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Civil Aviation Bill

My Lords, I shall turn to that in a moment because I want to reassure noble Lords that we have safeguards in place. First, I shall address the proposed new clause and then I hope to give reassurances on the more general issues which make up the burden of the debate for obvious reasons. The clause envisages the simple practicality of forcing a plane to land. There is nothing simple about that. What kind of evidence would we have? If we had the evidence before the plane took off, we would signal that, and prevent use of British airspace. Is anyone seriously contending that, during the hours that the aircraft is in the air, the intelligence services will suddenly be privy to critical evidence that is sufficient for us to deploy aircraft to force down an airliner or whatever kind of aircraft it is? That is not a practicable proposition, but it is in the amendment.