It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr Hayes), and I join in the compliments to him: he certainly did have responsibility for the Vehicle Technology and Aviation Bill before June 2017 and also brought forward the Automated and Electric Vehicles Bill after the last general election. He is renowned for working in a cohesive and friendly and collegiate manner, and I pay tribute to him for that.
This Bill is welcome and I am sure it will have the support of the whole House, but its progress sums up this UK Government. As we have heard, the Bill was part of the previous Vehicle Technology and Aviation Bill, which fell because of the Government’s desperate general election strategy, so despite this new Bill supposedly being safety-critical, it is in fact the fourth Bill to be brought forward to cover the four main sections of VTAB. The timing therefore makes no sense.
We should also consider that today’s Chamber business was originally a Committee of the whole House sitting, to debate the Bill’s only two substantive clauses and the two clauses for definitions and extent to complete it. The whole House was supposed to discuss this four-clause Bill, yet following the Government’s taking action in Syria without a parliamentary vote, they refused to bring forward a substantive motion on Syria that the whole House could debate. That sums up the UK Government; it shows how they are padding out Government time, as the shadow Secretary of State said.
I served on the VTAB Committee and heard first hand from the British Airline Pilots Association—BALPA—about the incidents and risks associated with the shining of laser pens at pilots. We also heard about the need to consider air traffic control centres, because of the dangers of their staff being blinded, so it was very surprising that it was not until Report stage of this Bill that the Government included a clause to cover this aspect.