PARLIAMENTARY DEBATE
Civil Aviation (Consumer Protection and Regulatory Reform) Bill [Lords] - 9 September 2026 (Commons/Commons Chamber)

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

Today is an important day, as this Bill starts its Commons journey, but it is a hard day on which to talk about the criticality of our civil aviation sector, given the disruption endured by so many over the past 24 hours. With your permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I will take a few moments to address this issue. A four-hour air traffic outage yesterday left hundreds of thousands of passengers facing cancellations, diversions and delays. I apologise wholeheartedly to passengers for that disruption. We often take for granted the way in which our aviation system just works, but yesterday that was not the case. Safety must remain the overriding priority for air traffic controllers.

This morning I spoke to the chief executive of the National Air Traffic Services, Martin Rolfe, who informed me that this outage was due to a technical issue at their Swanwick site. While my understanding from that is that we can rule out a cyber-attack on this occasion, I do not believe this issue was unavoidable. We also spoke this morning about how NATS responded to resolve and minimise the disruption as quickly as possible. I am grateful to the airports and airlines that responded straightaway, but I am clear that passengers should not have to face this disruption. I have therefore asked the Civil Aviation Authority to conduct an independent review, to establish cause and ensure that our air traffic control systems can get passengers where they need to be. The review will report to me within six months.

Robust systems that support our national infrastructure are the bedrock of the measures contained in this Bill, from better rights for disabled passengers and modernised airspace to slot reform and quicker enforcement of passenger rights. While passengers undeniably experienced a bad day yesterday, it is still true to say that few industries match the ability of aviation to adapt, evolve and innovate. For generations it has pushed the boundaries of what is possible, from faster aircraft and new destinations to safer technology and cleaner fuels. Bad days, like yesterday, just serve to underscore how central aviation is to Britain’s success, not only making our summer holidays and family reunions possible, but connecting businesses to the global marketplace and supporting thousands of skilled jobs across our island nation.

Right now, fresh challenges and opportunities are emerging. Drones are beginning to transform our airspace and flight numbers are climbing year after year, all while global headwinds continue to put enormous pressure on the sector and those who depend on it.

I am really grateful to the Secretary of State for updating the House on the NATS outage and what she and colleagues are doing to ensure that it is sorted out speedily. Does she anticipate that the review she has ordered will be the way in which we ensure this never happens again? So many of us have constituents who have been very badly and unacceptably impacted by these delays.

My hon. Friend is right to raise the impact on people who were caught up in this disruption. I have read reports of people having to sleep overnight in airports and people who have potentially missed weddings, so we cannot say enough about how important it is that we address this problem. I have learned in politics that absolute guarantees when it comes to managing the operation of a vast and complex transport system can be unwise, but what I can say is that I will leave no stone unturned in seeking to understand what has happened here and what can be done to drastically reduce the likelihood of something like this ever happening again. We need to ask tough questions about the resilience of NATS’s systems and progress with planned upgrades, and we need to think about consumer redress issues.

I thank the right hon. Lady for her comments and for recognising the NATS issue. However, given its importance to the House, will she make a statement tomorrow so that questions can be asked then, rather than during a Second Reading debate? Members across House have lots of questions about this serious matter.

I am keen to address these significant issues today. The public would rightly expect the Transport Secretary, while standing at the Dispatch Box, to answer questions here and now, so I am happy to take any interventions.

As many colleagues will know, most civil aviation legislation is assimilated EU law, and the Government’s power to update it has now expired. The Bill will restore that power, giving the Government the flexibility to regulate at a pace that will enable us to keep up with the world around us. I should say that I am very grateful to my noble Friend the Minister for Rail for his excellent stewardship of the Bill through the other place.

I will now outline the main elements of the Bill and what we hope it will achieve. Aviation serves millions of us well each year, but when things go wrong, passengers must have confidence that they will be protected. The Bill will allow passenger rights to be bolstered through secondary legislation, helping us to tackle the issues that matter most.

Other jurisdictions and countries around the world have taken steps to look at the issue of fume events in aircraft cabins. When such events happen, there is no requirement to engage with passengers and let them know, and there is a lack of regulation and scrutiny. Will the Minister meet me and the other members of the all-party parliamentary group on cabin air quality to look at the issue?

The Minister with responsibility for aviation, my hon. Friend the Member for Selby (Keir Mather), has kindly just said that he will be very happy to meet the hon. Gentleman to discuss that in more detail, and I know it is something that my officials are looking at.

The Bill provides extra consumer protection on the things that matter most, whether that is delays, cancellations, baggage and, crucially, accessibility. The Government listened carefully to concerns raised in the House of Lords about the experience of disabled passengers and those with reduced mobility. That is why we are committing to consult on a range of accessibility issues. We want to hear directly from passengers about the problems they face and what we can do to ensure that everyone feels safe and is able to fly.

We have also acted immediately to scrap the unfair compensation cap for damaged wheelchairs and mobility equipment on domestic flights. Those items are essential to the lives and livelihoods of many disabled people, and lifting the cap reflects that reality. I hope the whole House agrees that this was absolutely the right thing to do.

Turning to enforcement, the Civil Aviation Authority currently relies on slow and resource-intensive court action to secure redress for consumer protection issues. The Bill will grant the CAA direct enforcement powers for consumer protection, bringing it in line with other regulators such as the Competition and Markets Authority. That means faster action when rules are broken and less burden on consumers to fight for what they are owed. Taken together, these measures will ensure that all passengers have meaningful, enforceable rights that help them to travel with ease and confidence.

The Bill will also help to unlock the full potential of our aviation infrastructure, driving economic growth across the country. The UK has some of the world’s busiest and most complex airspace, yet much of it is still based on designs from the 1950s. An aviation industry fit for the 21st century simply cannot rely on infrastructure that was built for the last.

The UK aviation sector is one of the best in the world. Glasgow international airport, in my constituency, has recently been very successful in attracting new routes. Can the Secretary of State confirm that further such expansion will not be hindered by slow regulatory frameworks?

We want to move swiftly on these issues, and the provisions in the Bill are designed to do just that. I recognise that Glasgow airport is an important economic hub for my hon. Friend’s constituency, and I look forward to discussing with her what more we can do to support it.

I was talking about how our airspace is still based on designs from the 1950s. That is why this Government believe that we must move quickly to modernise that airspace, for reasons of safety, reliability and capacity, and for the communities who deserve cleaner and quieter skies.

Many people in my constituency work at the nearby Heathrow airport, so it is extremely important for jobs, but for many other constituents the noise of the airport can be annoying and they worry about emissions. Does the Secretary of State agree that airspace modernisation offers an opportunity to stop that stacking of aircraft over west London and to have quieter and cleaner aircraft, which would reduce noise and emissions? Will she also confirm that this Bill will still allow local people to have a say on any decisions on airspace modernisation?

I can guarantee my hon. Friend that there will be meaningful consultation with local communities about airspace changes—this Bill does not change the processes around that. I also appreciate the impact that noise has on local communities, and nothing in the Bill changes the process that will take place, for example, in the case of expansion at Heathrow. My hon. Friend will be aware that the draft Heathrow expansion national policy statement, which we have consulted on, includes a proposal for a night-time ban for 6.5 hours, between the hours of 11 pm and 7 am. I guarantee that I will continue to work with her and other London colleagues on these important and sensitive issues.

Airspace modernisation is important, both to tackle noise issues and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from aircraft—if we can have planes pursuing simpler, more direct flight paths, that will reduce the amount of time that those planes are in the air. However, the truth is that if we do not act on airspace modernisation, it will be passengers and businesses that end up paying the price, with up to one in five flights estimated to face significant disruption by 2040 unless we act. That is why we have wasted no time in setting up the UK Airspace Design Service, which is already getting on with the job. This Bill strengthens the Government’s ability to ensure that airspace changes that have been properly consulted on and approved are delivered. We are also updating the rules on who can be charged for air traffic and air navigation services, so that costs can continue to be recovered fairly as new airspace users emerge. Finally, we are making it easier for the Government to respond quickly and proportionately to pressure on the aviation sector.

It is not the case that noise above 5,000 feet will not be considered in airspace design changes. This is about the relative balance between noise considerations and greenhouse gas emissions. We need to find a simpler way of making these changes, because the previous mechanism was too cumbersome, and I believe that this is a sensible and proportionate change.

I was talking about some of the changes that this Bill will enable the Government to make in future, so that we can be more responsive and flexible as a Government. As Members will know, there has been significant uncertainty for the aviation sector, given the conflict and crisis in the middle east and the impact of that on jet fuel. A few months ago, my Department introduced temporary changes to relax slot usage requirements and reduce disruption to passengers. However, some of those measures relied on powers that were introduced after we left the European Union, and the power that I had to act in that way expired in June, which was why we made our decision before that point. The Bill will introduce permanent powers, and will therefore support a more agile and resilient approach to the regulation of airport slots. That means that the UK can continue to act decisively when appropriate, safeguarding passengers and maintaining airport capacity.

Airspace modernisation has been consulted on in Scotland. Will the Secretary of State do everything she can to ensure that the Scottish airspace modernisation programme remains a priority for NATS?

We have sought to prioritise work on airspace changes in the London region, given the benefits that it could bring to London and the south-east. I am aware that there has been agreement over the summer to resume work on airspace modernisation in Scotland, which will be important to my hon. Friend’s constituents. We have to get the balance right by bringing benefit quickly to the communities that are currently seeking changes, which will improve the quality of my hon. Friend’s life and those of her constituents.

I apologise to my right hon. Friend; I should have checked this before the debate. The proposed new section 61G refers to priorities and objectives of the Secretary of State, which include a requirement for the Secretary of State to issue a document setting out those priorities and objectives for the CAA. That is to be the guiding light from the Government to the CAA. The provision specifies, for instance, how the Government and the CAA are to consult and how it will take on board environmental principles. Is that new document to be published after the passing of the legislation, or have I missed something and a document has already been produced? If so, I apologise, but this seems quite fundamental to me. If there is to be a revised document, can my right hon. Friend give us a timetable for its publication?

I regularly produce a letter for the CAA setting out my priorities, and I would be happy to write to my right hon. Friend in detail about the timeline, as he requests.

The Bill is also about improving safety. The Government are determined that UK airspace should remain among the safest in the world. Our current safety framework is fragmented, and updating it is cumbersome. It holds back innovation, and it puts the UK at risk of falling behind on its international obligations. To fix that, the Bill will hand over responsibility for technical aviation safety and operational rule-making to the CAA. This is not a blank cheque; it follows a well-established model in which trusted regulators make rules within boundaries set by Parliament. Indeed, ministerial and parliamentary oversight was strengthened during scrutiny in the other place. The Bill also reinstates the Government’s ability to update or create aviation safety-related criminal offences in assimilated legislation, which was lost after our exit from the EU. That will allow safety rules to keep up with international standards while ensuring that they are enforced consistently, now and in the future. These steps will create a clearer, more workable system that maintains the UK’s strong safety record and sustains public confidence in air travel.

I know that some Members will be interested in what the Bill means for airport expansions. I should make clear that it does not determine whether any airport should expand, and neither does it change the processes involved in that. These measures are sector-wide reforms that will support a safe, efficient and resilient aviation industry. Questions about airport expansion will continue to be considered separately, outside the Bill process.

Despite a bad day yesterday, aviation has refused to stand still for over 100 years. The industry remains at the forefront of innovation and progress, taking every challenge and every opportunity in its stride. Quite simply, the type of country that we want to be—aspirational, outward-looking and full of opportunity—depends on giving the industry the tools that it needs to go from strength to strength. This Bill will do just that by bringing passenger protections into the 21st century, unlocking sustainable growth that works for our communities, and maintaining the UK’s safety record in an ever-changing world.

I hope that hon. and right hon. Members will agree that this is not a Government who drag their feet. We have moved swiftly to address the concerns raised by the Lords, particularly on accessibility, accountability and passenger protections. The Government have not just listened but acted, and I believe that provides a strong foundation for the Bill to continue its passage. I commend this Bill to the House.

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

Before I turn to the Bill, let me comment on the events of the last 24 hours, which have shown just how important effective oversight of our aviation sector is. The shocking failure at NATS has left hundreds of thousands of passengers in the lurch, and serious questions have been raised about the resilience of our air traffic control system and aviation infrastructure. As we consider legislation that gives further functions to the CAA, we must ensure that proper parliamentary scrutiny and ministerial accountability are not lost. When something goes wrong this badly, the House must be able to demand answers.

Having spoken to Mr Speaker earlier today, it was my understanding that urgent questions requested by my party and by the Liberal Democrats were not accepted because the Government gave assurances that a statement will be made in the House tomorrow. The Government could have chosen to make a statement today, but they chose to prioritise other matters. If the Secretary of State would like to intervene to say that tomorrow there will be a statement in which all Members can ask proper questions about what has happened, I would welcome that. A Second Reading debate is not the right place for questions and answers, and only one hon. Member from the Labour Benches intervened on her. This is not an appropriate moment to have that discussion, so perhaps the Secretary of State would like to confirm that there will be a statement tomorrow. If not, I am afraid it looks like there has been a serious miscommunication between the Speaker’s Office and those on the Government Front Bench. [Interruption.] Sorry, does the Minister want to speak from a sedentary position, or does he want to come to the Dispatch Box and speak?

Okay. If he does not want to answer the questions, we will have to drag him to the House tomorrow.

I am in the House right now!

If the Minister would like to speak, he can stand at the Dispatch Box. No, he does not want to do that—fine. We will have him here tomorrow, then, as we were told today that our urgent question would not be accepted because the Minister would be making a statement. We will have to see whether that actually happens.

Having said all that, I welcome the engagement from the Secretary of State and Ministers in the other House on this Bill, and the engagement that has taken place on this matter. I would like to see that engagement continue, and I hope that it can.

The Conservatives agree with the stated aims of the Bill—namely, to promote economic growth and infrastructure development, to strengthen consumer rights and protections, and to enhance aviation security. For that reason, we will not divide on Second Reading. I also agree with the Secretary of State’s observation in her letter to colleagues on 1 September, in which she said that the contributions of the Lords have helped strengthen the legislation before the House today. At its core, this is broadly an administrative Bill. We on the Conservative Benches recognise that certain measures must be taken following our exit from the European Union to ensure that regulatory gaps are filled and continuity is maintained in a way that ultimately keeps Britain’s aviation industry working safely, as the Secretary of State highlighted.

The Bill pays much attention to consumer rights and associated protections, and the Conservatives welcome parts of that agenda. Indeed, I appreciate the Department showing some flexibility on these issues, particularly with regard to safeguarding disabled passengers. However, given the violent agreement between the Secretary of State and me on these matters—I confess that it is not always this way across the Dispatch Box—I am slightly puzzled by one item. Why on earth did her party whip Members in the other place to vote against a review of airport drop-off charges? Why are passengers paying such exorbitant drop-off charges? It would appear that the Government do not want us to know that. Why is it, as The Times has reported, that charges at Gatwick have now reached £10 for 10 minutes, while Luton’s, under Labour-run Luton council, have increased from £2 to £7?

