Lord Young of Cookham (Con)

My noble friend is a mind-reader; I was going to refer to Network Rail in about 40 seconds. As I said, as far as NERL’s ownership is concerned, it is different, but that should not preclude it having to pay up for claims. The review then produced another pretext, which, again, does not stand up to scrutiny. This is what it said: “Such a liability would probably lead to a substantial increase in the annual costs of the ATC”— air traffic control— “service, which could in turn lead to increased costs to airlines and passengers”. What happens at the moment? The compensation liability rests with the airlines and, as such, it has already caused increased costs to passengers. If the airlines did not have the liability their costs would go down, but if NATS then passed back all the increased costs we would be back where we started. Crucially, that assumes that the regulator, the CAA, would allow the costs to be passed on by NATS to customers, instead of taking it out of profits. If, as happens with the water companies, costs were not passed on to consumers but funded out of profits then costs to the airlines and passengers would actually go down, not up—the opposite of what the review suggested. I come to my noble friend’s intervention. The Minister will understand and, I hope, sympathise with the case I am making because of his previous responsibility for Network Rail. If, as my noble friend said, a passenger is delayed, the train operator pays the compensation. If Network Rail was responsible for the delay, it then reimburses the train operator. That is as it should be, and it is exactly what should happen in air transport. A failure in traffic control is paid for by the traffic controller. My amendment is supported by IATA, which actually wants to go further. It would like the amendment to be extended to airports and other parties that provide air services that can cause disruption yet are not liable for passenger compensation. Airlines currently pay all passenger compensation regardless of who is at fault—for example, the power failure at Heathrow last year. To sum up and use management jargon, we need shared accountability across the value chain. I hope the Minister can respond positively to the case I have made and put right this manifest injustice.