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Lord Clinton-Davis: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for giving way. I cast my mind back to 1988 when I was honoured with the task of being Transport Commissioner. There was not a single mention of the military question by the transport Ministers. They sought to relegate the commissioner to the sidelines. They thought that preferably he should not have been there at all. So, it is not only the military aspect which is important—I do not deny that that is very important indeed—but it was considered that the Commission should not have responsibility in the wider area of civil air transport. I think that has changed.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, I trust that nothing I have said dissents from what the noble Lord has said. However, I cite the report in justification of my remarks. The noble Lord, Lord Woolmer of Leeds, asked Mr McMillan an important question at paragraph 93. He said:
- "David, I think you said that problems posed by the lack of airspace are very significant. Could I just ask about the French situation? Do the constraints upon airspace over France cause any significant difficulties for air travellers commencing or ending their journeys in the United Kingdom".
- "There is one French military training area which abuts the Dover sector of the United Kingdom, I think it is called CBA0 1 . . . and that is a military training area which has in the past caused some quite significant problems to aircraft leaving the United Kingdom or entering the United Kingdom. It is a military
- area that abuts one of the main air routes across to the Continent, and I have to say in the past that has been a very significant problem".
- "There are now, I am pleased to say, better methods of communication between the French military and London controls. Nonetheless, it is still a military training area that does abut a major route and on occasion we do still encounter some delays there".
I should like to warn the House that other difficulties arise from the defence and foreign policy group within the European Union. That particular committee, as we know, carries within it an EU military responsibility towards the whole of the defence of Europe, and covers part of the air forces concerned. We know that there are difficulties precisely because of that issue.
There is a battle going on—I shall not call it an ideological or a sinister one. It is a legitimate battle about how these matters will work out when, under the mutual defence arrangements, aircraft have to be used. That impinges on an area with which Eurocontrol has been involved in the past. There are complications, which I hope will be solved. I am sure that they will be.
The report is extremely comprehensive and covers the Government's responses. It will have great influence. I keep my antennae fairly open and I have yet to see such a thorough report that focuses so precisely on these points. I wish it well, but I must warn Her Majesty's Government on the French fluid position in connection with its part in military matters generally and the Commission's insistence on being represented on the committee. We know that the Commission is never averse to poking its nose in, and not always where it is required.
I issue that warning and repeat my congratulations to the chairman and the committee as a whole.
7.11 p.m.
Lord Wilson of Tillyorn: My Lords, as I am the first speaker in this evening's debate who had the pleasure of serving on Sub-Committee B under the wise and thoughtful leadership of the noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe, I wish to say what a pleasant and interesting experience it was. It was doubly interesting for me because, as a newcomer to that committee, this is the first of its long reports in which I have participated.
I derived some personal lessons from that experience. The committee has plenty of expert advice. We have our own excellent expert advisers, very good expert witnesses and several members of the committee who are expert in whatever subject is being discussed. For those of us who do not feel as though we are particularly "high powered", to quote the words of the noble Lord, Lord Bruce, but who are amateurs, our experience is that we come out of the process not pontificating about what should be done but learning what should be done.
Perhaps the only thing that someone like myself who is not an expert on this subject can contribute is a degree of looking at the matter through the lens of common sense. There are two points on which common sense should apply.
First, I refer to the report that we produced. Its cover, to make it exciting, showed air traffic routes throughout Europe as a nightmare of cobwebs. That is clearly what they are, and what they will remain even though there has been some diminution in air traffic, as the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, said, following the tragic events of 11th September. The previous density of air traffic will resume very soon, so the respite, if any, is temporary.
I often travel between Scotland and London. Indeed, I flew from Edinburgh to London this morning and had the not unusual experience of being held on the ground for 20 to 25 minutes. The pilot told us very politely that the delay was an air traffic control problem. The advantage of having served on Sub-Committee B is that I now no longer believe that they are United Kingdom air traffic control problems; they come from Brussels. However, it is not the devil figure of the European Commission that is doing this; it is Eurocontrol saying that there is excessive density of air traffic coming into London at a particular time in the morning, and asking whether the air traffic from certain areas, perhaps in the periphery—and perhaps Scotland is in the periphery—will kindly hold back.
That was a great thing to learn because I need no longer blame our own air traffic controllers; I can blame Eurocontrol. The clear lesson is that even if one is flying from Scotland to London, one is intimately affected by what happens in the rest of Europe. We cannot divorce what is happening in the United Kingdom from what is happening in the whole of Europe. In other words, to have effective use of the limited number of air routes, we must have a co-operative relationship with other air traffic controllers in continental Europe.