In Bournemouth, the charges have now gone up to £8, yet there are no buses to the airport. Two buses, which go at 6 o’clock in the morning and come back at 6 o’clock in the evening, serve the industrial estate, but they do not serve the airport staff or passengers, and it is impossible for people to get there any other way. Does the shadow Secretary of State agree with me that these charges should be restricted or banned until such time as the airport provides alternatives for all passengers?

The hon. Lady makes a very clear case for why such a review of airport parking charges is necessary. One has not happened for a decade. It was great to get the support of the Liberal Democrats in the other place in backing Lord Moylan and the Conservative proposals in that space. Now that the provision is in the Bill, I hope the Government will not seek to remove it. There are obviously concerns about the impact that surface access targets have had on some airport parking charges, especially when, as the hon. Member has made clear, genuine alternatives often do not exist properly or are incredibly expensive. I genuinely find it difficult to believe that the Secretary of State does not herself believe that there is a simple link between Gatwick having a minimum target of more than half of passengers getting to and from the airport by public transport and the soaring drop-off charges. I hope that this perfectly reasonable provision for a review that puts passengers first will not be removed from this Bill. It would be great to hear from the Minister winding up whether the Government intend to stick with that important review, which was inserted against the Labour party’s wishes in the House of Lords.

Another point worth mentioning is that the Bill, for all the powers it rearranges and the regulations it enables, offers remarkably little vision for where British aviation should be heading. The Government have talked a lot about growth, yet have refused to set tangible targets to deliver it—whether in this aviation Bill, or indeed for passenger growth in the Railways Bill.

The Opposition understand that economic growth and the competition that fuels it are essential not merely to the success of individual airports and airlines, but to maintaining Britain’s global reputation as one of the world’s outstanding aviation nations. Yet too often this Government appear to regard the aviation industry less as an engine of growth and more as an ATM. Indeed, Labour Members seem to be beset with Tigger-like pleasure at finding new costs to impose on businesses, while growing the welfare bill rather more successfully than they are growing the economy.

Ministers must understand that every additional burden and every tax—air passenger duty or business rates—is having huge impacts on aviation. I was with Manchester Airport Group recently, which is now facing an effective tax rate of 77%, when corporation tax and business rates are combined, after facing a more than 100% increase in its business rates. Manchester is not alone; airports up and down the country are facing huge increases in tax. It will be really important for Ministers to address that as part of the broader concerns about growth.

Every charge deters investment and makes new jobs, new routes and greater passenger choice that little bit harder to deliver. That principle must also apply to the new powers given to the CAA. Can the Minister assure the House that significant new regulatory, safety and airspace decisions will be evidence-based, proportionate and subject to the proper assessment of their costs and benefits?

My right hon. Friend rightly points out the tax increases that airports are facing combined with business rates and increased regulations. We are trying to build a business case for commercial flights from Blackpool airport again, and such things make it really hard for airports that are trying to reopen routes and start new ones. Does he agree that that should be looked at?

I thank my hon. Friend for that. Obviously, the air space does not exist within the Bill alone. The tax changes will have huge implications, whether at Blackpool airport or at Humberside airport, which I visited recently. They face life-and-death pressures that will decide whether they continue to be going concerns. This is not just about airports and the jobs that they create directly, but the connectivity that they provide for entire regions. He makes an incredibly important point.

As has been the case with too much legislation of late, the Bill leaves plenty of questions up in the air. Where are the measures to secure the future of the workforce—our mechanics, engineers and next generation of skilled workers? Where are the measures to ease the burdens surrounding apprenticeships, an issue raised with me directly by the apprentices I met at Heathrow recently? Why is there no indication of how to champion our excellent aviation colleges at airports, such as the one at Stansted that I had the pleasure of visiting recently? Where is the plan to tackle pilot shortages? Has the Secretary of State not received representations calling for the Government to assist with pilot recruitment, or is she turning a deaf ear to them? Where is the vision for Britain being a world leader in single-aisle aircraft manufacturing, something for which the industry, as she knows, is clamouring to the rafters?

I know that the Secretary of State is incredibly busy selling out taxpayers in her latest meetings with union barons who have her over a barrel; she was apparently too busy to join me and many of the shadow ministerial team at the Farnborough air show. My understanding is that not a single Minister from the Department for Transport went to Farnborough this year. Perhaps she could correct me if I am wrong. It is Europe’s largest airshow, a symbol to the world of Britain’s openness and our leading edge in aviation, so it does seem quite bizarre that, while they were all sat there waiting for the reshuffle, none of them popped down. Maybe that shows the Government’s general view of aviation—they are just not interested. [Interruption.] It seems shocking that the ministerial team did not get there. [Interruption.] If they do not want to do the job, then rather than shouting at me from a sedentary position, we could just swap sides of the House.

Too often, it seems, the Department is in the business of delaying Bills. It leaves drafting to the last moment, and then tables reams of amendments to its own legislation, before expressing surprise that the Opposition might wish to scrutinise what has happened. We will not oppose sensible measures simply for the sake of it. Of course, we welcome stronger passenger protections where they are needed, and of course we want the highest possible standards of safety and security, but we also want a Bill that backs Britain’s aviation sector—a Bill that is backed by a ministerial team who also back Britain’s aviation sector.

We want a Bill that gives the sector the space and the economic environment in which to succeed, and that creates the conditions in which competition, innovation and enterprise can thrive. I look forward to the opportunity to table amendments in Committee. Hopefully, we can work together to improve the Bill, as Opposition Members in the other place did, to ensure that British aviation remains safe, is more competitive and remains world leading.

Order. Before I ask any other Members to contribute, I need to set the record straight. Government statements are within the gift of the Government. Urgent questions are the result of private and confidential conversations between Members and the Speaker, and whether one will be granted should not be speculated on, inside or outside the Chamber.

I would like to say that it is a pleasure to follow the shadow Secretary of State for Transport. I think most people here will want to address yesterday’s incident, its implications for passengers and the aviation sector, and more importantly—the reason we are here—the Bill. Most of my remarks, unlike those of the previous speaker, will focus primarily on that.

It is an unfortunate coincidence that this debate on the Civil Aviation (Consumer Protection and Regulatory Reform) Bill takes place the day after hundreds of thousands of passengers travelling to and from the UK had their journeys seriously disrupted by another outage at the National Air Traffic Services. So many passengers will be frustrated and angry about what has happened. Their plans are in tatters. What happened affected not only passengers, but their friends, families and, if they were on work journeys, colleagues and business associates. I must put in a word of praise and thanks to all those working in aviation, who are having to support and advise frustrated passengers and make alternative arrangements for them. Many staff, especially aircrew, could not get home last night. Our thanks and gratitude to them.

This is the third major outage of our air traffic control system in the last three years, and there is clearly widespread frustration in the sector with the system’s lack of resilience. The Civil Aviation Authority’s report on the 2023 outage eventually reported the following year. It had 34 recommendations, but as of last year’s interim update by the CAA, only 18 had been completed. I thank the Secretary of State for saying that she will report to the House on this, and will ask NATS to carry out a rapid review of the incident and bring forward preliminary findings by next week.

Although NATS says that the two incidents are unrelated, I hope that the Secretary of State updates the House on progress on learning the right lessons from 2023 and the recent outage. We can then start addressing the issues that many Members, as well as the aviation sector, have with the lack of resilience of this key part of our national infrastructure. I hope that the Secretary of State will also come before the Committee in due course.

Let me link yesterday’s incident to the Bill. Passengers, freight handlers and airlines have many questions about their rights when flights are delayed or cancelled, whatever the reason. Tens of thousands of people slept on airport floors once again last night, so I ask: are passenger rights fit for purpose, and will the Bill and the regulations that follow look at that—and hopefully address and improve the situation? We know that airlines are responsible for providing refunds or re-routing passengers after cancelled flights, and for providing care and assistance, such as refreshments and hotel accommodation while passengers are waiting for their flight.

Would the hon. Member like to reflect on what happened to me over the summer when I was flying back from a family holiday? Our flight was continually delayed, and we kept getting told that there were “extraordinary circumstances”, which we know is code for, “You won’t get compensation.” That was the message throughout the wait, but when we got on the plane, the pilot told us the truth. He listed all the things that had happened, and I believe he did that so that we knew that it was not extraordinary circumstances. Does she agree that removal of that phrase is key to changing passenger rights?

The hon. Member describes a holiday experience that so many of our constituents have had. There are two issues here. The first is getting information and updates regularly. Yesterday, one pilot had the decency to say, “Look, I don’t know what’s happening,” every 20 minutes; at least that gave some assurance to the passengers waiting on that plane. Secondly, whatever the cause of the problem, and whoever ultimately pays the cost of what needs doing, passengers have needs. They need toilets, refreshments, and a bed for the night—or at least somewhere comfortable to sleep. Should airports, for instance, be ready for these incidents, and have supplies of camp beds, emergency drinks, snacks, and baby food, and allocated trained staff who can come in at short notice to support passengers? Our local authorities have contingency plans and stores in case of incidents causing homes to be evacuated, and many of us have had to deal with such experiences. Maybe airports could learn something from our local authorities. Local authorities do not start by asking who will pay, or tell one resident that they are eligible and another that they are not. Instead, there is a set contingency plan. They open up community centres and so on. It is not rocket science.

Turning back to the Bill, I will cover first what is in it, and then—in an ideal world—what I would like to see in it. On passenger rights and protections for disabled passengers, I particularly welcome the fact that passengers with wheelchairs and other expensive mobility aids will now benefit from the removal of the limit on compensation. I regret the fact that, at this point, that can apply only to domestic UK flights, but I hope that this is an example of the UK leading the way, and that this basic right can be extended to travellers to and from other countries. Isb particularly want to mention my hon. Friend the Member for Bexleyheath and Crayford (Daniel Francis), the chair of the all-party parliamentary group for wheelchair users, who sadly could not be present this afternoon, and the work that he has been doing, both as the parent of a wheelchair user, and on behalf of all wheelchair users trying to have a normal family holiday while being treated with respect, as we all expect to be when we travel through airports.

I would like to say that that is all great, and that the problem is solved, but it is not. Disabled people still face a patchy experience when they travel through our airports. Our report, “Access denied”, published earlier last year, came across a number of issues for disabled passengers at our airports, one of which was the variable quality of contractors at airports. There is a huge gulf between the best and worst experiences that disabled passengers face—there is no single standard. I ask the Government whether some kind of single standard of treatment could be hardwired in, and whether airports and airlines could be made accountable. Too often, airports and airlines pass the buck when a disabled passenger is stuck on a plane or trying to get on a plane. Some airports, such as Gatwick, have put disabled passengers on their forums to ensure that their passenger experience is fed in. That is an example of good practice that should be the norm.

Also on accessibility, airports also need to consider how accessible their public transport links are. In my experience, airports too often feel that their responsibility stops at the perimeter fence, and that public transport issues are someone else’s problem.

On wider passenger issues, I welcome the strengthened powers for the CAA on consumer rights and safety in the Bill, and look forward to the Transport Secretary’s drafting of the secondary legislation on these matters. It will cover issues that all our constituents raise: flight disruption; lost or damaged luggage; accessibility, which I have mentioned; price transparency; and airline liability for passenger injury or death.

I commend the Government on bringing forward this Bill. My hon. Friend is giving an excellent speech. I have been reflecting on what she has said, and on the Government’s focus on taking away barriers to consumers—our constituents—asserting their rights, especially given the cost of living challenges we face. Does she agree that there may be a lesson for the Secretary of State from the automated delay repay system that we have for rail? If there are delays of a certain length, there is an automated system of compensation for passengers. Like the hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Vikki Slade), I have been reflecting on my experience. My husband and I travelled with Iberia, and are to this day owed hundreds and hundreds of pounds, which was not automatically transferred to us; we had to put a long time into making compensation claims. Why are these rights, which extend to all our constituents, not automatically fulfilled by the airline companies? Does my hon. Friend agree that the Secretary of State could reflect on that when she is drafting the secondary legislation?

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. The delay repay system, which we now take for granted on our rail system, except on the Eurostar, is a good model. I agree that the airlines could look at that, and I hope that the Minister will consider it as well.

On airport drop-off charges, I welcome the review but I would like it to be wider. Why do so many of our constituents feel that the only way to get to most of our airports reliably is to get a lift? How useful, reliable and accessible is public transport to many airports? In theory, Heathrow airport has lots of public transport access—far more than any other airport in this country—but it only goes between Heathrow and London, not to the south-west or the north, unless people get a coach from Reading.

On the issue of connectivity to airports, my hon. Friend and I have discussed in the past the fact that there is no rail link to Glasgow International airport. In fact, it is possible to get a train from Glasgow Central station to Manchester airport but not from Glasgow Central station to Glasgow airport. Does she have any comment to make on that matter?

I think I am right in saying that people also have to walk quite some way to get the bus to the airport. Talk about a lack of joined-up thinking in our public transport—and in this instance I include flying.

I fear that in this respect the UK is an embarrassment. When we travel on holiday or for other reasons, we can compare our airports with those that we travel to, and often the comparison is not very complimentary to the UK.

My hon. Friend is giving an excellent and thorough speech based on her and her Committee’s work. I agree with everything she has said, with one caveat, which is that even for those living a stone’s throw from the airport there often are not public transport links. In my constituency and my neighbour’s, many people who work at the airport cannot get there directly on one bus, so they are forced to drive and pay drop-off charges or park in questionable places, causing disruption to communities. Does my hon. Friend agree airports need to do much more on public transport?

Absolutely. For almost 40 years, I have dealt with Heathrow’s lack of interest in transport. My hon. Friend is to the north of Heathrow, and I know full well what he is saying. In fact, one of the section 106 conditions in the terminal 5 planning decision was that there be a direct bus between Feltham station and the central terminal area, without stopping. That would then create a fast link from Waterloo to Heathrow—this was long before the Elizabeth line. However, nobody marketed it or told anybody about it, so funnily enough when the funding gave out, there had not been enough passengers to make it viable, so it did not survive. I can think of many more examples.

Sometimes I come in to work on the Piccadilly and District lines, so I know that many people use those lines to travel to and from Heathrow, but they might go to, say, South Kensington to stay in a hotel. I have had to help an elderly couple who have come from Heathrow up and down the stairs that passengers have to take at South Kensington station. It is not a welcoming environment for visitors to this country. Obviously, the Elizabeth line has transformed that; it was long overdue.

My hon. Friend and neighbour mentions the Elizabeth line—we cannot miss that out when talking about connectivity to Heathrow—which has transformed my constituents’ lives. However, in line with another neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Danny Beales)—his constituents appear to be throwing stones at the airport; mine are not—may I raise overcrowding on the Elizabeth line? I know that that is being looked at and there is the potential to run further trains, but in the rush hour in particular, and when lots of people have cases, it can be a nightmare for my constituents.

If anything, the Elizabeth line has been a victim of its own success—that is why it was right to fight for Crossrail all those years ago. I will come back to the link between what airports should provide and the actuality.

