Minutes of the External Advisory Group, 4 March 2009

Attendees: Jonathan Moor (Chair) - DfT Ken Crawford – Scottish Executive, John Parkinson - DfT Keith Walsh - Northern Ireland, David Hart – DfT Roger Wiltshire – British Air Transport Association, Lucy Gordon – DfT Nic Ferriday – Friends of the Earth, Michael Dnes – DfT Rita Burns – BAA, Lara Sherwin - DfT David Milford – British Airways, Sarah Weston - DfT Tim Johnson – Aviation & Environment Federation, Anna Mahoney – Strategic Aviation Special Interest Group, Owen Simon – Confederation of British Industry, Jonathan Bailey – Manchester Airport, Mike Carrivick – BAR-UK, Jill Brady – Virgin Atlantic, Simon Evans – AUC

Apologies: Keith Thomas – Welsh Assembly, Danny Pedri - DHL, Duncan Kay – SDC, Robert Siddall – Airport Operators Association, Eddie Redfern – Charter Airline Group, Martin Capstick - DfT

1. Welcome and Introduction

Jonathan Moor, Director of Airports Strategy, welcomed everyone to the fourteenth meeting of the External Advisory Group (EAG). Jonathan Moor asked members to consider the minutes of the November meeting and send any comments to Sarah Weston by the end of the week. If no comments were received, he confirmed that the minutes would be made available on the DfT website.

2. Update on Progress

John Parkinson, DfT Head of Airports Policy, provided an update on key airports policy developments since the last EAG meeting. These included: the ministerial decision on 15 January 2009 confirming the Government’s support for adding capacity at Heathrow airport subject to an initial limit of 605,000 annual movements and noise and air quality targets being met and independently verified by the CAA and Environment Agency respectively. John Parkinson explained that the Heathrow decision had been part of a wider Departmental announcement on  Britain’s Transport Infrastructure which also covered measures for improving the rail and road networks; the announcement by the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government on 2 March that there would be a delay to the start of the Stansted G2 Planning Inquiry which had been due to start on the 15 April; the Inquiry had been deferred because of the uncertainty around the future ownership of the airport in the light of the Competition Commission’s market investigation into BAA which was due to report shortly.; the consultation, launched by the Department for Transport on 23 Feb, on introducing independent slot allocation at London City Airport; and a public notification period led by the Department on revising Southampton Airports Public Safety Zone.

John Parkinson also reported that work was ongoing to draft the necessary statutory instruments to implement the 2008 Planning Act; the Department for Communities and Local Government had already published one consultation on statutory consultees for national policy statements and over the coming months CLG would be issuing further packages of draft Statutory Instruments and guidance for consultation to which John Parkinson encouraged the EAG to respond. Current timetables would see the Infrastructure Planning Commission established and ready to provide advice from autumn 2009 and able to receive applications from spring 2010. A National Policy Statement (NPS) on Airports was expected to be published in draft by 2011. The next progress report on the Air Transport White Paper was also due by 2011, so one option was to produce it in tandem with the NPS. John Parkinson went on to report that since the last EAG meeting the DtT had received no further comments from EAG members on its proposals for taking forward the Evaluation of the Air Transport White Paper (ATWP). The Aviation Minister had approved the proposals and an invitation to tender had recently been issued for a research study on airport master plan and the ATWP strategic approach. It was expected that EAG members would be asked to participate in interviews as part of the research study over the summer.

Before moving on to the update on aviation environmental issues, Jonathan Moor announced that Martin Capstick, Head of Aviation Environmental Division, had been promoted to Director of Strategic Roads and National Networks and would be leaving the Aviation Directorate on 13 March; the recruitment process for his successor was underway. Jonathan Moor went on to report on key developments on aviation and the environment, including: the entry into force on the 2 February of the European Directive to include all flights arriving and departing from European airports in the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) from 2012; the joint announcement by the Department for Transport and the Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC) on 4 March that the Environment Agency would be the aviation emissions trading regulator, and the launch of a consultation on the first stage of the draft regulations. Jonathan Moor also explained that, following the DfT stakeholder meeting in February to explain key regulator policy issues for aviation’s inclusion in the EU ETS, the DfT was intending to hold another technical workshop later in the year. EAG members asked for more information about the implementation of the aviation EU ETS Directive and Jonathan Moor agreed to provide further details after the meeting. Moving on to other projects, Jonathan Moor reported that  the third Group on International Aviation and Climate Change (GIACC) had taken place in February; a key issue for [GIACC / ICAO / UK] would now be preparation for the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December 2009. On Noise Action Plans, Jonathan Moor said that airports would need to submit their plans by the end of November, the DfT would review them, but the whole process would be overseen by Defra. .

