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Civil Aviation Bill

I do not expect to detain the House for very long on the new clauses, as they are primarily probing, but we are interested in Government amendment 19, which deals with clause 77. The apostrophe and full stop in the amendment look very curious indeed, and we look forward to receiving an explanation of their significance. In Committee, the Minister teased us about our change of position on the Pilling report and on our support for National Audit Office oversight of the CAA. We said, in justification, that the world had moved on, and that evidence was coming forward, particularly from the British Air Transport Association at that time, in respect of the Government's explanation of the CAA's audit arrangements. BATA stated that it in fact involved a normal company audit to ensure that there was no fraud, whereas we were proposing an NAO audit examination of efficiency and value for money. Only this week, Members will have seen the correspondence from Virgin Atlantic citing the example of the Financial Services Authority. The CAA will be run along similar lines to the FSA. Although the NAO is tasked with keeping track of taxpayers' money, it has oversight of the FSA, which receives no income from the taxpayer. The CAA will be in the same position. There are clear parallels between the two organisations, so why will the NAO not have oversight of the CAA as well?Other industry-funded regulators are subject to NAO oversight, including Ofgem, which is funded by the energy companies, Ofwat, which is funded by the water companies, and Ofcom, which is funded by broadcasters, the media and communications providers. We are trying to address that anomaly in new clause 4. Moving on to new clause 5, the Minister stated in Committee that she had written to the leadership of the CAA to say that she expected it to"““lead the Authority in such a way that it: is run efficiently and effectively, thereby minimising the cost on the aviation sector, and providing value for money””.––[Official Report, Civil Aviation Public Bill Committee, 13 March 2012; c. 344.]" We received evidence at the time, however, from British Airways, which stated that"““the CAA has scope to make significant improvements in efficiency””.––[Official Report, Civil Aviation Public Bill Committee, 13 March 2012; c. 342.]" That statement was referring to the CAA before it got its new powers and responsibilities, which placed even greater pressure on it. My hon. Friends the Members for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs Ellman) and for Blackley and Broughton (Graham Stringer) raised this matter in Committee several times, and they might well try to catch your eye again today, Madam Deputy Speaker, in order to reinforce the point. In Committee, the Minister pointed out the technical flaws in our original amendment, so we have tidied it up. We have taken her advice and ensured that the new clauses are more appropriately worded. She also said that she would reflect on the matters that we had raised in Committee, and we would be grateful if she would share her conclusions with the House today.