§ Mr. Ashleyasked the Secretary of State for Trade if he will make a statement about progress in improving compensation limits for air passengers.
§ Mr. Clinton DavisFrom 1st October the Civil Aviation Authority has made it a licence condition that British carriers apply a limit of liability of £25,000 on their scheduled and non-scheduled international flights, in respect of the death or personal injury of a passenger. This almost trebles the limit fixed by the Warsaw Convention as 823W amended at the Hague, without otherwise affecting a claimant's rights under the Convention, which permits the fixing of a higher limit by special contract between carrier and passenger. I am glad to observe that both British Airways and British Caledonian Airways voluntarily applied the £25,000 limit well in advance of the formal requirement; the former in respect of all international flights; the latter in respect only of scheduled international flights.
Following informal consultations initiated last year by the Civil Aviation Authority with my full support, several other countries are understood to have taken, or to contemplate, steps to induce their flag carriers similarly to apply a limit equal to about £25,000.
Recently we made a new Carriage by Air (Sterling Equivalents) Order to take account of changes in the value of sterling. As a result, the passenger limit under the Warsaw Convention, as amended at the Hague, goes up from £8,723 to £9,265 in sterling terms.
At the Diplomatic Conference on Air Law in Montreal in September the United Kingdom delegation joined delegations of other States in signing Protocols to the Warsaw Convention, the Convention as amended at the Hague, and the Convention as amended at the Hague and at Guatemala City, substituting special drawing rights (SDRs) in place of Poincaré gold francs as the yardstick for expressing the limits of liability. This is significant, because implementation of the provisions of the Guatemala City Protocol, which provides for an "unbreakable" limit equivalent to nearly £56,000 and "no fault" liability, depends for all practical purposes on the United States ratifying and the indications were that without this substitution of SDRs United States ratification could not be expected.
A further conference is to be called as soon as possible to examine a consolidated text of the various instruments applying to the liability of carriers by air. In deciding the timing of legislation to give effect to the protocols adopted at Montreal we shall have regard to this, as well as to the progress of ratification.