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5.22 pm
Mr. Nick Ainger (Pembroke): I, too, welcome the Bill. Twelve months ago next Saturday, I discovered on my doorstep one of the 20 worst oil pollution incidents to occur since we began using hydrocarbons and transporting them across our oceans. I pay tribute to all the people involved in the initial attempts to salvage the Sea Empress and to those who have been and are still working to clean up the Pembrokeshire and Carmarthenshire coastline. On Saturday I was in Tenby, where work is still continuing in the harbour to remove the oil that was buried about 6 ft below the sand, to ensure that when the tourists return shortly they will find the wonderful pristine environment that they used to enjoy before the Sea Empress ran aground on 15 February 1996.
It is worth recording what happened to our marine environment which, as has already been said, is one of the most sensitive and important on the United Kingdom coastline. Seventy thousand tonnes of oil were spilt from the Sea Empress over a period of only three days, although she was in serious difficulty for about six or seven days. The incident halted the inshore fishing industry for six months and cost the Pembrokeshire and Carmarthenshire tourist industry millions of pounds and possibly as many as 1,400 jobs in the tourist season. It radically affected or killed 7,000 sea birds and devastated particular marine habitats. A rare starfish called asterina phylactica was virtually wiped out. It is found in only seven places in the world, one of which is West Angle bay, where it was first discovered and identified. The starfish's habitat was wrecked, although it is believed that two or three surviving examples have been found.
In other words, the impact of the Sea Empress incident was devastating. It has cost millions of pounds to clean up--the process continues--and compensation claims for the fishing and tourist industries are still being made. I therefore welcome anything that will prevent such an incident from happening again, not just in my constituency but around the UK coastline or anywhere in the world.
I welcome the Bill, although I have certain criticisms of it. It does not go far enough in some respects and I shall say why later, but it is worth examining some key aspects that could be tightened in Committee.
From what we now know, it is clear that there were serious command and control problems during the salvage operation of the Sea Empress. The initial grounding was caused by human error but, from then on, there were serious problems with the salvage operation. Those issues are dealt with in clause 2. I shall quickly go through the events immediately following the vessel grounding to make it clear why we need to look carefully at command and control issues.
On the night of 15 February, the Sea Empress ran aground with 135,000 tonnes of North sea crude on board. She was refloated within three hours, and then the salvage operation began. She was held in deep water at the entrance to Milford Haven and a strategy was developed by the salvors and representatives of the Department of Transport, Coastguard, the marine pollution control unit and the Admiralty.
The salvors decided not to accept the offer of tugs, including the Department of Transport's own contracted tug based at Stornoway. Instead, they assembled a collection of tugs almost exclusively from their own fleets. The tug fleet assembled that first weekend by the salvors had a maximum bollard pull of only some 250 tonnes. It now emerges that the vessel itself, in strong tides and currents and with a very deep draught because of the initial grounding, was exercising a bollard pull of some 800 tonnes. As one pilot said to me after the incident, the tugs were not pulling the ship; the ship was pulling the tugs. I am sure that the marine accident investigation branch inquiry is considering that serious point.
That inability to control the vessel in very difficult circumstances meant that the Sea Empress finally grounded on the evening of 19 February. She had spilt only approximately 2,000 tonnes in the previous four days, but the final grounding on the night of 19 February began the massive pollution. That first night, she lost more than 30,000 tonnes of oil.
Although I welcome the fact that clause 2 gives the Secretary of State powers to intervene in an accident that could cause significant pollution, I am concerned about how the Secretary of State will exercise them. Under existing legislation, the Secretary of State has enormous powers to intervene anyway. In the case of the Sea Empress, he chose not to take that course of action.
I had a meeting with the Secretary of State on 20 February after the vessel had run aground for the final time and spilt 30,000 tonnes of oil that night. I asked him, as any constituency Member of Parliament would, why he had not used his powers to intervene. He was very frank, saying that he had been told that the salvor, Smit Tak, was world-class--indeed it is--and that he did not have the expertise to overrule its decisions. I understand that, but if we tell our constituents that we are giving the Secretary of State important powers of intervention, we must ensure that he can exercise the powers sensibly and rationally. Unfortunately, the necessary expertise is not available to the Secretary of State to enable him to take control of a salvage operation, such as that of the Sea Empress, which so tragically went wrong.
