My Lords, unmanned aerial vehicles, as has been said, are used in a military context and by public bodies in the UK, and for surveillance, among other uses. Surveillance UAVs are regulated, although, as my noble friend Lord West of Spithead has said, some people question how effective this regulation is.
I will comment in particular on the use of small non-surveillance unmanned aerial vehicles. UAVs weighing under 22 kilograms are entirely unregulated. They can be bought and sold freely. There is no tracking mechanism. Perhaps most importantly, they can easily be purchased for self-assembly, which makes them easy to modify, perhaps for the kind of purposes set out in my noble friend’s amendment. There is a big concern around airports. As has been said, a UAV got within a few feet of an Airbus jet leaving Heathrow. Even a small UAV could cause engine failure in a jet, in the same way as a bird strike, even if not being used for obviously hostile purposes. While airports have extensive protection from lasers, and even from surface-to-air missiles, there is no specific provision, as I understand it, for UAVs. Apparently, this is a concern of the British Airline Pilots Association and air traffic controllers, and suggestions have been made for UAV no-fly zones around airports.
I hope that, in their reply, the Government will be able to show that they have assessed the risks and are taking appropriate action because, subject to what the Minister says in response, it is not obvious that there is a coherent direction of policy, at least on smaller UAVs if not larger ones, with the light-touch regulation to which my noble friend Lord West has referred.