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Mr. Mackinlay: We were not invited. They kept it secret.
Mr. Shaw: I do not know why the hon. Member for Newport, West was not invited, but if he knew about it, he should have written to the Marine Safety Agency asking to be allowed to attend.
Mr. Mackinlay: They did not want members of the Transport Committee to witness the exercise.
Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. Seated interventions are not acceptable to me.
Mr. Shaw: I had no difficulty getting to see the safety exercise, which I witnessed at first hand throughout. There is no doubt that 834 volunteers were successfully evacuated. I am sure that they would be flattered to hear themselves described by the hon. Member for Newport, West as fit and young. I would not want to denigrate the fitness or youthfulness of my constituents, but they were certainly not all in their 20s. The hon. Gentleman has received a wrong report of the exercise and would seem to have misled the House of Commons this morning.
The safety of the volunteers who took part was paramount, so speed was not given priority. Uppermost in everyone's mind was the wish that no one at Dover should
be injured or killed. I am amazed to find that the hon. Member for Newport, West thinks that the only worthwhile safety exercise would be one that involved pregnant women, inebriated passengers and people in wheelchairs and was conducted in mid-channel with a gale blowing. It sounds as if he will not be happy with a safety exercise until someone dies--a strange proposition.
The exercise took an hour. Only one person at a time was allowed down the chutes so as to ensure that no one crashed into anyone else. Of course, in a real incident at sea when people needed to be evacuated, more than one person at a time would have to go down the chutes and the whole exercise would have to be speeded up.
Moreover, only one side of the ship was used. It was moored in the harbour for the safety of the volunteers.At sea, six double chutes from both sides of the ship would be used. In Dover, only three double chutes from one side were used, but the safety exercise was valid nevertheless. Indeed, it showed that the half-hour timetable that everyone thinks desirable would be easily attainable in a real emergency at sea.
One problem was revealed during the safety exercise: although more than 20 life rafts were successfully launched, three of them failed. There were a number of spares, but a question mark remains over the three that failed. Everyone knows that, given a large number of life rafts, one or two may not inflate properly, but there is concern about the fact that these three failed, and I hope that serious consideration is being given to that.
Life rafts on board ship are regularly changed. It is therefore surprising that three relatively new rafts should fail. That certainly needs further investigation. In this regard, too, the safety exercise was a success because it pointed up one or two areas where checks could result in improvements. The bottom line is that the exercise worked. Labour Members call it a rigged exercise, which just shows how far from the truth they are prepared to stray. It is believed that this was the first ever safety exercise of its size not just in Europe but in the world.
Today we have heard another Labour conspiracy theory. The Opposition suggest that more than 800 volunteers, the Marine Safety Agency, the staff of the Dover port and harbour board, and the emergency services all combined in a conspiracy to make the exercise more successful than it really was. I do not subscribe to the idea that more than 1,000 people in Dover conspired in this way. The exercise demonstrated the safety of these procedures.
I am fed up with Labour's continual attacks on Dover's ferry industry. The leader and deputy leader of the Labour party have already said that they support public finance for the channel tunnel and would do down Dover's ferry industry. The Labour Member of the European Parliament for Kent East has attacked the safety exercise andDover's ferry industry. The hon. Member for Thurrock(Mr. Mackinlay) has today revealed his support for the railways and the channel tunnel.
Labour Members do not visit Dover to announce their support for the channel tunnel, but plenty of them come to mislead the people of Dover about what they are really up to. Railway union-sponsored Labour Members come and tell us how to run our port and ferry industry,but they omit to tell the people of Dover that they receive £5,500 a year from the rail unions, which also pay for80 per cent. of their election expenses.
Mr. Graham Allen (Nottingham, North):
It is apposite to hold a debate on marine safety today, given the events of the weekend. It is important to record that a gross misjudgment by the Government over the weekend has turned an accident into a disaster. Had they taken heed of Lord Donaldson's recommendations, the terrible problem at Milford Haven would not have degenerated into the environmental and ecological tragedy that is unfolding.
