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DVLA

Mr. Quentin Davies: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport on what criteria the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency selects those customers who qualify to be sold the names and addresses of vehicle owners. [42177]

Dr. Ladyman: Regulations allow for information to be released from the Agency's vehicle register to the police, to local authorities for investigation of an offence or for decriminalised parking, and to anyone who can demonstrate 'reasonable cause' for having the particulars made available to him.

'Reasonable cause' is not defined in the legislation, but in the recent past circumstances that have been judged to meet reasonable cause include safety recalls by the motor industry, minor hit and run incidents not warranting a full police investigation, housing associations dealing with abandoned vehicles and private car parking companies enforcing landlords rights over private land.

DVLA do not sell the data. A charge is made to cover the cost of the service.

I have announced a review of the regulations governing the release of information which will take place shortly.

Mr. Quentin Davies: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport when the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency began the practice of selling the names and addresses of vehicle owners. [42192]

Dr. Ladyman: Regulations governing the release of information from the vehicle register predate DVLA's existence, as similar powers were available to local authorities when they had responsibility for registering and licensing vehicles. Today, release is made under the Road Vehicles (Registration and Licensing) Regulations of 2002. These regulations consolidate the 1971 regulations of the same name, and the 1994 amendments. DVLA does not sell the data for profit, but a charge is made to cover the administrative cost of the service.

European Aviation Safety Agency

Mrs. Dunwoody: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport (1) what the governance arrangements for the European Aviation Safety Agency are; [42739]

(2) what arrangements are in place to monitor the effectiveness of the governance of the European Aviation Safety Agency. [42740]

Ms Buck: The structure of governance of the European Aviation Safety Agency is set out in Regulation (EC) No. 1592/2002 as subsequently amended by Regulation (EC) No. 1643/2003. In general, the structure reflects the governance of Community Agencies as a whole, in that various financial and administrative matters are subject to approval and review by the Community institutions.

The Regulation establishes a Management Board composed of one representative of each member state and one representative from the European Commission.
 
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The Board is assigned various governance tasks, such as appointing the Agency's Directors and adopting its work programme.

The Community institutions monitor the governance of the Agency through consideration or audit of its annual general report, work programme, budget and accounts. In addition, the Regulation requires that by September 2006 the Board shall commission an independent evaluation of the implementation of the Regulation which established the Agency, including an evaluation of how effectively the Agency fulfils its mission. The UK representative on the Management Board will insist that the terms of this evaluation allow examination of all governance matters.

Mrs. Dunwoody: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport (1) if he will make a statement on the administrative impact of the introduction of the European Aviation Safety Agency's Fees and Charges Regulation on (a) the work of the European Aviation Safety Agency and (b) UK industry; [42741]

(2) how many representations he has received from UK industry about the impact of the European Aviation Safety Agency's Fees and Charges Regulation; and how many of these claimed an adverse impact; [42742]

(3) whether he has been informed of delays to aviationprojects resulting from the introduction of the European Aviation Safety Agency's Fees and Charges Regulation. [42743]

Ms Buck: The Fees and Charges Regulation, which came into force on 1 June 2005, requires that applications for a number of approvals and certificates can only be made to the European Civil Aviation Agency and that only the Agency can charge for the technical investigations needed to support the grant of such applications, even when a national authority carries out the work on its behalf. In such cases, the work is set up and paid for under the terms of agency/authority contracts. The manner of implementation of these processes has affected the Agency's ability to undertake their certification tasks in a timely and efficient way. There has also been some knock-on effect on other Agency activities as staff have been allocated to help deal with the demands of the fees and charges system.

The Secretary of State has not received any specific representations from UK industry on the impact of the Agency's Fees and Charges Regulation. But UK industry ahs alerted the Department for Transport to the adverse impact of this Regulation at regular consultation meetings. The Department has asked the Civil Aviation Authority to monitor and report on problems that industry has drawn to its attention.

UK companies have also reported difficulties in getting applications handled in a timely fashion and this has impacted adversely on their work including delays to several aviation projects. The Department, in conjunction with the Civil Aviation Authority, is working energetically on these problems with the Agency, the European Commission and other member states so as to ensure that the situation improves.

Mrs. Dunwoody: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport (1) what assessment he has made of whether income generated by the European Aviation Safety
 
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Agency's Fees and Charges Regulation will cover the cost of the European Aviation Safety Agency certification functions during 2006; [42744]

(2) what measures are in place to keep the budget of the European Aviation Safety Agency under review. [42745]

Ms Buck: The financial and budgetary requirements governing the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) follow general Community principles as applied to Community Agencies. EASA's requirements are set down in Regulation (EC) No. 1592/2002 as subsequently amended by Regulation (EC) No. 1643/2003.

