Mr. Declan Fitzpatrick:

In the context of that matter, we talk about how we go about regulating and about implementing the regulation. ICAO Annex 19 is focused on safety management systems. It is how to go about identifying risks and hazards, how to assess them and how to mitigate against them. It is also about the whole assurance process, how we make sure airlines, maintenance organisations and so on are all complying with that regulation as we go along. When we talk about effective regulation, we are talking about how we make sure it is being done in the most effective manner. Regulation in aviation has evolved over 50, 60 or 70 years. Some of it is compliance-based and is not really effective any more. At an ICAO or global level or European level with the European Union Aviation Safety Agency, EASA, we would look at such things as whether a regulation is effective any more, whether it is useful and whether it is achieving the objective we set for it. If it is not, we will look at better processes.

In aviation at the moment, it is very much about risk-based oversight, identifying where the key risks are and making sure that is what we focus on. That has proved very beneficial over the past 20 years. Accident rates, including those relating to fatal accidents, have all come drastically down compared with where they were 20 years ago. Getting into-----