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Civil Aviation Bill

moved Amendment No. 38:"After Clause 10, insert the following new clause—" ““REPORT ON AIR SAFETY    Within twelve months of the passing of this Act, the Secretary of State shall lay before Parliament a report on the activities of those bodies responsible for the safety of airlines and the maintenance of aircraft, and on any other matters that the Secretary of State thinks appropriate.”” The noble Baroness said: This is a probing amendment designed to allow discussion on the transfer of powers from the Civil Aviation Authority to the European Aviation Safety Agency, the EASA. We want to discuss the implications for aviation safety. It is not my intention to ask for a series of lengthy reports, as the amendment would require. It is, however, my intention to elicit some answers from the Minister. Historically, the Civil Aviation Authority was responsible for the inspection of aircraft and the issuing of certificates of air worthiness. This responsibility has now been passed to the European Aviation Safety Agency. I have no particular objection to that in principle, but I am rather concerned about the practical implications for aviation. I am sure that all Members of the Committee agree that certification of airworthiness is crucial to ensuring passenger safety and passenger confidence. In practice, the process of certification is reliant on a small but highly skilled body of technical experts. As the transfer of powers is still in the transitional phase, British certification work is currently divided between the CAA and the EASA. The EASA is based in Cologne. As the CAA reduces its number of aircraft inspectors in line with the transfer of responsibility, those people are not opting to go to Cologne. So we are losing people who have valuable knowledge of extremely important work. We understand that they are taking up employment elsewhere, sometimes outside the industry. That is made worse by the fact that the same situation is occurring in France which, together with Britain, provides a significant proportion of skilled workers and aircraft inspectors. The French are also proving reluctant to relocate to Cologne in their existing capacity. The consequence is that we are seeing a diminution of an essential skill base in Britain and France without commensurate expenditure on a skilled inspectorate in the EASA. As the EASA has thus far proved unable to draw fully on the existing skill base, we are concerned about the competency of those people that the EASA will recruit to fill the growing gap in the workforce. There is already a relatively small number of highly skilled individuals in the European aviation industry. As I have said, the majority of them are British and French and they are choosing not to move to Cologne. Will the Minister reassure us that those problems are being tackled and perhaps by the next stage inform the House of any developments? Can she also inform us of any other plans to transfer powers and responsibilities pertaining to British aviation to Europe? We should address that particular small point in the Bill. I beg to move.