Clause 2 - Penalties
Aviation (Offences) Bill
Mr Hugo Swire (East Devon, Conservative)
If I was on a flight, under the hon. Gentleman's new provision I would almost certainly have got five years for covering my hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Patrick Mercer) in a liquid that could have been alcohol.
I support the clause. It addresses something that, if it is not an oversight, has been long overdue for correction. How can that law be limited to a maximum sentence of two years when, as the hon. Member for Motherwell and Wishaw said, endangering an aircraft can now mean endangering the lives of in excess of 200 or 300 people?
I am heartened that at a later stage the hon. Gentleman will table an amendment to do away with the anomaly that applies in Scotland. It is entirely iniquitous that an offence committed on a flight from Manchester to Glasgow would be arrestable at one moment and seconds later it would not be. Doing away with that anomaly is to be welcomed, and I will have no hesitation in supporting the amendment.
As we are getting our own house in order—or our own skies in order—I wonder what is the current legislation on an international basis, within Europe as well as in the wider world. Flights, as we know, go everywhere. Other countries do not have similar legislation, so I would welcome the Minister's views on whether, when the Bill is enacted, such good practice could be exported to those countries.