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Civil Aviation Bill

I am grateful to Members of the Committee. A broad beam crossed my face when the noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, said how much he agreed with the amendment in principle. Since then, that beam has reduced somewhat as there have been a series of difficult questions. However, the easiest was that posed by the noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield: why so much detail? This is a new arrangement for resolving potential disputes. He asked me whether we have any evidence for its need. We have an unresolved dispute between the Sussex Constabulary and London Gatwick Airport. I cannot comment on that dispute because attempts at resolution are ongoing, but let us say that we are struggling with the fact that we have no framework for dealing with such difficulty. It may be that former governments should have been more far-sighted, but our difficulties are a reflection of the growing problem of security at airports in particular and in the wider community. Therefore, we must face up to new problems and there is no doubt that, because of the significant additional costs for necessarily enhanced security at Gatwick airport, there is an unresolved dispute between the police authority and the airport. We need a framework, which is why this is proposed. It appears in such detail because it is made up from scratch, but we must assure everyone that it is fit for purpose and will ensure that such difficulties, should they occur, can be resolved with the proper machinery. Of course I recognise, as the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, indicated, that there will be disputes about the utilisation of resources. He is so right. There are bound to be a wide range of judgments on what is necessary. My noble friend Lord Clinton-Davies asked where the local community fitted in to this. The only point I would make is that when it comes to security issues it is difficult or nigh impossible to talk in terms of the local community being involved. The local community may be represented on the police and consultation authority and have a role to play there, but my noble friend would be the first to recognise that if we are trying to deal with the security of an airport, there is a very limited, almost negligible role that the local community could provide. So I must be somewhat negative about that, but I understand the point that the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, made—that there are different perspectives about this. That was reinforced by my noble friend Lord Berkeley who spoke in rather more trenchant terms about such issues. Well, we need machinery to resolve such issues if they reach such a pitch that there is fundamental disagreement. I hope that that will not happen. The machinery will provide for a situation that has caused a present difficulty not to reoccur. Most of the time we are talking about designated airports. The others are working with significantly enhanced security measures in recent years. Anyone could dispute the level of security that is needed at any time. I remember the occasion when maximum security was imposed at Heathrow and there were critics who asked why that was necessary and how it could be proved. That is an almost impossible question to address to the authorities in those circumstances. Professional judgment is at work regarding the most fundamental issue of all—whether people can safely attend an airport without a terrible risk of death or injury. I hear what my noble friend Lord Berkeley says about the security authorities, in this case the police, who may exaggerate the resources they need in any given situation. He is probably reflecting human nature. But there is a countervailing power. The police do not get their resources directly in those circumstances; they get them from the airport. The airport and its managers have a clear and vested interest in challenging the demands of the police. Those were the origins of our difficulties elsewhere, which I have mentioned. That is a necessary and inevitable basis for how to resolve the need for resources. There are two groups with significant expertise and when they get together we can be confident that a resolution of the issues will be hammered out. However, the amendments are designed for that rare occurrence when that may not happen. We need machinery for that. My noble friend Lord Clinton-Davies asked: why now? We have difficulties in one respect. We are obviously worried about the fact that such difficulties could lead to a position where the necessary protections were not put in place. We cannot take that risk. It is the duty of the Government to ensure safety in circumstances where we all know that airports are high-risk establishments—all of us have become accustomed to the enormous requirements put on travellers in boarding aircraft. A great deal of that applies to security at the airport itself. All of us can envisage the consequences of something going disastrously wrong in security protection at any airport. I can tell my noble friend Lord Clinton-Davies that we are carrying out a review, but we need something in legislation. This Bill is before the House and it is not often that we have the opportunity of parliamentary time to deal with these issues. We have a genuine problem and it would be obtuse of my department if we did not take this opportunity of showing how we resolve the dispute. On the question of who pays, of course it is for the airport to do so. But, as I have indicated to my noble friend, that would happen after some inevitably strenuous and taut negotiations. The question to which I have the greatest difficulty in responding is that posed by my noble friend Lord Faulkner, who is assiduous in his advocacy of the merits of the British Transport Police. I share my noble friend’s enthusiasm for the role it plays. However, were we to pass this responsibility over to the BTP, we would be talking about a massive extension to its resources. We have a substantial number of major airports and, in effect, we would transform the British Transport Police into something other than it is. I think that my noble friend will probably continue with his advocacy of the proposal on the basis of the BTP’s past role with regard to transport, but we would have to take that case to all those police authorities up and down the land which must address these issues if they have a major airport in their area. They will not be readily convinced that another body, although a close colleague, could do it better. However, perhaps my noble friend has stronger powers of persuasion than I and therefore he may succeed. All I can say is that at the moment I am not minded to try, and certainly not until the Bill has passed through this House.