Member

I next address Amendment 74, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Holmes of Richmond, which seeks a secure record-keeping system for slot transactions. As I said in relation to Amendment 73, slot allocation is undertaken by an independent co-ordinator; for UK airports, that is Airport Coordination Ltd. Airlines already notify ACL of transfers and trades. ACL acts as the central system of record, reviewing transactions against airport capacity and operational constraints, documenting exchanges, including monetary and non-monetary swaps, and publishing them online. While I welcome the noble Lord’s interest in innovation, technologies such as distributed ledgers are designed to remove the need for a trusted central party. Here, that central party already exists and is legally bound to operate neutrally and without discrimination. Amendment 74 is therefore unnecessary, and I ask the noble Lord not to press it.