Clause 5 - Public Airport Companies: Power of Secretary
Civil Aviation Bill
6:00 pm

Graham Stringer (Manchester, Blackley, Labour)

I beg to move amendment No. 10, in page 7, line 38, leave out 'may' and insert 'shall'.  

Nicholas Winterton (Macclesfield, Conservative)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments: No. 12, in page 8, line 4, leave out 'may' and insert 'shall'.

No. 13, in page 8, line 9, leave out 'may' and insert 'shall'.

No. 11, in page 8, line 1, leave out from second 'activity' to 'incidental'. {**InsertionPoint/**}

Graham Stringer (Manchester, Blackley, Labour)

The clause amends section 17(4) of the Airports Act 1986, and it is worth casting our minds back to that Act, as it set up airport companies in the public sector. You will remember, Sir Nicholas, that the Government of the day were particularly concerned, almost to the point of paranoia, that local authorities would use any device that they possibly could to get around the Government's capital controls or the controls on their basic functions. The Government therefore included section 17, which basically said that an airport could not be used to do something that a local authority that owned the airport could not do.

Politically, we have moved a long way from that point. Those airport companies, such as that at Manchester and a number of others, have shown themselves to be very responsible. We have also moved into a world in which airports around the world are changing and looking to the United Kingdom for expertise. BAA runs a number of airports and provides a number of services to airports in every continent of the world, I think. Airports have diversified into the functions around them and provide services that they perform well to other bodies.

I support this clause, which gives the Secretary of State the power to say that airports that are owned by local authorities and in the public sector can do things that BAA, as the best example, can do. That is good for those airports commercially and good for the United Kingdom, which leads the world in many such services. That sits nicely alongside the decision that the Government took six years ago to free up local authority-owned airports from capital controls. I welcome the drive of the clause.

I tabled the amendments because although I welcome that drive I think it good to reflect on how much power is being left in the hands of the Secretary of State. The power that the Secretary of State has or does not have has come up in our discussions on every clause. I am always surprised when I listen to Conservative Members of Parliament in Committee arguing that the Secretary of State should have more control, and arguing for more targets and more regulation. When I read the Official Report yesterday, the Conservatives were saying that they wanted less regulation, fewer targets and less control by the Secretary of State.

Adam Afriyie (Windsor, Conservative)

I observe merely that we are arguing for less unnecessary and unhelpful regulation, not less regulation.

Graham Stringer (Manchester, Blackley, Labour)

I would have been surprised if the hon. Gentleman had argued the opposite.

Julian Brazier (Shadow Minister, Transport; Canterbury, Conservative)

I think that the hon. Gentleman will accept that there is nothing inconsistent in arguing on the one hand that whole areas do not need   regulation—I do not want to tempt your patience, Sir Nicholas, but the health foods industry figured heavily yesterday—and that whole areas could be exempted from an enormously burdensome regulation affecting millions of people, and on the other that it is not unreasonable that aerodromes, which have a significant impact on local life, should be subject to an easier version of the regulation on parish councils in spending money that they have taken in fines.

Graham Stringer (Manchester, Blackley, Labour)

I understand the hon. Gentleman's point. I think regulation highly necessary in the aviation industry for the purposes of safety, for instance. In some ways, that is being delayed. I am less convinced that we could not sweep whole swathes of economic regulation away, and that we would not benefit from that. That is the direction in which the aviation industry is going. I shall not press the amendments to a Division, but I think it is worth pausing for thought about them and asking what the real controls should be.

Amendment No. 11 is separate. New subsection 17A(2) says:

''Any activity so specified must be an activity which appears to the Secretary of State to be incidental to or connected with carrying on the business of operating an airport''.

Why do not we simply say that any activity so specified must be an activity incidental to or connected with the business? That would be absolutely clear, and it would be like any other piece of legislation. If the airport started doing something that was completely unconnected with the aviation business, it would be up to its competitors and the public to take it to court, as with any other body that is set up under statute. That would be a better process than having the centralised control of the Secretary of State determine what those activities are. I do not believe that the knowledge of any future Secretary of State is likely to be better than that of the business itself.

Julian Brazier (Shadow Minister, Transport; Canterbury, Conservative)

I am very interested in what the hon. Gentleman is saying. I must say that I like his approach when he is not knocking my party. [Interruption.] I know; we all get that way at the end of the day.

The hon. Gentleman is focusing quite rightly on amendment No. 11, but I am a little confused as to how it would deliver what he is trying to achieve. I hope that he will develop that point, because it is not at all clear how striking out those particular words will shift the burden from the Secretary of State to the court. Perhaps I am missing something obvious.

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.

Julian Brazier (Shadow Minister, Transport; Canterbury, Conservative)

I congratulate the hon. Member for Manchester, Blackley (Graham Stringer) on the amendments, which are ingenious, although I may quibble a little. I was slightly confused as to why he wanted to take out the incidental reference; it is obvious why he wants to take out the reference to the Secretary of State.

We all have a memory of the way in which airports have changed. I have a particular memory of the days when the British Airports Authority's airports were publicly owned and what bleak places they were when they did not carry out any other activities. As I understand it, the amendment seeks to cover the non-designated airports and to free them up a little.

