My Lords, this is really the most extraordinary debate in which I have ever taken part. I say this with no disrespect to the low key introduction by the Minister in which she explained exactly what is happening—at least the detail, but not the context of it. Sitting in this Committee Room are a number of Members of the House and officials who would be much better occupied doing something useful. We are looking at a proposal—a statutory instrument—for a no-deal situation which the Government do not want and which the vast majority of people in the House of Commons do not want. We are going to spend hours dealing with many more.
This is one of nearly 700 statutory instruments that are coming before us because of this crazy Brexit in which we are currently involved. Even allowing for all those qualifications and even if we have to, this is not a satisfactory way of doing it. This has such major
implications that it would normally be in a Bill discussed on the Floor of the House at Second Reading and then in detailed consideration in Committee. We would go through all the implications, discuss them, consider amendments and work out what was wrong and what was right. Now we are expecting it to go through on the nod in this Grand Committee. I hope not to spoil these expectations—it might do. It is not a satisfactory way of dealing with the situation.
Then we get the report of Sub-Committee A of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee. This Committee has had to divide into two sub-committees. My noble friend Lord Cunningham has taken over the duty of chairing the second sub-committee to look at this in detail. They are doing a good job under very difficult circumstances. On this statutory instrument they have come up with a devastating report—one of the most devastating I have seen:
“We draw these Regulations to the special attention of the House on the ground that they give rise to issues of public policy likely to be of interest to the House”.
It continues in paragraph 11:
“The House may wish nonetheless to press the Minister further on how, in the event of “no deal”, bilateral arrangements between the UK and individual states will be put in place before exit day to ensure there is no gap in the continuation of flights between the UK and the EU after 29 March 2019”.
The Minister dealt to some extent with that, but not fully, and I shall come to the detail of that later. Paragraphs 13 and 16 outline the additional responsibilities that the CAA will have and doubt whether it will be able to deal with them without substantial additional resources—which, again, would be better spent elsewhere instead of doing something completely unnecessary. Paragraph 22 states:
“The House may wish to press the Minister on the issues of reciprocity that arise in maintaining the current wet leasing arrangements”.
I have not previously seen a report that raises so many questions.
Look at what is happening outside the Chamber. In an excellent report by Chris Morris, the BBC’s Reality Check correspondent—thank goodness that we have people doing reality checks particularly on Brexit—he points out that if we leave with no withdrawal agreement,
“the UK would no longer be part of the EU’s single aviation market, which is the basis for flights in and out of the country at the moment, not just to the EU itself, but to other countries with which the EU has a deal—such as the United States and Canada. In all, the EU governs direct UK aviation access to 44 other countries”.
As the Minister said, and as the report states, of course, you can always negotiate new agreements,
“but access would start at a pretty low level and negotiations take time”.
We know that they will take a substantial time. He continued:
“That's why a sudden no-deal scenario is so alarming to the industry”.
That was even pointed out by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in October last year:
“The UK would no longer be governed by the regulations of the European Aviation Safety Agency, which deal with all sorts of things like maintenance and common standards”.
As the report states, we would have to undertake the responsibility of dealing with those ourselves—again, extra expenditure:
“The UK Civil Aviation Authority could … take on all the same rules, and hire lots of new staff to implement and oversee them, but it would”,
then have not only the extra expenditure, but
“have to convince other international regulators to recognise it—another time-consuming process”.
So we would have to go round to convince all the other regulators that they should recognise our approach. As the Reality Check correspondent said,
“if you're following EU aviation rules in full, you basically have to accept a role for EU courts like the European Court of Justice as well”.
According to the Prime Minister, we will no longer be subject to the European Court of Justice, but it will be involved in this, according to the BBC report. All of this makes it difficult for airlines that are already selling tickets for flights after the planned Brexit, which many of us here hope will not go ahead. The report continues:
“‘Right now we will continue to sell in the hope and belief that when a conclusion comes to the Brexit scenario, common sense will prevail and people will realise the need for intra-Europe travel’, said Roy Kinnear, the chief commercial officer of FlyBe. ‘The biggest fear has to be if at the eleventh hour and fifty-ninth minute there is a complete cessation and breakdown, and a shutdown of air travel between the UK and Europe”.
It is being predicted that they could be a total shutdown of traffic between the United Kingdom and Europe.
The International Air Transport Authority is worried. IATA states:
“The UK government’s papers on the air transport implications of a “no deal” departure from the EU clearly exposes the extreme seriousness of what is at stake and underscores the huge amount of work that would be required to maintain vital air links”.
Its director-general said:
“While we still hope for a comprehensive EU-UK deal, an assumption that ‘it will be all right on the night’ is far too risky to accept”.
That is what the Government are accepting: it will be all right on the night, we have heard them say something equivalent to that so many occasions.
I could go on at great length; I have lots more to say.
4.30 pm