The second lesson which came across most clearly from my involvement in the report is the one to which the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington, referred. I refer to the relationship between military control and civilian control of airspace. The classic example is the squeezing of air traffic routes out of London, south-eastwards to continental Europe by a particular area under the control of the French military. It came across to me most clearly that when there is a pragmatic co-operative relationship between civilian and military air traffic controllers, the system can work if there is flexible use of airspace.
We are pretty good at that in the United Kingdom. It is evident that Germany and the Scandinavian countries are good at it too. It is equally evident that there are a number of countries in continental Europe which are not good at it. The lesson is that if one is to make good use of limited airspace, there must be a co-operative relationship between the military and civilians. That must be achieved.
The precise mechanics of how those relationships are worked out and how policy within Europe is carried forward seems to be a matter for the experts to work out in detail. There is a danger of too much bureaucracy through excessive use of the European Commission, as opposed to the expertise of Eurocontrol. The mechanics of all those issues are for the experts to work out. The general lesson that is most apparent from the report and from all the evidence that was given to us is that if we are to spend our time and resources flying effectively from one point to another rather than either sitting on the ground or flying round in circles, the attitude of mind on all these issues must be one of co-operation between nation states, and between civilians and the military.
7.18 p.m.
Lord Woolmer of Leeds: My Lords, in welcoming the report, as one of the members of the committee I pay tribute to the chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, and the contributions of all other members of the committee.
The wise words of the noble Lords, Lord Clinton-Davis, Lord Bruce of Donington and Lord Wilson, all find common cause in that this is a classic case of the need for a pan-European Union common policy, as suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Bruce. I totally agree with him and with the conclusions of the report.
As the noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe, said, there has been enormous growth in air traffic in the past 20 years, leading to at least two crises in handling it. By November of last year, 15 per cent of European flights were delayed by more than 15 minutes. As someone who flies around Europe a great deal, not to mention the rest of the world, I am always mildly surprised by the modesty of those delay figures. As a frequent traveller, I am very surprised that only 15 per cent of flights are delayed by only 15 minutes. That was something I never managed to square with the statistics. There was a great deal of fudging of statistics and in my later remarks I shall be making a plea for greater transparency and openness in this market-place. It is becoming, hopefully, an increasingly liberalised market-place where the user will have more power and influence than in the past.
Most of us in this Chamber probably use scheduled flights. But the charter traffic user—the average man and woman in the street—probably experiences much longer delays. If they listened to this debate tonight they were probably greatly surprised to hear that only 15 per cent of flights experience a delay of 15 minutes. So this is a slightly refined discussion compared with the common experience of many users of airlines.
That is looking to the past. Looking to the future we are told that air traffic will increase by 25 per cent over the next four to five years, and probably up to 100 per cent over the next 15 years. What do our users want of the air traffic system? They want speed and lack of delays. That is what is attracting the attention of your Lordships' House this evening. But they also want convenient location of airports. They want a better
quality experience in airports, and of course they are greatly concerned with safety—tragically now, safety from terrorism, but more continually the general safety of flying.I was extremely pleased to hear, and the general public to know, that the reason why we are held on the ground so often, air traffic delays or otherwise, is to ensure that safety is paramount. Users are concerned that safety remains paramount, despite the substantial increase in traffic movements. The ways in which, for the next few years, in Europe, and I am sure globally too, various air traffic control agencies, regulatory bodies, airlines and airports, will be seeking to ensure that we cope with the growth in air traffic are outlined in the report before your Lordships tonight. Those changes appear to be getting nearer to the point where it is difficult to see how much more growth can take place. It might double over the next 15 years, but we have already seen two crises in the past few years; we are struggling to find ways of maintaining that growth.
One aspect that must concern us is how far those changes will eventually reach the point of limited further development. That is relevant because, to a great extent, air traffic movement and air travel is only scratching the surface in Europe. An enormous proportion of people do not fly at all. They want to fly, initially on holidays, increasingly on short vacations and increasingly on business. So the underlying demand for growth is substantial. As the low-cost airlines show, people want to travel at a lower cost. Those lower costs will in turn stimulate growth beyond which incomes alone would not take us.
My underlying question therefore is whether, with all those changes, runway capacities will be able to cope. Will airports cope? Will safety remain paramount? Will the environmental consequences of that amount of air travel be acceptable to the public?
I welcome the moves towards the creation of a single European sky. I learnt a great deal from the committee proceedings about the specific issue of military-civil interface and, beyond that, the wider move towards the involvement of the European Commission and the further changes in Eurocontrol. But over and above that, liberalisation of air traffic management must follow. My noble friend Lord Clinton-Davis touched on that. Liberalisation of airline operations must follow; and liberalisation of airport slots leading to increased convenience and lower fares.
I hope therefore that this report and the underlying support for it will spread over from support for seeing that a single European sky makes a great deal of sense, to seeing that liberalisation of airline operations, airport slots and the bringing down of fares follows apace, while at the same time we ensure that safety indeed remains paramount.
