Aviation Security Charges Review (Hansard, 29 July 1982)

§ Baroness Burton of Coventry
My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the order Paper.

§ The Secretary of State for Trade (Lord Cockfield)
My Lords, consideration of the issues arising out of my honourable friend's review of aviation security was not complete when the noble Baroness asked her Question yesterday. It was clearly therefore impossible for me to give any real information in reply to her Question. For this reason I suggested to her, in advance, that she should table a Question for Written Answer today, which would enable me to give her the information she required at the earliest possible moment and in as comprehensive a form as possible. I felt it only right, in view of the interest she had shown in this matter, that the Statement should be made in reply to a Question she asked.
This is not a matter which permits an Answer in a few lines. Indeed, I felt it would not do justice to the matter to attempt to do so. As, therefore, the Statement is a long one, I would hope that your Lordships will agree that I should circulate it in the Official Report. In brief, however, the position is that the Government have made it clear on many occasions that the cost of airport security should be paid by the users and not by the general taxpayer. The inquiry was therefore limited, primarily, to considering the best way of financing security measures.
The most important conclusion, which I have accepted, is that the present Aviation Security Fund should be wound up. This would mean that in general the costs would be met directly by the airport authorities who would then recover the costs from the airlines in whatever way they thought was appropriate. This in fact is what the airlines have asked for.
The Statement referred to is as follows: On 22nd February my honourable friend the Parliamentary, Under-Secretary of State for Trade announced that a review would be undertaken of the way that aviation security is organised and financed in the United Kingdom and particularly whether the present Aviation Security Fund system remains the best way to finance the necessary aviation security measures. That review has now been completed. The results are set out below. It was made clear that the review could not cover the present standards of security at United Kingdom airports. The Government had also made it clear that they were not prepared to change the principle under which the costs of security were borne by the aviation industry and the users rather than by the general body of taxpayers. Consultations were extensive and embraced not only airlines and airport operators but also the British Airline Pilots Association, the Transport and General Workers Union, the Air Transport Users Committee, the Association of British Travel Agents and International Air Transport Association. 359 Representations were received from a large number of individuals and bodies. Many of these dealt with matters outside the scope of the review. Others simply proposed the abolition of the levy without facing up to the problem of how the costs should then be financed. But the more detailed representations tended, not unnaturally, to concentrate on the Aviation Security Fund Airlines represented by the British Civil Aviation Standing Conference and the International Air Transport Association, as well as United States carriers, contended that the fund should be wound up on the grounds that it removed any financial incentive for those who carried out security measures to do so economically. They also emphasised their dislike of the cross-subsidisation inherent in the system between lower cost airports and more expensive ones. The British Airports Authority also took the view that the fund should be wound up, on the ground that it involved the Department of Trade in what they regarded as unnecessarily close scrutiny of their security operations, and management decisions. In general, however, the regional airports supported retention of the fund on the grounds that airport security should be viewed as a national service and this justified recovery of cost on the basis of a flat-rate levy. They also argued that security costs per passenger tended to be higher at smaller airports, not because of lower efficiency, but because of lower traffic and that abolition of the fund would put them at a competitive disadvantage compared with the much busier London airports. A wide range of views were expressed by other interested parties. As background to the review, the Department of Trade undertook research into the ways in which countries overseas organised and financed airport security measures. The research showed that in continental Europe, with certain exceptions, airport security duties were generally carried out by national and local police and as a rule were not directly funded by revenue from airport operations. In contrast the research also showed that in the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and Switzerland, searching was paid for by airlines, and that in the United States and Canada all other aspects of airport security were also, in the end, paid for by the airlines. No other country operated a fund system along the lines of the United Kingdom model. Apart from this, the inquiry indicated no more than that many important countries followed the same broad approach as the United Kingdom in ensuring that the cost of security was ultimately met by airlines and their passengers: while other important countries regarded the cost as part of the ordinary cost of policing. In short, there was no universal pattern. The arguments put forward by the industry for and against the fund have been weighted very carefully. The department's ability to ensure that security measures would be quickly and properly implemented if the financial sanction hitherto afforded by the fund ceased to exist has been an important consideration. The balance of the arguments is a fine one. But I have concluded that the financing of security would be more straightforward, unnecessary and complex procedures would be avoided, incentives to carry out security measures efficiently would be increased, and cross-subsidisation eliminated, if the fund were wound up and airports and airlines financed security costs in the same way as their other operating expenditure. Accordingly I have decided that the fund should be wound up with effect from 31st March next. Detailed arrangements will be announced as soon as possible. The department will continue to set and monitor security standards at airports in the United Kingdom, and I am confident that we may continue to count on the co-operation of airports and airlines in the implementation of recommended measures. But if the need arose I would be prepared to use the powers conferred by the Protection of Aircraft Act 1973, to ensure that proper standards are maintained. Consideraton was also given during the review to the question of responsibility for, and organisation of, passenger searching. The airlines however were chiefly concerned that the searching arrangements at each airport should be efficient rather than with who was responsible for their execution. I agree with this view. Accordingly no change will be made in the present position under which the responsibility normally falls on the airport authority concerned. My department will continue to monitor the arrangements to ensure that standards of security are maintained and that improvements are made wherever possible".

