The airport drop-off charge review: what it actually does

It would require a report, and nothing else. The clause says the Secretary of State must carry out and publish a review of the impact of airport drop-off charges on people using UK airports, and lay a copy before both Houses of Parliament. That is all it does.

It gives nobody the power to cap a charge, cut one, or require a free period. It places no duty on airports. It does not say what should happen once the review is published. If you have read that the Government is capping drop-off fees, that is not what this is.

The clause defines a drop-off charge as one an airport operator charges a vehicle entering a terminal forecourt or designated kerbside area to set down passengers. Clause 7, as amended in Committee (Bill 160, 20 October 2026) · read 27 Oct 2026

A £5 cap has been proposed, but it has gone no further at this stage. Two Liberal Democrat MPs put forward a new clause that would have required ministers to publish proposals for one. It was debated at length in committee on 20 October 2026 and then never put to a vote. The record lists it as “not called”. It is not part of the Bill and not Government policy. It could be put forward again at report stage.

Not from the Government. On 13 July 2026, at report stage in the House of Lords, peers voted 142 to 138 to add the clause to the Bill. It was moved by Lord Moylan, and the Government lost the vote.

Parliament’s own record of the amendment and the vote is public. Amendment 33, agreed on division

On 13 October 2026 the Government put forward an amendment in the name of the aviation minister, Keir Mather, to change the deadline from six months to twelve. It was agreed in committee on 20 October without a vote. So the figure of twelve months is settled, but it is not the length of an investigation. It is the deadline for producing the report, and it was the Government that asked for twice as long.

The Government now calls it its own. A Government news story on 19 October 2026, headed “PM puts the brakes on rip-off parking charges and car scams”, says that “the government has also launched a review of airport drop-off charges”, and the aviation minister told the committee the next day that “the Government are committed to undertaking that review”. Both are true, and neither changes where the duty came from. The clause is in the Bill because peers put it there against the Government’s wishes. The Government has since stopped resisting it and taken it up.

It is the only gov.uk page found that mentions drop-off charges. gov.uk news story, 19 October 2026 · read 27 Oct 2026

Some reports say the Government asked airports to show restraint in the meantime. That could not be found in any Government announcement, written answer or parliamentary record, so it is not stated as fact here.

The Bill is not law. It has not received Royal Assent, so the duty to review does not yet exist. The twelve months would run from the day the Act is passed, and there is no date for that.

The clause survived the Commons committee. That was the real risk. A clause added against the Government in the Lords can be taken out again in the Commons, and this one was not. The committee took the Bill on 20 October 2026 and finished it the same afternoon. The sitting ended at 4.56pm. The two further sittings planned for 22 October never happened. The only change to the clause was the deadline, six months to twelve.

One other change went through with it: the review duty will now start on the day the Act is passed rather than two months later.

Report stage, third reading and Royal Assent are all still to come, and none of them has a date. The Bill's stages

The Government’s stated position, in written answers up to September 2026, is that drop-off pricing is a commercial matter for airports and that it has no plans to regulate it.

This is what each airport’s own website says, with the date it was read. It is not what the average is said to be.

• 23 of 32 charge to stop at the terminal drop-off zone.
• Seven charge nothing to drop off: Kirkwall and Stornoway give two hours free, Exeter 30 minutes, Inverness 15 minutes (no return within one hour), Humberside 15 minutes, Newquay 10 minutes, and Sumburgh has a free drop-off point with no time given.
• 24 of 32 publish a free option somewhere, such as a long-stay car park or a waiting zone, though some of those come with a condition. At Teesside it depends on spending at least £5 in the landside café or shops and showing the receipt.
• Eight publish no free option, other than for Blue Badge holders: City of Derry, London City, Southampton, Bournemouth, Norwich, Prestwick and Southend, and Cardiff, whose new website (in place by 30 October 2026) publishes neither a drop-off charge nor a free option. City of Derry, London City, Prestwick and Southampton do give Blue Badge holders free time. Southampton’s drop-off page says it has no free option, but its car park map still marks one.

The dearest to pull in is £10, at Gatwick and Stansted. The cheapest is £2.50, at Teesside.

But the price alone can mislead. Stansted’s £10 buys 15 minutes, which is 67p a minute. London City’s £8 buys five, which is £1.60 a minute. That is the dearest of the airports on this site that publish a time, at an airport that looks mid-table on price. Prestwick’s £4.50 buys an hour, at 8p a minute. So a minute at London City costs more than 20 times a minute at Prestwick, and this does not follow the headline figures at all.

Every charge, airport by airport, with the page it came from and the date: the drop-off charge comparison.

A separate piece of law, also not yet in force, may cover what happens if you overstay and are sent a charge: the new private parking code, and what it does at an airport. It names airport drop-off zones in its own definition of parking.

The most useful finding is not a price. It is that six airports publish two different figures for dropping off at the same time, on their own websites, on the same day they were checked:

• Manchester — £5.50 for five minutes on its drop-off page, £5 on its accessible travel page.
• Luton — £9 for 12 minutes on five pages, £7 for 10 on four others.
• Birmingham — £8 for 15 minutes in its Premium Set Down on three pages, £7 on its drop-off and pick-up page. Its notice dates the £8 from 6 August 2026.
• Glasgow — £7 for 15 minutes on its main page, £5 in its own FAQ.
• East Midlands — £8 for 10 minutes on five pages, £5 for 15 still printed in one answer.
• Southampton — the same £7, for 20 minutes on one page and 15 on another.

Where an airport’s pages disagree on the charge to pull in, the comparison shows both and says so. Where the airport dates a change, it says which is newer.

This matters for the review. Any single national figure for what it costs to drop someone off, such as an average, a total or a rise, is built on numbers the airports themselves have not settled. A review that starts by asking airports what they charge will get more than one answer from at least six of them.

Everything about the Bill on this page comes from Parliament’s own published record and the Government’s own announcement on gov.uk, not from news coverage. That record is the Bill text, the amendment paper and the vote result. Anything widely reported that could not be verified has been left out, and the page says so.

Every airport charge was read on that airport’s own website between 6 October and 2 November 2026. The per-minute figures are this site’s own sums from those charges. No price is shown unless it has been checked in the last six months. How we check.

This page describes the Bill’s position on 21 October 2026, the day after the Commons committee finished with it. The Bill is still moving, and this page is updated as it does.