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Civil Aviation Bill

The airports have an important obligation to ensure that all security checks are carried out appropriately, but it is enormously important that they do so as sensitively as possible, particularly in relation to the needs of disabled passengers. I have a great deal of sympathy with the point made by the hon. Gentleman. The CAA continues to develop capacity to help consumers, and is at an advanced stage of setting up a new consumer advisory panel to act as a critical friend of the regulator as it proceeds to put the consumer at the heart of its regulatory effort. I hope that those provisions give the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs Ellman) the reassurance that she seeks. The new consumer panel, which will replace the Air Transport Users Council, is a step in the right direction. It will provide the CAA with an important insight into how it can best serve the consumer's interest. It will have internal independence from the CAA, which will enable it to provide an effective challenge. It will have the scope to make public statements and it will publish an annual report. The panel has recently appointed a new chair, Mr Keith Richards, who has considerable experience of disabled air passenger issues, having been chair of the aviation working group of the Disabled Persons Transport Advisory Committee for many years, as well as the former head of consumer affairs at the Association of British Travel Agents. Clearly, the CAA and the new panel chair will need time to develop their relationship, but it would not be unreasonable to suppose that the passenger experience of disabled people at airports and on planes would be of considerable interest to the new chair. I suggest that it would be better to allow the new CAA consumer panel to have the space to develop, and to determine how it will go about its work and how best it can support and inform passengers, rather than to impose an obligation along the lines set out in the new clause. The Select Committee Chairman asked how licence conditions would be enforced. That is set out in clauses 31 to 47. They include measures on enforcement orders, which could require a licence holder to take action to comply with a condition. Penalties may also be imposed. As I have mentioned, licence conditions will be consulted on in due course. In response to the points made about the UK Border Force, I fully agree on the importance of ensuring efficiency at our borders. This is a matter that the Home Office and the UKBF take very seriously. Hon. Members who attended the Committee debates will recall the list of actions that I set out, and my describing how new technology and reformed working practices were being deployed to improve efficiency at our borders. However, I cannot accept that a system designed for the economic regulation of airports would be appropriate for the regulation of the activities of the UKBF. The UKBF is accountable to Ministers and, through them, to Parliament. That is the appropriate way to hold it to account, and we do not believe that the UKBF should be included in the Bill in that context. I assure my hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley (Nigel Mills) that I have engaged regularly with colleagues in the Home Office on the importance of efficiency at our borders. I will continue to do so. With that, I must ask the House to oppose the new clause.