Examination of Witnesses (Questions 155-159)
MR JOHN
EAGLES, CAPTAIN
MERVYN GRANSHAW
AND MR
DAVID LUXTON
11 JANUARY 2006
Q155 Chairman: Gentlemen, you are most
warmly welcome. I apologise for making you wait, but I am afraid,
as you probably realise, we had a number of questions that we
wished to ask our previous set of witnesses. Would you be kind
enough to identify yourselves for the record.
Mr Eagles: I am John Eagles, the
Technical Chairman for the Association of Licensed Aircraft Engineers.
We are the union for the licensed aircraft maintenance engineers.
Captain Granshaw: Good afternoon,
Madam Chairman. My name is Mervyn Granshaw and I am the Chairman
of the British Airline Pilots Association. I have been employed
in the aviation industry for 29 years and I hold a seat on the
CAA's Fixed Wing Advisory Group as a scheduling expert. I am serving
my third term as BALPA's elected Chairman. I am still an active
pilot.
Mr Luxton: I am David Luxton,
National Secretary of the trade union Prospect and we represent
specialists working within the Civil Aviation Authority and also
all of the air traffic controllers and air traffic engineers working
for NATS.
Q156 Chairman: Does anybody have
something they want to say briefly before we start? Can we go
straight to questions then. I am very grateful to you for coming
this afternoon. You may have heard some of the questions that
we were putting to the previous set of witnesses. Prospect and
BALPA have both argued that there are conflicts between the objectives
of the CAA, and BALPA has suggested transferring the economic
and commercial activities of the CAA to a transport economic regulator,
that this would be more efficient, and Prospect has called for
greater horizontal integration of the separate organisational
structures. What are the relative merits of each of these approaches?
Mr Luxton: If I may start, Madam
Chairman, our concern about the way in which the CAA is organised
is that we do sense that there is a sort of stove-pipe approach
to their organisational structures so that we have economic regulation,
safety regulation, airspace regulation, and consumer protection
regulation, all of that acting independently and there is a feeling—
Q157 Chairman: Independently, so
you are suggesting they all operate in parallel lines?
Mr Luxton: Yes, in this stove-pipe
approach. Our view is that there is a case for much closer integration,
to have a more joined-up CAA which we believe would be more effective
then in fulfilling its overall requirements. The specific example
that we have drawn attention to in our submission relates to air
traffic delay penalties that were imposed on NATS through the
economic regulation and our concern is that that raises a number
of safety concerns which we have detailed in our paper and we
are not as yet convinced that there has been a full, rigorous
safety assessment of that economic regulation requirement and,
for that reason, it underpins our view that there needs to be
better horizontal integration between the different strands of
the CAA.
Captain Granshaw: I endorse the
description, it is very powerful in the Prospect submission, but
I think our view is slightly different. We have heard from the
CAA today about the difficulties they have had in covering their
broad panorama which has led them to, I suggest as a reaction,
adopt a lighter touch as opposed to a proactive strategy, and
we will probably come on to that later because we have great reservations
that the one-size-fits-all type of regulation is suitable for
aviation where safety is so important. We feel that they should
really focus on their primary role which is of a safety policeman
and there is a conflict and it does in addition, through the charges
structure, in our view, lead to the airlines having a dominant
influence that is difficult and is in competition with safety
in the way it is structured at the moment.
Q158 Chairman: But supposing in fact
there was an independent regulator that covered everything, do
you not think it would be possible that that body could create
policies that were in direct conflict with the need for safety
in aviation?
Captain Granshaw: I think that
it would be better handled if the organisations were separate
because the role of the separate and independent safety regulator
would be paramount. I think we all sense, and I sense, here that
there is this feeling of diluted safety and it is there. We have
not felt it yet, but it is there.
Q159 Chairman: Is there any evidence?
Is there real, hard evidence of a conflict of interest because
the case that you are making really only makes sense, and it is
the same for Mr Luxton, if you can actually say, This is more
than a gut feeling. We actually can demonstrate that they are
moving towards a situation where there is a conflict of interest"?
Captain Granshaw: Well, an example,
and there are several, is in the harmonisation which has happened
in Europe with the Scheduling Regulations for my colleague flight
crew. I think we know empirically that we are in the safest EU
state for our industry and we are fortunate to have a good safety
regulator, but that it cannot do better and be structured better
is the matter in question. When we have harmonised our Scheduling
Regulations, what we have actually done is harmonised down, so
there is evidence that, against a fairly aggressive attack from
employer trade groups, the economic side does have a very powerful
and influencing voice.
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