7.25 p.m.
Lord Faulkner of Worcester: My Lords, I too congratulate my noble friend Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe, not only on the way in which he opened this debate this evening, but also on his excellent leadership as chairman of the committee which
delivered these two unanimous reports. I thank him also for his kind words on the modest part that I played in chairing the one session on 23rd November when we had the pleasure of questioning Mme Loyola de Palacio, the Vice President of the Commission and Commissioner for Transport and Energy. I express my thanks too to our hard-working clerk, Patrick Wogan, and to our specialist advisers Tony Goldman and Air Vice Marshal John Feesey.This was a most interesting inquiry, as other speakers who took part in it have already said. I learnt an enormous amount about air traffic management and the way in which the European Union institutions work. One of the reasons the inquiry was so interesting was because it is a subject that bears directly on the lives of millions of people, those who travel by air, those whose jobs depend on air travel, and those whose lives are affected by air traffic, aircraft noise and aircraft development.
As other speakers have said, the sub-committee inquiry concentrated mainly on the role of air traffic control in reducing delays and in helping the air transport industry to meet increased demand. In that context I shall examine the case of the so-called "Freedom to Fly Coalition", which was launched on 14th January with the specific objective of increasing capacity at British airports. In my view, which is shared by many environmental organisations, the Freedom to Fly argument is based on a false premise. To use an older transport analogy, it is a classic case of putting the cart before the horse.
The single most important cause of delays is air traffic management. There is a clear equation which says that if you add inefficiency in air traffic management to an increase in demand or capacity, greater congestion will be the outcome.
There are other unacceptable costs involved in increasing airport capacity, and I shall speak briefly about those in a moment. But if we were simply to respond to a greater demand for air travel by building more airports and runways without improving the efficiency of air traffic management, we would inevitably create greater delays and greater congestion.
During our inquiry we learnt a great deal about Eurocontrol and were told that implementing its programme, known as "ATM 2000+" for increased capacity by 2015, would make a dramatic difference. A combination of reducing vertical distances from 2,000 to 1,000 feet, which happened across 41 countries at midnight on 24th January; increasing flow management; providing more radio frequencies for air traffic control; improving ground/air links and flying more directly—particularly by passing through what is currently military air space such as in north-west France, to which my noble friend Lord Bruce of Donington referred and which is no longer needed now that the Cold War is over—all those measures could increase capacity by 60 per cent by 2005 over the core area of Europe if all Eurocontrol's members implemented them.
Resolving the dispute with Spain over Gibraltar, particularly over the isthmus on which the Gibraltar airport is sited, would also help greatly. As our report says, the dispute,
- "has become a significant obstacle to the progress of EC aviation legislation".
The second stage of ATM 2000+, for the years 2005 to 2010, assumes that the integration process will be accelerated; that it will produce a further increase in capacity of between 20 and 40 per cent and a reduction in the amount of fuel used of between 2 and 3 per cent. The final period, up to 2015, could see another 20 to 40 per cent increase in capacity. By then, says the ATM 2000+ plan,
- "the main limitations on any future improvements will be environmental considerations and runway saturation".
However, the campaign did write to me, and I imagine to most other noble Lords, at the time of its launch in January. It described its objective as:
- "To promote positively the sustainable provision of capacity to satisfy rising consumer demand for air travel".
According to the Financial Times of 15th January, it said at its launch that, without that additional capacity there would be more delays, higher prices and less choice for travellers. But, as our Select Committee report demonstrates, unless air traffic management is substantially improved, additional capacity will increase delays. Curiously, I could find no reference in the Freedom to Fly literature to Eurocontrol, to ATM, to the European single sky policy, or indeed to any of these matters which we considered would make a real difference in reducing delays.
The campaign claims that flying is no longer the privilege of the well-off. That point was made by my noble friend Lord Woolmer. That is true for many. I certainly do not want to see working families being priced off aircraft taking them to holiday destinations in the Mediterranean or elsewhere. But we should remember that frequent air travel is not an option for the poorest people in society, and probably never will be. They are more concerned with finding the money to pay the local bus fare than scouring the page for Ryanair's latest bargain offer.
It is also the case that many of Britain's poorest people live under flight paths, and do not have the means to move away if the number of aircraft becomes intolerably great.
Limiting the growth of air travel would have environmental gains for poor people in developing countries too. It is those countries that are the big losers from global warming, to which emissions from aircraft is a growing contributor. The campaign has been careful not to say just how much growth it is looking for. But it will find that as soon as it quantifies that, it will need to spell out where that growth will take place; how many extra planes will fly; how much extra noise and pollution there will be; which airports will be expanded; and which communities will be affected. Concepts like freedom, equity, prosperity and sustainability all sound fine, but current growth rates are unsustainable and politically untenable.