Compared to our international competitors, our public transport to and from airports is woeful: it is non-existent at night or in the early morning, and too often what there is proves impossible for those with heavy luggage. I find it frustrating that the current airport expansion proposals—Gatwick has got all its approvals; Heathrow is in front of our Committee with its national policy statement—can proceed without the rail access that everyone agrees is needed. Those desperately needed train services are just not there. I also find that, compared with most other countries, access to taxis, private hire vehicles, buses and coaches is generally an afterthought or an inconvenience. Unless we address those wider issues, reviewing drop-off charges is just scratching the surface and passengers—rather, the person who is giving them the lift—will continue to feel that they are being fleeced.

Airspace modernisation is long overdue. It will cut carbon emissions and time in the air, which will be good for passengers and good for the climate. I was concerned about the potential for the creation of so-called noise sewers—corridors of noise across parts of the country. However, if the paths are sufficiently wide—NATS told me that they are 10 miles wide—the noise implications will be much less than was feared. The Transport Committee has not yet had a chance to look at that issue.

I want to cover what is not in the Bill but should be. One thing is staff safety. Unite, GMB and the other unions across our civil airports are calling for a clear, national, worker-led approach and response to the increase in abusive and disruptive passenger behaviour that staff face. A recent survey by Unite the union found that 90% of workers in one airport had faced abuse at work.

A member of GMB, the union that operates at East Midlands airport, told me that it was unusual if she had not received her first abusive customer by 5 am. There is real merit in seeing how we can ensure that the workers in our airports are treated appropriately.

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. We have railway behaviour notices, so I wonder whether the Government could work with airlines, airports and the trade unions to consider a similar standard and process for the aviation sector.

On EU and UK standards, the UK risks being left behind by the failure to reach an agreement with the EU on a number of issues. For instance, a faulty emergency services helicopter that needed a spare part was unable to use the one stored at a local airport as it was from the EU; there are probably other examples.

On recruitment and retention, the UK has long been an attractive place for pilots and engineers to come and work. We want to continue that growth, but the industry is in need of a mutual recognition agreement with the EU, the lack of which is having an impact on training, the mobility of the workforce and recruitment.

I will move on to the question of noise. Those of my constituents who have lived locally around Heathrow for some time know the noise patterns. Two thirds of my constituents are under one or other of the approach paths used 70% of the time when the airport is operating on westerly operation and the flightpaths are from central London towards Heathrow. Planes are overhead every 60 to 90 seconds for half the day, because we have daily alternation, so to some extent residents can plan when to be in the garden or have friends around and so on, but newcomers to the area can struggle to find the information they need about where and when there will be aircraft noise. Of course, tens of thousands more residents in parts of Hillingdon, Ealing and Hounslow will be underneath the new approach path if the expansion goes ahead, and they do not even know it at the moment.

There is a noise insulation scheme at most airports, but as a constituency MP I find it difficult to know which of my constituents are eligible, how much spend on works they can get and by when. Due to the timing of schemes being approved for different airports as a condition of their planning permission, there is a lack of uniformity across the country in what these schemes include in terms of sound insulation, ventilation and so on. Constituents—and MPs, too—are very unsure about who or what is the appropriate body to regulate noise.

Noise insulation is only one example of the various mitigation measures that airports are required to implement, but for us MPs and our councils and councillors, there is not a body with teeth that can ensure that any mitigation measures are enforced, let alone determine whether or not they are adequate, particularly when it comes to expansion. Mitigation measures can include public transport, which I have touched on, various community benefit schemes, and environmental recovery and enhancement. This lack of teeth—this lack of ability to be clear on the delivery of the mitigation—has come up again and again in evidence to the Transport Committee in our current inquiry on Heathrow expansion. I ask the Transport Secretary and the Minister with responsibility for aviation, my hon. Friend the Member for Selby (Keir Mather), to examine whether the UK Civil Aviation Authority or another body can be given the powers and the teeth that I know are not there at the moment.

In conclusion, I hope that the Bill can be further improved beyond its safety and passenger rights measures.

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

I start by joining the Secretary of State in thanking the House of Lords for its work in developing the Bill, and I pay particular thanks to the Liberal Democrat peer team led by the noble Baroness Grender. I also note at the start that it has been a season of reshuffles, and I congratulate the Secretary of State, the Minister with responsibility for aviation, the hon. Member for Selby (Keir Mather), and indeed the shadow Secretary of State on their reconfirmed appointments in recent reshuffles. It remains to be seen whether I survive the next Liberal Democrat one.

There is much to be encouraged by in the Bill. It necessarily fills in some gaps in our aviation regulation resulting from our leaving the European Union, it brings potential for improving passenger rights, and it enables modernisation of our airspace, which has not been done for decades, including air traffic control, landing slots and optimising main routes to and from airports.

Of course, the point about air traffic control is timely following yesterday’s NATS Holdings air traffic control disruption, which is a fresh reminder of the need for reliability. Perhaps the one thing I would agree with in the shadow Secretary of State’s speech is that a Second Reading debate on new legislation is a somewhat unorthodox way for the Government to be held accountable, and it is a matter of regret that the Government have not decided to make a statement to the House on that important disruption yesterday.

However, we do have some concerns about the Bill. As drafted, it relies far too heavily on delegated powers and secondary legislation. By leaving critical details to future ministerial regulation, the Government are bypassing meaningful parliamentary oversight and leaving passengers and local communities without robust statutory safeguards. The Bill, as it stands, also grants sweeping powers to the Civil Aviation Authority. Consequently, the Bill could be used to support more flights at any cost. We will be looking to the Government to engage positively with amendments that would make all changes to airspace utilisation subject to strict caps on noise, carbon emissions and night operations, and to accompanying improved transport services to and from airports to reduce their road congestion impact.

I note the assurances given by the Secretary of State that airport expansion is not connected to this Bill, but we will fight to ensure that the new powers in the Bill cannot be used to facilitate airport expansion through the back door, and that Parliament is properly involved in any future proposals that impact our environment.

The Liberal Democrats will also be calling for the Bill to go much further by adopting a genuinely passenger-first approach, with a focus on passengers with disabilities, who are so often let down by their experience of aviation travel. Critically, we want to see a statutory air passengers charter written on to the face of the Bill to enshrine these rights in law, tackling issues such as inconsistent luggage rules, airport drop-off charges, and disruption and compensation arrangements.

At this stage, we support the premise of the Bill, as modernisation is clearly needed. However, our support at further stages will be conditional on positive engagement with our proposals for putting passengers first and for environmental safeguards. Specifically, modernisation must be used to make the most of what we have, rather than increase the noise, carbon emissions, night-time and ground road congestion impacts of aviation. Only if the Government give assurances in subsequent stages that the Bill will do this, and that they will properly commit to advancing passenger rights and protections, will it retain our support.

I am pleased to speak in support of this Bill this afternoon. The UK has been, and continues to be, a proud, open and outward-looking nation: a nation of traders, travellers, adventurers and explorers—and, increasingly, a nation of people wondering why it costs quite so much to drop somebody off at an airport. The 302 million passengers who passed through UK airports last year, whether for work or for a week in the sun, relied on an aviation sector that is safe and efficient and that treats passengers fairly. For everyone else who may not be regular aviators, it is important that we are in the best possible position to support economic growth, hand in hand with efforts to decarbonise the sector.

For my constituents in Northwich, Winsford and Middlewich, the aviation sector is a key source of employment. We are home to Jet2’s retail operations centre and close to two major international airports, the Airbus manufacturing site in Broughton and aviation fuel production facilities in Ellesmere Port.

We once again find ourselves in the unenviable position of having to legislate to mitigate the haphazard and chaotic manner in which we left the EU. Aviation is one of the clearest examples of an industry where co-operation across borders is not an optional extra but an absolute necessity. Rules governing safety, consumer rights and the operation of our airspace cannot sensibly be considered in isolation. Regardless of individual views on Brexit, I hope there is an agreement across the House that Parliament has a duty to make the system work effectively, and that protecting the rights of travellers must be at the heart of that effort.

One area where the Bill is especially welcome is its focus on disabled passengers. The principle it establishes is an important one: that disabled people should be able to access air travel on an equal basis with everyone else. But this is not simply a question of physical disability; it also concerns neurodiversity, mental health conditions and passengers whose needs may not always be immediately visible. As the parent of a neurodivergent child, I know that for many neurodivergent travellers, airports can be overwhelming environments.

That is why facilities such as the Sunflower room at the now-closed terminal 1 at Manchester airport were so valuable. Having used that space myself, and spaces like it at other airports, I know at first hand that they provide a quiet space for passengers who find the main airport environment overstimulating. It is quite a good example of what thoughtful accessibility can look like. It is a relatively cheap and simple intervention, but for someone who might otherwise find the experience of travelling through an airport to be so overstimulating that it becomes a barrier to flying at all, it can make an enormous difference. Manchester airport did genuinely good work on this issue in terminal 1, which I hope will be replicated in due course in terminal 2.

Many airports also recognise the sunflower lanyard, which helps passengers with non-visible disabilities to avoid some of the busiest and most overwhelming parts of the terminal. I would certainly like a similar approach to be adopted across the aviation sector and for such innovations to become the norm. As the Government undertake their consultation on this area, I hope that Ministers will study examples of best practice and consider whether such facilities could provide a blueprint for airports across the country.

I am also pleased that the Bill addresses practical issues that disabled people face all too often. Everyone in the House will have heard distressing stories of disabled travellers being left on aircraft long after other passengers have disembarked because assistance was unavailable, or because wheelchairs and mobility aids were lost, damaged or mishandled. Those are not minor inconveniences; they can severely affect a person’s independence and, frankly, their dignity. For that reason, I particularly welcome the removal of the liability limit when wheelchairs, mobility aids and other medical devices are lost or damaged on domestic flights. That sensible and necessary reform recognises the essential nature of such devices and the impact that such occurrences can have on passengers who rely on them.

The Bill also provides an opportunity to reflect on the wider passenger experience, including drop-off charges and getting to the airport. For those living in my constituency, the Manchester airport western link, first proposed by British Rail in the 1990s, would represent an important opportunity to improve connectivity and make everyday journeys easier. Better access to the airport would not only improve the experience of individual passengers and airport employees, but support local businesses, attract investment and strengthen links between Mid Cheshire and international markets.

As Members may know, Manchester airport currently charges between £5.50 for five minutes and £25 for half an hour for someone to be dropped off directly outside the terminal. I accept that airports need to manage congestion and that we want people to use public transport where they can, but any charges must be fair and proportionate, particularly where passengers do not have a realistic alternative—and for my constituents there is no alternative, despite the airport being less than 10 miles away.

If a review is to take place, I ask the Minister to ensure that it considers whether passengers—particularly disabled passengers and those with additional access needs—genuinely have a realistic alternative to paying the charge. Drop-off charges are one of the issues on which constituents have some of the strongest views, and it is important that any review should reflect their experiences.

I also welcome the provisions in the Bill relating to airspace modernisation and the potential benefits of increased capacity, reduced delays and more efficient flight routes. However, technology and redesigning airspace can only take us so far if there are not enough trained air traffic controllers to operate the system. There have been shortages of air traffic controllers across Europe, and because the aviation system is so interconnected, problems in one country can quickly cause disruption elsewhere, as we have unfortunately seen this week.

From a passenger perspective, it makes little difference whether a delay is caused by an airline, an airport or air traffic control—if they are still sitting in the departure lounge three hours later, the impact on their journey is exactly the same. I would be grateful if the Minister set out what the Government are doing to address the talent pipeline for air traffic controllers and whether there is sufficient workforce capacity to support the growth in aviation that the Government wish to see.

Overall, I welcome the Bill because it seeks to create a more effective and responsive regulatory framework, while strengthening protections for disabled travellers represents a significant step forward in ensuring that air travel is more accessible, dignified and inclusive. I look forward to seeing the consultation process develop and to working constructively to ensure that the legislation delivers real improvements for passengers across the country.

Order. I will now announce the result of today’s deferred Division on the draft Plant Health, Seeds, Seed Potatoes and Plant Propagating Material (Amendment) (Northern Ireland) Regulations 2026. The Ayes were 371 and the Noes were 100, so the Ayes have it.

[The Division list is published at the end of today’s debates.]

I call Luke Taylor.

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker—I hope to continue the excitement of that result in the Chamber.

As an engineer, former aviation consultant and now chair of the all-party parliamentary group for the future of aviation, travel and aerospace, I know that hon. Members will have become accustomed to me calling for stronger growth in the aviation space, and to my belief that technology and innovation can enable us to do that while achieving our obligations to reach net zero and stop the climate crisis.

Aviation is the bedrock of our trade agreements. It enables high-value cargo to move along supply chains in a way that no other form of transport can. It makes it feasible for businesses to operate across borders and make connections with other businesses that drive economic growth forward. It has meant that the last three generations of Brits have been able to take advantage of affordable foreign holidays, with massive benefits for them, their mental health and their ability to expand their horizons and make enriching memories in unfamiliar settings. It has been so transformational for Governments, businesses and individuals that it can be safely hailed as one of the most influential technologies in history.

But aviation has come at a cost. Consumer and commercial aviation has, without a doubt, contributed to the climate crisis we face. Estimates suggest that annually aviation accounts for 2.5% of global CO₂ emissions. However, it has contributed around 4% to global warming to date.

As the MP for a constituency halfway between Heathrow and Gatwick, and given my former life in the aviation industry, I know that the politics of airports is fraught with complications. The impact on communities, if not handled properly, can be deeply challenging. It is my hope that the Government will listen and engage with the points I make about how we upgrade and improve civil aviation in this country for consumers, communities and the planet, and that they will have understood that events like those we saw yesterday serve only to underline how crucial this mission is, and how, following the third major failure of our airspace management in the past three years, it is imperative that this Bill is amended to include measures to stop that happening again. NATS is quite clearly not fit for purpose. We cannot suffer a major air traffic outage once a year. Following the outage yesterday, I am told by industry contacts that, again, communications with airlines were poor. I gently suggest to the Minister that whoever briefed the media that the disruption was akin to

“a day with bad weather”

should be found another position far away from the media team rather sharply.

In the Lords, amendment 65—submitted by Lord Young—would have required NATS to hold responsibility for compensation for disruption caused by its failure, rather than airlines that were not at fault for these delays. The Government declined to accept the amendment, and Lord Hendy responded in a letter to Lord Young in July that he was satisfied that, following the 2023 outage,

“the Government was able to place considerable pressure on”

NATS

“and appointed the person who led the review into the outage. This helped ensure that NATS took the necessary steps to prevent a recurrence of those particular circumstances.”

For the benefit of Hansard, I raise my eyebrow and glance at the Minister knowingly. I invite him to address this issue directly in his response and seriously consider the merits of that amendment—a change supported by the International Air Transport Association and airlines.

