Unmanned Aircraft (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020

As civil aviation is a reserved policy area, both regulations apply to the whole of the United Kingdom. The withdrawal Act will retain both the delegated and implementing regulations in UK law after the end of the transition period. This draft instrument makes the changes necessary so that the regulations continue to function correctly. This is essential to ensuring the continuation of an effective regulatory regime for unmanned aircraft.

This instrument is subject to the affirmative procedure because it creates or amends a power to legislate. For example, it provides the Secretary of State with the power to make regulations designating geographical zones for safety, security, privacy or environmental reasons.

The most significant amendment being made to the delegated regulation is providing a new power for the Secretary of State to designate standards after the end of the transition period. Until that power is exercised, unmanned aircraft and associated accessories that conform to EU harmonised standards will continue to be considered compliant with EU requirements, and those requirements will be recognised in the UK. It is not possible for these harmonised standards to be recognised in UK law as yet as they are still under development.

Another significant amendment is replacing the term “notified body” with “approved body”, thereby enabling the Secretary of State to approve bodies to carry out conformity assessments without notifying the European Commission. Other changes being made to the regulation are mostly minor and technical in nature; for example, replacing the phrase

“a language which can be easily understood”

with “English”.

The amendments being made to the implementing regulation are minor but equally important. As well as providing the Secretary of State with the regulation-making power to designate geographical zones, this instrument amends various references to EU institutions and appoints the Civil Aviation Authority, the CAA, as the competent authority for the purposes of the implementing regulation.

This instrument demonstrates that the Government are committed to ensuring a fully functioning regulatory framework for unmanned aircraft after the transition period. While we are focused on securing the best arrangements for our future relationship with the EU, including in the aviation sector, this instrument will ensure that legitimate, safe unmanned aircraft operations can continue while ensuring effective oversight if we get to the end of the transition period without a deal. I commend the regulations to the Committee.

As the Minister said, the territorial extent of the regulations is the United Kingdom, I am glad to say, but paragraph 6.2 of the Explanatory Memorandum says that the Act also contains powers for the devolved Administrations to make secondary legislation. As she will know, there has been a lot of controversy over the allocation of the powers being returned from the European Union, as I know only too well as a member of the Common Frameworks Scrutiny Committee, so it would be helpful if she could clarify the respective responsibilities. She said in her introduction that civil aviation is a reserved function, as we know, so why are the devolved authorities mentioned? I advised her of this query in advance, when she very kindly asked us the points that we might raise. I hope that she will be able to deal with it in her reply.

I also take this opportunity to ask the Minister—I warned her about this as well—what lessons have been learned from the incident in December 2018, when drones closed the whole of Gatwick Airport. Could she tell us what action the Government have taken, or propose to take, as a result of their investigations?

These unmanned aircraft can be useful in many ways, such as for delivering medicines urgently, for traffic surveillance or in other areas, but they can also be deployed by those wishing to cause harm. Can the Minister assure us that there is close co-operation with the police and intelligence services to prevent any such use, particularly by terrorists?

Finally, I sympathise with the Minister for having to deal with this and many other statutory instruments. Nevertheless, notwithstanding all this, I look forward to many more when we return to membership of the European Union, as we undoubtedly will one day, because it is the most successful multinational co-operative body in the world today. With that, I am sure other noble Lords will be glad to know that I am well within my time.

One such area would be that there is a desirable nexus in the area of employment. In that regard, I ask my noble friend—and I have given her advance notice of this—about job prospects at the West Wales Airport in Aberporth, Ceredigion; and in Caernarfon, Gwynedd. I have no doubt that my good friend the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, will touch on that as well. In both areas, drones may well be used; I hope they are. There is clearly a key role for drones in maritime search and rescue, which would be reflected in both those areas. But also, as the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, touched on, they can be used in counterpollution work, defence use and traffic surveillance, as well as having commercial possibilities, for videos of events such as weddings and other gatherings. It would be good to see the United Kingdom in the forefront of this—and, of course, I am particularly keen that Wales should be in general terms, and in both those sites. I hope that the Minister can comment on the feasibility of job prospects and enterprise in the United Kingdom generally, and certainly in relation to Thales and Bristow in the two sites to which I have referred. It would be good to see the UK lead the way in the unmanned sector of aerospace.

