Airport Security

It is a pleasure to have you in the Chair, Mr. Taylor. I begin by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Central Ayrshire (Mr. Donohoe) on securing the debate. As he said, he has a personal interest in this matter both as a frequent flier and as a special constable. I thank other hon. Members for contributing to this important and topical discussion. Hardly a day goes by without some media reference to airport security. The spotlight seems to be permanently fixed on security at UK airports. That is good, in a sense, because it ensures that we remain highly sensitive to the threats and challenges that face us at this time. We need to be vigilant to the serious and sustained threat, and I join hon. Members in paying tribute both to those who protect us generally and specifically to those who have protected us in the past few weeks. Aviation remains a target for international terrorists—the incident at Glasgow is a prime example of that—but, in response to my hon. Friend’s comments, I shall talk about the events of last summer and the heightened measures that were introduced thereafter, which are still evident today, before addressing more specific points. The increase in the threat level to critical last summer meant that we needed to introduce additional security measures to protect both passengers and people working in the aviation industry from the threat from liquid explosives. The alternative would have been to cancel all flights, but the cost and disruption of doing so would have given the terrorists the success that they desire and would not have been acceptable to either the industry or the travelling public. Those measures supplemented an already robust security regime. The industry should be applauded for ensuring that flights continued and passengers should be thanked for their understanding and patience. UK security measures draw much from our success in ensuring that the baseline European security regulations, which restricted the quantities of liquids taken through search points, were eventually amended. Those changes took effect in November. Today, passengers may take liquids through security search points provided that they are in containers not exceeding 100 ml and that they are presented in a re-sealable, transparent plastic bag. The International Civil Aviation Organisation has recommended that its members should adopt the solution of allowing passengers departing their airports to use 1 litre bags or 100 ml containers, and the procedure has been adopted in the USA, Canada, Australia, Japan and Singapore, which shows that there is discussion about harmonising arrangements internationally. Other measures introduced here and across the EU have included the removal of coats and laptops for separate screening. We also started checking passengers’ footwear and limiting cabin luggage to one bag, providing that it did not exceed the maximum size, and still do so today. The latter system is due to be incorporated into EU regulations next year and has long been recommended by the International Air Transport Association on safety grounds. As the hon. Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans) pointed out, the UK faces a higher threat from terrorism than most other countries in either the EU or the rest of the world. The evidence is there to be seen: there were attacks or attempted attacks in July 2005, August 2006 and June 2007. That is why we have and need to have measures in place that are more stringent than those in other European member states.