Clause 5 - Public Airport Companies: Power of Secretary
Civil Aviation Bill
6:00 pm
Graham Stringer (Manchester, Blackley, Labour)
I am prepared to accept that I might have made a drafting error, but I can explain my intention behind the amendment. I did not have the help of any lobbying body; the amendments are all my own work.
Under the clause, the activity is a matter for the judgment of the Secretary of State. The amendment would remove him from the clause so that it is left to the business to decide what the activity is.
Similarly, amendment No. 10 would allow airport companies to carry out their business in the way in which business is conducted in the aviation world by changing ''may'' to ''shall'' in line 30 on page 7. For airports owned by local authorities, that is a sensible way of doing business.
Why should not the Secretary of State simply say that he shall provide for an activity, rather than leaving it up to lobbying, which involves the time and work of civil servants and almost inevitably ends up being a negotiation between them and the people who work for publicly owned airports?
Power is still being kept in Whitehall. If an airport is cheating, it is cheating by using public subsidy, which is challengeable, as airport companies must produce accounts. We do not need the Secretary of State either to transfer the balance of responsibilities or to take certain decisions later, which is why I have also changed ''may'' to ''shall'' in several other areas. That is simply not required. In the normal world, either the competition authorities or the courts will deal people who are cheating.
I tabled the amendments to give the Government pause to think on this and other clauses and to decide whether it would be better to run with the grain in terms of how the aviation business is moving in the economic area, and to free it up by removing the responsibilities from the Secretary of State. That would make for a healthier business all round.