My Lords, I hope that I can do a bit better to meet the needs of the House and the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, on this amendment.
A similar amendment was debated in Grand Committee and during the Commons Committee stage of this Bill. As the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, observed, the key difference with this amendment is one of form rather than substance as the requirement to produce an annual report is placed only on the CAA, not jointly with the Secretary of State, as previously tabled.
I am afraid that I must oppose this amendment again and I will try to explain why. Of course, the Government agree that it is very important that airlines and airports are sensitive to the needs of disabled people and those of reduced mobility and that they
fully comply with the European regulation that has been enacted to give access to air travel for people with disabilities.
There are, however, a number of reasons why the Government do not support this amendment. First, there are effective mechanisms already in place to secure the result intended. The CAA already publishes an annual report and corporate plan and makes a considerable amount of consumer information available on its website. The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, asked me to commit the CAA to including a section on this issue in its annual report. I have already made my Bill team manager very cross and I do not intend to risk doing it again. The noble Lord will understand that I would be making a serious mistake if I agreed to commit the CAA to include anything in its report that was not actually required by statute. An extra annual report on a specific area of legislation, on top of these more wide-ranging reports, seems disproportionate.
The CAA is already committed to the principles of Better Regulation and aims to be as transparent as possible in all its work, including in relation to compliance and enforcement with consumer protection legislation. It is also worth pointing out that disabled consumers benefit from the whole suite of EU consumer protection legislation for aviation, not just regulation 1107/2006 on specific rights for disabled persons and persons with reduced mobility when travelling by air, but regulation on cancellation and delays and on ticket price transparency. Therefore, it makes more sense for consumer issues to be considered in the round when these matters are reported on.
Secondly, such an obligation could result in an extra administrative and resource burden on the CAA, whose costs would have to be passed on to the industry. Thirdly, and most importantly, there is a new and better mechanism that I believe should be utilised instead. The CAA has set up a new consumer advisory panel to act as a critical friend to the regulator on behalf of all consumers as it moves forward in putting the consumer at the heart of its regulatory effort.
In April, the CAA announced that Keith Richards would chair the new consumer panel. Mr Richards has considerable experience of the disabled air passenger experience, having been chair of the aviation working group at DPTAC for many years, as well as being a former head of consumer affairs at ABTA. Since then, the CAA has completed the process of recruiting nine panel members to complete its complement, and the new body has had its first meeting. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, is not going to suggest that Mr Richards is not a good appointment for this task. I am sure that he will do an excellent job.
Clearly, the CAA and the new panel will need time to develop their relationship, but it would not be unreasonable to suppose that the passenger experience of disabled people at airports and on planes would be of considerable interest to the panel. I suggest that it would be better to allow the panel to have the space to develop how it will go about its work and how best to support and inform passengers rather than to have an obligation imposed on the CAA in this way. In view of this, I hope that the noble Lord will agree to withdraw this amendment.