HC Deb 10 March 1983 vol 38 cc1044-9 10.38 pm
The Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Mr. John Patten)

I beg to move, That the draft Licensing (International Airports) (Northern Ireland) Order 1983, which was laid before this House on 16th February, be approved. A little earlier, my hon. Friend the Minister of State, winding up the debate on the Appropriation order, commented unfavourably on the lack of any substantial speech by any representative of the Social Democratic party or the Liberal party and the scarce representation in the House of those two parties. I am very surprised that the one political party in Northern Ireland that has demonstrated a great interest in the order and great antipathy towards its provisions should have chosen not to be here tonight to debate it. It seems to me pretty rum.

The main purpose of this order is to allow duty-free goods such as cigars, cigarettes, alcohol, perfumes and jewellery, to be sold at any time to departing international passengers in the licensed premises within the duty-free area of designated airports in Northern Ireland. It will also enable a much wider variety of duty-free goods to be sold. That fact has been little appreciated in the Province. At present the airport can sell only a very limited range of goods such as cigarettes, cigars and matches, and a few souvenirs, as anyone who inspects the kiosk at the shop in Aldergrove airport will realise. However, up to 3,000 additional lines of goods could be provided, should this order be passed. The main additional items would be perfumes, lighters, cameras, watches, silks, and possibly furs. The House will appreciate, therefore, that on the duty-free side there is considerable potential financial benefit to the airport under the proposed new arrangements. The order will also allow sales of non-duty-free alcoholic drinks for consumption in such premises, provided other kinds of hot and cold beverages are available at the same time

I want to stress a number of facts about the proposed departure lounge. First, all these facilities will be available only to bona fide international passengers who are departing from Northern Ireland. Second, in no circumstances and at no time will friends and relatives of departing international passengers be permitted to enter the international departure lounge and consume drinks or purchase any of the goods being sold there, and the general public will have no access whatever to that departure lounge. Third, the order brings the law in Northern Ireland in this respect into line with that applying in the rest of the United Kingdom.

It does so by enabling an airport such as Aldergrove—or any other airport that might be proposed—which satisfies certain conditions to be exempted by the Department of Health and Social Services—which, curiously enough, has this responsibility in Northern Ireland—from the normal restrictions contained in the Licensing Act (Northern Ireland) 1971 regarding the opening hours of licensed premises and the ancillary businesses that may be carried on in them.

Mr. Donald Anderson (Swansea, East)

It seems curious and anomalous that the Department of Health and Social Services should have that responsibility. Is that a historical accident, or is there a good justification for it?

Mr. Patten

I welcome the intervention of the hon. Member for Swansea, East (Mr. Anderson) in this debate. He brings a fresh face and a fresh voice to accompany his hon. Friend for Hammersmith, North (Mr. Soley), who has borne the heat and burden of the afternoon, the drinks hour, the dinner, and the after-dinner hours with great stamina on the Opposition Front Bench. The hon. Member for Swansea, East asks whether it is a historical accident. It all depends on his view of where history begins and where contemporary events begin. It is an accident that dates back to as long ago as 18 months. The arrangement took place under the reorganisation of the Departments in Northern Ireland. As some right hon. and hon. Gentlemen will remember, we had a debate last year on the draft order which set out these arrangements. It is the Department of Health and Social Services, as it is called in Northern Ireland, that has this responsibility.

What sort of airports will qualify? Only an airport that has a substantial volume of international passenger traffic and at which the Customs and Excise Department has approved the provision of duty-free facilities will qualify for exemption. That exemption will apply only to licensed premises that are located inside the duty-free area. It will be an additional condition of exemption that hot and cold non-alcoholic beverages must be available in the exempted premises at all times when alcoholic liquor is obtainable for consumption. An airport will have to be able to satisfy the Department of Health and Social Services that it meets those strict conditions. In that event the Department will be empowered to make an order specifying it as an airport which qualifies for exemption. If an airport ceases to qualify in any sense the exemption will be withdrawn.

I am sure that it is clear to all right hon. and hon. Members who represent Northern Ireland that the only airport in Northern Ireland that is likely to qualify at the moment is Aldergrove, through which they, like me, regularly travel on domestic flights; I suspect, less regularly on international flights. Therefore, at this stage I shall interpose a word about Aldergrove airport. The House probably appreciates that Northern Ireland Airports Ltd. is rightly required to be a self-supporting company, subject only to grants for approved capital projects. The major proportion of its income is derived from landing charges, and those have been a bone of contention in the past. Those are borne by the airlines and hence are recoverable from passengers through airline ticket costs. This week we have seen a further increase in the shuttle fare of flights between London Heathrow and Aldergrove airport.

