Part of the debate – in the House of Lords at 3:29 pm on 15 March 2001.
My Lords, I thank the Minister for that Answer. I had prepared a slightly different supplementary question because I thought that another Minister would be answering. However, as I was deputy chairman for some 10 years of the alcohol misuse body in Parliament, I am used to rather "dickering about" at the edges of alcohol abuse in our society. On this particular issue, does the Minister agree that there must be some kind of technology available that the airlines could use to screen either those who have an identifiable alcohol problem, or that small minority who travel and are prepared to abuse the freedoms that they enjoy, regardless of anyone else? Apart from separating passengers from their alcohol during the flight, which he mentioned, surely there is some way of screening such people before they board an aircraft. Most of the other passengers who experience such situations can easily identify those who should never be put on the flight in the first place.