Clause 1 - Arrest without warrant
Aviation (Offences) Bill
Mr Frank Roy (Motherwell and Wishaw, Labour)
I am grateful for the Government's support for the Bill. As I have said, it is important. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Ayr (Sandra Osborne) and the hon. Member for Argyll and Bute that what we are discussing is not an everyday occurrence, but it needs to happen only once to have a catastrophic effect on many passengers. I accept that there are not such occurrences every day, but during the past 12 months there have been 1,055 incidents, 55 per cent. of which were deemed by the Civil Aviation Authority to be serious. We might not see them every day, but such incidents do happen.
I shall not go into the long air journey that the hon. Member for South Norfolk and I spent returning from the Falkland Islands, but I shall address his points on people with alcohol boarding an aircraft and people being drunk before they get on a flight. The problem is not possession of alcohol, but drunken behaviour. People often buy duty-free drink if they are going outwith Europe, and that has not been a great problem. People in the industry have said that bringing drink on is not really the problem. The problem is when a person gets drunk before they go on the plane.
I want to make it clear that this is not an anti-alcohol Bill. I am teetotal, and I asked someone in the industry about the effect of alcohol on those flying. He told me that having a whisky or a couple of halves or glasses of wine before getting on the plane can have a good effect. It can calm a person down. I would not like to take that pleasure away. Also, it is nice for those on a flight to sit back, relax and have a drink after taking off, knowing that they are going on holiday. That is acceptable—and so it should be. We should be able to enjoy ourselves on a flight. I do not want to sound as though I am against alcohol.
However, the Bill is against alcohol misuse; that is what being drunk is. A person who is drunk affects the enjoyment of anyone sitting beside them. It can be embarrassing for someone to sit near a drunk person. They do not feel good because they are wary, although that is not to say that the drunk person will start fighting all over the place. However, neither person really enjoys the experience.
I can tell the hon. Member for South Norfolk that if someone is drunk and about to go on a flight, companies have the right to stop them going on board, and they should use it. I spoke earlier about football specials. Hon. Members know that I have a great love of football and have been on many specials, and I have seen people turned away just as they are getting on the plane. They might say, "Wait a wee minute, I've got my ticket. I'm going to such-and-such." They are quite rightly told that they are not, because they are not in a fit state of mind. Companies have powers to stop anyone entering a plane while drunk.
I would like to put on record that airport authorities also have some responsibility. I spoke to BAA plc about that. I was told by BAA of an instance of a sporting weekend in Glasgow when passengers tried to force BAA to open the bar. That is fine, but it was 5.20 in the morning. There were 200 people having a go at the duty manager, saying, "Get this bar open; you have passengers."That was not likely to happen. The airport authorities have responsibilities just as the aircraft company do. I used to be a barman when I was a student, and it was my responsibility not to serve someone who was drunk. British Airways, British Midland Airways, Air 2000 and so on have responsibility not to sell drink to people who are drunk. They have been told repeatedly that they have a part to play in the matter. I hope that they remember that, and that they will make it harder for people to get drunk.
The hon. Member for East Devon (Mr. Swire) raised some important points about passenger and cabin crew protection. The Bill does not bring in new offences; it upgrades existing offences. At the moment, there is no specific offence in the Air Navigation Order 2000 relating to behaviour towards passengers or crew. That is where the change would need to be made. Obviously, one would expect that if a member of the cabin crew acted badly towards one of the passengers they would lose their job. To create such an offence, we would need to do so under the Air Navigation Order, which sets out explicitly the types of offence that can occur.
On the points raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Luton, South, the International Civil Aviation Organisation has adopted a resolution urging all contracting states to enact laws as soon as possible to deal with disruptive passengers on board. That should exactly cover my hon. Friend's points.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 1 ordered to stand part of the Bill.