To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will make it his policy to uprate annually the "amount per kilo" calculation for lost baggage compensation on airlines under the Carriage By Air (Sterling Equivalents) Order 1986. [4822]

My right hon. Friend expects to make a new Carriage by Air (Sterling Equivalents) Order early in the new year.

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what action he is taking to encourage other European partners to ratify the 1975 Montreal protocol relating to compensation levels for lost baggage so that provisions under the protocol can be brought into force. [4823]

The Government acknowledge that liability limits established by the Warsaw convention 1929 and the Hague protocol 1955 are inadequate. Montreal additional protocol No. 3, which includes provision for updating liability limits for baggage, is unlikely to come into force in the immediate future. We have therefore been exploring within the European Civil Aviation Conference alternative means of increasing liability limits.