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Mr. Clifton-Brown: Although I hesitate to intervene on the hon. Gentleman, especially as he has such great knowledge of these matters, will he answer the point that I put to the hon. Member for Carmarthen (Mr. Williams)? When a ship is on its way to port and the pilot has boarded, the pilot has overriding control of that ship. If the pilot did not feel that it was fit to take that ship in, he could have told the captain to abort the approach. The fact that he did not do so must have meant that he felt that the operation was feasible and quite safe.

Mr. Ainger: Although that is obviously an issue for the inquiry, the hon. Gentleman is incorrect. In those circumstances, the ship's captain never relieves responsibility. The pilot is merely there in an advisory capacity. It worries me that we, the media and the leaks coming out of the marine accident investigation branch inquiry seem to be concentrating on that issue too. Although the accident is regrettable--250 tonnes of oil should not have leaked and she should not have run aground--the main issue is what happened after that. That is why we need an independent inquiry. If the accident were so straightforward, I would have no problem at all with the fact that the marine accident investigation branch was considering it. But, subsequently, serious mistakes were made for which people are responsible. That can only be examined by a truly independent inquiry.

I stress that the tragedy is that the advice of the pilots, the only people with the expertise to handle very large crude carriers--although, strictly speaking, the Sea Empress is not a VLCC but merely a super-tanker--has been ignored throughout the salvage operation. Nobody has greater expertise of the tides and how the river works. On at least two occasions, they made recommendations to the management of the operation that were either ignored or overruled.

My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, West(Mr. Morgan) referred to one of those occasions. On Saturday afternoon, the words of a pilot who has more than 20 years' experience, who is used to handling VLCCs and who knows Milford Haven like the back of his hand were recorded. He was speaking on a cellphone--not over a radio, but it happened to be recorded. From certain activities of the royal family, we know that such things happen. He said, "I am in the channel. I have got enough water underneath me to get out. Give me permission and I will take her out to sea."

We all knew that a gale was coming. A force 9 was predicted for that night and it was an ideal opportunity to get the vessel out into the open sea. The ship was being held on--probably--the most dangerous part of coastline in western Europe. I do not exaggerate. There are few places where a super-tanker of that size can be held. That part of the coastline is one of those places, and if one is in trouble, one gets away from it.

The strategy devised by the salvors--and presumably the marine pollution control unit and the coastguard--was based on the fact that due to the ship's great draught, it had to be held in position. That strategy was fatally

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flawed--the pilots have told me so. It was fatally flawed because the salvors did not have sufficient tug power to hold the vessel given the strong currents, the predicted gale and some of the highest tides of the decade. Everything was predicted, nothing surprised the salvors, yet they decided to hold the vessel in deep water and try to get a tug alongside to lighten it. The strategy was flawed from the word go and if the salvors had listened to the pilots, they would not have embarked on it.

The vessel could have been rescued earlier. Pilots who went on it on Friday morning suggested that it was trimmed further. By then, it was drawing 23 m--approximately 75 ft. The pilots suggested to the harbour authorities and those running the salvage operation that they could trim the vessel by either transferring a little cargo using the tanker's own fire system or by taking ballast off into its port side ballast tanks that were not damaged. The advice was ignored. The pilots predicted that they could reduce the draught to 20 m, and on the high tide on Friday get the vessel into the very birth where it now lies. Only 250 tonnes of oil would have leaked.

No answer at all to that suggestion was given. The only response was, "Hold her in position in the deep water". We must ask why. Who gains most? All I can suggest is that the salvors were blinkered; they adopted one strategy and nothing else would do. No one was prepared to listen to local knowledge and expertise and that led to the ultimate disaster on Monday night. That disaster did not have to happen. That is what has made so many people angry.

Mr. Rowlands: Is my hon. Friend saying that the marine pollution control unit was party to the decisions?

Mr. Ainger: If, like me, my hon. Friend had been at the press conferences throughout the operation, he would have realised that there was quite clearly a joint decision-making process between the salvors, the MPCU, the coastguard and the port authority. That was exemplified by the story about Saturday afternoon, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, West referred.

After the pilot had asked permission to take the tanker out to sea and away from danger, the harbour master said that he agreed but that he was in a room full of men saying no. Who were those men? The only person under the Dangerous Vessels Act 1985 who can overrule the decision of a harbour master is the Secretary of State or anybody he appoints in his stead.

I think that it was decided to hold the tanker in deep water, try to get a tanker alongside it to lighten the load and then either bring it into port or take it out. No alternative strategy was to be considered. Some might say that if a strategy has been decided on, it should be stuck to, but we should bear in mind the fact that the local guys were saying that such a strategy was crazy and that the coast is one of the most dangerous. That is why we need to consider how decisions were taken and why the strategy was insisted on, which can only be established by an independent inquiry.

I apologise to my hon. Friends for speaking for a considerable amount of time, but I think that they accept that the issue is very important.