Lord Donaldson suggested that a powerful tug be placed in the western approaches, but his recommendation has been ignored. Under-powered tugs have been attempting to pull the Sea Empress off the rocks--to no avail. Furthermore, the two powerful tugs deployed around the coast were not summoned by the relevant Ministers on Thursday night or Friday so that they could make headway to the scene of the accident and pull the Sea Empress off the rocks.
This tragedy will have appalling consequences, and the Secretary of State for Transport and the Minister for Aviation and Shipping, who are responsible for both decisions, should reconsider their positions.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Newport, West (Mr. Flynn) on initiating this debate, and on his assiduous work on ferry safety, not to mention his excellent work on the Transport Select Committee--
Mr. Allen:
I am delighted to give way to another distinguished member of that Committee.
Mr. Mackinlay:
Will my hon. Friend extend his congratulations to Conservative Members serving on the Transport Select Committee, who form a majority on it? They include the hon. Member for Southport (Mr. Banks), who signed his name to the report that formed the basis of the criticisms levelled today by our hon. Friend the Member for Newport, West (Mr. Flynn). To his credit, the hon. Member for Southport went on television the morning the report was published to endorse its findings. We look forward to hearing from him later this morning, when doubtless he will reiterate his criticisms of the Government's stewardship of the ferry industry.
Mr. Allen:
All members of the Select Committee are to be congratulated on their work. I am sorry that the hon. Member for Dover (Mr. Shaw) spoke so long, while saying virtually nothing and trivialising a serious issue, thereby forcing his hon. Friend the Member for Southport (Mr. Banks) out of the debate. If the hon. Gentleman wants to intervene in my speech, I shall be pleased to accommodate him in a way that his hon. Friend was not prepared to do.
I should also like to record the thanks of all in this House to my hon. Friend the Member for Pembroke(Mr. Ainger) for his fine constituency work at the weekend. It was a remarkable and fortunate coincidence that the constituency Member of Parliament was not only interested in the area, but had some expertise. His herculean efforts over the past 48 hours have drawn to the attention of the press and public the way in which the Government have defaulted on their responsibility and created an appalling catastrophe for the marine environment in south Wales. [Interruption.]
The Minister for Transport in London mutters from a sedentary position that it is all the Government's fault.I do not say that the accident was the fault of the Government, but the lack of prompt and speedy Government action on Friday and the failure to listen to the recommendations of Lord Donaldson over the past two years is their fault. They are liable in those circumstances. I hope that the people of south Wales will ask why the Government did not supply the correct equipment to tackle the problem over the weekend. The result of their inaction on Donaldson and their failure to supply appropriate powered tugs to the scene caused a tragedy when only an accident had occurred.
I am concerned that efforts to improve ferry safety, both in the United Kingdom and internationally, are stalling.I hope that the Minister can give us some good news this morning. We must ensure that domestic and international policy picks up speed so that the problems that have been outlined so eloquently by my hon. Friend the Member for Newport, West are tackled with expedition.
One problem is the decline in the merchant fleet. The number of third country-flagged ferries is growing, and those ferries--as my hon. Friend the Member for Newport, West rightly pointed out--are often crewed by non-British crews and commanded by non-British officers. They are crewed by people from low-cost labour countries. The decline in our merchant fleet has an immediate knock-on consequence for safety standards.
I welcome another member of the Select Committee on Transport to the debate, my hon. Friend the Member for Cunninghame, South (Mr. Donohoe). As he knows, all the figures show that British-flagged ships are safer than ships flagged out to other countries. By not using United Kingdom officers and United Kingdom crews, we are drying up the supply of expertise for the Marine Safety Agency, for future training of British crews and for the insurance and shipping industries. We are cutting off the life-blood of our future merchant fleet by failing to ensure adequate numbers of United Kingdom officers and United Kingdom seafarers.
The Opposition have repeatedly called for proper regulation to address the concerns highlighted by the Herald of Free Enterprise and Estonia disasters. We fully support the introduction of new safety measures, but further action is now needed. Too many opportunities have been missed. Pressure is increasing on ferries and, therefore, on ferry safety. Many operators have slimmed down their operations to achieve leaner crewing levels, involving redundancies, and have made radical changes in work practices--not least, faster turn-round times.All those factors put added pressure on crews and officers on ferries plying the channel and elsewhere.
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