Examination of Witnesses (Questions 120
- 137)
WEDNESDAY 1 DECEMBER 1999
MR PAUL
NOON, MR
IAIN FINDLAY,
MR ROBIN
MORRIS MR
TERRY ADAMS
AND MR
PAUL LEWIS
Mrs Gorman
120. Has it occurred to you that Mr Ayling might
have been concerned that his charges would have to go up if more
money had to be invested into this industry? He has a vested interest.
I do not mean him any harm.
(Mr Adams) I would not like to speculate—
121. But you have. You seem to agree with me?
(Mr Adams)—on Mr Ayling's motives for making
the statement that he has. I would take it at face value.
Chairman
122. May we just move on to EUROCONTROL? Do
you have any reason to believe that NATS if it became part of
the public-private partnership would be less willing to participate
in the development of EUROCONTROL?
(Mr Findlay) Well, EUROCONTROL was set up to gather
together all the participants and have what has been One Europe
Skies. Actually, just today, the Transport Commissioner said that
there was a need for a Single European Sky because there was chaos
in Europe.
123. A single European Sky? Sounds like an interesting
concept?
(Mr Findlay) Like a single European currency.
(Mr Noon) Now you are really going to get us into
trouble.
124. Mr Findlay, you are not doing my nerves
any good. Shall we start again?
(Mr Findlay) This concept is that you actually cannot
just control in your own country boundary. You actually need air
traffic control which is pan-national and EUROCONTROL was set
up to do that. Now if you have a company that is competing in
the market to try and take over other air traffic control providers,
I do not see how they can actually integrate and harmonise European
air traffic when there is competition.
125. You have also raised a number of concerns
about the partnership between the Ministry of Defence and NATS
in these circumstances. What impact do you think a public-private
partnership would have on, for example, the relationship between
the military and NATS? Someone?
(Mr Morris) I will come in on that. I believe there
will be a greater competition between the Ministry of Defence
and a privatised NATS for air space. We are seeing moves that
the Director of Air Space Planning is actually going to become
part of the CAA; it is part of the CAA now but will be a regulator
and will be purely a regulator and will have no involvement at
all in direct discussions, as far as I understand it, with MOD
and with NATS. So the pressure will be on NATS to try again to
get more air space to improve the through flow of traffic, to
maximise the revenues. The pressures on NATS at the moment is
to get more air space actually to reduce delays which they have
been very successful in doing. I can see there will be greater
competition between the military side wanting their bit of air
space and for longer and a privatised NATS. I do not see it working
as smoothly as it does now where they try to have an integrated
area system where you have military controllers interfacing alongside
civil controllers. I believe that will break down, not initially,
but it will break down with the stresses of trying to provide
two different things; going for profit and producing air space
for military exercises.
126. I want to ask you about some companies
that might have some conflict of interest. I think it is important.
There is a famous name connected with Swanwick which is Lockheed
Martin. Would they be an appropriate bidder to become part of
a partnership?
(Mr Noon) We do not want to comment particularly on
any one company. Our members who worked with them have expressed
some concerns, given the history of Swanwick, about whether it
would be appropriate is all I would say. NATS have commissioned
very lengthy reports on Swanwick and the reasons for its delays
and people would, I think, have to take that into account in making
any decision about a strategic partner.
127. What about Thomson CSF who are French defence
suppliers? Would there be any difficulty there, any conflict?
(Mr Noon) Potentially we see some difficulties. We
do not at all want to adopt a Little Englander approach about
these things and we recognise that there is a European market
in all of this.
128. You mean we do not want to behave towards
our defence in the way French behave towards theirs?
(Mr Noon) It would be wrong to say that those concerns
are not there about the implication of passing control of Britain's
air traffic control to foreign companies and that is what it would
mean.
129. To be fair, Mr Noon, there is practically
nothing in this country now that is not owned by some foreigner
or another. All the major firms in my constituency are owned by
Germans, all very polite, and if were to talk about the water
company that is already owned by Companie Generale Des Eaux. It
is difficult really to find some form of foreign capital that
does not control British assets?
(Mr Noon) I think we have always taken the view as
a nation that British air space is important and should be controlled
by Britain. If that is watered down, if that is diluted there
may be concerns about that.
Mr Olner
130. So the European Sky that you were talking
about earlier has just been closed?
(Mr Noon) If the PPP does go ahead, then presumably
that is one of the factors that would have to be taken into account
in the selection of a strategic partner.
131. What advantage would there be in a publicly
owned corporation?
(Mr Noon) We think that that would still retain public
control of operational issues as the first priority. It would
still enable NATS to raise revenue; we think we could still give
it commercial freedom if that is what was decided to do, although
we do have some reservations, I have to say, that NATS is going
to generate a lot of money from selling its services overseas,
but that could still give some greater commercial freedom but
retaining what we see is important, which is public control.
132. In what way were your members serving at
the College of Air Traffic Control at Christchurch threatened
with disciplinary action for signing a letter to Pilot
magazine about the proposed PPP for NATS?
(Mr Findlay) The letter was a letter from 48 controllers
who work there, initially to The Independent on 16 October.
The Independent then rang the College of Air Traffic Control
and asked who were the IPMS representatives and it was three names
that went into The Independent; they did not put the 48
because it would take up too much space and said `45 others'.
At that point the management then came back and actually said
to the three individuals concerned: "This is not good enough.
You have used internal facilities and you have incited people,
cajoled people to break the rules and the rules—
133. Which of those? Incitement and persuasion
are even now mildly different?
(Mr Findlay) It was both. I think the word was intimidation
that they actually used. Well, every other controller in Bournemouth
actually said there was no incitement or intimidation. The reason
that the letter was written was that controllers down there are
very conscious that they do not want the cadets under their charge
to suffer because of what is happening now or indeed any industrial
action or anything else. What really frustrated them was that
at the Labour Party conference at Bournemouth there were meetings,
there were pickets from air traffic controllers and the College
lecturers did not condone it. They actually felt so strongly that
they wrote this letter, which was just about something in the
public domain. The management have said: "Of course, you
should have gone through NATS management before it went into the
press" and at the moment there is an investigatory hearing
concerning the three IPMS representatives. That has not finished
as yet.
134. So they have such confidence in their own
management techniques and their own situation they had to threaten
the trade union representatives?
(Mr Findlay) I would think you would have to ask the
management that.
135. The editor's note actually says: "This
letter was originally signed by up to 48 staffers whose names
we were requested to remove after NATS had threatened disciplinary
action".
(Mr Findlay) They actually threatened it on every
single member of staff who signed the letter. All of those, after
we intervened, were then reminded in a note of the rules which
said any talking to the press had to go through the management
chain.
136. So we can look forward to a higher tolerance
system of management control should this ever become a private
company. That was not a question. May I ask you finally one simple
question? Your members have a right to say to you: "Why are
you bothering to object to this, because if it goes through we
have been promised a very considerable monetary advantage"?
(Mr Noon) Yes, we have had discussions with that.
Certainly if it does go through then we will seek to make sure
that that advantage is there.
137. So those who say that your members are
pursuing this argument about privatisation of NATS on the basis
of their own self-interest are not accurate, are they?
(Mr Noon) I would say that they are not accurate,
no.
Chairman: Thank you, gentlemen.
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