That specific challenge aside, the Bill needs to address three broader challenges, and I hope to work with the Government to ensure that it does. The first challenge is the generational risk of decarbonising aviation, which will require short, medium and long-term solutions as we work with researchers and companies to develop the breakthrough fuels that could reshape the industry. That is how we enable sustainable growth to drive our economy. The second challenge is the more procedural, but equally important, task of updating and upgrading our aerospace infrastructure to keep it competitive, while keeping communities impacted by these changes informed, engaged and fundamentally in control over what happens to them. Here we must secure our infrastructure at the same time as empowering communities. The third challenge is rebalancing the power mismatch between airlines and passengers, giving power to people and not the big airlines, so that the passenger experience can be as positive as possible, and not continue to allow airlines on some occasions to scam passengers like cheap fairground hucksters.

We need serious measures that will allow the airline industry to decarbonise. That will require the same collaborative work across the public and private sectors that informed the passage of the Sustainable Aviation Fuel Act 2026, on which I was grateful for the chance to work with the Government in passing. Such enormous industrial transitions take a very long time, and moving existing fleets and fuel infrastructure to green alternatives while they are still in use is outrageously difficult. Contrary to what some would like us to believe, however, it is not impossible. The interchangeability of sustainable aviation fuels and fossil-based aviation fuels, mixed and fed into the same pipelines and engines, makes this a transition that is unusually straightforward compared with other decarbonisation challenges.

However, the sheer scale of the challenge and the existing infrastructure is the real difficulty. That, as well as the laws of physics and Breguet’s range equations, which I have mentioned in the Chamber before, mean that by sheer necessity the industry may be among the last to transition away from fossil fuels fully. We should not be afraid of that—it is the reality of achieving the growth we need—but we cannot ground aerospace or regulate it into submission, because to do so would have a catastrophic impact on our economy.

We hear from neo-Luddites that we should effectively do that anyway—that we must constrain our horizons, put up with constraints and self-enforced recession, and tell families and businesses that they must put up with penalties and restrictions that their peers and competitors around the world do not put up with. The intention of protecting our world from catastrophic climate change is absolutely right, but these solutions are utterly wrong. Aviation is a Pandora’s box technology—once invented and tasted, it cannot be put back into the box. Like the internet or artificial intelligence, the only valid pessimistic question ought to be about how we transform it to regulate the externalities and make sure it continues to serve people, communities and the planet.

The positive question concerns how we grasp the opportunities it offers to keep pushing progress forward. That means backing decarbonisation technology, which is the only way to achieve the future we need. There are great examples of this being done in practice: I spoke about Operation Blue Skies as merely a concept in the SAF Bill debate almost a year ago, but it is now funded and ready to be trialled this winter. That is concrete proof of the progress being made. However, there are things that we are failing to do as a state to remove roadblocks to this progress and there is a need for real leadership from the Government to continue to drive these opportunities forward.

Yesterday, I chaired a roundtable discussion about sustainable aviation fuel to allow MPs to hear from the industry about the progress being made and what roadblocks remain. We heard how the pipeline of SAF production is not progressing at the rate needed to achieve the SAF mandate targets over the next few years, and that further Government action is needed to ensure that we do not plateau and then fall behind the target of 10% SAF by 2030 and of 22% by 2040.

At the Farnborough international airshow earlier this summer, I was fortunate to witness the first flying demonstration by a fully electric aircraft, and the exhibition halls showed the huge progress on hydrogen and electric aviation that will be the future of travel. Last week, the Hydrogen in Aviation Alliance released its report, “Hydrogen-powered aviation: a pathway to delivery and growth”, which set out a clear set of steps towards harnessing that exciting new technology. Particularly interesting was news of trials led by the Cryogenic Hydrogen Optimised Systems for Aviation—CHOSAN—consortium to be based at Bristol airport, which hopes for the first hydrogen-powered flight from a UK commercial airport by 2028. That is hugely ambitious and gives hope that solutions are available, but it also reminds us that the Government need to play their part in speeding up development and roll-out even more.

Whether aviation decarbonisation ends up being achieved by SAF, hydrogen, electricity, methane or some other pathway not yet discovered, it is a huge opportunity for us to grasp in order to continue our great British global leadership in aviation technology. The Bill does not bring forward specific measures on these decarbonisation goals, other than through improvements in efficiencies delivered by airspace modernisation. I see that as a huge missed opportunity, and I will look for chances to bring forward such measures in Committee.

Turning to the second task on infrastructure, I greatly welcome the elements of the Bill that will help to deliver the airspace modernisation that will improve the efficiency of the UK’s airspace, reduce nuisance noise pollution around airports and facilitate the decarbonisation I have just spoken about. Far from being change for change’s sake, airspace modernisation is a vital step forward in upgrading our essential infrastructure, which has not been maintained and developed to keep up with changing and growing demands, and is at risk of periodic and then more consistent failure, as we all witnessed yesterday. Airspace modernisation should be done as part of a wider project of renewal across our transport and otherwise critical infrastructure. The lack of modernisation is visible in the chronic and consistent mismanagement of our roads and bridges, in certain aspects of public services and even in the political infrastructure that sits beneath everything else in this country. That is why, to unlock safe and sustainable growth and drag our infrastructure not just into the 2020s, but into a state of readiness for the future, airspace modernisation is utterly essential.

However, my support for this Bill is not without reservations. In particular, I am disappointed that, in its current form, it does not guarantee communities a meaningful say over the impact of these changes on them. Progress and improvements in route efficiency will inevitably have negative impacts on many, with new flight paths and concentrations of disturbance taking shape over communities previously not impacted by noise. Those impacts must be considered carefully, and the communities impacted must have a genuine and meaningful say in the changes that will be delivered.

As I have said before, my approach is a desire to get to yes on delivering these changes, but doing so requires buy-in from the communities that will live with the decisions for decades, so my response to this Bill has to be yes, if: yes, if we build meaningful community involvement that actually changes options; yes, if we can ensure that the scheme is able to benefit from public scrutiny; and yes, if it can be done in a way that is sustainable and not likely to be unpicked years later because it did not achieve some level of consensus. While the moving parts in aviation are aluminium, steel and carbon, these are ultimately human systems. It cannot be that changes are made that deliver what might look good on a spreadsheet or on the maps that I used to draw in the aviation industry; this must be about how the human situation is impacted by those changes.

On Monday, I attended a meeting of the APPG on airport communities. We heard how the airport night noise effects study has shown the huge impact of aviation noise on families living near airports. While aircraft types have become considerably quieter over the years, the more we learn of the health and psychological impacts of noise disruption, the more it is clear that the science is consistent and the impact is real. As such, we must demand that programmes to mitigate those impacts are made available to all those affected. It is also true that as airline traffic approaches capacity and demand continues to grow, airlines are likely to upgauge their aircraft fleets, which typically leads to higher noise signatures from larger, heavier aircraft. We should also remember that the very constraints we put on air traffic are creating an increase in those disruptions.

The parts of this Bill that will make airspace modernisation easy to deliver must not be allowed to cut scrutiny of the impact of that modernisation on residents or limit their voices over the options considered and how final flight routes are designed. I am particularly concerned about the impact on communities in my neck of the woods in south-west London, at Heathrow and further afield at Gatwick, which have already been sounding the alarm about the impact of night flights, particularly on their wellbeing. I know that my hon. Friends the Members for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney) and for Twickenham (Munira Wilson) have worked on this issue for many years on behalf of their constituents, and this Bill needs to do more to protect the interest of their residents. I expect to hear shortly from my hon. Friend the Member for Horsham (John Milne) on a similar issue.

The Civil Aviation Authority and The BMJ have both demonstrated that living under night flights not just harms mental health, but will inevitably damage a person’s productivity the next day. In extreme cases, it can increase the risk of stroke. If it is done properly, airspace modernisation can improve many of these issues, but, where it cannot, we must insist on mitigations through soundproofing programmes or respite periods. Airspace modernisation has the potential to shift flight paths to less densely populated areas and lower the noise impact on take-off and landing with more efficient, steeper approach and departure paths that balance emissions with noise reduction, but there is no guarantee that it will do any of those things if those living in the communities affected are denied a seat at the table, either through badly designed consultations or top-down diktat.

Let me turn to my third and final challenge—I am sure Members will be glad to hear that. It is important to remember that the first two challenges will affect the planet and communities near airports, but the third challenge—passenger rights—is the one that will hit passengers most directly. In the Lords, the Liberal Democrats tabled amendment 36 to implement a passengers’ charter for air travel, with various targets for minimum service levels that an airline can deliver. Lords amendments 10 and 11 would have prohibited airlines from separating passengers on the same booking to force them to pay for assigned seating, or from forcing other passengers to sit next to an unaccompanied minor. Lords amendments 2 and 20 would have stopped the UK from implementing lower standards and diverging away from existing international standards. All of those are good things, and I hope to convince the Government of their wisdom in Committee.

However, my favourite amendment, which I hope to push for and convince the Government of the merits of in Committee, is Lords amendment 13, which would have required airlines to standardise the maximum dimensions for permitted cabin baggage across all air carriers in alignment with recognised industry standards. Who here has a Ryanair bag, 55 cm by 40 cm by 20 cm; a Wizz Air bag, 55 cm by 40 cm by 23 cm; an EasyJet and British Airways bag, 56 cm by 45 cm by 25 cm; and an Aer Lingus bag, 55 cm by 40 cm by 24 cm? Each one is subtly different in size, and each one is liable to set someone back a hefty penalty if the check-in agent does not like the look of them. No, I did not think so; we do not have that number of bags—or we do not have all four.

It is absolute madness. This is 2026; we have universal phone chargers and universal electric car chargers, and we have had standardised shipping containers for nearly half a century. There are also universally sized overhead lockers on aircraft, so Lord Hendy was not correct when he asserted:

“Aircraft have different overhead and under-seat storage capacities. Setting a standard size would necessitate using the smallest aircraft capacity, resulting in many passengers needing to use a smaller case or bag.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 16 June 2026; Vol. 857, c. GC71.]

That is incorrect and frankly insulting to the intelligence of the passenger who has just been stung for £75 by an over-zealous Ryanair boarding agent due to having an oversized bag, because they picked up the wrong one that morning, and that 5 cm difference cannot possibly fit into the overhead bin of a Boeing 737 but could slip smoothly into that of an A320. Passengers need protection from predatory practices; we need the BSS—the British standard suitcase. That is the well-regulated market that the Liberal Democrats believe in, and I hope I am able to make the Government see the benefit of that during the Bill Committee.

In summary, the Bill really is a huge opportunity to take meaningful action to improve our airspace infrastructure to reduce emissions, to improve safety and reduce noise and to improve passenger experience and make flying less expensive and stressful. Those are good aims, but they can only be achieved with careful and clear leadership that listens to the voices of industry, communities and those of us who believe that they must be delivered in the context of a wider rethink about how we maintain and upgrade our systems in this country. I thank the Minister for bringing forward the Bill, and I congratulate him on making a strong, if incomplete, start. I look forward to helping him fix the Bill in Committee.

As we now all reflect on the size of our baggage, I call Amanda Hack.

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker; you will be pleased to know that I have a wide variety of bags for my air travel.

I receive a lot of correspondence on airport-related issues, as East Midlands airport is right at the top of my constituency, so the improvement of customer rights and protections will be key. Having an airport in my constituency also means that I have an intimate understanding of the issues created by having an airport for a neighbour. East Midlands airport has been good at engaging with me on complaints that arise from constituents, but there is always more to be done with the local community. While I appreciate that we are unable to legislate for all in this space, I strongly welcome the Bill’s measures on consultation. Airports should be encouraged to ensure that they are as friendly a neighbour as possible.

Economically, we cannot ignore the fact that East Midlands airport employs 8,000 people, or that 375,000 tonnes of small airport freight passes through it every year. It is the largest small-parcel freight operation in the UK, with DHL, UPS, FedEx and Royal Mail all choosing to operate out of East Midlands airport. As a result, how we modernise airspace will be just as key for freight as it is for passenger aircraft.

Some 91% of travellers get to East Midlands airport by car, leaving just 9% travelling by public transport, which is actually the lowest percentage in the country. Why? There is not a single train station in my constituency and the one closest to the airport, East Midlands Parkway, does not even offer a regular bus service. People have to rely on demand-responsive transport from the closest train station to the airport.

Understandably, airport parking is one of the top subjects of correspondence I receive from my constituents, and even people outside my constituency have emailed because of the work my office has been doing on this issue. Drop-off charges, in particular, are a regular feature of my casework. Parking at East Midlands airport has recently been made barrierless—a lot of other Members have referred to that today—meaning that people can pay only online, or by using an automated phone line by midnight the following day. It can be really easy to forget to pay.

Does my hon. Friend agree that excessive drop-off charges can lead to dangerous behaviour around airports? The other day, I observed a taxi dropping off passengers in one of the lanes on the one-way system around Glasgow international airport, and I know that passengers are being dropped off further afield; they then have to walk along the side of the one-way system. Has my hon. Friend experienced difficulties like that in her constituency?

I thank my hon. Friend for raising that important point. We have a double red line zone around East Midlands airport, which makes things incredibly dangerous, particularly for those who work at the airport, and whose family cannot afford the drop-off charges. They struggle to get their loved ones to work safely. Of course, most airports allow people to set up an automatic payment account, but that is simply not accessible for all. Some people use drop-off services only once or twice a year. Airports are essentially operating a system in which it is impossible to pay at the point of sale. I have repeatedly asked East Midlands airport to install a pay terminal inside the airport building, but that request has been repeatedly refused.

The drop-off parking system is unfair, and I wrote to the parking management company, APCOA, to request data about the number of parking charge notices issued prior to the installation of the barrierless system at East Midlands airport and following the installation of that system. APCOA did not want to share that data, which I think answers my question. We need to look at the infrastructure around airports. On consumer protection, making sure that people can get to and from the airport safely has to be part of the conversation, because travellers and those who work at the airport feel that they have no choice other than to drive there, or to get a family member to drop them off, which adds costs to a holiday, or to travelling for work. I have raised this point with the Department before, and I would welcome an update on it from the Minister in his closing speech.

It has to be said, though, that East Midlands airport has been doing some really valuable work on supporting and encouraging travel for people with disabilities. Last year, its assisted travel service won a national award for its initiatives to make travel more accessible and easier; the Minister experienced that at first hand when he visited my airport last week. It has also introduced the first UK WhatsApp-based live chat system for assisted travel customers, and has invested about £1.5 million in specialist vehicles, mobility aids and terminal accessibility features. I have travelled on one of those; as somebody who is frightened of heights, it did not really fill me with confidence, but not because it was not safe. East Midlands airport has also installed improved signage, refurbished toilets and provided quiet rooms, as well as a Changing Places toilet.

Accessibility should not be the subject of a big, long conversation; it just needs to be embedded, and I think it is shameful that we are still having this conversation nationally. I greatly welcome the Government’s commitment to strengthening the rights of passengers, particularly in the accessibility space, and to removing compensation limits for wheelchairs, mobility aids and other assistive devices that are lost, damaged or destroyed by UK domestic flights. One interesting thing that arises when dealing with casework is that although wheelchairs are incredibly expensive, the time away from the wheelchair is just as important to consider. Replacing something specially adapted for a person is not an overnight job. They cannot order it from Amazon; it takes weeks to be delivered. Of course, there is more to be done on this, and I ask the Minister to set out in his response the timetable for consultation on accessibility issues.