Jonathan Moor then moved on to provide an update on industry and passenger issues. He explained that after the failure of the XL Leisure Group last year, the DfT’s Aviation Regulatory & Consumer Policy Division were currently working on plans for a publicity campaign to increase public awareness of the financial protection options available for air travellers, and guidance had already been published on the government’s website for citizens, Directgov. The CAA would soon consult on increasing the £1 ATOL protection contribution as the failure of XL Leisure Group had caused a large deficit in the Air Travel Trust Fund. Jonathan Moor went on to cover other developments, including: an Air Services Agreement had recently been concluded with Syria, and talks were currently taking place with Mexico; the forthcoming publication of an analysis of the end-to-end passenger experience through Gatwick airport which would be followed by an Air Freight end-to-end report later in the year; and the ongoing work of the UK Borders Agency to establish service level agreements for immigration queues for all remaining ports of entry by the end of March. Jonathan Moor also reported that the consultation on transport strategy and planning out to 2014 and beyond, which had been published alongside the DfT’s Developing a Sustainable Transport Strategy, had closed on 27 February and the DfT would be issuing its response to the consultation within the coming months.

Jonathan Moor went on to provide an update on aviation regulatory issues including: the completion of the ICAO Aviation Safety Audit, on which ICAO would issue its final report in the autumn, but the initial results indicated a strong performance by the UK; the launch of the DfT’s consultation in early March on the findings of the Review of the Economic Regulation of Airports; the CAA’s forthcoming announcement on the price caps for Stansted airport; and the forthcoming publication of the Competition Commission’s final report on its market investigation into BAA.

3. Civil Aviation Regulatory Reform

Lara Sherwin, joint Head of Aviation Regulatory and Consumer Division, presented the DfT’s initial thinking on proposals for a Civil Aviation (Regulation) Bill. Lara Sherwin explained that the DfT’s current expectation was to consult on proposals for the Bill later in 2009 and to introduce the Bill to Parliament in 2010. She outlined the main components which the DfT expected the Bill to cover:

• the Pilling Review’s recommendations, covering the legislative framework governing the CAA, including its statutory duties and governance arrangements;
• any legislative measures required to implement a new economic regulatory regime for airports, following the DfT’s review and consultation;
• the environmental elements of the Adding Capacity at Heathrow Airport decision, where legislation might be  necessary to implement the new roles and powers of the regulators to apply mechanisms to ensure noise and air quality limits are met at Heathrow; and
• possible reform of the financial protection of air passengers.

Lara Sherwin emphasised that the DfT was at the early stages of scoping the Bill and welcomed the EAG’s views on its proposals. EAG members agreed that the broad areas to be covered by the Bill seemed sensible, and offered suggestions on some specific areas which could be given further consideration during the preparation of the Bill, including:

• the need to address adequately the issue of competition, focusing on the outcome of furthering consumer interests;
• the need for any new objectives for the CAA to be flexible enough to respond to future changes in European and international legislation;
• the need to determine in due course the relationship between the proposed Bill and existing aviation legislation, e.g. would the new Bill replace existing legislation? How it linked to the Airport Charges Directive would be affected by their respective timings.
• in the context of a CAA’s duties, the possibility of broadening the concept of aviation health to cover airport community health, including those living and/or working in and around airports;
• the need to ensure that consumers can feed into the development of airport regulation. In the context of proposals to give passenger focus a consumer advocacy role, it was important to recognise that different transport sectors (e.g. aviation and rail) may have different requirements with regard to consumer engagement.

4. AOB

Jonathan Moor informed the EAG that Peter Griffiths, Director-General of Civil Aviation, was leaving the DfT to join the International Air Transport Association, and from 1st April Jonathan would be the single Director of Aviation, covering both the Director General Civil Aviation and Director of Airports Strategy roles. Jonathan closed the meeting, confirming that the dates for meetings until the end of the year would be circulated as soon as possible.

Airports Policy Division, April 2009