I should explain why I believe that only an independent inquiry will carry credibility. Lord Donaldson compiled a 522-page report following the Braer disaster, which did

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not--thankfully for the people of Shetland--create such a huge environmental problem as the one that we are experiencing in west Wales. The report was published in May 1994 and contains more than 100 recommendations. The Government have said that they have already implemented 84, and I welcome that. However, key recommendations have been ignored or not fully implemented. In paragraph 20.87, it says:

"There is not sufficient salvage capacity in UK waters at the moment, nor is it coherently organised. The market will not provide enough capacity. Action needs to be taken to achieve the ends of the action taken by other governments."

Paragraph 20.88 says:

"We believe that the Government should set up a system to ensure that tugs with adequate salvage capacity are available at key points around UK shores . . . Where adequate capacity cannot be provided in any other way, the Government should arrange for the funding of the difference between what is needed and what the private sector can provide".

Paragraph 20.95 says:

"We recommend that the Government should consider with the Governments of neighbouring countries--the Republic of Ireland, France, Belgium and the Netherlands--whether combined salvage capacity in adjacent waters is practicable".

In paragraph 20.124 Lord Donaldson discussed the need for further work and studies to be carried out, but concluded:

"We do not believe that it is sensible to wait for such a study, which could take several years: the tugs need to be in place quickly."

He continued:

"While we would very much like to see the entire system in place before the winter of 1994-95, we appreciate that this may not be practicable."

Lord Donaldson said that there should be five tugs round that part of the coast, but recognised that that might not be practicable. His conclusion, as the hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury should recognise, is the important point:

"We therefore propose that there should be interim arrangements during the winter months until the new system--"

that is, the system with five tugs--

"is fully operational, and that the UK Government should be prepared to bear the full cost of such interim arrangements."

Lord Donaldson said that those interim arrangements should concentrate on three key areas. The first was north-west Scotland--that is already covered. The second was the Dover straits--that is already covered too. The third area was the western approaches. Where are the arrangements there? That is the key question.

A couple of days after the events, on Wednesday I believe, Lord Donaldson appeared on television. I saw him on BBC and ITV, saying that he accepted that his recommendations had not been fully implemented, and that that must have had some impact on the outcome of the operation.

That is because the strategy of holding the vessel in that most difficult area, with that combination of currents, tides and winds, could have worked only if powerful tugs had been available. Pilots have told me that in certain conditions during the operation, the vessel, without any power, would have exerted a pull of about 800 tonnes or equivalent. The tugs, even at full power, could exert a pull of only 200 tonnes. The vessel was pulling the tugs around rather than vice versa. That is why she kept running aground.

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The Secretary of State and his predecessor, the right hon. Member for Wirral, West (Mr. Hunt), who went on to become chairman of the Conservative party, are implicated, because they did not implement the Donaldson recommendations in full.

Let us also examine the involvement of the Department of Transport and its agencies. It is clear from the public statements made by the Coastguard Agency and by the marine pollution control unit that they were part of the decision-making process. They too were tied into the strategy. There is no question about that, because they have admitted it.

As those agencies were part of the flawed strategy, given that they are part of the Department of Transport, how can we allow another branch the same Department, the marine accident investigation branch, to investigate them--never mind the question whether Ministers, such as the Secretary of State for Transport and the Minister for Aviation and Shipping, Viscount Goschen, acted properly. Was Viscount Goschen part of the decision-making process? Did he instruct the harbour master not to allow the vessel out of the area? Those are serious questions, and they can be answered credibly only by an independent inquiry.

I realise that time is pushing on, and I shall do my best to be as brief as possible. On Thursday I asked the Secretary of State for Transport why he would not institute an independent inquiry. He replied by saying that nobody questions the integrity of the air accident investigation branch of the Civil Aviation Authority. However, I think that I have shown that the Department of Transport itself, including the Secretary of State and possibly the Minister for Aviation and Shipping, was heavily involved in the operation.

If there were an air accident in which the Department of Transport had shared the co-pilot's seat and the Secretary of State had been the air traffic controller, would we believe that the air accident investigation branch of the CAA would be able to carry out an independent inquiry? I doubt that very much, yet that is the equivalent of the present position.

Like my constituents who have written to me on the subject, I want wider issues to be touched on. Other hon. Members have mentioned some of them, such as double hulls. It is now recognised that double hulls or their equivalents--such as the mid-deck design--provide greater protection in groundings. Why do we not take the bull by the horns and, as a nation with substantial offshore oil reserves--the United Kingdom continental shelf sends a great deal of shipping into our ports--insist that vessels trading between the UK continental shelf and UK ports must be double-hulled or of an equivalent design?

My hon. Friend the Member for Carmarthen said that double hulls were compulsory off the United States coast. He is not right, and I must correct him. However, because under the Act on oil pollution passed by the United States in 1990, shipowners have unlimited liability, insurers now give them a discount on their premiums if their ships have double hulls. There is a financial incentive to have double rather than single hulls.

We could do that too. We must start to address the issue as quickly as possible. I believe that Lord Donaldson is the only person who could force that through. The marine accident investigation branch would certainly not do it.

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