As a parent of a child who is multiple allergic, the conversation about how we treat those with allergies on flights is a really pressing issue for me. I am greatly pleased that the Government have committed to consulting on a range of accessibility issues, including allergies. With 3 million people in the UK alone affected by food allergies, it is essential that these concerns be addressed. Natasha’s Foundation, the UK food allergy charity, has put together a detailed briefing on the issues that people with food allergies face on planes, including some real-life stories. I do not think we can overestimate the dedicated work of Natasha’s family, and the personal impact on them of the tragic loss of Natasha on a plane. I encourage the Minister to read that report. It includes the fact that about 10% of travellers with food allergies report having had an allergic reaction during a flight. Allergies account for between 2% and 4% of all medical issues that arise on board commercial airlines. I can genuinely say, as the parent of a child with multiple allergies, that sending her on a plane is absolutely terrifying. She travelled alone for the first time earlier this year, for about five hours, and was not offered food on the flight because the crew could not manage her allergies. We need to consider those matters extremely seriously.

In the light of the overnight air traffic control issue, I think it is also pertinent to talk about passenger, pilot and crew wellbeing in the event of a delay on our runways, and how it could be better managed through legislation. In February last year, I attended a roundtable discussion organised by the all-party parliamentary group on occupational safety and health, which was hosting a group of pilots representing the British Airline Pilots’ Association. We heard from the delegation about the ongoing challenges facing pilots, from regulatory failures to significant welfare concerns, particularly when boarding has already taken place. One of the situations described was pilots’ access to toilets. Delegates told us that pilots were frequently unable to use the toilet, and that sanitary items were often not provided for pilots, crew or passengers in the event of a delay. A key factor in the lack of access to such facilities is the fact that rest breaks have been driven down to legal minimums, and that too is something that we need to consider.

I welcome the Bill’s commitment to strengthening passenger protection and ensuring that the industry maintains the highest standards of safety, but I hope that when the Minister responds to the debate, he will tell us what actions will be taken to support pilots and aeroplane staff during delays such as the one that occurred overnight.

The Secretary of State commented on the extensive and continued disruption of passenger and air freight services that has occurred as a consequence of the collapse of the NATS system yesterday. That disruption will not be fully resolved before the weekend. For people and businesses in Scotland and across the UK, this is deeply concerning. It results in lost work time, affecting productivity, and it disrupts time-critical services, including medical flights and cold-chain delivery mechanisms. For example, about £1 million-worth of Scottish salmon is exported through Heathrow alone every single day, and that is just one sector in one of the home nations. That level of disruption, affecting all the home nations and, indeed, many other countries, cannot be allowed to happen again.

There is a serious question to be asked about the clear lack of back-up systems, given that this incident lasted for several hours, with an estimated quarter of a million passengers disrupted. I welcome the actions that the Secretary of State set out, but I urge the Department to publish an assessment of the cost of this episode to individuals and businesses as soon as practicable. I am certain that Ministers will have cross-party backing in holding hold NATS to account and ensuring that it has far more robust back-up systems in future.

I am sorry that my voice still has not come back, but I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising these issues. As he will know, Stansted airport is right next to my constituency of Harlow, so this has had an impact on many people in the constituency, not just those who are travelling. Does he agree that it has also had an impact on those working in the airport, because of the huge disruption that it has caused?

Yes, absolutely. People in airports up and down the country are having to manage the delayed flights at their end. Pulling in people from around the airport adds cost. Some regional airports are operating on much smaller margins, and the expense of bringing in additional staff has a significant impact on them. This incident will have been not just frustrating for many people, but quite distressing and very costly.

The measures in this Bill are predominantly welcome, and the SNP here and in government in Scotland is broadly supportive. However, I draw attention to amendment 33, tabled in the Lords, which introduced a review of airport parking charges, which was not in the Bill originally. I am not against that in principle, but the original text would not have required a legislative consent motion. It looks like consent will now be required, following the introduction of amendment 33 in the Lords, and I ask the Minister to address that point. If a legislative consent motion is required from the Scottish Parliament, it is essential that appropriate time is built in for proper scrutiny of this element of the Bill by MSPs, prior to Report.

I want to raise the issues facing people with e-visas. Many have not been allowed to board aircraft coming to the UK, even though they have a legitimate right to travel and gain entry, because ground staff are not sufficiently trained or aware of how to check and scrutinise e-visa documentation. In these circumstances, passengers who are incorrectly refused boarding may not have a right to be compensated. That can be hugely costly and is inherently unfair. The legislation provides protection for adequately documented passengers who are denied boarding, but it does not define what constitutes being “adequately documented”. The Prime Minister has talked about giving people agency, but many people in such circumstances clearly do not have agency.

For digital documentation, it seems obvious that the onus should be on the carrier to check it. A passenger in another country, with potential language barriers and limited digital access, is clearly disadvantaged if the onus is on them. The campaign group the3million has proposed a well-considered amendment to the Bill, which I am sure the Minister will be aware of. Will he give consideration to tackling that issue through an amendment to the Bill? It is a significant consumer issue for people who are entitled to travel and have a visa, but are refused boarding. It is a very costly experience if they do not get compensation for being incorrectly refused boarding.

I have two significant airports in my constituency: a civilian airport in Inverness, and an airbase at RAF Lossiemouth. Clearly, military aircraft movements do not come under civilian aircraft legislation, but people who live in the vicinity of a military base experience noise and environmental issues. I am not suggesting for a minute that there should be constraints that would make operational flying difficult for the military. However, in the case of regular training exercises and regular training flights, which is predominantly what most flights out of our military bases are, more work could be done to improve how the military communicates with local communities. The expectations should be a bit closer to our expectations for a normal domestic airport. Has the Minister considered that, and will the Department have conversations with the Ministry of Defence to see how much room there is for manoeuvre?

We do not necessarily need hard legislation that says the MOD must do x, y and z, because it would be wrong to constrain its ability to do its core work. However, we could explore how to minimise the environmental impact of routine flights on people who live close to what can be very noisy bases. They accept the noise, because the bases produce a huge amount of employment. People recognise their importance to the defence of the country, so they are very accepting, but that does not mean that this issue should not be addressed in the best possible way to try to improve things. We should always be looking for improvement.

Finally, I commute to this place 40 weeks a year, give or take, so I take 80 flights a year. I spend about seven hours a week either in airports or on aircraft. Like other Members, I emphasise that it is a predominantly positive experience, and is largely without significant delay, but when significant delays do occur and people miss connections, often to long-haul flights, it can be really distressing, so the consumer element and protecting people are absolutely critical.



I have regularly seen passengers who have been distressed about the circumstances they are in. Sometimes, they are flying for deeply personal reasons—bereavements and such like—and it is a more stressful form of transport than getting on and off a bus. Unlike people taking a single bus for a few miles and getting off at the other end, they have to plan for security, plan for their baggage and all those things. It requires a lot more thinking before someone gets on a plane, and for those who are there in difficult circumstances, it is all the more important that we ensure the experience is as good as it possibly can be for the people using it.

I thank my right hon. and hon. Friends in the ministerial team for their assiduous work in preparing and bringing forward this Bill. He is no longer in his seat, but I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Mike Kane) for all the work he did as a Minister in government and a shadow Minister in opposition. I also thank the Members of the other place for their work in scrutinising the Bill ahead of its coming to us here.

The Bill represents another example of how the Government are on the side of consumers. On taking office, the new Prime Minister launched a series of very practical, everyday fixes to improve consumer rights in a number of areas, including lowering costs and empowering consumers to take action when they have been inconvenienced. I see this Bill in that tradition, as another step on the path of improving consumer rights in aviation. By giving the Civil Aviation Authority direct enforcement powers and increasing transparency to ensure that passengers are always told who is operating their flight and how they can find redress, the Bill is another example of the Government rebalancing power back in favour of the consumer, and I applaud it.

My constituency of Macclesfield is well served by Manchester airport. More than 500 jobs in my constituency are dependent on the airport, which is the third busiest in the UK. I understand that it is the busiest airport outside London, and it is certainly the global gateway to the north of England. Like many people, I fly out of Manchester myself. It is a great airport, and a great part of the economy of the north-west. Perhaps not uniquely— I may be proved wrong—its major shareholders are mainly the councils of Greater Manchester, which is a great example of sharing prosperity from an important economic asset. I thank all the staff at the airport for helping 30 million people to get through check-in, security and the departure lounge, and to fly to where they need to be mostly hassle-free, and I think we should acknowledge that.

However, as I am sure is common across all airports, sometimes things go wrong, whether it is a bag that does not make it or a flight that is significantly delayed. Disruption can occur at any moment, and we have certainly seen that with the NATS events in the last 24 hours. Clauses 1 to 3 of the Bill will give me and other passengers much greater confidence that, when things do go wrong, they can be put right. Given the changing nature of air travel and global trends, it is right that the Bill empowers the Secretary of State to act on behalf of passengers without having to pass further primary legislation, such as on baggage damage, liability for passenger insurance, ensuring price transparency and ensuring flights are accessible to all passengers, especially those who are disabled, about which my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Cheshire (Andrew Cooper) made a powerful case.

These new powers ensure that the Secretary of State can be a true advocate for passengers and quickly update the rules to ensure that there is appropriate compensation when things go wrong. I was much taken by the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West (Mr Barros-Curtis) about exploring an automated delay repay system, which I think has great merit. I certainly want to see the new British standard-sized bag when it finally emerges. For a moment, it sounded as though the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Luke Taylor) had a particularly traumatic summer because of at least one airline. I look forward to the consultation that Ministers will bring forward within 12 months, and I will certainly urge my constituents who have written to me about their own experiences to respond to that consultation so that Ministers can act on their behalf.

I particularly welcome the change in clause 4 to provide greater compensation for damaged or lost accessibility equipment on domestic flights. As has been said, a wheelchair is a precious and crucial asset for disabled people. They sometimes—too often—have to fight to get a mobility aid in the first place, and it can often be specialist and extremely expensive. It is therefore right that if an airline is careless enough to lose or damage an aid, the compensation owed to the person it has left inconvenienced in an incredible way is made properly and is appropriate for someone who is unable to navigate with the freedom they once had. I cannot imagine the level of inconvenience caused to people in those circumstances, so I am glad the consumer rights in this area are being strengthened. With the Bill giving the CAA the same consumer protection enforcement powers as the Competition and Markets Authority, passengers will now have a powerful new ally in the fight for compensation that is owed but is not as forthcoming as it should be.

Beyond the consumer protections, I welcome the reforms the Bill introduces to the antiquated airspace management system of airport slots, schedules and allocations. It is particularly positive that the airspace changes will hopefully lead to reduced noise around airports for residents and decreased emissions through more efficient flying. These are sensible, long overdue reforms that help to make aviation more sustainable. Anyone who has been held in a stack while waiting for a landing spot can attest to the fact that a more efficient use of airspace to decrease the need for holding patterns is very welcome. It is good that the Government are reforming slots and schedules. We saw during covid that the current system is not flexible enough. Giving Ministers the power to adjust the rules, either in an emergency such as covid or to encourage competition between airlines, which is so important, it is a welcome step that will improve things for passengers.

I will finish on the issue of airport drop-off charges, which has been raised by Members on both sides of the House. I ask that Ministers think carefully about it in view of the scrutiny in the other place. A number of residents in Macclesfield have raised it with me. Manchester airport operates a barrierless drop-off. That is great for efficiency, but constituents have complained to me that the signage is inadequate, the prices are too steep and the period to pay is not long enough. Certainly, the fines for those who do not pay within that short period are punishing. Manchester airport, through APCOA, levies a £100 fine if the charge is not paid within 24 hours of drop-off or pick-up.

I simply do not believe that 24 hours is a long enough period for many people, including my constituents who have written to me on this issue. Many did not realise that they had to pay, not having seen the signage, which is inadequate. Some struggled with the online payment system, or the payment system rejected their car registration number. In one particularly egregious case, a constituent of mine was fined because their bank did not process the payment over a Sunday. There seems to be no reason why the payment period could not be increased and I do not see any reason why the third-party provider could not issue a written notice of the requirement to pay before a fine is levied. One gets the impression in these cases that the policy is designed to cause people to incur fines to increase revenue, rather than to encourage people to pay for parking in an orderly and appropriate way.

The idea of drop-off fines is to try to convince people to travel to airports via other means. My airport, Stansted, is very accessible by train and new bus routes have been put on, but in the example given by my hon. Friend the Member for North West Leicestershire (Amanda Hack)—we have discussed this before—that option is not available. It seems unfair, if there are not good transport links to an airport, that such charges exist. As I say, in my case it is not such an issue, but in my hon. Friend’s case I can see why it is a problem.

I completely agree with my hon. Friend. Earlier in the debate, my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Cheshire (Andrew Cooper) made the powerful point that his constituents live within 10 miles of the airport but do not have decent public transport links to it. That certainly has to be a part of the conversation as well.

Does my hon. Friend agree that if there are to be drop-off charges, then at the very least they should be increased only in line with inflation? At Glasgow airport, the increases since 2019 have way outstripped the cost of living and the normal rate of increases in line with inflation.

I totally agree with my hon. Friend. Every day is a school day in this place and I was not aware that Glasgow airport did not have a direct rail link to the centre of Glasgow, one of the UK’s most important cities. One might think, after however many aeons the SNP has been in charge in Scotland, that it might have seen that as a priority, but that is not for me say.

In conclusion, this is a very practical and pragmatic Bill, which I thoroughly welcome. I thank Ministers for all their hard work and I hope it progresses smoothly through its further stages.

First, I want to mention the events of yesterday. I will usually get letters from constituents all over the country about such experiences, because Heathrow is located in my constituency and they therefore think I am responsible for it—I usually send apologetic replies back. Behind the suffering that people went through will be a large number of staff who were working incredibly hard at all levels of the organisation to put it right. This happens on every occasion.

Nevertheless, NATS management needs to be held to account. The Secretary of State has said that she will expect a report within six months, so it would be helpful to have statements during that period to reassure people about exactly what did happen, as well as covering the actions that need to be taken.

Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that particular reference should be given to the previous failures and to the 37 actions, I believe, that should have been completed to resolve the previous incident, as well as explaining quite how this was allowed to occur again? As he says, it is critical that we get to the bottom of what happened, but also that we are able to hold it to account.

I think that goes to the heart of the debate that we are having, which is about levels of accountability within our structures themselves. NATS is accountable to the CAA, but who is the CAA accountable to?

I have raised with the Secretary of State proposed new section 61G of the Civil Aviation Act 1982, on the priorities and objectives of the Secretary of State in relation to aviation, which sets out that they must issue a document that is a directive to the CAA. The reason I asked about the proposed new clause is that, given the way it is drafted, I thought we were eventually going to move towards a more expansive document that would set out in detail some of the issues, particularly on the environment, for my interest, but also service delivery and so on. In fact, the document is currently simply a letter, a couple of pages long, that will be sent on a regular basis, usually annually, and laid before Parliament.