The last 25 years have seen a trebling in both flight and passenger numbers. Government forecasts—last published in June 2000—show that this trend is set to continue, as growth rates of between 4 and 6 per cent per annum are maintained. To cater for this rate of growth would require the equivalent of four more "Heathrows" by 2020 and nearly six by 2030.
There is no doubt that aviation provides jobs and contributes to the country's economy. But the aviation industry generally over-states its case because it does not allow for the considerable subsidies that the industry receives.
The Freedom to Fly campaign has said little about railways, bar some disparaging remarks about Railtrack. At the launch, Richard Branson said:
- "We don't want aviation falling into the same morass as the railways".
- "There is potential for significant environmental benefits from transferring short-haul flights to rail. By 2015, the reduction in the demand for air travel facilitated by transferring all mainland domestic passengers to rail is equivalent to the capacity of one new runway".
The Freedom to Fly campaign makes much of people's freedom to take cheap holidays in the sun. What it does not talk about is aviation's tourism deficit—the difference between what British people flying out of the UK on holiday spend abroad and what foreign people flying into the UK spend here. The economic contribution of the UK aviation industry 2000—a calculation by Ecotec—put the tourism deficit at £4.5 billion in 1997.
The aviation industry often points out that planes have got cleaner and quieter over the past 20 years. That is true. But the increase in the number of planes threatens to offset any improvements. Looking to the future, any further improvements will be cancelled out if aviation grows at the predicted rate. That is according to Arthur D Little, the consultants who have been advising the Government on technical matters as they prepare for the aviation White Paper.
So there are many issues which we need to weigh up before we go down the path of encouraging the unrestricted demand for the growth of air transport. An essential first step will be to sort out the issues of Eurocontrol and air traffic management generally. Here I share the hope of other speakers in the debate that our Select Committee report will make a useful contribution.
7.38 p.m.
Baroness Scott of Needham Market: My Lords, I am pleased to have the opportunity of contributing to this debate today on an important piece of work by Sub-Committee B, of which I was a member at the time. I am sure that the report will be welcomed by the industry and by decision-makers in the aviation field alike. It carries on the best traditions of reports from your Lordships' House, containing thoughtful and deliberate consideration of very complex matters.
The remarkable growth of the aviation sector has had profound effects on the way in which we carry out business and enjoy our leisure activities. It is tempting to speculate on the long-term effects of September 11th, but our belief is that the long-term trend towards high levels of growth will continue. The noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe, has referred to the reasons why we believe that to be the case.
We have heard from the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner of Worcester, that the volume of air traffic is set to grow at around 5 per cent per year. It has been interesting to note that in recent years the volume of air traffic growth has far outstripped the amount of investment in the sector. The difficulties that this was causing were reported by the committee as long ago as 1989. Without significant investment in air traffic management processes, it is estimated that a 1 per cent increase in the volume of air traffic will result in a 7 per cent increase in delays. With recent announcements of many new low-cost flights across Europe, that development alone should give rise to concern.
In Europe, some 70 per cent of air traffic crosses 9 per cent of airspace. It is estimated that within the EC there is a shortfall of between 800 and 1,600 air traffic controllers out of a total of 15,000.
Given that background, like the noble Lord, Lord Woolmer of Leeds, I am somewhat surprised that the situation is not far worse than it is. The industry has generally worked extremely well to alleviate the problems and has a good safety record. The 30 countries that co-operate under the auspices of Eurocontrol have delivered significant increases in our airspace capacity. However, it is becoming clear that the capacity of the industry to continue to make changes at the margin is now limited and the time has come to take a more radical approach.
On reflection, perhaps our report would have been better entitled "Improving the Management of European Airspace", because it address that aspect of the aviation industry, not the wider issues such as runways, passenger handling and separation criteria. Of course, there are fundamental questions to ask about the future of the aviation industry, and I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Woolmer, for pointing them out, and to the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner of Worcester, for talking so passionately about the disbenefits of growth in aviation.
Is it appropriate to continue to apply the doctrine of "predict and provide" to air travel when we have abandoned it for roads and house building? How can environmental and social disbenefits be weighed against economic and personal advantages and problems alleviated? For example, should we introduce a Europe-wide fuel tax on airliners so that a contribution is made towards the costs? Had it been Sub-Committee B's task to deal with some of those issues, I suspect that we would still be meeting and that the customary good nature of the noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe, would by now have been sorely tried. As it was, the committee concerned itself with producing a detailed and expert report on one aspect.
