Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)

I note the noble Lord’s point on Heathrow and other airports that have a regulated asset base. Airports must retain the ability to manage their own infrastructure. The Government’s role is to ensure that competition and consumer laws are protected and upheld. Ultimately, each airport operator must justify the charges they levy and show that they are fair, transparent and carried out with proper accountability. For those reasons, I hope noble Lords will feel able not to press their amendments. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, for his amendment relating to reimbursement for airlines if delays are caused by air traffic management, and I note the support from the noble Baroness, Lady Foster of Oxton, and others. Long delays and cancellations that are caused by air traffic management decisions are considered extraordinary circumstances under the current law, and therefore compensation is not due to passengers in those cases. None the less, the airlines are responsible for providing refunds, or care to passengers, such as meals and refreshments, when there are such delays and cancellations, provided certain qualifying conditions are met. I note that National Air Traffic Services is subject to a robust regulatory regime overseen by the Civil Aviation Authority, and it includes performance targets linked to delays and a financial penalty mechanism when these targets are not met, meaning that NATS must reduce what it charges airlines in the following period. This is at least currently the effective penalty on NATS for poor performance. I recognise that the noble Lord has diligently pursued this issue across the previous Government and this one. With relative joy, I have discovered how many previous Secretaries of State there are not only on the opposition Benches but in this Room. I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Harper, for his explanation of what happened in the case that the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, referred to. He supposes that I have some sympathy with the proposition that, somehow, the charges levied on Network Rail did not act as the incentive that they were supposed to. He is right, which is why the Railways Bill does not go in that direction. I am grateful to him—seriously—for explaining what decision he came to in that particular case, because he is right that the shareholding of NATS is very far from a conventional commercial company with a range of shareholders. I hope I have never been grudging. I may—as the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, probably thinks frequently—be unpersuasive, but I think I owe the noble Lord, Lord Young, at least the courtesy of a meeting on this subject to understand better what he has said and to see whether the current Government’s position ought to be the same as what the noble Lord, Lord Harper, described in his Government’s case, or whether there is a persuasive case for change.