Open Skies Agreement (Membership) Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2018-01-26
Topic: Transportation
Jeremy Purvis (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, this has inevitably been a short debate. However, my noble friend deserves commendation for securing this Bill in the ballot and bringing it to our attention. It is a massively important issue for the future of our country. Like many Members of your Lordships’ House, I am a regular flyer and to that extent I declare an interest: I benefit, as do others, from there being a secure, safe and reliable aviation sector in this country. However, as my noble friend indicated, this does not happen by accident and it is therefore right that we should focus on this vital issue After this debate I will to go straight to Heathrow airport to fly home. As a regular flyer from that airport, I will be on a plane which is one of 3,000 air departures from UK airports. I will be in the minority because it will be a domestic flight. As my noble friend indicated, 60% of those flights will be taking off and landing in Europe, and so our relationship with our nearest neighbours within this aviation market and industry is of vital importance. It has the same profile as our relationships for trade and, as my noble friend Lord Paddick indicated, our relationships connected to immigration, intelligence and data are all interlinked If I had been a Member of this House 40 years ago and I was travelling home to Edinburgh, the situation would have been radically different. If you visit the air museum at East Fortune outside Edinburgh, you can see the British Airways standby plane, which was always there in case a shuttle flight was full. A traveller would have a rip-off ticket as part of a carnet for the Edinburgh to London shuttle flights—no ID was needed, no booking was necessary: you just turned up with your tear-off slip—and, if the flight was full, the next flight would be put on for that shuttle route. It is inconceivable that we would go back to historical regulation. My noble friend is right that we need to be part of the future, and that is why enhanced clarity is necessary I have lived all of my life as a British subject, and now as a European Union citizen, and the growth of air travel is part of a generational trend. When I was born in 1974, there were 400 million air passengers that year in the world. In 2016, there were 3.7 billion. That is why a complex lattice of international commitments and regulations is in place. It is necessary that the United Kingdom is not only part of those after Brexit but continues to play a role in shaping them. That is because, far from Britain having been held back by our membership of the EU and organisations such as the European Aviation Safety Agency, the single European sky initiative and the single market, we have benefited from them and in many respects we have shaped the regulations The issue of the European Aviation Safety Agency, which has been referred to in the debate so far, in many respects sums up the dilemma that the Government have placed themselves in and are now inflicting on the country. This is a Community agency with its own legal personality and is governed by European public law. Membership of the European Aviation Safety Agency is not consistent with government policy—it goes against the red line that the Prime Minister has set—but we have heard the Transport Minister say repeatedly to our aviation industry that the UK will continue to come under the aegis of the agency If we do not come under the EASA, we have heard from the chief executive of the Civil Aviation Authority, Andrew Haines, about the consequences. He has said that it was his hope that we would remain an active member of the EASA, because it would impose a massive regulatory burden to separate ourselves from it. He has highlighted the fact that the UK and France already provide two-thirds of the input to aviation regulation—that reflects the leadership role we currently play—and some 90% of the outsourced activity of the agency is carried out by France and the UK. That relationship is fundamental to our ongoing negotiations on trade, and it is inconceivable that any modern trade agreement will not have aviation regulation as a key component, covering both safety and the environment. If the Government have set this red line—when I asked the Minister’s colleague, the noble Baroness, Lady Fairhead, about it last week, she said that it would be inconsistent with the red line that the Prime Minister has set—we are putting ourselves in a position where we would be setting back the United Kingdom If we take an alternative route like that of Switzerland and its relationship with the single European sky initiative, we see that it has accepted EU aviation law and ECJ jurisdiction. However, Swiss airlines have been granted only seven of the nine possible freedoms of the air. Are we seeking all of the nine freedoms in our new relationship with the European Union while being completely separate from ECJ jurisdiction? I would like to hear from the Minister how that will be at all possible I conclude by saying that my noble friends are absolutely correct to look for clarification in this area. We are not seeking to have the book that our negotiating team is using, but we are hoping to be shown the same respect in this Parliament that the European Parliament has in the ongoing negotiations. When the Commission has been set its mandate by the European Council, it will be made public; we seek the same—we want clarity on the single European sky, clarity on the market for aviation and clarity on the EASA, and we need it now. That would be the respectful position for our Parliament, and it would mean that our aviation industry and passengers have the confidence they need in this crucial industry for our economy.