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David Cairns (Greenock and Inverclyde): Or in Lanarkshire.
Mr. Roy: Indeed. Many of those fans will take drink during the day and, unfortunately, some of them will be drunk by the time they get back to the airport. Regardless of how their team fares, they will have been out of their beds for 24 hours, they will be tired, they will have had a drink and could be intoxicated when they try to board the plane home. I suspect that when about 10,000 people are going through the doors of the Spanish airport in the space of three hours, they will be herded straight on to planes and returned to Gatwick, Manchester, Newcastle, Belfast or Glasgow. That could cause problems.
I have constantly raised such problems and will continue to do so. The football authorities must ensure that they keep a grip on things.
Mr. Boris Johnson (Henley): Of course, we want to crack down on drunken football hooligans, but how does the hon. Gentleman define "drunk"? I am worried that people who may merely have had a couple of glasses of the in-flight booze could be caught under the terms of the Bill, and that we are taking a sledgehammer to crack a nut.
Mr. Roy: I should have made it clear that the flights will not be selling drink. All the football clubs and the football associations run drink-free flights, which I welcome. There is nothing wrong with people having a drink; I am certainly not anti-drink. I am talking about people who are obviously drunk and who would be incapable of escaping quickly from an aircraft in an emergency. Someone who has been up for 24 hours, who has been drinking and who has been waiting for several hours for a flight that leaves at 3 o'clock in the morning is likely to go into a deep sleep when they get to their seat. If they are intoxicated that can cause problems.
My fears about these problems began several years ago, when football supporters started going on away-days. Everyone—the clubs, the airport authorities and the travel agencies—must ensure that fans are aware that they should act as responsibly as if they were going on holiday with their families or on a business trip.
Mr. Mark Francois (Rayleigh): To pursue the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Henley (Mr. Johnson), we entirely understand the point that the hon. Gentleman is making. He used the example of football supporters who are obviously drunk. One could give similar examples in respect of holidaymakers coming home after two weeks away. However, the Bill merely refers to a provision
- "which prohibits a person from being drunk in an aircraft".
Mr. Roy: Before I came to this place, when I was a student, I worked in a bar at night, and I used to define
people as drunk who were not capable of making intelligible conversation or who did not have their faculties about them. If you are a barman and someone who is drunk asks you for a drink, you say, "I am sorry. Quite frankly, you have had enough and you are not going to have any more. It is time to go home." The two situations are comparable, and I want someone at the airport to say, "You cannot board the plane because you do not have your faculties about you."
Mr. Beith: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman is bearing it in mind, particularly in view of the news that we had last night of threats to flights to Kenya, that airport staff, aircrew and fellow passengers will have as their primary concern and anxiety the possibility that someone might have boarded an aircraft or be trying to board an aircraft who poses a security threat to that aircraft. In that situation it is very important that this legislation helps to deter anyone who, out of sheer irresponsibility, distracts cabin staff and has to have a lot of time and attention devoted to dealing with them, when there are serious threats from those who would imperil all the passengers on the aircraft. The legislation is important and valuable.
Mr. Roy: I absolutely agree with the right hon. Gentleman; he puts that point very straightforwardly. People need to realise that the behavioural patterns of those who travel on aircraft have totally changed and that we expect people to behave in a certain manner nowadays because, unfortunately, we live in changing and dangerous times. I hope that the Bill will signal that we realise that there is a problem and are determined to go some way to tackle that problem, as the airline industry and the police have said.
I do not want people to think that this is just a football problem; it is not. I highlighted that aspect because of events in recent weeks. The airline industry has told me that it is not only a holiday charter problem, or indeed an economy seat problem, because often the business man or woman in first class has proved thorny—and obnoxious, according to reports that I have had from the airline industry. The Bill is not aimed at just one section of the travelling public; the problem occurs on all types of flights, chartered or scheduled, and in business and economy class.
To recapitulate, the Bill would introduce automatic powers of arrest for the three most serious existing offences of disruptive behaviour—that is, air rage—on board aircraft: drunkenness, acting in a disruptive manner and endangering the safety of an aircraft. It would also allow an increase in the penalty for the latter offence—obviously the most serious of the three—from two years to five years. These are modest measures but they would undoubtedly make enforcement of the law far more effective. The Bill commands the support of all parts of the industry and, of course, the vast majority of the travelling public.
I place on the record my thanks to the hon. Members from all parties who have spoken in support of the Bill on Second Reading, in Committee and today. I thank the police for their help, and the airline industry—the companies and the trade unions—that helped me to prepare the Bill and gave me fantastic background information.