The overwhelming sense that I detected from the inquiry was that of fragmentation. There are an enormous number of stakeholders, to use the current phrase: air traffic service providers, airline groups, the EC, industry bodies, Eurocontrol, civil aviation organisations and, of course, the military. I am told that in total about 150 organisations are involved in the operation of airspace across Europe. As an aside, I note that the interests of passengers do not appear to be well represented, but an increasing pattern of delays may cause a rise in militancy and a demand for a more regulated approach to passenger rights.
In that regard, it is difficult to argue against the need for a more unified approach at European level to create a virtuous circle in which we can develop a common approach to air traffic management within both upper and lower airspace and the alignment of civil and military interests. The benefits of such a collaborative approach have been well outlined for us by the noble Lords, Lord Bruce of Donington, Lord Wilson of Tillyorn, and Lord Woolmer of Leeds. Of course, there is already significant collaboration within Europe, for example, in the Maastricht, Transalpine, Balkan and Nordic organisations. Perhaps we should consider standardising some of those collaborative efforts, and it may be helpful to consider a common billing policy for European air traffic.
A common thread that runs through the sub-committee's report is that efforts must be made to reduce duplication and that care must be taken not to create more duplication and confusion in any new structures, for example between Eurocontrol and the EC, as its role develops. The relationship between national air traffic management regulators and a new EC-wide regulator must be thought about further and the provider-regulator split should be safeguarded. The noble Lord, Lord Wilson of Tillyorn, referred to the dangers of over-bureaucracy.
The committee did not underestimate the difficulty of aligning civil and military interests in the aviation sector, and considered how second pillar procedures could be used in relation to the military. To make a more compelling case for such a change, we need much more qualitative and quantitative information and analysis of delays caused by military activity and resulting costs to the civil sector. It is worth emphasising that we do not in any way suggest that the military are somehow the villains of the piece. It is simply that the growth in air traffic means that one side cannot afford to ignore the needs of the other. Other than during crises, such as that in the Balkans, military activity does not really affect delays so much as capacity, but that is becoming increasingly important.
We heard that the balance of power between civil and military varies enormously from country to country. The evidence of the French, the Germans and the United Kingdom provided a wonderful vignette of the different approaches. The Germans abandoned their low-flying airspace training in the 1980s and now carry it out in Canada. It is fair to say that the French have been much more robust in maintaining a significant home-grown capacity. The UK military has a fair point when it says that in areas such as the North Sea it has made a significant investment in fixed location instrumentation to make training possible there. It is not easy to imagine that it will be keen to incur the costs of change to make life easier for private airlines.
I close by taking the opportunity to ask two questions. First, does the Minister agree that an early priority must be the corridor into northern France, especially the problems caused by the CBA1 military area to which the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington, referred? Secondly, does the investment in new equipment at Swanwick described by my noble friend Lord Clinton-Davis as a technological triumph mean that its field of influence may by agreement extend into the near Continent?
Finally, I thank Patrick Wogan and his team and the specialist advisers, Air Vice-Marshal Feesey and Mr Goldman, for their work, and pay a special tribute to the good-natured and extremely able chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe.
7.46 p.m.
Lord Rotherwick: My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe, and his colleagues on the Select Committee reports and welcome many of their recommendations. I come to
the debate on this complex subject with great trepidation. I am in somewhat of a spin grappling with the issues as a novice, unlike some of your Lordships who are more experienced. I ask your forgiveness in advance for any mistakes that I feel sure I am about to make.I come from a background of general aviation. I have experienced only the enjoyable side of aviation, flying as a pilot with the privileges of an instrument rating, as a passenger on commercial airliners and as a passenger on military jets such as the Tornado and the Harrier. Only last week, my local airfield, Oxford Airport, sent out a letter explaining that due to high aircraft movements, the Civil Aviation Authority will in future start requiring all aircraft flying instrument flight rules and, eventually, visual flight rules to start using air traffic flow management, ATFM, ensuring that the traffic controllers manage aircraft and minimise delays rather than just reacting to aircraft movements. I am afraid that those carefree aviator days are going.
In Europe, air traffic management is fragmented. Generally, European skies remain the equivalent of local roads, not the super-highways needed for air travel in the 21st century. We must support maximum co-operation between all member states in developing a safe and efficient air traffic control capacity across the European continent. Eurocontrol's senior director, air traffic management programme, Wolfgang Philipp, said recently:
- "We are convinced that we will overcome the post-11th September decrease in traffic and we still expect traffic to double by 2015 from 1998".
That is part of Eurocontrol's strategy comprising three capacity-raising periods. Phase 1, from 2000 to 2005, is based on increasing the efficiency of airspace use, resulting in a capacity gain of 20 to 40 per cent. The other two phases will take place every five years, with similar hoped-for gains in each phase. We must be proud of the leading role that the UK has played in Eurocontrol. There are many supporters of the single European sky, including NATS, which strongly supports it in principle. However, the proposal is extraordinarily vague about the actual measures that must be taken to resolve identified problems. They should be spelt out, as the report recommends.