I certainly support these regulations, but overall I would like the Minister to give us an undertaking that, at the heart of government policy, there is a drive to ensure that the United Kingdom leads on the unmanned sector of aerospace, providing public facilities on search and rescue, as I have said, as well as in surveying for pollution and traffic surveillance, in defence interests and commercially, and that we seek to protect and enhance high-value jobs in Wales and throughout the United Kingdom in a safe and secure way.

On paragraph 7.16, I put on my hat as a former Deputy Speaker in the other place. This is such a young and dangerous market, in terms of potential danger to life, that the negative procedure is not appropriate. Her Majesty’s Government need to think long and hard about using the negative procedure, as referred to paragraph 7.16(a) and (b), because those instruments will go through on the nod. Unless people have a particular knowledge of the market they will be unlikely to raise anything on them. I would have thought that it would be much better to use the affirmative procedure for a period of time in that situation, particularly as we are taking this over from Europe. It would be a great deal safer for everybody.

I initially thought when I looked at paragraph 7.8 that we should carry out a review after three or five years, but then we have the September 2021 situation. What is the Minister’s current thinking? Is it to carry out a review in September 2021, or will we do a complete review in 2023?

Lastly, I have four general questions. In the world we live in, we know that people do copycat actions. We know that what happened at one of our airports one Christmas was awful. Can we be reassured that actions have been taken to anticipate a possible copycat somewhere in the UK along the lines of what happened at Gatwick? That is a highly forecastable risk.

I apologise for not forewarning my noble friend on this, but I read it myself only in my catch-up reading. I draw her attention to an article in the Financial Times on 5 December, which says:

“Russia’s most notorious cyber security company, Kaspersky, is trying to diversify into anti-drone technology”.

I do not expect an answer from her this afternoon, but the principle behind these new systems is to help airports and private landowners to jam drone signals. Does that come under her area of responsibility? If it does, is this not an area that we should be cognisant of?

The noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, raised the question of exports and imports. That was a fair question, and one I was concerned about as well.

Finally, it is pretty clear to me that Amazon and maybe others are looking to produce delivery drones. That market will not stay static for two or three years. I just hope that Her Majesty’s Government are keeping a close watch on that and that they will, if necessary, produce our own requirements and not wait on the EU to produce its own.

Regulation 6 refers to designated standards. It provides direction and some description of what these standards are meant to achieve, and how, but at no point does it set a date when these designated standards are to be introduced. It is clearly welcome that there will be some time, otherwise people involved in manufacturing this equipment may not be given adequate notice and will not be prepared. Until that time, we are following the standards set out in EU regulations, but these technical standards are important, as they prescribe a large part of the protection that the people of this country need from failures in the products themselves, particularly as described in paragraphs 2(a) and 2(b) of the new article in Regulation 6. This will have an impact on manufacturers and distributors of unmanned aircraft systems not only in construction and design terms, but in some of the safety aspects which arise.

Other noble Lords asked about insurance. I should be grateful to know whether this is required for those who operate and run these pieces of equipment.

I am also concerned about the definition of a toy. Clearly, if you can classify something as a toy, it rules out registration and the same level of regulation as for any of the other aspects. A toy is currently defined in European legislation as a device which could be attractive to a child. If we continue with that definition, it provides a great deal of freedom of use. The European Union suggests marking devices as being unsuitable and not for the use of children under 14 and thereby not a toy. Do the Government think this is sufficient? We have already seen what has happened to scooters—now a daily scene on our streets. They are definitely not toys, though many toy scooters exist.

On weddings, do we need to seek the written agreement of participants? This is part of the distinction between uninvolved people and crowds.

Finally, I turn to drone operator registration. Have the Government taken any steps to recognise the interoperability of registration between the UK and any other countries? This is a complex area in which technology has made rapid advances. In such an environment, the Government need to be fleet of foot and future-proof their legislation. For obvious reasons, these regulations do not touch on the speed of technological progress. I hope that the Government can keep ahead of the curve and make arrangements to introduce appropriate legislation at the right time.