| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
5.11 pm
Dr. Gavin Strang (Edinburgh, East and Musselburgh): I beg to move, To leave out from "That" to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof:
- "this House, believing that government ownership and control of National Air Traffic Services (NATS) is necessary for national security, acknowledging that the United Kingdom air traffic control system is recognised internationally as the safest and most reliable in the world, and being concerned that the introduction of the private profit motive could jeopardise safety standards in the future, considers that the Transport Bill is not an acceptable measure because it contains provisions the purpose of which is to pave the way for the partial privatisation of NATS."
I strongly support the thrust of my right hon. Friend's opening remarks about the way in which Labour is delivering on transport virtually across the board. It is true that we are getting investment up on the London tube, the railways and the buses, with consequent benefits. It should always be borne in mind that, although the tube and the railways are extremely important, many people live nowhere near a railway or underground station and some do not even live close to a bus service. That is why it is particularly good that we have managed to increase subsidies for bus services, so that more people are now taking the bus. That is an important advance, as my right hon. Friend reminded us. I was grateful for the opportunity to serve with him on these matters in an earlier period in the Parliament.
My right hon. Friend referred to the day--my recollection of it may be more vivid than his--on which we received the report of the comprehensive spending review in which the Chancellor announced that we intended to consult on the Government's preferred option. My right hon. Friend will remember well that it fell to me, as Minister for Transport, to provide the written answer from which he quoted, which made it clear that we were consulting on the principle, not just the practical implementation. Let me make it clear that I do not intend to break the convention that conversations between Ministers are private. I accepted collective responsibility for everything that happened in relation to aviation, including National Air Traffic Services, until I left the Administration.
There are three key categories in which we have a strong--indeed, overwhelming--argument against the proposed partial privatisation of NATS. They are: business, national security--possibly the most important category--and safety. The arguments for the latter were
well presented by my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody), who chairs the Transport Sub-Committee.
I shall make the business case briefly. Hon. Members may know that the Department of Trade and Industry and the Department for the Environment, Transport and the Regions launched an important document producedby Oxford Economic Forecasting, entitled, "The Contribution of the Aviation Industry to the UK Economy". The aviation industry has made a huge contribution, including thousands of jobs. The shorthand document, which was released at the same time as the main document, and is supported by two Departments and sponsored by the industry, states that the aviation industry accounts for 180,000 direct airport jobs, 200,000 indirect jobs through the supply chain, 94,000 induced jobs, and 75,000 jobs in travel agencies. Some people--including, I suspect, some hon. Members--do not appreciate that the aviation sector is as big as the car manufacturing sector in terms of employment and business. Incidentally, I hope that the Government will grant the subsidy to the car manufacturing industry--it is especially important for Rover. But we are not considering a subsidy to the aviation industry.
Why are the Government not prepared to fund air traffic control in this country? It is argued that, from now on, we are not prepared to allow National Air Traffic Services to continue to borrow within the public sector. NATS runs at a profit, and we are simply asking the Government to allow it to continue to do that. We admit that perhaps £1 billion of investment will be required over the next 10 years, but the new tax that the previous Administration introduced on air passengers provides £700 million of income each year, and that figure will probably increase to £1 billion in two or three years' time, so people will find it difficult to understand that we are not prepared to continue to allow NATS to borrow in the public sector and run at a profit.
The argument that the privatisation proposal has been made in the interest of obtaining a capital receipt is the worst of financial or business arguments. When we consider debt and the proposed capital receipt, we must ask whether the Government are genuinely suggesting that NATS should be sold before Swanwick is operational, because if they are, the capital receipt will be very small. Swanwick will be a quantum advance in air traffic control in this country, and we must ensure that it is operational as soon as possible. Business supports that view, yet senior NATS officials are travelling around the country making the case for partial privatisation when they should be ensuring that everything has been done to enable Swanwick to come on stream on time. That is a great mistake. Even if I were in favour of privatisation--and I am totally opposed to it--I would still feel that this is the worst time at which to embark on it.
The argument for the second Scottish centre also relates to questions of business, safety and national security. My hon. Friend the Member for Ayr (Ms Osborne) has already raised the point. I remind my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister, who will remember it well, of the statement that he enabled me to make at Prestwick on 6 June 1997, when we clearly committed ourselves to the
two-centre strategy. That commitment was not conditional on the private finance initiative or some sort of partial privatisation. The press release said:
Mr. Prescott:
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for giving way. I can confirm that, as he well knows, our commitment to a two-centre strategy remains. That is not in doubt, but it is a matter of raising money: the resources raised from the private sector--from an income stream, for example for the underground--can amount to many billions of pounds. If we can secure the income for investment requirements from an income stream rather than putting pressure on the Exchequer, it is legitimate for us to make that argument in respect of expenditure on health, services and pensions.