I will just tell an anecdote. As a child, my father was serving in the Army in Germany and I was sent over here to boarding school, so I used to commute many times in the days when planes froze up and so on. Such is my age that I sometimes even spent nights in those bleak places. We all want to see airports fulfil their full potential.

The hon. Gentleman is right to say that we should be looking for an element of deregulation. I shall listen with interest to what the Minister has to say, but I am strongly minded to support the hon. Gentleman's ideas. It is not necessary for the Secretary of State to lay down what is or is not appropriate for those airports to do. I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on his amendments.

Tom Brake (Shadow Secretary of State for Transport (And Scotland), Transport; Carshalton and Wallington, Liberal Democrat)

I, too, support the amendments. They are sensible and make it clear that public airport operators will have those powers and so on. If the hon. Member for Manchester, Blackley is minded to press the matter to a vote, I will certainly support him. If nothing else, it will relieve the monotony of the 10 to 5 Divisions that we have been having today.  

Karen Buck (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department for Transport; Regent's Park and Kensington North, Labour)

I pay a warm tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Blackley for his expertise and knowledge, and, in particular, his championship of Manchester airport over the years. He comes to this debate with a great deal of knowledge, which he has demonstrated as usual in his speech. Unfortunately, I will not be able to give him any encouragement on the amendments, for reasons that I will quickly outline.

The amendments would remove the discretion that clause 5 gives the Secretary of State as to whether regulations should be made under new section 17A, and would instead place a duty upon him to do so. A duty to make regulations would be highly unusual, and I hope to persuade my hon. Friend that it is not necessary.

Amendment No. 10 would place a duty on the Secretary of State to specify the permitted activities that a public airport company may undertake. I can reassure my hon. Friend that it is our intention to use the power, after proper consultation with the airports to be affected and the local authorities with a shareholding interest, and after due consideration of whether the activities it will permit are appropriate, but it is not necessary for the power to be turned into a duty.

Amendments Nos. 12 and 13 appear to be designed to remove further elements of the Secretary of State's discretion as to how the powers of the local authorities are best expanded. Again, I believe that they are unnecessary, as they would impose a burden on the Secretary of State to make regulations without the ability and flexibility to ensure that the regulations are fit for the purposes of the airport companies affected. It runs the risk that conditions and stipulations will be set where none are necessary.

It follows that amendment No. 11 is also unnecessary. To comply with the duty placed in amendment No. 10, or the power as drafted, it will still be necessary for the Secretary of State to be satisfied that the activity is incidental to or connected with the airport business whether or not the words to be deleted by amendment No. 11 are left in. Any regulations would be open to legal challenge if the Secretary of State were to act unreasonably in deciding whether an activity is connected with carrying on the business of operating an airport. So, before making the regulations, the Secretary of State would still have to form his own view on the question. Consequently, amendment No. 11 would be unlikely to make much difference in practice.

The amendment was probably prepared more with Manchester Airports Group and its shareholding local authorities in mind. Manchester Airports Group is the flagship airport company in the public sector and it is a world class operator. However, other successful public airport companies, such as Newcastle and Leeds-Bradford, are in the frame.

Those airports and their shareholding local authorities may want certain activities to be permitted but not others. If that were the case, and a majority of the shareholding local authorities did not want their company to undertake certain activities, it is right that the Secretary of State should be in a position   to take that into account in making regulations under section 17A(3). I am sure it is not my hon. Friend's intention to reduce such a useful flexibility, so I ask him to withdraw the amendment.

Graham Stringer (Manchester, Blackley, Labour)

I am grateful that the Minister has made the commitment that the regulations will be introduced, as they will be welcome. However, I hope that she will reflect on how much control still resides in the Department for Transport and the Secretary of State in a business that does not need that. That is the way things were done 20 or 30 years ago.

I will seek leave to withdraw my amendment, but only because I accept that my amendments may be technically flawed and were simply a device to have a debate. However, there is also a flaw in the Minister's logic that while Manchester airport might need the powers to trade as effectively as possible, if Leeds-Bradford airport does not want to run services to Melbourne or Adelaide, it should not have them. The powers would be only enabling, and I know of few companies that would refuse the power to carry out a commercial activity because they did not want to use it now, because they might want to do carry out that activity in future. That side of the Minister's argument is slightly weak, and I ask her to reflect on that. However, I am happy to seek leave to withdraw the amendment.  

Adam Afriyie rose—

Graham Stringer (Manchester, Blackley, Labour)

I am sorry, but I have finished my contribution. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 5 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clauses 6 to 12 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Schedule agreed to.

Clause 13 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Nicholas Winterton (Macclesfield, Conservative)

I congratulate the Committee on the extremely rapid progress that we have made, with the co-operation of all parties. I congratulate those Members who have participated. From my point of view, it has been a learning curve and an excellent and constructive debate, and I congratulate the Minister and shadow Minister on how they have dealt with the Bill. I am saying this because I shall not be in the Chair on Thursday morning, and I believe that the Committee has run very well. We thank all those involved, including the police, in making this a well-run and orderly Committee.

Further consideration adjourned.—[Mr. Roy.]

Adjourned accordingly at twenty-five minutes past Six o'clock till Thursday 7 July at Nine o'clock.