I thought that this legislation would be useful in giving us something more substantial; something that would be consulted on in more detail; and something that would set out a more detailed direction to the CAA as to how it should implement its responsibilities and role, as a result of which the CAA would then become more accountable to the Secretary of State and therefore to this House. The point is that when things go wrong, actions are agreed, but we never really get the substance of the follow-up on those actions. That is the problem.

I will just raise another example that people might remember taking place at Heathrow, which is when the substation went up in flames, and we then discovered that the fall-back operations were not working effectively either. There is a real vulnerability for the future. I think we need a bit more of an authoritative role for this House, in terms of how the Secretary of State can influence the CAA and make it more accountable. That is the main point I wanted to make.

I do not think that people realise the massive power that the CAA has and the implications that has for the lives and health of literally millions of people when it determines flight paths and standards of performance. The legislation needs further debate on other aspects as well, but I do not think we have got much further in establishing an effective structure for airspace decision making. There is very little independent monitoring in the decision making, and it becomes impossible to challenge, as the hon. Member for Horsham (John Milne) said, because local communities do not have the resources for judicial review—they are just on their own.

There does not seem to be the basic accountability mechanism that we would expect of other bodies performing similar public duties.

I understand what my right hon. Friend and other colleagues across the House are saying about the need for independent oversight, particularly on the aviation side, but on the consumer side, does he agree that when the CAA works, it really does work, as in the case of the constituent of the hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Vikki Slade)? Therefore, does he agree that is absolutely right for the Government to bring forward those powers for consumer protection?

I fully agree, and let me also say that wheelchair compensation is significant in this legislation. Most of us have dealt with cases like that.

Going back to accountability in the process, a number of different organisations have provided us with notes on the legislation. The Heathrow Association for the Control of Aircraft Noise, which I have worked with for over 20 years now, provided us with a helpful note. HACAN reminds us that when the CAA sets out airspace changes, the CAA oversees the progress of the stages and approves whether the consultation—its own consultation—has been adequate or not. In addition, it decides whether the proposals may proceed. It operates its own complaints route, and complaints on issues around airspace are almost impenetrable. The CAA has immense power, and it seems to be a law unto itself in many instances. It has been said in the House today that the lack of consultation is one of its main vulnerabilities.

New flight paths are already being prepared, discussed and considered. In the Heathrow expansion, when Heathrow puts forward its plan for a third runway, it will not be Heathrow that says what the flight paths will be. It cannot be; it is now the airport service that has been set up under NATS. In all my experience with Heathrow, I have never known a thorough and adequate consultation process to take place with regard to the development of airport routes.

I was hoping that we might get more detail in the legislation. That is why I come back to the issue of the Secretary of State’s document, which could be a really powerful mechanism. We could determine, through debates here—therefore, instructions to the Secretary of State—how the CAA will operate in the future.

On the environment, I feel that there is a real lack of firm duties and responsibilities set out in the legislation and guidance procedure that takes into account the health and wellbeing of people and communities. Reference has been made to noise. I cannot believe that we are still in the same situation where we have different noise criteria used in different mechanisms when it comes to decisions being taken. The Gatwick and Luton developments are using two different criteria—two different levels—from which they place the restrictions.

I have gone through the debates and discussions we have had over time and, as some hon. Members will know, we have gone from 57 dB to 53 dB, and then to 43 dB, which is the World Health Organisation’s figure—for the life of me, I do not understand why we do not respect its expertise in all this—and we apply different measures for different decisions, which are driven largely by factors other than the health consequences for people and the impact of noise.

The hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Luke Taylor) mentioned the all-party parliamentary group meeting we had on Monday, when we received the latest research. May I put on record my thanks to Dr Charlotte Clark, professor of environmental epidemiology and population health? She has done research on all of this over the years and is the expert. She looked at some of the health implications at the lowest levels of noise that we have been debating, and there was an element of shock for some of us: we knew about the cardiovascular impact, but we now know much more about the impact on mental health in particular.

One of the issues that has come out of our discussions—this includes the Heathrow expansion consultation—is that the latest research on noise and health impacts has not been sufficiently monetised in the discussions and consultations that have taken place. So decision making—particularly on the latest Heathrow expansion proposals—could be on the basis of health impact monetisation as a result of increased noise whose level should be perhaps four times what the Government have put forward so far.

Our constituents are becoming increasingly aware of the health impacts of noise in particular and are demanding greater protections However, from the legislation we are debating, I cannot see how those greater protections will be translated unless we have a stronger capacity in this House to determine the guidance given to the CAA and the parameters set for it in the decision-making process.

I will give hon. Members this example of the debates that have taken place. For the aviation policy framework, we dealt with 57 dB. For the survey of noise attitudes, we looked at 54 dB. We then went to 51 dB and, as I said, 43 dB in the aviation noise attitudes survey and the aviation night-time noise effects study analyses, which relate to the World Health Organisation. We cannot keep going on without a proper noise standard applicable across our whole decision-making process that reflects the latest research on health impacts. I do not think we are there at the moment.

I am pleased with the legislation, because there are some meritorious proposals that will no doubt improve the passenger experience, but it really does not take into account the community experience and the impact it will have. That is why the running theme is that somehow— I will table amendments with others—we have got to get a greater level of accountability, a greater level of transparency and a greater level of empowerment of those communities who are impacted. The proposal by the hon. Member for Horsham for an ombudsman is one mechanism that could be used and could be helpful as a longstop. At the moment, when people in my constituency are faced with these problems, they do not know where to go; it is as simple as that.

Finally, the debate that we will have on Heathrow expansion and the new policy statement will be interesting, given that we do not know what the flight paths will be. If I was a constituent of my hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Danny Beales), I would be extremely worried.

In my constituency, because the flights are largely east-west and west-east, we have the bizarre situation that they affect Longford where, when the aircraft fly over you feel like throwing yourself to the floor, and they affect a number of the Heathrow villages, but they do not as yet impact on the centre of my constituency. We now have the risk that the flight paths might well do that. So, again, we are talking about maybe another 1 million or so people being impacted by the development of Heathrow, yet in our debate in this House about the policy statement we will not have certainty about those flight paths. That cannot be right when making such a major decision. That is why I am hoping that when the Committee meets and when we come back on Report we can have a sensible debate about the sort of amendments that can be brought forward on that theme of accountability, because if we can increase accountability, we can increase confidence in Government decision making on this issue in the long term.

I agree with hon. Members who have raised the importance of aviation to our economy. Of course it is important; it employs a large number of my constituents, and we are trying to make sure that we create aviation capacity that is economically beneficial to the country while protecting our constituents’ health and wellbeing overall.

I declare an interest as the newly elected chair of the all-party group on aviation.

I welcome the steps taken by our Labour Government today to improve accessibility and protections for disabled airline passengers, to bolster consumer protections, and to simplify the legislative framework, and in doing so to boost our economy and the aviation sector more broadly. We have heard a lot today about the potential benefits of that. There are benefits as much as there are increased obligations for carriers, but I would be keen to hear more from the Minister in his winding up about some of the benefits that we can unlock on the airport and infrastructure side as well, because we have heard today from colleagues representing other small regional airports about the compliance costs associated with that. I would be interested to hear from Ministers how this Bill could address that, and what other support the Department could put in place to help small regional airports, such as Cornwall Airport Newquay in my constituency and a neighbouring constituency.

We know in the case of Cornwall Airport Newquay that the Cornwall Council approach has chopped and changed. As Ministers have heard before, that is deeply unhelpful, but only by improving the passenger experience, as this Bill doubtless does, will we be able to encourage improved passenger footfall and boost revenues to support the sustainability of airports such as Cornwall Airport Newquay.

I thank the Minister for the steps that Cornish MPs have already heard about in relation to the public service obligation. I appreciate that Ministers have left the door open to Cornwall council to continue or restart those conversations, should it be able to bring eligible bids forward in the future. That is really important, because as much as we can all work to promote commercial conversations with various airlines—and new routes have been introduced on the back of that—it is only through support for regional airports and by improving the passenger experience, as I know this Bill will do, will we boost the use of those airports.

We have also heard of the importance of transport connectivity—integrated transport. I know that this Government’s devolution programme and the extension of bus franchising, such as the work we are doing with Cornwall council, should prove fertile ground for improving links where councils choose to take up those powers and use them constructively. I use this opportunity, perhaps shamelessly so, to be an advocate for regional airports and the connectivity they provide to basket-case situations, as we see in Cornwall’s current transport links. I call on the Minister to go beyond these great steps that he is taking today to support regional airports such as mine in Newquay.

The UK’s aviation sector continues to grow, breaking passenger records year after year as people travel in their millions. This growth is undoubtedly good for the economy, for trade and for growth, and also for the everyday British air passenger, giving us more opportunities to travel for work, leisure and beyond. We are well served in Chester North and Neston by Manchester airport, Liverpool John Lennon and, to a lesser extent, Hawarden airport. Additionally, many constituents are employed in the sector, at the airports or at Airbus over the border in north Wales. The company Exolum keeps aviation fuel flowing through my constituency.

We must, however, make sure that as the expansion of the sector continues, we keep pace. Over recent days, we have seen what can happen when things go wrong; hundreds of flights have been cancelled or delayed across the country since last night. I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for her update earlier this afternoon on the NATS outage. We have a responsibility to improve the protections of air passengers, to give them the confidence that they need to continue supporting British aviation, and I believe that the Bill is the best way to do that.

My constituents have previously written to me to express their concerns about delays and disruptions to flights. In particular, one resident from Upton was deeply concerned about the cancellation of many flights worldwide earlier in March, triggered by rising oil prices. In recent years, major disruptions seem to have become more commonplace. From conflicts in Ukraine and the middle east disrupting flight paths and the cost of jet fuel to global pandemics shutting down almost all air traffic globally, these extraordinary events have had huge repercussions for the air passenger and highlighted the need for a more modern system that can adapt to a changing world.

On a smaller level, we are all keenly aware of the many ways that the cost of living crisis has had an impact on us all. People up and down the country work hard to save for holidays abroad. The increasingly common choice of short-haul, low-fare flights benefits us all, putting more money into a sector that employs tens of thousands of highly skilled workers, growing our economy up and down the country. But we must make sure that, as we look to modernise and secure the aviation industry, we protect the consumer and ensure that their custom is not taken for granted.

It is right that we work to strengthen consumer rights for air passengers, including over flight delays and cancellations, and to ensure price transparency for baggage and other costs that are often hidden through drip pricing. I also welcome the attention to disabled passengers’ rights, ensuring that future regulation keeps all passengers in mind and keeps access to the skies equitable. In our increasingly global world, securing our aviation sector is a vital aspect of our wider economic growth, but beyond that, the security for air passengers that the Bill proposes will work to ensure that this economic strength is delivered hand in hand with consumers’ confidence that they will be protected when things go wrong.

I thank the Secretary of State for her opening remarks and for the measures in this Bill, which are broadly very welcome for passengers and for many in airport communities such as mine. To share the Secretary of State’s comments, my thoughts are also with those individuals and families who face significant disruption this week through the failure of NATS. It shows just how vital air travel is to people right across this country for business and for leisure, and the impact when it goes wrong. Although it is not directly related to the Bill, there has been lots of discussion in this debate about the incident and about the lessons that we can and should learn.

At Heathrow, the major airport in my borough, we have now unfortunately got somewhat used to quite significant incidents. There was recently a grid power outage, which caused significant disruption, and there have been a number of other incidents. We clearly need to look at the resilience of our air travel system and at planning for such incidents, which are increasingly common and can cause significant and harmful disruption to businesses and individuals. I hope that there will be a thorough consideration of the issue, as the Secretary of State said there would be. The sector could learn lessons more broadly than from this instance and better resilience planning could be put into place.

The Bill is welcome news for my constituents and the travellers who come through my home borough of Hillingdon. The borough has not just one airport but two: we are home to Heathrow and RAF Northolt, which has a significant and increasing civilian operation involving private flights that come under civil aviation. We are not shy of or ignorant of issues arising from civil aviation—flights, disruption and balancing some of the trade-offs and challenges that come with air travel.

My constituency neighbour and right hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell), who is no longer in his place, has already talked about some of the concerns about potential Heathrow expansion and the third runway; I am sure that the House will rightly turn its attention to those very soon. Those of us who believe in a better but not necessarily bigger Heathrow need to see measures to address the current challenges that Heathrow presents, regardless of expansion. That is why the Bill is particularly welcome.

There will be much better consumer protections when things go wrong, as they sometimes inevitably will. The Bill also takes action to tackle some of the wild west behaviours and differences between the approaches of airlines and contractors; that has been mentioned when it comes to hand luggage, but there are also different, hard-to-navigate approaches when it comes to compensation and delay payments. Those who have experienced disruption will often remember having to hunt down air staff at 10 or 11 at night when the desk is closed. They have tried to find anyone who works for the airline concerned to find out what is going on and what compensation they may be able to get—only to get a £5 paper voucher for refreshments, which will buy about half a sandwich in an airport concession.

I support comments from Members about looking at best practice and upping and standardising the quality of provision, as well as learning from other sectors such as rail; the automatic “delay repay” system has been mentioned. For my sins, I have recently travelled on Avanti and have had to use that quite frequently. It is a helpful tool, and there is a quick compensation turnaround. Notably, the compensation is a payment for the cash that the customer paid for the travel that they did not get. Unfortunately, far too often the disruption payments from airlines are an invitation to travel on the airline again. A voucher to travel again on easyJet when someone has not been able to travel the first time seems perverse.

To add grist to the mill of all our travel experiences, I had a case in which a customer chose to pay for a seat allocation so that they could sit with their children. They got on the flight and were then moved, and had to claim compensation on the extra service they had paid for—otherwise they would not have got a refund. Does the hon. Member agree that these sorts of things need to be automated and quickened up to improve passenger experience and customer protection?

I wholeheartedly agree, and this Bill is a fantastic opportunity to address some of the issues that have lingered for too long in the sector. Boosting enforcement powers at the Civil Aviation Authority would enable faster enforcement when those rights are not applied. That is also welcome.

Members have rightly mentioned the need for a much tighter definition of “extraordinary events”, and the need to ensure that it is properly applied. It cannot be a catch-all opt-out for airlines, allowing them to get around the requirements. I strongly welcome the removal of the cap on baggage, specialist equipment and wheelchairs. In the Health and Social Care Committee, and in other debates, we talk a lot about the challenge of getting specialist adaptive equipment. It can take a long time to get bespoke equipment. It is incredibly damaging and destructive if it is lost or damaged when a person travels, and they are not able to reclaim the full cost, so I strongly welcome that provision. I encourage the Minister to ensure that when the cap is removed and the provision is applied, there are no unintended consequences—that airlines do not become unwilling to allow such equipment to be stowed and boarded, and do not refuse to fly individuals because of the insurance risk around their equipment. I hope that we will ensure that there are no unintended consequences of applying the right policy.

I strongly support the provisions around modernising our airspace. We have to modernise outdated routes, now that we have modern flights, and now that technology is emerging that has a much lesser noise impact. There are options and flexibilities that remove the significant impact on heavily trafficked flight paths. How we do this is just as important as if we do it; it must be done with proper assessment and consultation of residents. It cannot be right to have just a few heavily trafficked routes, leading to the piling up and circling of flights and an unnecessary additional burden on communities.

