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7 Feb 2003 : Column 596—continued

Mr. Swayne: In fact, the exact opposite has taken place in the last few days. Courtney Love, having created an incident on an aeroplane, was detained by the police for some hours and as a consequence received four tickets entitling her to travel on Virgin Atlantic Airways.

Mr. Forth: I am reluctant to become too involved in that, but I think I am entitled to comment briefly.

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Whether Sir Richard Branson was wise to do what he did is something I hope he will think about, because the next time there is an incident on one of his aircraft he may find it rather difficult to explain the action that he is reported to have taken recently. I shall say no more, because although this is relevant, I do not want to be diverted too far.

I now want to talk about what happened following the publication of the December 2000 consultation document on air transport policy entitled "The Future of Aviation". I have no doubt that it is dear to the Minister's heart. According to my brief there were only 92 responses to the document, which does not seem very many to me. I should have thought that if the problem dealt with in the Bill was as widespread and as serious as has been suggested, the document might have elicited a few more responses than that.

Anyway, apparently the majority of those 92 felt that passengers should be prohibited from drinking alcohol other than that supplied by the carrier. I am not sure how that came about. Presumably, it means prohibiting—or trying to prohibit—passengers from consuming alcohol before they board the aeroplane, and then giving them alcohol.The document goes on to say—is this not typical of a Government consultation exercise?—that the majority were in favour of further action. Well, well, well. That really takes us forward, doesn't it?

Apparently, safety is paramount. So far, this does not seem to have been a terribly fruitful consultation exercise.

We are also told, much more helpfully in the context of the Bill, that respondents felt that powers of arrest and punishment were inadequate and needed to be strengthened. That is exactly what the Bill would do: we are getting on to something a bit more positive here. It was also felt that the police should have powers of arrest for offences under an air navigation order, not just the power of caution. There was mention of increasing the penalty to five years, making drunkenness on board an aircraft an arrestable offence, and making threatening or interfering with crew an arrestable offence as well. Excellent! All that is highly relevant to the Bill.

Apparently—I mentioned this earlier—many respondees suggested that drunken passengers should not be allowed on board aircraft, and that there should be guidance for aircrew and ground staff to screen out drunks, prohibit them from boarding and refuse to serve them on board. It was also felt that offenders on board should be left at the nearest airport. Those strike me as sensible suggestions, but they are not in the Bill. I hope the Minister will tell us how much thought his Department gave to incorporating further measures such as that in legislation—although, of course, that cannot happen in the case of a private Member's Bill.

Mr. Leigh: Airlines have power to take such action now but choose not to, presumably because they want to go on enjoying the profit from carrying a passenger even if he appears somewhat inebriated. That illustrates

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the limitations of statute: it is possible to legislate for anything, as we are doing yet again today, but it makes very little difference.

Mr. Forth: Indeed. Let us consider some other suggestions produced by the consultation—my briefing uses the words "thrown up", rather infelicitously. They include banning alcohol from aircraft, which I should have thought was a matter for the airlines; introducing a tracking system to ban disruptive passengers from future flights, to which the same applies; making duty free available only on arrival—it is possible to purchase duty free on arrival at many airports, including, I believe, Heathrow; and better liaison with police at airports. There are a whole series of things that can surely be done already, and if they cannot, one asks why the airlines themselves are not doing them. Do they require legislation? I should have thought not. Another suggestion arising from the consultation is

"relaxing the ban on smoking".

My hon. Friend the Member for New Forest, West, who made that point earlier, will like that one. Other suggestions include

"increasing the seat pitch, and improving air quality."

So here are a series of perfectly sensible-sounding measures that one would have thought were completely consonant with the Bill's aims, but which do not require legislation.

Mr. Swayne: They do, however, require some thought. Although I accept that the requirement to revisit smoking would be helpful, I am not sure that it is entirely compatible with improving air quality.

Mr. Forth: Indeed. That simply illustrates the inherent contradictions that tend to emanate from an exercise in which well-meaning people come up with different suggestions that perhaps make a degree of sense when taken in isolation, but which begin to show flaws when one puts them together.

Mr. Swire: It is difficult to see where all this might end. As my right hon. Friend made clear earlier, there is another factor: those who, in addition to having taken some kind of medication—perhaps to calm themselves down before flying—are served drinks by cabin staff who have no knowledge of their use of such medication. Such a combination can make people highly excitable. How does one attempt to legislate against that? If we are to carry this legislation to its logical conclusion, perhaps people should be asked to sign a form before embarking on the aeroplane, stating whether they are taking any medication which, if combined with alcohol, might give rise to extraordinary behaviour inside the cabin.

Mr. Forth: Yes, and the clever person might say that they should have a blood test before they get on the plane, or a big sign around their neck stating what medication they have taken recently. What my hon. Friend says illustrates the question of how far one should try to go in this direction to deal with a perceived problem. I think we all agree that there is a problem. Those of us who fly know of the dread of sitting beside or near someone who has had too much to drink, or who

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is misbehaving. It is a horrible experience, and none of us would deny that, but what we are trying to get at is whether the Bill will do what it is supposed to do.

That, rather felicitously, brings me to the Bill itself. Although it is commendably short and commendably focused, I wonder, looking at the wording, whether it is as helpful as its promoter would like to think. Before I embark on my brief analysis, let me say that I am well aware of the pitfalls of a layman such as me seeking effectively to analyse a Bill that is drawn up by a parliamentary draftsman, who comes from another planet. However, that is what we must try to do, because we are here to try to bring a lay interpretation to the language of statute, and it is always a challenge.

Let us consider the first substantive provision in this modest Bill. Subsection (2) of clause 1, which deals with arrest without warrant, refers to

"an offence of contravening a provision of an Order in Council under section 60 of that Act (air navigation order) where the offence relates to—

this is the meat—

"a provision which prohibits specified behaviour by a person in an aircraft towards or in relation to a member of the crew".

The provision is targeted at behaviour towards members of the crew only, and not, presumably, at behaviour towards other passengers. This gives rise to the question of whether the person concerned might also be a member of the crew, a point that was touched on in an earlier intervention. I am wondering whether "specified behaviour" is intended to be an all-encompassing, completely flexible phrase that will be interpreted on the spot, or whether the intention is to give some detailed underpinning to that phrase. In other words, would there be a list of things that might be covered?

I am open-minded on the point; I do not know which provision would be more sensible. It depends who discretion is being given to. Here, we return to our old friend the citizen's arrest. Although I should be pretty comfortable about the captain of the aircraft having that power, it is quite another matter to rely on its exercise by anyone at all.

I do not want to nitpick, but some important considerations arise from the words

"a provision which prohibits a person from being drunk in an aircraft".

How will that be interpreted? Will a subjective judgment be made of the person's behaviour by someone in uniform—perhaps a member of the crew? The provision continues with the words,

"in so far as it applies to passengers".

That suggests that if a member of the crew was drunk they would not be covered by the provision. I suppose the assumption is that the crew member would be identified before they boarded the aircraft and took charge of it, as happened in a recent case.

I am not very happy about the wording of the Bill. It is not as helpful as the hon. Member for Motherwell and Wishaw suggested. I hope that when the Under-Secretary makes his contribution, he will, in his usual way, exemplify and elucidate what is in the Bill and convince us that it will be more effective than I am currently persuaded to believe. I should like to hear his comments on "specified behaviour" and on whether the

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drunken person might be a member of the crew. I should also like some clarification about the definition of "drunk". Will aircraft carry breathalysers or will it simply be a subjective judgment: "Oi, mate! You're drunk. You're nicked. I am exercising my renowned powers of citizen's arrest under the Aviation Offences Act."

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