§ Miss McIntoshTo ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions (1) what the Government's policy is on granting the European Commission a mandate to negotiate bilateral air service agreement between the EU and the US; [121285]
(2) if it is his objective to achieve full liberalisation of air services between the UK and the US as a result of the forthcoming bilateral air service agreement talks with the US; [121283]
(3) what his policy is on open skies in the context of the forthcoming bilateral air talks with the US Government; [121284]
(4) what recent discussions he has had with his US counterpart on bilateral air service agreement; [121281]
(5) what HM Government's aims are in the forthcoming bilateral air service agreement talks with the US Government; and if he will make a statement. [121282]
§ Mr. MullinIt is the Government's policy to secure the liberalisation of the UK/US aviation market, an objective often referred to as 'open skies'. In pursuit of this objective, my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister has spoken on a number of occasions with the US Secretary for Transportation, and has met him twice this year.
Our aim in negotiations is to remove all capacity and route restrictions on UK-US traffic, thereby increasing competition to the benefit of consumers, provided UK carriers can gain effective access to the US domestic market and so compete on fair terms.
As regards a mandate for the EU, our priority continues to be our bilateral negotiations with the US and we are not persuaded of the advantages of granting the Commission a mandate. Nevertheless, we have taken part constructively 373W in discussions with EU colleagues and the Commission on the technical detail of what a possible mandate might contain.