It is clear from what the Secretary of State told me that morning that he did not know where to find the expertise. If clause 2 is to have a meaningful effect, the Government must either employ salvage experts directly or contract that expertise. When there is a significant possibility of pollution, the expertise should be immediately available to the Secretary of State to enable him to make a judgment on whether the salvors are the right people. A deal could be signed with the owners of a passing tug, who might not be suitable for a major salvage operation. Alternatively, the salvors may be world-class but, because of financial or commercial pressures, they may make decisions that do not benefit the environment, which everyone wants protected.
Clause 12 and schedule 2 refer to the possibility of the Secretary of State introducing a levy on the shipping industry to fund preventive measures. That should include not only the work of the marine pollution control unit but, most important, the cost of emergency towing vessels. We already have a levy on oil movements in 68 nations--the International Oil Pollution Compensation Fund levy--which operates well. However, it seems illogical that that system works only when pollution has occurred. It is a
case of closing the stable door after the horse has bolted. We do not have a levy to fund the stationing of powerful emergency towing vessels around the coast of the United Kingdom and elsewhere. That is clearly what Donaldson advocates in recommendation 96. I appreciate that the best way forward would be a European or worldwide levy, but I have a feeling that we shall have to wait a long time for that. Lord Donaldson clearly considered the issue a priority. The Government should consider a unilateral levy.
Lord Donaldson's view was that, with the emergency towing vessels that would be required in key areas and the extra equipment for the marine pollution control unit, the total annual cost would be £10 million. Considering the amount that this country has received from North sea assets alone and the profits that have been made by the producers--much of the produce does not even touch the United Kingdom coastline, passing on to north America, to Baltic countries that are not part of the European Union, or to other European ports--the cost, even if £10 million is an underestimate, is very small. The Government should not be too concerned that an industry the size of the oil industry might not be able to afford that estimated £10 million. If we can have a fund or levy to ensure adequate clean-up, surely we can have one to ensure adequate prevention.
Lord Donaldson also made recommendations about emergency towing vessels. In chapter 20, at paragraph 127, he said clearly that he saw three main areas of concern where there should be emergency towing vessels: the Dover straits, for the obvious reason that it is the busiest marine traffic route in the world; north-west Scotland, where the Braer got into difficulty and where there is a great deal of large tanker traffic moving from the North sea down the west coast of Britain to more southern European ports or across the Atlantic to north American ports; and the western approaches. He asked for year-round cover and said that in the interim--from the winter of 1994-95--emergency towing vessels should be based in Dover, Falmouth and Stornoway. That did not happen. Winter-only cover was provided for Dover and north-west Scotland.
One of the tragedies of the Sea Empress incident is that there was clearly a serious shortage of tug power, as I explained earlier, and there was no emergency towing vessel in the western approaches, as Lord Donaldson had recommended. Such a vessel could have had a significant impact on the outcome of the salvage operation. It is ironic that last week, the vessel that has now been positioned in the western approaches, again for the winter only, paid a courtesy visit to Milford Haven. The vessel arrived on station eight months after the Sea Empress ran aground.
Having taken on board so many of the Donaldson recommendations, we should address the key issue of year-round emergency towing cover in strategic positions around the coast. It is naive of the Government to believe that, outside the winter period from 1 October to 31 March, vessels do not lose their engines, have problems with steering, suffer from human error, have an explosion or fire on board or get into other difficulties.
The Rosebay incident in Lyme bay is an example. A large crude carrier was run into by a relatively small fishing vessel and 1,500 tonnes of fuel oil caused serious pollution along the south coast. That happened during the
summer months. Incidents happen all year round' so it is nonsense to be prepared to provide cover only during the winter months.