§ Baroness Burton of Coventry
My Lords, obviously, I must thank the Minister for giving us much more information than he did yesterday, but, without reopening old wounds, may I ask him whether he is aware that we all feel it would have been better if the Statement which he has prepared for today could have been given orally today?
If I may move on from that, may I ask him three short questions which I think should be on the record: First, is he aware that the British Civil Aviation Standing Conference has placed on record with his department their belief that aviation security costs should be met by central Government, and that this is also the wish of the airlines? Secondly, may I ask him whether he is aware that this is not a private "hunt" of mine but is an important financial matter concerning the civil aviation industry? Lastly, may I ask him whether he realises what effect his words of yesterday are likely to have on the civil aviation industry when they read that the noble Lord feels that this matter—that is, the cost of security—is not of such overriding public interest as to merit an oral Statement in your Lordships' House?

§ Lord Cockfield
My Lords, the decision that the cost of security should be borne by the user and not by the general body of taxpayers was taken in December 1976 by the previous Administration and incorporated in legislation passed in 1978 under that Administration. The present Government have abided by the same principle. It has been made clear throughout that the Government did not propose changing that principle. The inquiry that was conducted by my noble friend, to which the Question asked by the noble Baroness relates, did not, therefore, cover that issue of principle, and this was made clear in a letter sent by my noble friend to the noble Baroness on 17th March of this year. Of course I accept that the people who at present pay the costs would prefer not to. That is a very understandable attitude.
Secondly, I did not say, and certainly had no intention to convey the suggestion, that I thought that security measures as such, or indeed the cost of them, were not a matter of great importance. The point that I was making was that the precise mechanism through which you carried out a policy which had been established by the previous Government and confirmed by the present Government, was not of the order of importance that usually justifies a separate oral Statement.

§ Baroness Burton of Coventry
My Lords, I do not wish to prolong this issue because the House has been very kind, but is the noble Lord aware that I cannot resist the invitation (although he did not intend it as such) in his opening remarks? Concerning 1978, when the previous Government were in power—a Government of which I was then a Back-Bench member—does he recall that we almost defeated that Government on this issue? We lost by only two votes; and the votes I collected were mostly from the Conservative Party, among whom I had some most distinguished supporters.

§ Lord Cockfield
My Lords, I am most glad to note that the noble Baroness pursued an independent line 361 when the party of which she was then a member was in Government, as she pursues an independent line today.

§ Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede
My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord whether he can clarify, in a sense, his Statement today? As I understand it—and perhaps the noble Lord will confirm this—the cost is still being paid by the users, searching will still be carried out centrally and the effect of his Statement really is only that the method of payment by the users will be altered?

§ Lord Cockfield
Essentially, my Lords, that is a fair summary of the situation. There had been considerable criticism of what was felt to be the cumbersome procedure involved in having a fund. The airlines were anxious to get rid of the fund, and this is in fact what we propose doing.

Lord Paget of Northampton
My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that I heard with some astonishment that a previous Government had agreed that the air users should have to pay for their security? Is he aware—I think I am quoting correctly from international law—that the conditions on which a Government are entitled to recognition are their capacity and will to provide for the security of their citizens? The idea that a Government abdicate their capacity to provide for the security of their citizens and charges them for the performance of that elementary duty is somewhat curious.

§ Lord Cockfield
My Lords, there are very long, ancient and honourable precedents for the user paying. For example, the railway police, who have been in existence for a very long time, are paid for by the railways.