A BBC news report alerted me last week to a new piece of legislation that has been proposed in the UK’s House of Lords. The Civil Aviation (Consumer Protection and Regulatory Reform) Bill sponsored by Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill is wide ranging. It covers the protection of purchasers and users of air transport and airport services; airspace change, air traffic and air navigation services and airport slots and schedules. It also proposes that the CAA be given powers to make rules and seek convictions for those that break them.
The BBC report focused on the potential effects on Passengers with Reduced Mobility (PRM) and focused on the Bill’s potential to make it easier for PRM to claim compensation if their equipment is damaged or if they are poorly treated. The article made me dig a little deeper and I revisited the blog I wrote last year about The Aviation Accessibility Task and Finish Group report and I also revisited Daniel Francis MP’s 10-minute rule Bill, the Aviation (Accessibility) Bill, which was introduced in November 2024.
That original Bill called for many of the things which are now included in the new Bill such as stronger accessibility standards for airlines and airports, greater enforcement powers for the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), compensation for damaged wheelchairs and mobility equipment on domestic flights and penalties for non-compliance. I was a little surprised to find out that the Bill had died with the text on the UK Parliament website reporting that: Aviation (Accessibility) Bill, The 2024-2026 session of Parliament has come to an end so the House of Commons is now prorogued until the next session begins on 13 May 2026. Prorogation is the formal end to the parliamentary year. This Bill will therefore make no further progress.
Now, it transpires that this is the most common way for a Ten-Minute Rule Bill to have any lasting impact as it’s primarily a mechanism for an MP to raise awareness of an issue and put pressure on the government, rather than a route that frequently produces standalone legislation. Most never become law in their original form.
This is all very well, there’s a process for things to happen and if Ten-Minute rule Bills are a way to influence future legislation, then so be it but, then I read some of the official Hansard minutes from the 2nd reading of the new Bill on 2nd June 2026 and it started to make by blood boil. Hansard (the official record of what is said in the Houses of Parliament and The House of Lords) shows that the 2nd reading of the Bill took more than four hours as various peers responded to the outline of the Bill. This is where Baroness Grey-Thompson made her remarks which were then picked up by the BBC report I referenced. In one of the first speeches made about the Bill, Lord Redwood (who when he was an MP was a member of the Conservative Party, was Secretary of State for Wales in the Major government and was twice an unsuccessful candidate for the leadership in the 1990s) made the point that whatever the merits of the Bill the timescale that it would take to implement it was going to be between three and most likely five years!
Redwood said, “The Bill has delay built into it at every opportunity. We read in the impact assessment that it may take a year for us and the other place to get the legislation through and finally into effect. Then, apparently it will take another year before the Government comes up with changes to use the very large powers that this legislation will give to Ministers and to regulators without further reference to Parliament. We are being asked to sign a blank cheque, but Ministers have no idea who they will want to make the cheque or cheques out to, let alone how much there may be on them.
“The House needs to understand that this is what I would call officials’ legislation. This is not a burning desire of a Minister who knows his subject very well to make changes which are soon going to make a difference to aviation and to economic growth in this country. This is “good management-type” official legislation, saying that we may need these powers and need to copy a whole load of EU regulations that have already passed—or, more likely, that are going to come out soon—so let us have these powers and make sure that most of these things can be done by a regulatory body without any reference to Parliament or by statutory instrument with minimum debate, and that way we do not need to trouble people about it. When the House proceeds to investigate the legislation, it will want a bit more from the Ministers on how they would use these considerable powers.
“I would like more urgency from Ministers. The impact assessment says that nothing is going to happen before three to five years have elapsed, because of the year legislating, the year thinking about how to use the powers, and then the powers coming into effect. In other words—and Labour Peers should think about this—this legislation is basically saying that it cannot make any improvement to aviation or provide any extra growth in the lifetime of this Parliament. That is disappointing.”
Disappointing is a polite way of putting it. In a likely scenario that’s mid-2031 to implement some sensible changes that were first mooted in Daniel Francis’s Ten-minute rule Bill in 2024! How frustrating is that?
So, we wait again. Despite the efforts of campaigners like Baroness Grey-Thompson and broadcaster Sophie Morgan, despite the high-profile cases involving people like Frank Gardner, no real change is in sight.
However, without wanting to be all doom and gloom I am somewhat placated by the fact that there is a growing realisation that a vast majority of the cases of poor practice around PRM treatment can be addressed through the standard provision of an aisle chair on every passenger aircraft. It’s a simple, straightforward solution to which the overall answer seems like anything but simple and straightforward.
By Sarah McOnie