The Regulation provides that Agency revenues will comprise a contribution from Community funds, fees paid by certificate applicants and holders and charges for publications, training and any other services provided by the Agency. In principle the fees revenue should cover the full costs of delivering EASA's certification functions. However, the Regulation provided that until 31 December 2006 the contribution from Community funds might be used to cover expenditure related to the initial running phase of the Agency, including some of the cost of the Agency's certification functions.

The Agency presented to its management board on 13 December 2006 its assessment of whether income generated by the Fees and Charges Regulation, together with the transitional use of some of the agreed contribution from Community funds, would cover the cost of delivering the Agency's certification functions during 2006. The Agency concluded that its estimated income would fail to cover costs unless remedial measures were put in place. The Agency proposed cutting back and prioritising its certification tasks in line with the estimated income. The UK Civil Aviation Authority prepared for the UK member of the management board a detailed analysis of the Agency's assessment and proposals which agreed that the estimated income would not cover all the certification tasks which the Agency should carry out in 2006. The Authority advised that cutting back the certification tasks would cause major problems for industry and be unacceptable.

The management board agreed that the Agency should not prioritise its certification tasks despite the anticipated shortfall in income. The consequences of this decision on the Agency's budget will be revisited at the next meeting of the board in March in the light of urgent work commissioned by the Board. Consultants have been contracted to analyse the financial situation of the Agency and to report in time for the March meeting. In the meantime the Agency is continuing its own review of options to improve the situation, including possible amendments to the Fees and Charges Regulation.

The management board's review of the 2006 budget reflects requirements placed on the Board in the Regulation (EC) 1592/2002 as amended. The budget is adopted by the Board following final adoption of the general budget of the European Union. This is a process which involves additional examination and review of the budget by the Community institutions.
 
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Mrs. Dunwoody: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport how the European Aviation Safety Agency (a) identifies and (b) distributes airworthiness directives to the aviation industry. [42747]

Ms Buck: The European Aviation Safety Agency (the Agency) publishes on its website a list of the titles and reference numbers of the airworthiness directives that it has approved since it came into being on 29 September 2003. To identify airworthiness directives for European products issued prior to that date industry must continue to refer to information published by the National Aviation Authorities of the EU member states, as the Agency has not yet gathered and collated that information.

The Agency does not yet have an airworthiness directive distribution service to make available the detailed content of its airworthiness directives. The full texts of a small minority of its airworthiness directives can be accessed through the Agency's website but, in general, the industry must rely upon the airworthiness directive publication services of the National Aviation Authorities of the EU member states to obtain such directives. The UK CAA is continuing to maintain and update its own publication services and will continue to do so until such time as the Agency has put in place a comprehensive and effective system.

Mrs. Dunwoody: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport (1) if he will make a statement on the (a) resources and (b) data available to the European Aviation Safety Agency to carry out the full range of its responsibilities; [42748]

(2) what measures will be used to ensure that the European Aviation Safety Authority is qualified to carry out the certification of aircraft and aircraft components. [42750]

Ms Buck: The Regulation establishing the European Aviation Safety Agency came into force in September 2002 and the Agency assumed responsibility for its tasks 12 months thereafter. At that time the Agency relied almost entirely on the Commission and the aviation authorities of member states for the resources and data it needed to execute those responsibilities. Initially, the national aviation authorities carried out all the Agency's certification tasks on its behalf.

The Agency has been steadily recruiting the staff and building up the infrastructure it needs to perform its tasks in-house, however it is still reliant on national aviation authority support, delivered under contract. The Agency is recruiting staff mainly from the Commission, industry and national authorities; this pool of European technical experts must also serve the continuing needs of the national authorities and the aviation community more widely. It is a major challenge for everyone concerned to ensure that neither the Agency nor the national authorities run short of skilled manpower during this period of transition.

The Agency's manpower plans and their effect on national authorities is being monitored by the Management Board. The Board has established a small group of high-level technical experts from national
 
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administrations, plus representatives of the Agency and the Commission, to examine rigorously whether the Agency's strategies are successfully ensuring the necessary qualified staff and to monitor the associated risks. As a result the Agency has established a risk register which it is required to present at each meeting of the management Board.

The working group has stressed the importance of the Agency and the national aviation authorities working together to plan and manage technical resources, recommending that the Agency hold detailed discussions with each authority. Such discussions should be comprehensive and broader than the formal contractual arrangements under which the authorities currently carry out certification tasks for the Agency.

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