There are other sources of income that derive from concessions in the airport buildings and from rentals. Therefore, it is important that the airport is able to make the most that it possibly can from such alternative revenue raising sources and to ensure that they are fully developed in order to avoid or to reduce the need to increase the already high charges that passengers have to pay when travelling from Aldergrove to London, Birmingham, Edinburgh, Manchester, Glasgow, the Isle of Man and elsewhere in the United Kingdom. That is particularly so for Northern Ireland, where Aldergrove airport, as the only major airport in the Province, is vital to its social and economic development. We must look to its health and vitality.

Sales of duty-free goods, including alcoholic liquor, have contributed significantly to airport revenue elsewhere in the United Kingdom. That is common ground between all hon. Members. At the same time the sales of duty-free goods of all sorts, including alcohol, but not exclusively, have helped significantly to keep down landing fees and charges to airport users. This order will enable Aldergrove airport, where there has been a considerable growth in international passenger traffic in recent years—notably through charter flights—to benefit likewise from the sale of duty-free goods.

At the moment, as everyone interested in the health of the airport would agree, the position is most unsatisfactory. Although there has been a duty-free shop at the airport since 1980 it has been restricted to selling intoxicating liquor during the normal permitted hours for licensed premises, which, in Northern Ireland are from 11.30 am to 11 pm on weekdays alone. That has proved unsatisfactory as many charter flights depart on Sundays and outside those hours on weekdays. It is a matter for speculation just how much charter traffic has been lost from Belfast to competing airports such as Dublin where facilities such as duty-free shops are available. Passengers on flights out of Aldergrove are denied the opportunity to purchase such goods, so the airport loses revenue. If approved, the order will remedy that.

At the root of it all are two things. The first is the commercial commonsense of enabling the airport in Northern Ireland to make proper use of the revenues to be gained from duty-free facilities. It makes simple commercial sense for Northern Ireland to have an airport that enjoys that facility. It is commercial nonsense for it not to have it. Secondly, the order has a significance for Northern Ireland in the eyes of the world at large.

My hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest (Sir J. Biggs-Davison) spoke of how important was the image of Northern Ireland in developing industry and inward investment. What we wish to see at Northern Ireland's international airport at Aldergrove, where a splendid new terminus was opened as recently as January, is a projection of Northern Ireland as a country which, like most others, is concerned with utterly straightforward and normal things. I refer to such normal objectives as promoting tourism, commerce and international trade. What is wrong with any of those objectives? Nothing. Should the order be passed, it will play its albeit small part in the continuing normalisation process which we all wish to see. I commend it to the House.

10.52 pm
Mr. Clive Soley (Hammersmith, North)

I do not intend to detain the House for long as we are happy for the order to go through unopposed.

There is one question which I should like the Minister to consider, although I do not necessarily wish him to reply today. I ask because of a complacent reply earlier today when I asked him about alcohol abuse in prisons in Northern Ireland. I ask not simply because I have a long-term interest in the subject, have worked for many years with people who suffer from alcohol abuse and am chairman of the Alcohol Education Centre, but because of the Government's Central Policy Review Staff report, which, although it has been hushed up by the Government, has been published abroad and is easily available.

I recommend to the Minister that he gets hold of a copy of that report from Sweden and reads it, because it points out that one of the problems with alcohol abuse, which has reached serious dimensions recently, is the easy availability of alcohol. I do not necessarily want it to be less readily available, but there are several ways in which to deal with the problem.

One of the aspects of orders such as this is the curious arrangement whereby alcohol can be sold as long as hot and cold non-alcoholic beverages are also available. There seems to be a curious sense of fairness whereby if someone does not want an alcoholic drink, coffee or tea should also be available. I am not sure what it is about.

What matters—I believe that the Central Policy Review Staff has also said this—is that, where alcoholic beverages are for sale, food should also be available. That does not necessarily involve extra staff as the food can be packed and dispensed through automatic food dispensers. There is a strong case for ensuring that, when we increase the number of outlets for alcohol, we ensure that food is also available.

The Minister may think this a minor point if he does not believe that alcohol abuse is a serious problem, but about 1 million people in Britain are believed to be dependent upon alcohol. Anyone who has worked with alcholics, and tried to get them off alcohol, recognises that it is as great a problem as trying to get people of the so-called hard drugs such as heroin. The dossers who wander the streets represent only 5 per cent. of alcoholics. The problem is centred in trades linked with drink, and involves licensees and those who work in places such as the House of Commons, where the bars are always open and drink is always available.