I support the comments made about the value of the Bill looking at abusive travellers and their impact on staff, both at the airport and cabin-side. Air workers face unacceptable amounts of abuse in all forms, physical and verbal, and it is increasing. The stats from a recent Unite survey of just 300 workers in Scottish airports showed that 90% had experienced verbal abuse on a regular basis, 75% had experienced intimidation and aggression, and almost a third had experienced some form of physical assault. We are becoming a bit numb to the abuse and regular intimidation that public sector workers and those in customer-facing roles experience; it happens to hospital, rail and shop workers. We have to take action; we have done, for shop workers. I hope that we can explore the issue and use clause 13, which gives a power to create offences to properly deal with airline and airport abuse. Crucially—Unite the union is right about this—this has to apply not just to abuse in the cabin; it has to apply to the whole journey, from entering the airport to sitting on the plane. Any abuse and intimidation has to be dealt with properly. We need a comprehensive system that ensures that when a person is banned from one airline, that carries across the whole airport system; the ban cannot put the staff at other providers at risk.

Finally, I turn to drop-off charges, which have been much discussed. We had a significantly busy Westminster Hall debate on this, which the Minister attended and responded to. This is an issue of great concern to my constituents. Charges have gone up significantly at Heathrow and at the other airports we have heard of today. Frustratingly for people locally, airports do not disclose what the revenue is used for. It is not clear whether it goes towards improving the situation, or is invested in community transport so that people can avoid having to drive to the airport. There are no direct public transport routes to Heathrow for staff and airport visitors from the north or Ruislip parts of my borough. It is incredibly difficult, particularly for evening and night workers, to get there on public transport.

I hope that the provisions added to the Bill will increase the transparency of information about drop-off charges, ensuring that they are adequately advertised, there are easy ways to pay them, and they are fairly implemented, and will ensure that the revenue they generate genuinely goes towards improving community transport. As has been said, the charges mean that people do not drive to the airport, but instead drive to the area around the drop-off zone. Local councils are made to pick up the enforcement costs relating to that parking, and to the illegal commercial car parks opened without permission. Through the review, I hope that we can properly address those issues, which are of significant concern to many of my constituents and my communities. Overall, I strongly welcome the provisions of the Bill, and I hope that it makes swift progress through this place.

It is a pleasure to speak in support of the important measures that the Government are bringing forward in the Bill. I thank the Secretary of State for the way in which she set them out at the start of the debate, and for the updates and assurances that she was able to give about the further work that will be done after the disruption to air travel over the past 48 hours. I know that my constituents who have been affected, as well as the constituents of colleagues from across the House, will welcome those assurances.

Something that is deeply important to me—and, I know from correspondence, to many of my constituents—is finally tackling the accessibility issues that have affected far too many airline users with additional needs, because those needs are not being met appropriately. Since I was elected, it has been heartbreaking to hear about the ways in which the dignity of some of my constituents has been failed, from start to finish, by the aviation sector, when it has not been able to meet those needs appropriately. The removal of the compensation cap is an important way of tackling some of the most egregious issues that have affected my constituents.

There is nothing more undignified than losing your means of getting around, on which you rely. The loss of wheelchairs and other mobility equipment by airlines is an issue that needs far greater focus, and greater compensation is a useful tool for driving that. The indignity that my constituents, and those of other Members, have suffered as a result has not been capped, so the compensation that they receive should not be capped either. As my hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Danny Beales) pointed out, when we implement these measures, we must ensure that we do not allow them to become an excuse for airlines standing back from serving our constituents. In his summing up, will the Minister clarify how we can ensure that after the important and long-overdue removal of the compensation cap, airlines cannot step back from providing services, and must finally honour their commitment to step up and deliver for those with accessibility needs?

People’s accessibility needs do not stop at the need to ensure that their equipment is transported safely and securely. From getting through airports to boarding planes to disembarking, my constituents with additional needs continue to face many challenges at airports, so I welcome the commitment from the Minister and the Government to thinking about how we can to go further to tackle those issues. In this day and age, when so many of these issues are resolvable, it simply cannot be right that so many people suffer indignity, and an impact on their wellbeing and their willingness to fly, as a result of a failure to meet these needs appropriately, be it in the airport or the fault of the carrier. I look forward to hearing more from the Minister about how the Government will consult on important measures to put that right. I am sure that many colleagues will intervene on him to hear at greater length about those considerations.

As the MP of a constituency that neighbours Luton airport, it would be remiss of me not to touch on the important things that could be unlocked by the Government’s focus on modernising flight paths. There are well-rehearsed arguments about the number of planes that should be flying in and out of airports, but there can be no excuse for using flight paths that do not minimise the disruption and impact on the communities around them, as well as the environmental impact.

It beggars belief that for decades, many flight paths across the country have not been updated. I am glad that this Government are determined to put that right, and are getting a grip on the issue. They are taking the powers needed to drive this forward, and to capitalise on new flight technology, so that we can hopefully significantly reduce the impact of airline disruption at take-off and landing—both in terms of noise and environmental impact. My constituents near the airport deserve to know that everything is being done to reduce the impact of flight trajectories on their day-to-day lives. A robust approach to modernising flight paths can play an important part in delivering that. The Minister and I have spoken about that at great length, and I look forward to him sharing a bit more detail about how we can use these new powers at Luton airport to improve the lives of my constituents in neighbouring villages.

We have had quite a bit of discussion today about how we can support people to get to our airports more easily. Luton airport and the pathways to it often run through my constituency, so a lot of my constituents—both those who use the airport and those who have to put up with the traffic from people travelling to it—have a really strong interest in it.

It was really encouraging to see the airport operator introduce a pilot scheme over August in which it refunded the bus travel of anyone travelling to the airport for their holidays. That seems like a great initiative to me; it supports public transport, improves the viability of our vital bus networks at a time when they have never been more important to so many in my community, and cuts the emissions of those who are able to use public transport. Crucially, the scheme also reduces some of the impact of travel to the airport on my constituents, because it takes traffic off the roads and puts it on the buses. At this stage, though, the scheme is only a pilot. I would welcome the Government’s consideration, through both national legislation and direct engagement with the airport, of how we can continue to encourage the operator to incentivise this type of active travel.

Strong active travel requirements have been put in place for Luton airport through recent consent orders, but the airport is not currently meeting those requirements. I urge the Minister and the Government, in their conversations with the airport, to ensure that it is meeting those requirements, to consider how the pilot could be extended, and to ensure that my constituents travelling to the airport can continue to benefit from free bus travel. I also ask them to ensure that everything that can be done is done to minimise the number of cars travelling to the airport. That will reduce pollution and, crucially, reduce some of the congestion for my communities. That sounds like a win and, with the co-operation of the Minister and the airports, I am sure we can deliver that big, bold win for my community.

A number of other issues have been brought up in the debate that are not addressed by the Bill, but I am sure that the Minister will want to come back to them, and we will want to echo the points made today. I want to touch on the impact on those who work in the airline industry of the real rise in abuse and misbehaviour on planes. My constituency is near the airport, and a number of my constituents are very proud to work for airlines. They take great joy in the work that they do, and feel it is a great privilege to do it; they feel lucky to have the opportunity to do so on their doorstep. However, year after year, we have seen a worrying trend of increasing abusive behaviour from passengers. It has, on occasion, turned that dream to a daily nightmare.

Unite the Union’s survey shows some pretty damning statistics about the increasing incidence of abuse of airline staff, and it is behoves all of us in this House to ensure that we take note and act accordingly. It simply cannot be right that 75% of airline staff surveyed were subject to verbal abuse recently, or that a third of them have been subject to physical intimidation or assault. It is in our power to start to put that right. Others have alluded to the fact that we see this worrying trend across public-facing services, but it behoves all of us in this House not to accept that worrying trend and instead to act on it. We must step up and protect our aviation workers and their right to work in a safe and secure workplace. We must ensure that they know that we, not just their employer, have their backs when they are subject to abuse.

I thank the Minister and the Government for everything that they have already done in this Bill, particularly to get a grip on modernising flight paths. I truly hope that can improve the wellbeing of my community and reduce the polluting impact of flights taking off and landing at Luton airport. I look forward to further discussion, in this debate and beyond, about how we can continue to improve the Bill in order to protect workers and ensure that we are doing everything we can to improve accessibility for passengers at airports.

I call the shadow Minister.

This has been a positive debate. I reiterate the call of the shadow Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Holden), and the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, the hon. Member for Didcot and Wantage (Olly Glover), for the Government to make a statement on the third catastrophic systems failure of NATS. It is simply not good enough that the Secretary of State has come to the House only for Second Reading, and not to take questions from hon. Members. I am also deeply concerned to hear that she thinks six months is an acceptable time to take to report on this subject.

The Opposition’s ambition is to foster the conditions for a safe, competitive and world-leading aviation industry, which appears to be an uncontroversial aim. However, as was highlighted by the shadow Secretary of State, while this is an important administrative Bill, the soaring ambition the sector deserves is sadly missing.

I thank right hon. and hon. Members for their contributions today. The hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Luke Taylor) provided significant support for Lord Young’s amendment in the Lords, but I particularly enjoyed hearing about his British standard suitcase. The wider consensus has related to airport drop-off charges, and we have heard Members from right across the House endorse a review and keeping clause 7 in the Bill. The Chairman of the Transport Committee, the hon. Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Ruth Cadbury), and the hon. Members for Didcot and Wantage (Olly Glover), for Mid Cheshire (Andrew Cooper), for Hitchin (Alistair Strathern), for Macclesfield (Tim Roca), for North West Leicestershire (Amanda Hack) and for St Austell and Newquay (Noah Law) all mentioned that subject—and spoke at length, in some cases. I endorse their thoughts on the issue.

The Opposition believe in the world-leading potential of our aviation sector. We want to encourage the enterprise, innovation and competition that will help it to thrive. However, on the searing cost to consumers of drop-off charges at airports, we urge the Government to keep clause 7 in the Bill. The Government’s surface access strategies and targets incentivise such charges while penalising drivers. Airports openly use them to discourage people from travelling to the airport by car. At Gatwick, an airport heavily used by my constituents in Bognor Regis and Littlehampton, it now costs £10 for 10 minutes—that is £1 a minute to drop off a loved one.

This cost is felt disproportionately by disabled and elderly passengers and others with limited mobility. For them, using public transport to get to the airport may not be an option. The Opposition welcome the fact that the Bill will provide greater protections for disabled passengers at the airport, yet it must not make it more expensive for them to get there. The Government must address that contradiction, and they should accept clause 7.

Yesterday we saw the limits of the consumer protections put in place by the Bill: a national air traffic control systems failure that has resulted in 900 flights—so far—being disrupted. The knock-on disruptions are likely to last for days. In the Lords, the Government voted down Lord Young’s amendment, which would have mandated a scheme to reimburse airlines and passengers for failures outside their control. The Government assured peers that a reimbursement scheme was unnecessary, yet now airlines and passengers will be forced to pick up the tab for cancellations over which they have no control. Is that fair?

I want to close by expressing my thanks to Conservative and Lib Dem colleagues in the other place, led by Lord Moylan. After their hard work, the Bill now delivers the necessary continuity of regulation that keeps our aviation industry safe, following our departure from the European Union, and it enhances the safeguards around travel arrangements for disabled passengers. Despite the concerns that we have outlined, His Majesty’s loyal Opposition will support the Bill’s progress through the House, together with its aims of driving economic growth, strengthening aviation security and enhancing consumer protections.

It is great to be back at the Dispatch Box, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I thank all Members for their participation in today’s debate. Before I begin, I too would like to acknowledge the significant disruption caused by yesterday’s air traffic control fault, and apologise to all passengers whose travel plans were affected. As those events have shown, civil aviation is a cornerstone of our national prosperity, supporting jobs, investment and connectivity across the United Kingdom. This Bill is an important piece of legislation, and one that is rightly regarded as an opportunity to strengthen a critical sector for the United Kingdom.

The aviation sector has evolved significantly in recent years as a result of rapid technological developments, new aircraft capabilities and the emergence of new airspace users, including drones. The regulatory framework requires modernisation to adapt to these developments. At the same time, the UK’s departure from the European Union has limited our ability to update certain areas of aviation regulation. The sector has also had to respond to major external shocks, from the unprecedented disruption caused by covid-19 to, more recently, instability in the middle east. To meet these challenges, we need a framework that is flexible enough to adapt to change, support innovation and keep passengers at its heart. The Bill will help deliver that framework.

The Government have listened carefully to the scrutiny that the Bill received in the House of Lords. We made a number of significant changes during its passage through the other place, particularly to strengthen accessibility provisions, passenger protections, accountability and parliamentary oversight. I thank peers from across the political parties and the Minister, the noble Lord Hendy, for their efforts in achieving this. As a result, the Bill that is before the House today is stronger than the one first produced.

I have paid close attention to the points raised by Members across the House this evening, and I would like to address them in turn. I will start with the remarks of the shadow Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Holden), and the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Alison Griffiths), who I warmly welcome to her place—it is great to be working alongside her. They have made an impassioned defence of the aviation sector and aviation businesses; I only wish there were more Conservative Back Benchers in the Chamber to listen to their impassioned pleas. I will make two points, the first of which is on the shadow Secretary of State’s point about making a statement. From my experience as a Government Whip, it is never wise to question Mr Speaker’s decisions about what is allocated or not allocated in this House.

Will the Minister give way?

I will just finish my point. I am, however, more than happy to come and answer any questions the Secretary of State may have in this place.

The shadow Minister made an important point about the fact that the Secretary of State has asked the CAA to report within six months. When we had the major outage in 2023, it took two years for the CAA to make a similar report. In that report, it made 34 recommendations, of which 32 have been implemented, so a six-month timeframe is a much shorter, sharper window in which to get definitive answers to these questions. NATS is also required to provide a report to the CAA within a week of the incident taking place, to fully explain the implications of what has happened.

I will now give way to the shadow Secretary of State.

I just wanted to make it very clear that I was in no way questioning what Mr Speaker decided. When he spoke to me, he made it very clear that his understanding was that the Government were going to make a statement. [Interruption.] Government Front Benchers may shake their heads, but that is what I was told by Mr Speaker.

Order. I understand the points that are being raised, but the right hon. Gentleman would be well advised to not relate private conversations with Mr Speaker to the Chamber.

Thank you very much, Madam Deputy Speaker. The point I was making was that I was basically being accused by the Minister of saying something that I had not said. I just wanted to make clear what was said, because the real question here is one of parliamentary scrutiny.

If the shadow Secretary of State is of the opinion that I have mischaracterised what he said, I will of course withdraw that statement, but I suppose we should let the usual channels take their course in figuring that out. I should add that I was slightly remiss in what I said earlier: not 32 but all 34 of the recommendations have been implemented.

Let me now turn to a serious point raised by the shadow Secretary of State about drop-off charges and the amendment that was made in the House of Lords. I can confirm that the Government have no objection to conducting a review of this matter, although we need to think carefully about the terms of such a review and about the time that it will take to ensure that we can engage with the range of issues that Back Benchers have raised today about transparency, charging, ability to pay and free drop-off points.

