This House of Lords Library Briefing has been prepared in advance of the second reading in the House of Lords of the Open Skies Agreement (Membership) Bill [HL] on 26 January 2018.
Open Skies Agreement (Membership) Bill (224 KB , PDF)
The Open Skies Agreement (Membership) Bill [HL] is a private member’s bill introduced by Baroness Randerson (Liberal Democrat). It had its first reading on 29 June 2017 and is scheduled to have its second reading on 26 January 2018. The Bill seeks to ensure that during its negotiations with the EU, the UK Government must have regard to the desirability of continuing to participate in the Open Skies Agreement between the European Union and the United States of America once the UK withdraws from the EU.
The US Department of State has described its ‘open skies’ agreements as policies designed to “eliminate government involvement in airline decision-making about routes, capacity, and pricing in international markets”. The US has pursued the establishment of such agreements since 1992. This followed the liberalisation of the US’s internal domestic market, enabled by its Airline Deregulation Act 1978 (which removed the regulation of fares, routes and schedules in the US domestic market).
Within the context of EU aviation agreements with the US, the Open Skies Agreement is most often used to refer to the EU-US Air Transport Agreement (hence forth also referred to as the Open Skies Agreement in this briefing). This is an agreement between the EU and the US to enable greater cooperation in aviation and greater market access.
This Lords Library Briefing provides information on the Agreement and provides a summary of the House of Lords European Union Committee’s consideration of this issue in its report Brexit: Trade in Non-Financial Services.
Open Skies Agreement (Membership) Bill (224 KB , PDF)
While international attention has largely been focused on the Middle East and Ukraine, the civil war in Sudan continues. The UN has characterised the conflict as the “world’s largest hunger crisis”. As peace negotiations stall, concerns are rising not only for the people of Sudan but also about the conflict spreading to neighbouring states.
This briefing provides a summary of a recent report by the international children’s rights charity Save the Children entitled ‘Stop the war on children: Let them live in peace’, as well as UK government policy in this area. It has been prepared ahead of Baroness Anelay of St Johns’ (Conservative) upcoming debate on 12 September 2024 on the government’s assessment of the impact of international conflict on children and the recommendations proposed in Save the Children’s report.
The Commonwealth Parliamentary Association and International Committee of the Red Cross (Status) Bill seeks to allow the UK government to treat the CPA and the ICRC in a manner comparable to international organisations of which the UK is a member. This status change would allow the government to confer certain privileges and immunities on the two organisations. A previous version of the bill was introduced in the 2023-24 parliamentary session.
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