I recommend the Minister to read the CPRS report and to consider it carefully. Although it will make no difference to this order, the Government must—they have already done so but have not yet announced it—respond to some of the suggestions in the report. That includes ensuring that food is available where alcohol is dispensed.

10.55 pm
Mr. William Ross (Londonderry)

With the Minister of State, I am disappointed that those who are most vocal in their opposition to this measure in Northern Ireland are not present tonight, because it might have made some difference to the Government's intentions. No doubt they prepared themselves carefully for battle this evening, and it is sad that we have been deprived of their presence, which would have enlivened the proceedings. The only hon. Member from Northern Ireland to whom the House can listen tonight is me. As I neither drink nor smoke, consider furs too costly and my wife has enough perfume, this venture will not get too much income from me.

However, I am rather curious about the hot and cold beverages. Will that proposal be peculiar to the airport in Northern Ireland, or is it common throughout the United Kingdom? The Minister seems to believe that many people will use the facility. Has consideration been given to the possibility that some people will travel by air via Dublin in order to reap the benefit of duty-free liquor on the way across to London and on the way home?

What are the normal rates of tax on the items that will be sold in this establishment? Will they be sufficient to make the goods appeal to customers? What guarantee is there that the removal of tax will not lead to an increase in the net price of such goods? The Minister made it plain that the airport authority hoped to gain considerable income from the operation of the facility, but the person who takes on the concession is not doing so for fun but intends to make a profit from it. If the rental is high, he must recover the cost from the customer. If he recovers it from the customer, he may well raise his profit levee. If he does that, some at least of the benefit of the removal of the tax will not be passed on to the customer. I have had some experience of such establishments in other airports, and I wonder whether the saving is as great as the customer believes.

10.59 pm
Mr. John Patten

I must not be led too far clown the path that the hon. Member for Hammersmith, North (Mr. Soley) asked me to follow. I apologise if, as he believes, my earlier reply about alcohol abuse was unhelpful. I did not mean it to be unhelpful. The Government believe that a substantial proportion—about 40 per cent.—of the people in Northern Ireland are teetotal, like the hon. Member for Londonderry (Mr. Ross). About 4 per cent. of the population is believed to have an alcohol problem, and about 1 per cent. are believed to be genuinely alcoholics. We do not underestimate it, nor do we not deal properly with the alcoholic problems of prisoners. There is some doubt to be fairly cast on the value of social research when prisoners or young offenders are asked to give details of their drinking habits. Some surveys have produced boasts by individual drinkers in prisons and training centres that they manage to drink up to 23 pints a session. That is unlikely to be helpful. The evidence produced in Scotland, where the licensing laws were subject to considerable change a few years ago, does not point to any increase in drunkenness.

The hon. Gentleman touched on a serious point when he mentioned food. In all departure lounges in airports throughout the world, food is invariably provided as a simple part of the commercial exercise. I cannot think of any international departure lounge that does not have some food available, albeit in snack form. The snacks are provided—I admit at some cost—in the shuttle lounge at Aldergrove. There will be no difficulty for passengers wishing to consume food with drinks, but that provision is not written into the order. Any sensible airport would wish to meet that demand.

It is usual in all departure lounges throughout I he United Kingdom for hot and cold beverages to be supplied. The hon. Member for Londonderry should not underestimate the considerable revenues that will be brought to Aldergrove airport. The airport authorities reckon that in the first year alone a revenue of £100,000 will be produced, rising to £150,000 or more in a full year thereafter. How much money is raised depends not only on the number of passengers going through the departure lounges but on the prices that are set for each of the articles, be they alcohol, perfumes, furs and so on. Clearly the Northern Ireland airports authority will wish to ensure that, however it is operated, the maximum amount of revenue is gained with prices being set at the most competitive level possible. I do not have the exact details of the proposed price levels as the order has not been made and the concessional and other arrangements have not been undertaken.

We believe firmly that the implementation of the order will be one further step towards greater commercial success for Aldergrove airport and towards the improved image of Northern Ireland as a place concerned with the development of tourism, industry and commerce. Its airport should hit the incoming traveller immediately, and send the outgoing traveller away happy with those items that he wishes to take with him from the duty-free area. I commend the order to the House.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved, That the draft Licensing (International Airports) (Northern Ireland) Order 1983, which was laid before this House on 16th February, be approved.