My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, for that excellent and wide-ranging exposition. I begin by declaring an interest; I am one of the vice-chairs of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Drones, established just over a year ago in October 2012 and very active ever since. The core purpose of the group is to examine the uses of drones—which the group decided to call “unmanned aerial vehicles”—by Governments for domestic and international military and civilian purposes. Among the objectives of the group are to examine the legal and ethical frameworks that govern the use of drones, raise awareness of the human rights issues in the use of drones and look for increased accountability and transparency in the use of drones by the United Kingdom domestically and internationally. It is in that context that, as a member of the all-party group, I put my name to these amendments.
I stress absolutely that the all-party group is not opposed to drones per se—far from it. Drones technology has many uses. I heard recently from my noble friend Lord Sandwich that drones are a godsend to archaeologists in Afghanistan because they can locate what is under the ground and pinpoint where archaeologists should dig to find more antiquities. That is a benign and helpful application of the technology. My noble friend Lord Ramsbotham—General Ramsbotham—has educated me about the indispensable role of drones on the battlefield. The APPG is concerned not with opposing drones but with transparency: ensuring that Parliament is well informed and that information about the development and use of drones is put in the public domain so that we may debate the many issues that arise.
Today, we are concerned with military use. As noble Lords will know, a large and wide-ranging law framework governs military activities and weaponry internationally and domestically. However, as the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, said, as yet no legal definition exists of
drones or unmanned aerial systems, and it is difficult to see how there can be governance of drones before they are defined. Currently they are treated by the MoD as aircraft and their special nature is ignored. This amendment gives us an opportunity to consider the terminology and make it clear that it is completely inadequate to lump drones in with aircraft.
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Apparently, Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs still uses the Air Navigation Order 1954 as a guide to defining aircraft. The order defines aircraft to include,
“balloons … kites, gliders, airships and flying machines”,
which means,
“aircraft heavier than air and having means of mechanical propulsion”.
One current air navigation order contains only a classification of aircraft, not a definition, to which various types of aeroplanes are added: land planes, seaplanes, amphibians, self-launching motor gliders, rotorcraft and helicopters. These definitions are not in any way helpful in dealing with drones. Drones are different; they are different now and they will be even more different in the future.
The Ministry of Defence Joint Doctrine Note 2/11, The UK Approach to Unmanned Aircraft Systems, states:
“There is a general expectation across defence, academia and industry that unmanned aircraft will become more prevalent, eventually taking over most or all of the tasks currently undertaken by manned systems. This view is strongly reflected in current government policy”.
The doctrine also notes:
“As unmanned aircraft become more capable and automated, complex issues emerge”.
Indeed, there is already a need to be aware of and to discuss the implications of drones making their decisions without human agency. The doctrine note also tells us that there can be an autonomous system that is,
“capable of understanding higher level intent and direction. From this understanding and its perception of its environment, such a system is able to take appropriate action to bring about a desired state. It is capable of deciding a course of action, from a number of alternatives, without depending on human oversight and control, although these may still be present”.
This amendment is a small beginning. If we want to agree on the terminology—which will certainly not be easy—the view of the APPG is that “unmanned aerial system” is a preferable term to “remotely piloted aircraft system” because that definition fails to take into account the fact that these devices might not be remotely piloted, and that they might not be piloted at all. This amendment could mark the start of a process of building up the corpus of law and regulation, governance and supervision that we are going to need in future. I look forward to the Minister’s response.