Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)

My Lords, I am grateful to noble Lords for their thoughtful and powerful contributions on accessibility and consumer protection. The noble Baroness, Lady Grender, is right that we should not have to hear these stories. Some of them are simply dreadful, and the worst thing is that they are only examples. The Government share the objective behind the amendments that disabled passengers and others who need assistance should be able to travel by air with confidence, dignity and appropriate redress when things go wrong. It is for those reasons that the Government established the Aviation Accessibility Task and Finish Group. I have already welcomed the report of July last year from the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson. Before turning to individual amendments, I should make one point that applies to very many of them. Clauses 1 and 2 are designed to provide powers to strengthen passenger rights and enforcement. The Government’s view is that detailed requirements relating to passenger rights are best developed through secondary legislation, following consultation, evidence gathering and impact assessment, rather than fixed in primary legislation now, when the time to do those things is insufficient. I ask noble Lords to keep these common factors in mind as I progress but, to be clear, I will gladly meet interested Members of your Lordships’ House to discuss each individual amendment and describe further the Government’s intentions. To gently contradict the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, Ministers will have influence on what is brought forward in the regulations; it will not just be civil servants who propose. However, I will be asking noble Lords not to press their amendments, for the reasons I will set out.