Following Lord Donaldson's recommendations, Coastguard commissioned Captain Belton to look specifically at the issue of emergency towing vessels. His report, published in May 1995, stated clearly that we should definitely have year-round cover in Dover, the western approaches and north-west Scotland. Yet again the Government did not heed the recommendation, and we ended up with winter-only arrangements--and no arrangements in the western approaches, where the Sea Empress ran aground. Many professionals believe that if the tug had been there, as recommended by both Captain Belton and Lord Donaldson, the outcome in that instance might well have been different.
Clause 12 gives local authorities a duty to maintain contingency plans. That was important at the time when I was on Dyfed county council's public protection committee, given that Dyfed contained one of the busiest ports not only in the United Kingdom, but in Europe and, indeed, the world. The emergency planning department carried out its voluntary responsibilities in relation to contingency plans very well, and a series of exercises took place regularly to test them. I believe that the undoubted success of that clean-up operation resulted from good contingency planning. The department knew what equipment was required, and which contractors were available to provide that specialist equipment; it had carried out practice exercises, and had call-out facilities, rotas and a large body of staff to carry out the work that was required. I can only commend, as I did at the beginning of my speech, the actions taken by local councils, especially as they were on the cusp of reorganisation which made their task rather difficult at times.
What worries me is that, in giving local authorities a statutory duty to produce contingency plans, we are not giving them the wherewithal with which to implement them. The Government should think seriously about a way of ensuring that authorities are given enough money to carry out preparatory exercises, and also that money is available for emergencies.
It is four years since the Braer ran aground in January 1993, but Shetland council has received back hardly a penny of the £1.5 million or so that it spent at the time. I believe that nearly £1 million has been paid, through the International Oil Pollution Compensation Fund, to local authorities that were involved in the Sea Empress clean-up operation, but a considerable sum is still outstanding. I understand that the cost of the operation to date has been well over £5 million, and the cost is on-going. It is worrying, when local authorities are under huge financial pressures, that they do not have the resources to deal with sudden emergencies. Is there not some way of ensuring that, at such times, funds are made available to them directly?
Let me say something about illegal--and legal--oil discharges. As other speakers have pointed out, it is often not the major incident that causes many of the problems. Recent incidents in the channel--or off Flamborough head, for example--have had a catastrophic impact, especially on sea birds. Because such incidents have a cumulative effect, however--I am talking about relatively small incidents that are happening week after week--they may not hit the headlines in the same way as major
disasters. I welcome the moves proposed in the Bill to ensure that ports produce proper plans to tackle the problem of waste reception facilities; I hope that that will radically reduce the number of illegal discharges. I also hope that the carrot-and-stick approach suggested in the Bill will work.
As the hon. Member for Truro (Mr. Taylor) suggested--as did I, in an intervention on the Secretary of State--we need to deal with one strange anomaly. Apparently, chemical spillages are for some reason 10 times less serious, or less deserving of severe penalties, than oil spillages. That issue must be clarified in Committee. We also need to ensure that no real financial penalty is imposed on owners of vessels who wish to use port reception facilities, as opposed to those who may wish to start cutting corners. I approve of the idea of including the charge in port dues: if there is an overall charge, people will feel that, as they must pay for the facilities anyway, they may as well use them.
In my experience, very few of the vessels that use Milford Haven--in fact, none of the oil tankers--call at facilities owned and operated by the port authority; they use private refinery jetties. When we are assessing waste reception facilities, we must not simply expect the competent harbour authority to say, "We have a contingency fund." We must ensure that private owners--mostly jetty owners, throughout the United Kingdom--also provide reception facilities, and that shipping owners are not charged twice, first by the oil refinery and secondly in the form of port dues.
Much has been said today about the marine environmental highrisk areas. As my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford, East (Mr. Smith) mentioned, one of the MEHRAs that was identified after the Donaldson inquiry was immediately outside Milford Haven, around the Pembrokeshire islands of Skomer, Skokholm and Grassholm. I think that the Government must now start moving much more quickly in designating MEHRAs and ensuring that they are properly protected.
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