travel markets. The system supports the economy—not only the destinations to which people go, but also our local tourism industry. I am particularly thinking about the 800 residents of Chelmsford who work at Stansted airport. It is important for their jobs that we continue to have a vibrant holiday market.

Although holidays are always meant to be the happiest time of year, that happiness so quickly turns into a nightmare if there is a problem with a tour operator. Last summer, 27,000 British travellers found themselves overseas when the company, Lowcostholidays, collapsed. Another 110,000 British consumers had booked their holidays through that operator and did not know what the future would hold. Lowcostholidays had, of course, moved its location from Britain to Spain, so it was no longer ATOL-protected. That reminds us exactly how important it is to look at the consumer protection we offer people buying from British-based companies and that we offer British consumers who buy from companies based in other countries. That is why the EU countries agreed new changes to the package travel directive in 2015, requiring all European countries to have ATOL-type protection. The bit of law we are discussing today will implement that decision.

In the European Parliament, the committee that looks at such issues is the Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection, because consumers are at the heart of the market. As the person who chaired that committee, I chaired the negotiations on the package travel directive. It is important that we ensure that the measure is implemented equally across all of Europe, otherwise we could find that some countries bring in a different system. There is an important difference in that ATOL membership will now be based on whether or not a company is based in Britain, as opposed to whether it just sells into Britain.

As colleagues have said, another important part of the legislation was updating the guarantee system so that it is fit for purpose in a digital age. If someone buys their flight from the wonderful Stansted airport, they will probably click on the airline operator. They will then click through from the airline operator to buy their hotel and then on again to buy their car rental. That might feel like buying a package to some of us, but it was not covered under the old rules in the package travel directive. I welcome the Minister’s work on modernising the measures, which will ensure that those click-throughs are now covered by the ATOL protection.

However, we had many other discussions in those detailed negotiations. For example, should business travellers get the same protection as consumer travellers? That is where we have tended to have a bit of a difference between Conservative Members and Labour Members. My excellent hon. Friend the Member for Redditch has just explained the challenges for small businesses, and an extra cost burden may be unaffordable for them, so we were concerned that they should not automatically have to pay the extra cost of ATOL protection. That is the sort of discussion I hope we will now be able to look at in more detail.

There were also discussions about whether the package should cover add-ons. For example, if someone gets to their holiday destination and decides to buy excursions, or if they bought them before they went, should those be included in the package? We had a lot of representations from small businesses saying, “No, please don’t put these in the package, because it will add bureaucracy and reduce consumer choice.” While I am absolutely passionate about the need to provide consumer protection, we also need to take a step back from time to time and to be on the side of consumer choice and of not adding additional, unnecessary costs for businesses.

In a post-Brexit Britain, our consumers will still want to purchase goods and services from those in other countries, and it will be important to continue to engage with other countries—especially our nearest neighbours in Europe—on issues such as consumer protection. It is important in the Brexit negotiations that we focus on getting a deal that works for consumers as well as businesses, because a vast range of consumer rights are embedded in EU law, on issues to do with not only holidaymakers but misleading advertising, unfair contract terms and the right to seek redress. Crucially, there is also really important legislation about the safety and standards of food. It appears that the tragic fire at Grenville Tower may have started because of an electrical fault in a domestic appliance, which is a brutal reminder of how important it is that we maintain high standards for consumer products.

Today’s consumers are changing, and they embrace innovation. Markets are also constantly evolving, and we are constantly getting new products. Of course, we also have the digital revolution. We therefore need to be constantly working on making sure that our consumer protection, consumer laws and consumer standards are fit for purpose.

The excellent consumer organisation Which? has sent us all a briefing on what it would like from the Brexit negotiations, and it makes a strong case that the UK should continue to work with our European neighbours on consumer standards, on measures to counter fraud and on developing and sharing best practice. In particular, it recommends that we should at an early stage reach agreement on continued co-operation with such agencies as the European Medicines Agency, the European Food Safety Authority, the European Chemicals Agency and the European Aviation Safety Authority. We should listen very carefully to what our consumer organisations are saying.

As the hon. Member for Luton South mentioned, there are other issues that affect holidaymakers, such as the need to negotiate landing rights. There is also an issue about making sure that any deals about how we use our mobile phones overseas are covered. The UK was a great champion of removing expensive mobile phone roaming charges, which put such a huge burden on consumers. However, other issues, such as the motor insurance directive, have not been perfect for the UK; indeed, that directive is causing great uncertainty in the motorsports industry in the UK, and we will need to continue to engage on that.

When the Prime Minister talked about our offer on EU citizens, I was pleased to hear her offer to keep the European health insurance card, which makes it easier for people to get medical care when they travel across Europe. That is a very generous offer from the UK to the rest of Europe, and we should welcome it.

To wrap up, maintaining consumer confidence is key to a modern, dynamic economy. As we seek to leave the EU and to create a new, deep economic partnership with those across the channel, it is important that we continue to stand on the side of consumers and that we find new ways to co-operate with our neighbours and those across the world who seek to make sure that consumers are fairly protected.