Air Services (Competition) (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 - Motion to Approve

Part of the debate – in the House of Lords at 6:30 pm on 12 February 2019.

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Photo of Lord Tunnicliffe Lord Tunnicliffe Opposition Deputy Chief Whip (Lords), Shadow Spokesperson (Defence), Shadow Spokesperson (Treasury), Shadow Minister (Transport) 6:30, 12 February 2019

My Lords, I shall speak very briefly on these two instruments—there is no way we will oppose them. The first one is on competition. One’s enthusiasm for scrutinising in depth was somewhat killed by the first sentence in paragraph 7.2 of the Explanatory Memorandum, which says:

“The powers in the EU regulation have never been exercised and it is unlikely that they ever will be”.

At that point, I gave up detailed examination. This boils down—if there ever is a dispute in this area—to us having moved from a big gang called the EU to a little gang called ourselves. That is why I am not keen on crashing out of the EU without an agreement because being part of the EU is, broadly speaking, a good thing when it comes to aviation.

I have some experience of the slots issue. The trouble is that it is 30 years old, so things may have changed, but I doubt it. In a sense, the general public do not realise what an airline is. An airline is, first and foremost and overwhelmingly, a timetable—you attach airplanes, crews and marketing to it, but you start with the timetable. In fact, I chaired one of BA’s internal committees which oversaw the process of developing the timetable, and the slots are a key part of it. They work, frankly, because there is an international consensus between airlines, airports and regulating authorities that the various slot allocation committees at various airlines will be co-ordinated on a worldwide basis to make the system work. This system has been fiddled with, but it has been pretty robust for 50 years. I take comfort from the Explanatory Memorandum, which says, as it should:

“The system relating to slot allocation at UK airports will remain unchanged”,

by this SI. Providing the Minister reaffirms that, it will have my support.

We have heard some comments. These would require policy changes to meet the challenges that the comments are directed at. I remind noble Lords that the one thing you cannot do under Section 8 of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 is introduce any policy changes. In so far as that is the instruction to Government in generating these SIs, I have to support the fact that, as far as I can tell, they have followed that instruction.