On my right hon. Friend's final point in regard to growth in the industry, I want all those jobs to remain--and they will be returned, because this is a growth sector. There are 49 air traffic control centres in Eurocontrol, and it is estimated that the figure will be reduced to three or four in the next few years. I believe that under the proposed formula we can have something that we cannot have under a public sector formula--the opportunity to begin to expand in Europe and provide even more jobs and earnings.
Mr. Deputy Speaker:
Order. That intervention was extremely long.
Dr. Strang:
I am grateful to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, because I have only a quarter of an hour in which to speak. I say to my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister that I am hopeful that we can continue the dialogue in relation to the two-centre strategy on military and civil grounds. That has nothing to do with privatisation, nothing to do with the private finance initiative and nothing to do with this so-called public- private partnership, to use the new jargon.
I shall move on to national security, which is the key issue; if anyone has any illusions about that I suggest that he or she dips into the Bill. Hon. Members will have
noticed that more than half of it concerns aviation and NATS, although the provisions are very general. Clause 38(3) says:
There are two important aspects to the security issue. The first is on-going and short-term and includes global terrorism, which fortunately is not a major factor at present. I do not want to be over-dramatic, but there undoubtedly could be circumstances in which we needed to seize control of the air traffic control system immediately if intelligence information was received about a bomb on a particular plane. The second aspect is on-going military-civil co-operation, at which we are the best in the world--not just better than France, which is what is often said. Day-to-day co-operation is so important, particularly as the civil aviation sector is growing, and must be handled properly. We in the UK are good at such co-operation, but after privatisation or partial privatisation there will be less incentive for the new private or semi-private company to co-operate fully with the intelligence services and the Ministry of Defence.
There is also the longer-term national security aspect--the issue of an international crisis: war may not have been declared but we may be in the run-up to a conflict. I am glad that national security issues have been addressed in the Bill, but the concerns cannot be adequately answered. Once the private set-up has been in control for a few years, we cannot be sure that it will respond as we would want to an immediate direction or request from the Secretary of State or his representatives. National security may well be the reason why the United States has not privatised its air traffic control services, and why the Conservative Government never did so despite the huge privatisation programmes under Lady Thatcher and her successor as Tory Prime Minister. The decisive case against privatisation is the national security case.
However, there are also safety issues. I shall comment on them fairly briefly, not least because my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich, the Chair of the Transport Sub-Committee, has dealt with them fully. The Government's response to the Select Committee is not credible. It is not credible to argue that we are going down this road so as to enhance safety.
"Dr. Strang's decision confirms the two centre strategy for air traffic control in the UK, with the first centre being built at Swanwick in Hampshire. The New Scottish Centre will replace the existing Scottish Area Control Centre, whose air traffic control equipment is almost 20 years old, and will be run by National Air Traffic Services . . . a wholly owned subsidiary of the Civil Aviation Authority."
A note to the editor, which is worth quoting, states:
"In the early 1990s, NATS developed a long term plan for UK air traffic control. This has been reviewed in consultation with the industry and is known as the two centre strategy."
Yes, it was the previous Administration's strategy. The document continues:
"It is envisaged that all civil and military air traffic control operations will be concentrated at two sites--Swanwick in Hampshire and the New Scottish Centre at Prestwick, which would replace the existing centre there."
We have to be sure that there has been no change in Government policy on that.
"The Secretary of State may give to a licence holder a direction requiring it--
That refers to the provider of the air traffic control service, which will be NATS, and, whatever it is called, it will have a private strategic partner, which will run things on a commercial basis if the Government's declared policy goes ahead--although I am pleased that that is not specific in the Bill. The interesting point is that the clause continues:
(a) to do or not to do a particular thing in connection with anything authorised by the licence, or
(b) to secure that a particular thing is done or not done in connection with anything authorised by the licence".
"A person must not disclose, and is not required by any enactment or otherwise to disclose, a direction given or other thing done by virtue of this section if the Secretary of State notifies him that he thinks disclosure is against the interests of national security or the interests of the United Kingdom's relations with another country".
The Secretary of State takes powers to tell people who might be employed by a British or international company based wherever what to do; then he has to tell them not to tell anyone that he has told them what to do.
| Next Section
| Index | Home Page |