I understand people’s frustrations when public transport challenges prevent them from accessing airports. My hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield (Tim Roca) made that point very powerfully. I should also acknowledge, however, that airport drop-off charges operate as part of a wider framework. They are often used to manage congestion—a point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Chris Vince)—to meet mode share targets, and to fund infrastructure improvements. However, all that could be part of the conversation that takes place through a review, and our approach will, of course, always be to protect passengers while supporting our airports as businesses.

I am being spoilt! I give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin (Alistair Strathern).

My hon. Friend will probably have heard me speak at great length today—for purely good reasons—about the importance of the subsidised bus travel that Luton airport offered over the summer holidays, not just to my constituents but to anyone intending to travel from the airport in August. Might not such subsidies, as opposed to just increasing the cost of drop-offs, be a positive way to encourage people to make that modal shift and travel sustainably, and to take people out of cars and on to buses when they travel to Luton airport in the future?

That is an intriguing idea, and I should be very glad to meet my hon. Friend to discuss it further. Of course we want to promote the use of public transport to reach our airports by as many people as possible. Let me now give way to my hon. Friend from the Transport Committee.

Of course, none of us wants to see the roads approaching our airports become more congested than they already are, but I checked Gatwick airport’s website—we heard about Gatwick earlier—and it seems that for blue badge holders it is free to use the drop-off service. Irrespective of when the review takes place, or even if it takes place, I am sure the Minister agrees that no airport in the UK should apply drop-off charges to blue badge holders, and that it should be easy for those people to access airports.

My hon. Friend has made a powerful point. He is, of course, right: people with disabilities are disproportionately more likely to use drop-off services at airports than other customers, so it is for airports to facilitate that whenever possible. I am pleased to say that, more often than not, robust procedures are in place to ensure that passengers with disabilities have free drop-offs at airports, but that needs to be adopted widely throughout the sector.

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way—he has been very generous. May I pursue the point about enabling more people to travel to airports on public transport? I have raised with him my fear that the draft Heathrow expansion national policy statement is not strong enough to ensure that, if we are to have a third runway at Heathrow, we will also have improved rail links, including a southern rail link, which could well benefit my constituents. May I urge him, as the Government look at the responses to that consultation, to think again and strengthen the policy to ensure that we get not only the third runway, but the infrastructure that would be needed to support it?

My hon. Friend is right to say that that should be our focus. All four of the tests that we have set out on which a development consent order for Heathrow expansion would be granted are dependent on ensuring that we have adequate surface access to the airport, both for his constituents and people across the country and for the people who work at the airport. That relates to air quality and to carbon impacts. It must be a focus, and it will be considered, now that the consultation has closed.

I share the anger and frustration expressed by the Chair of the Transport Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Ruth Cadbury), on behalf of the passengers who have been affected over the past two days, but I also thank the staff and the aircrew aboard planes for the difficult work that they have undertaken to ensure that people are ultimately safe and their welfare is protected. I understand that many of the constituents of my right hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) will be doing that important work.

My hon. Friend the Member for Brentford and Isleworth asked whether passenger rights are fit for purpose at present. The Bill gives us the power to update passenger rights when we feel that they do not go far enough. Doing that through secondary legislation will ensure that all Members can feed their experiences into the process. Clause 3 also means that the Secretary of State must have particular regard to those who are most adversely affected when things go wrong and disruption occurs.

My hon. Friend the Member for Brentford and Isleworth spoke powerfully about the need to have proper resilience and contingency planning for airports in relation to people with disabilities, but also to parents with baby food. All these considerations need to be part of the process, and I thank her for championing the work of my hon. Friend the Member for Bexleyheath and Crayford (Daniel Francis), who speaks incredibly powerfully about his family’s experience of using a wheelchair to travel and fly. I hope he is reassured that the measure in the Bill that lifts the compensation cap for damage to wheelchairs on domestic flights goes far enough.

The Chair of the Transport Committee also made the point that there needs to be a single standard of treatment for everybody who uses our airports, building on the commitments in her Committee’s fantastic report, “Access Denied”. I can confirm that the Department is looking at this issue very closely through an accessible travel charter, spearheaded by my hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield and Rothwell (Simon Lightwood). It will have key expectations, pledges and commitments, and it will make sure that treatment is consistent for passengers with disabilities from the train that they board to get to the airport to the aeroplane door. That is incredibly important.

My hon. Friend the Member for Brentford and Isleworth made a broader point about public transport access in relation to airport drop-off charges, and her point about taxi access is something that I would be glad to discuss with her further. I know that it can cause unintended consequences and community disruption, particularly around unlicensed taxis, and I know that is also an issue for my hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Danny Beales).

My hon. Friend the Member for Brentford and Isleworth and other Members are right to point to the issue of staff safety. We should all be clear in this House that any form of abuse or intimidation of those who work at our airports is totally unacceptable. The Government will work with airports and airlines to stamp it out wherever we can, and work on this issue should be forthcoming shortly. I am very pleased to be meeting Unite the union to discuss this matter tomorrow, and I thank it for its consistent campaigning on this work.

The hon. Member for Didcot and Wantage (Olly Glover) made a really important point about scrutiny and delegated powers being part of this Bill, and asked whether there has been overreach. I believe that the provisions in the Bill that relate to CAA rule making and the need to have safety rule-making powers within the CAA are necessary, because aviation safety rule making is highly technical. It is fast-moving, yet the current system forces every change through a process that is very duplicative and resource intensive. There are strong safeguards for that process, and Ministers will be able to set the CAA’s priorities through a published framework. During the Bill’s passage in the Lords, the Government introduced amendments to strengthen parliamentary scrutiny of the new aviation rule-making framework and implemented all the associated recommendations from the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, which the hon. Member knows is assiduous in its efforts to ensure that Parliament is robustly consulted on these issues. More broadly, I am glad that he and his colleagues are supporting the Bill at Second Reading, and I look forward to engaging constructively with him on his amendments.

My hon. Friend the Member for Mid Cheshire (Andrew Cooper) spoke powerfully about his experiences at Manchester airport with regard to both the use of sunflower lanyards and the airport’s Sunflower room. This Bill is about giving the CAA the ability to ensure that consumer standards are upheld and to strengthen people’s rights, but we cannot omit the excellent work that is already happening at airports up and down the country. The staff make those places positive areas from which to travel for people across our country, and I think that needs to be recognised as part of this debate.

My hon. Friends the Members for Hitchin and for Uxbridge and South Ruislip both expressed concern that when the compensation cap is lifted for damage to wheelchairs on domestic flights, airports and airlines might withdraw their willingness to take wheelchairs on to planes. I can assure my hon. Friends that I think airports and airlines will work hard to comply with these measures, but the Bill contains provisions for the CAA to enforce consumer rights, and I am sure that will be part of any process that takes place in this space. More broadly, although the Bill extends to domestic flights—there is an issue with extending it any further due to the Montreal convention—I was pleased to speak to the United Kingdom’s permanent representative to the International Civil Aviation Organisation this morning about this very issue and how we might raise it more robustly in international fora. 

The hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Luke Taylor) raised our common obligation to think about all questions affecting aviation with a simultaneous consideration of their effects on the planet. I am glad that he thinks that we are engaging adequately on some of these questions, and I am always happy for him to push me further when he thinks we are not. We are developing a world-leading SAF mandate and revenue certainty mechanism. Changes to airspace modernisation can mean that flights are more efficient and burn less fuel. The jet zero strategy is pushing us much further in this direction.

More broadly, through the future of flight industry group, the Department for Transport is undertaking pioneering work on aviation sustainability, electric and hydrogen as forms of propulsion in aviation, and promoting higher standards through CORSIA—the carbon offsetting and reduction scheme for international aviation—at ICAO. So I hope that the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam feels that we are moving in the right direction, although I am always happy for him to push me further.

The hon. Gentleman asked me a valid question about oversight of the CAA and NATS, and this was also asked by my right hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington. The hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam shares my view that we need to do everything possible to minimise the chance of what happened yesterday happening again. He will know that the CAA, as a regulator, can put mechanisms on NATS for delay-related targets, alongside penalties that reduce airline charges when targets are missed, but we know that we need to go further. We know that more needs to be done, and as the Secretary of State said, the CAA will undertake an independent investigation to understand what happened. By asking the CAA to review immediately, we as Ministers can ensure that there is strong oversight for passengers. If the hon. Gentleman believes that this should lead to further enhancements for air passenger rights, it is clause 1 of the Bill that will allow us to do so. His point was very well made.

Turning to my hon. Friend the Member for North West Leicestershire (Amanda Hack), it was a pleasure to visit East Midlands airport the other week. She raised an opportunity, which presents itself in this Bill through its measures on slot regulation, to think about how we can help our air freight sector to perform in a more agile way, to move more goods through our airports and to boost growth for UK plc. She also raised questions about allergies and how we can protect passengers with allergies when they are travelling. That is incredibly important, which is why it is in the Bill and will form part of the consultation formed under clause 2. She asked me when the consultation on these issues will take place, and it will be within 12 months of the passage of the Bill. I thank her and my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay (Noah Law) for making powerful arguments in defence of our regional airports.

I thank the hon. Member for Moray West, Nairn and Strathspey (Graham Leadbitter) for his offer to work on a cross-party basis to ensure that we learn the lessons from what happened yesterday and ensure effective oversight of NATS. I say to him that we are in the early stages of understanding what the impact is on consumers and the aviation sector, but I will of course do my very best to keep the House informed as we get more information. I will pass on to the Ministry of Defence the issues he raised to do with the MOD and RAF Lossiemouth about the regular training exercises, their noise impacts and how that intersects with civil aviation, and then I will write to him on the issue.

The Minister is making an excellent speech—the take-off was fantastic and I am looking forward to seeing the landing. I want to ask him about the recent fire at an electricity substation at Heathrow airport—the point raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell). I am very aware that we are seeing increasingly extreme weather—we had the heat over the summer and I suspect we will have extreme cold during the winter—so has the Minister considered the challenges that our aviation sector will face and what does he think the Government can do to mitigate those issues?

I thank my hon. Friend for saying my speech is fantastic, and it is certainly detailed. I know that we have been cruising at altitude for some time, so I will do my best to get on with it. He raises a broader point about climate resilience at our airports, and I can assure him that the DFT takes this matter incredibly seriously and is progressing work across the Government to think about how we can become more adaptive, in partnership with the private sector, to deal with these issues.

Turning to the matter of the legislative consent motion in relation to clause 7, I confirm to the hon. Member for Moray West, Nairn and Strathspey that it does engage the legislative consent process for both Scotland and Northern Ireland. My officials are engaging with their counterparts on this matter, and I will be sure to keep him informed.

The hon. Member for Horsham (John Milne) asked me about the subject of his private Member’s Bill on creating an ombudsman for the CAA. My view is that the costs of setting up a potential ombudsman outweigh the benefits it would bring. Complex CAA decisions, such as changes to flight paths, are already subject to extensive consultation. I am of the view that the CAA has robust remedies for people dissatisfied with customer service issues, including consideration by the independent complaints assessor, while the work of the CAA is also subject to oversight by the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman, and that is before we get into a broader conversation about the CAP 1616 process. However, I am happy to discuss this with him after today’s debate and ahead of Committee consideration to think about what more we can do to address his concerns.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington also raised a concern about the CAA reporting within six months and us not dealing with the situation with the immediacy it requires. I can assure him that a report will be coming through from NATS to the CAA within a week. That will provide its initial assessment of what has taken place. We will shortly have more to say on what the impacts are and I will endeavour to keep the House informed. He raised a point about whether there will be sufficient follow-up actions. That is a fair challenge, but I would just say that when the outage occurred in 2023, 34 recommendations were proposed to mitigate reoccurrences by the CAA, all of which were implemented.

On CAA oversight, I agree with my right hon. Friend that that is massively important. I would just say that we currently have a robust system for CAA oversight, although we can of course debate whether to take it further. There is an independent complaints assessor, the CAA’s work is subject to oversight by the PHSO, economic regulation decisions can be appealed to the CMA and there is of course the CAP 1616 process for airspace modernisation, but I would be glad to engage with him on where we can take those matters further.

I will draw my remarks to a close. The Bill is about modernising the UK’s aviation framework so that it remains fit for the future: supporting growth; strengthening passenger protections, particularly for those who find travelling through our airports most challenging; and maintaining the highest standards of aviation safety and the UK’s formidable reputation in this space. Our ambition is to build a competitive aviation system that delivers for passengers and keeps pace with technological and operational change. Today’s debate has been wide ranging and a useful opportunity to discuss important issues with hon. Members. I thank all those who have contributed and I look forward to continuing our discussions in Committee.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time.

Civil aviation (Consumer protection and regulatory reform) bill [Lords]: programme

Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 83A(7)),

That the following provisions shall apply to the Civil Aviation (Consumer Protection and Regulatory Reform) Bill [Lords]:

Committal

(1) The Bill shall be committed to a Public Bill Committee.

Proceedings in Public Bill Committee

(2) Proceedings in the Public Bill Committee shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion on Thursday 22 October 2026.

(3) The Public Bill Committee shall have leave to sit twice on the first day on which it meets.

Consideration and Third Reading

(4) Proceedings on Consideration shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion one hour before the moment of interruption on the day on which those proceedings are commenced.

(5) Proceedings on Third Reading shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion at the moment of interruption on that day.

(6) Standing Order No. 83B (Programming committees) shall not apply to proceedings on Consideration and Third Reading.

Other proceedings

(7) Any other proceedings on the Bill may be programmed.—(Shaun Davies.)

Question agreed to.

Civil aviation (Consumer protection and regulatory reform) bill [Lords]: money

King’s recommendation signified.

Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 52(1)(a)),

That, for the purposes of any Act resulting from the Civil Aviation (Consumer Protection and Regulatory Reform) Bill [Lords], it is expedient to authorise the payment out of money provided by Parliament of any increase attributable to the Act in the sums payable under or by virtue of any other Act out of money so provided.—(Shaun Davies.)

Question agreed to.

Civil aviation (Consumer protection and regulatory reform) bill [Lords]: Ways and means

Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 52(1)(a)),

That, for the purposes of any Act resulting from the Civil Aviation (Consumer Protection and Regulatory Reform) Bill [Lords], it is expedient to authorise the imposition of charges for the exercise of functions under or by virtue of the Act.—(Shaun Davies.)

Question agreed to.

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Members have not had the chance today to properly raise the NATS blackout, which has affected over 100,000 passengers and cost UK aviation tens of millions of pounds. The Secretary of State has not indicated that the Government will provide a statement today in the Chamber. Madam Deputy Speaker, can you tell me what those of us on the Opposition Benches, and all Members interested in raising issues that affect their constituents, can do to get answers from the Government?

That is not a matter for the Chair, but those on the Treasury Bench will have heard the right hon. Gentleman’s remarks, and he will be aware of other parliamentary mechanisms open to him for raising the matter further.