There are significant obstacles. For instance, the revised convention signed in 1997 has not yet been ratified, because of the Gibraltar issue. That issue has also crippled the single European sky proposals. It will be interesting to know how the single European sky can be achieved when there are 65 air traffic control centres, 31 different centres, 22 different computer operating systems, 33 different computer language
forms and 18 different manufacturers. To add to those complications, there is the question of interoperability; Britain has third generation radar, whereas, in some cases in Europe, it is barely second generation. A rationalisation of all those will be required. The timetable must be flexible to allow for those and other challenging complications, such as separation of regulatory and executive functions.The main question is whether the United Kingdom has signed up to the creation of a single European sky or merely to the principles. There is little evidence that airspace designers and air traffic managers support the single sky concept. They appear to favour a more practical approach, based on the flexible use of airspace—FUA. The UK approach may achieve the intention for a single European sky, but it is not likely to include the "free flight" concept.
The credibility of the reorganisation of ATM in the UK depends on the active involvement of the military. The future regulatory framework must be clear and transparent, benefiting all users. There should be concern that the EU wishes to become a member of Eurocontrol, effectively bringing it under the control of the Commission. Will the EC be any more successful in developing a common airspace policy than it was in developing a common agricultural policy or a common fisheries policy?
At present available capacity is used inefficiently. The civilian/military interface needs addressing, as the report recommends. For example, the notorious French military airspace CBA1A, which some noble Lords have already mentioned, in the north-east of Paris, causes delays in the areas in which commercial traffic makes high demands on the surrounding airspace.
Although the military must plan to meet several tasks, its use of airspace in peacetime is mainly for training or conducting exercises. Given the level of cuts in military budgets, it is easy to understand why the military would need to get as much as possible from each sortie. That will have its own set of complications, as different types of military aircraft, new and old, move across Europe. The UK military shares one thing with general aviation: a desire for as much class G airspace as possible. Were the military interest to submit to EU regulations, the UK would lose control of its airspace, and the related issues would be subject to the views and wishes of other member states, several of which are not members of NATO.
Sovereignty is one of the main issues, as far as concerns defence and capacity. If the EU were to become a member of Eurocontrol, it would have the power to override the national security interests of the United Kingdom and prejudice our transatlantic relationships within NATO, as well as our bilateral external relations. Military ATM interests should not be covered under pillar one; sovereign states should determine such matters themselves. As the reports recommend, there is a need for other institutional arrangements, outside the first pillar of the Union, to facilitate all dealings in civil/military matters. We are
anxious that the Government make their position clear on how they intend to accommodate military interests. The report also recommended such clarity.Finally, there is a need for a sense of urgency in the response to the recommendations. There are many irritated passengers—from the debate, it seems, there are also many irritated noble Lords, including me—upset by the increasing occurrence of delays in air journeys. My sympathy is with them—for today, along with other noble Lords, notably the noble Lord, Lord Wilson of Tillyorn, I suffered a delay of 20 minutes when travelling home by air.
7.55 p.m.
Lord Filkin: My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe and his committee for their efforts in putting together the two excellent reports and for prompting an excellent debate, in which many important points have been made. The committee's reports show an admirable understanding of the complex issues; the Government recognise and welcome that. Time is short, so I hope that the House will bear with me if I am relatively rapid and staccato in responding to the important points made.
Improving co-operation between Europe's civil and military air navigation service providers is vital, if the long-term forecast demand for air travel is to be met, as the noble Lord, Lord Wilson of Tillyorn, has emphasised. At present, responsibility for enhancing that co-operation rests with Eurocontrol. It is over 40 years since that organisation was founded, and it has played a significant part in the development of European air traffic management systems. Eurocontrol has many excellent technical staff who have recently been instrumental in the successful introduction of the reduced vertical separation minima programme throughout Europe last month. As many Members said, Eurocontrol's institutional and legal structures remain confused, for which member states must share the responsibility. Its revised constitution has yet to be ratified.
The Government believe that the full implementation of the revised constitution will provide significant benefits, such as enabling the European Community to join it and greater use of qualified majority voting, where appropriate. However, that will not, by itself, alter the fundamental problems that exist in the organisation. My noble friend Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe asked why so few states have ratified the constitution. It is essentially because of an unresolved legal argument between the Commission and Eurocontrol. Work is going on to resolve that difficulty quickly and obtain ratification.
Even with ratification, not all the problems will be solved. Eurocontrol is only beginning the process of becoming a regulatory body, as the committee noted. Having Eurocontrol acting as regulator is not consistent with its also providing air traffic services. The Government therefore agree with the committee that there should be a rigorous and clear institutional separation of Eurocontrol's regulatory and service provision functions.