This is truly a United Kingdom Bill, and I am grateful to hon. Members from throughout the United Kingdom who have taken part in its scrutiny. I mention the hon. Member for New Forest, West (Mr. Swayne), my hon. Friends the Members for Luton, North (Mr. Hopkins) and for Luton, South (Margaret Moran), the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth), the hon. Members for East Devon (Mr. Swire), for Gainsborough (Mr. Leigh) and for South Norfolk (Mr. Bacon), the hon. Member for the Vale of York (Miss McIntosh), who spoke at length and very interestingly on Second Reading, and the other Opposition Members who spoke today. I also mention, from the Scottish constituencies, the hon. Member for Gordon (Malcolm Bruce), my hon. Friends the Members for Aberdeen, South (Miss Begg) from the north, for Dumfries (Mr. Brown) from the south, for West Renfrewshire (Jim Sheridan) and for Ayr (Sandra Osborne), the hon. Member for Argyll and Bute (Mr. Reid) from the west coast and, from the central belt constituencies, my hon. Friends the Members for Glasgow, Anniesland (John Robertson), for Cumbernauld and Kilsyth (Rosemary McKenna) and for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Harris). I also thank those hon. Members who have supported the Bill today.
Finally, I thank my hon. Friend the Minister and his officials for their help in drafting the Bill. I was on the phone an awful lot, and they answered and got back to me very quickly. They were patient with me when they had told me the same thing two or three times and I asked them to tell me for a fourth time to make sure that I understood.
The Bill is much needed. We have all been on flights and we all know how traumatic such incidents can be, although many of us have never witnessed them. I am pleased that the Bill has met with universal support, and I look forward to it being passed in the other place.
12.25 pm
Mr. Francois : I should like to declare something of a constituency interest in the Bill: Southend airport—a regional airport—is near my constituency. It is in the neighbouring constituency—Rochford and Southend, East—and the boundary is only a few hundred yards from my own, so I am not the MP for Southend airport, but I am what is often called a travel-to-work MP because a number of my constituents travel to work from that facility.
Of course, as an Essex Member of Parliament, I wish to say that Stansted is in the county of Essex. I have sometimes heard Southend airport lightheartedly referred to as "Essex domestic" and Stansted airport as "Essex international". I simply enter that fact into the record.
Turning specifically to the Bill, I understand what the hon. Member for Motherwell and Wishaw (Mr. Roy) is attempting to achieve. Overall, the thrust of the Bill is laudable. The events of 9/11, tragic as they were, show us that an aircraft is not merely a mode of transportation any more. In the most extreme circumstances, a passenger aircraft can become a weapon—those people in the twin towers were on the receiving end of that—so this is an important measure.
The United States has taken airline security so seriously that it now deploys armed sky marshals on a number of its flights to provide protection. There is also some debate in the United States—I do not think that the hon. Gentleman suggests this in the context of the Bill—about whether or not cabin crew should be armed to allow them some defence against anyone who, for whatever reason, seeks to take over an aircraft. A propos all that, it is interesting that a number of pilots in the US are ex-military, and I understand that, funnily enough, they have requested the right to be armed, in ultimate defence of the cockpit. So we need to acknowledge that the Bill touches on a very serious matter. Incidentally, the Israelis have legendary experience in airline security, and I might return to that a little later in my remarks.
The hon. Gentleman mentioned that bad behaviour on an aircraft can be antisocial, and he is quite right. I endorse his point, particularly about those who are nervous about flying. They find the whole experience difficult enough as it is, and they may even face that fear simply getting on an aircraft. Their fear is made worse if people on that aircraft behave in an extremely rowdy manner. Someone who is nervous can be made more anxious, perhaps even before the aircraft has left the runway.
I am currently serving on the Standing Committee that is considering the Anti-social Behaviour Bill, by means of which the Government are seeking to introduce measures that can curtail antisocial behaviour in a variety of circumstances. In the experience of those of us who are serving on that Committee—I believe that this is germane to the Bill before us—such matters involve some interesting and difficult problems of definition. When using certain terms in legislation, how do we define them, particularly if it might ultimately lead to a prosecution? The way in which we define an offence may be important when the Crown Prosecution Service ultimately attempts to achieve a conviction for it before a court. It is for that reason that I asked the hon. Gentleman in my earlier intervention how he would define "drunk". I assure him that I am not attempting to be obtuse, but if we are to prosecute someone for being drunk, as the Bill implies, it is necessary to define what constitutes drunkenness.
I take on board entirely the hon. Gentleman's point that if one has had his anecdotal experience of being a barman, one can tell quickly when someone has had one over the eight and ought not to drink any more. I see what he is saying, but in a pub situation a member of staff behind the bar can say, "You're obviously drunk. I'm not going to serve you any more alcohol." If one is trying to prosecute someone for being drunk on an aircraft, however, one will have to prove later in a court of law that that person was drunk. In that circumstance, my question to the promoter of the Bill—as I presume that one would want justice to play its part—is how would it be proven to the satisfaction of the court that the person had been drunk. He could say, "Well, I had had a few, but I wasn't actually drunk." It might then come down to the word of the captain of the aircraft against the word of the defendant. In relation to
clause 1, therefore, it is important to ask the hon. Gentleman how drunkenness would be defined for the purposes of the proposed legislation.
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