As the committee chaired by my noble friend reported, the fundamental problem for Eurocontrol in acting as a regulator is that it has limited enforcement powers, even when the revised convention has been implemented fully. As the noble Baroness, Lady Scott of Needham Market, recognised, a more radical approach is needed. The flexible use of airspace provides one important example of how Eurocontrol's lack of enforcement powers causes difficulties. That concept is about making better use of airspace that is largely used by the military. Eurocontrol members agreed the principles of that concept some years ago, but implementation is still a problem.
Some states have demonstrated that it is possible to fulfil military and civil objectives through closer co-operation between military and civil traffic controllers. However, some states have failed to apply that concept fully, and one way of overcoming that is by pursuing single sky. As your Lordships are aware, that is a vitally important project, aimed at significantly reducing flight delays and their financial and environmental costs. The more efficient routing of aircraft would, for example, reduce the amount of wasted fuel burn by between 10 and 15 per cent, making a massive environmental contribution. Single sky is also designed to provide the airspace capacity required by Europe's future airspace users, as the noble Lord, Lord Rotherwick, affirmed was necessary. It represents an excellent opportunity to improve the European air traffic management system and is supported not only by the Government and other EU member states but by Europe's airlines. The noble Lord, Lord Wilson of Tillyorn, clearly emphasised to the House the inter-connectedness of European states in this respect, and that therefore none of us can go it alone.
As the committee noted, there is a need to clarify the respective roles of Eurocontrol, the Commission and national air traffic management regulators. The relationship between all three must be based on clear complementary roles that avoid duplication and foster synergies between them. Now that we have the single sky legislative proposals we shall be better able to understand the proposed mechanisms. The Single Sky Committee will rely on Eurocontrol's technical expertise with the legal instruments available to the European Commission. With the three-way process that is envisaged, Eurocontrol's own rules, if they are appropriate, will be implemented within the EU using the Community's legal instruments. Single sky rules, which will be largely strategic in scope, will be reflected in Eurocontrol's rules. The national air traffic management regulator will continue to play a vital regulatory role, although further clarity is required on the precise nature of the relationship between national regulatory authorities and the Single Sky Committee. However, we believe that this three-way process can be effected only if there are significant changes to Eurocontrol's institutional structure.
It is true therefore that Eurocontrol is likely to be affected by single sky. The Government want to retain Eurocontrol's invaluable expertise in such areas as
defining the technical solutions to air traffic problems and consulting stakeholders through the new Eurocontrol notice of proposed rule-making process.The real problems in Europe's air traffic management systems lie in the congested airspace in north-west Europe, a point clearly signalled by the noble Baroness, Lady Scott of Needham Market. We understand that single sky will concentrate its initial efforts to overcome the problems that exist in this area. But as my noble friend Lord Brooke pointed out earlier, we must not forget the important contribution that non-EU member states make to the success of the overall European air traffic management system. That is why, as I mentioned earlier, the single sky rules are to be reflected in Eurocontrol rules and non-Community states can participate in the Single Sky Committee. Furthermore, we must not forget that the process of EU enlargement will gradually reduce the scale of this problem in the future, as enlargement and single sky move forward in parallel.
I shall turn now to the military aspects of single sky. The Government have noted the committee's concerns on the military dimensions of single sky. This is an issue that all EU member states are considering in detail. The Government continue to support the need for pillar one to be used for civil regulation, but we do not wish military authorities to be covered by the single sky legislation, which I am sure will be a comfort to the noble Lord, Lord Rotherwick. On the other hand, we favour including the principles of the flexible use of airspace concept in the legislation, subject of course to detailed consideration of the legal aspects, as this will help to ensure its full implementation across the EU.
As noble Lords have said, bringing military authorities within the scope of single sky is difficult. Despite that, we are conscious that the proportion of delays directly attributable to military peacetime use is small. Therefore we believe that a pragmatic solution using inter-governmental treaty arrangements is more appropriate than a pillar one or pillar two option, with all the attendant difficulties. Moreover, we do not consider that military matters such as the location of military training areas and bases fall within the scope of the European Community. The negotiations of the single sky proposals are under way, but at present there is no consensus view on the appropriate way forward on military matters. We have noted the committee's recommendation on the military dimension of the single sky proposal, and we shall keep that in mind in our efforts to achieve a consensus view.
The noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington, mentioned that with regard to the military training area, CBA1, in northern France, the two governments and the two air traffic service providers have ensured a greater degree of co-operation and has reduced delays. But the Government appreciate that CBA1 is a good example of the problems that exist with the present European air traffic management system which, I am sure noble Lords will agree, need to be overcome.
I wish my noble friend Lord Faulkner of Worcester well in his endeavour to persuade the French that CBA1 is no longer needed by them.There are other means to secure military and civil co-operation. As the noble Lord, Lord Wilson, has shown, this can be done. There are several mechanisms to improve co-operation and the Government are keen to ensure that bodies such as Eurocontrol's Civil/Military Interface Committee and Military Harmonisation Group are further developed. We believe that through such mechanisms and via the inter-governmental treaty arrangements we favour, we can secure more effective civil and military co-operation quickly and bring to an early conclusion the discussion on the single sky text. However, we do not dismiss out of hand the Select Committee's suggestion of common membership of CMIC and the Single Sky Committee.
The noble Baroness, Lady Scott of Needham Market, raised a question about Swanwick and inter-operability. In principle Swanwick could provide services to the near Continent. Indeed, the whole of Europe probably could be serviced by five or six such centres, in comparison with the 40-plus centres that we have currently. As the noble Baroness pointed out, the will to co-operate would have to be in place, and this is the kind of future envisaged by the European Commission in putting forward the single sky proposals.
My noble friend Lord Clinton-Davis raised questions about the Government's stance on Prestwick. Prestwick remains a key element in our strategy for air traffic services. We maintain unequivocally the two-centre strategy and work will proceed as soon as it is required.
My noble friends Lord Faulkner of Worcester and Lord Woolmer of Leeds helpfully reminded us of the wider context within which this discussion sits. The demand for increased air traffic also has implications and raises questions about runway capacity, airport capacity and the significant environmental and social costs consequent on air travel and its acceleration. I thought in particular that the point about the importance of seeing transport inter-connectedly, and the linkages with railways, was well made by my noble friend Lord Faulkner of Worcester. However, at this point I shall not answer those points, or the helpful point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, about fuel taxes, because noble Lords are well aware that these are the kinds of issues being considered in the Government's air transport White Paper which we hope to publish towards the end of the year. Prior to that we shall be consulting widely on many aspects of it.
The noble Lord, Lord Rotherwick, was right to mention the wider context of the objectives of single sky. Our discussions tended to focus on the tough and hard issue of civil/military co-operation, but single sky and the committee set up with the task of overseeing it is concerned also with the authorisation of air navigation service providers, the licensing of controllers, the decisions on what technical equipment
is to be used and when, the new charging mechanisms for commercial air transport users, the new and more efficient airspace arrangements in Europe and the improved co-operation between civil and military authorities, as we have concentrated on in this discussion. All of those six goals are important and are necessary to put in place the appropriate air traffic system and air transport services in Europe. As was signalled, one can see how we have got to the point where there is a plethora of systems, equipment and air traffic controllers, but it is clear that we cannot stay at this point in the future. None of us would see that as sane.I do not pretend at this point that the Government can or even should give specific and detailed answers to every single point that has been raised in our debate. There is an active process of consultation, development and negotiation under way at present. These issues have not been frozen with the publication last October of the four regulations. There is an active working group under way which since January has met four times already. We would expect that some of these issues have to be addressed within that working group and I am confident that this debate will provide useful input to aid their considerations. Without doubt the Government will emphasise those and other points to it.
However, we should not forget that there is a considerable strength of political support, both within this country and elsewhere, for the concept and goal of single sky. The Prime Minister has expressed clearly his very strong support for it—that is important for making progress—while the Spanish presidency of the European Commission has made this issue one of its prime goals for its tenure of the presidency, which we very much welcome. The airline industry in all its multiple facets in Britain has largely supported the objectives of single sky, while hoping to see how these can be realised in practice. Therefore, we are now seeking to do detailed work within Europe and the UK to try to bring to light and to life the important vision shared across the House for single sky and for the better military/civil co-operation which has been signalled.
I again thank my noble friend Lord Brooke and his excellent committee for producing these reports. They have been most useful in developing the Government's policy with regard to Eurocontrol and single sky. This has been an excellent debate in which many valuable points have been made.
8.10 p.m.
Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe: My Lords, as ever, our reports have produced an interesting and illuminating debate. As ever, they have provided an opportunity for noble Lords to raise wider issues and concerns than one might have expected. In a sense, if I can tweak my noble friend Lord Faulkner of Worcester, they provide the freedom to fly at any subject under the head of "aviation".
The reports have also provided a surprise for me, as the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington, indicated was likely to be the case. I welcome his contribution.
I also welcome the noble Lord, Lord Rotherwick, to his brief. Although I did not agree with everything he said, he is none the less welcome. I thank all who have contributed to the debate. I welcome, particularly, the Minister's comments. I detect that in a number of areas where hitherto we felt the door had been closed on some of the ideas we tried to get accepted, there is now a willingness to reconsider. That is also welcome.
On Question, Motion agreed to.
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