| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
12.8 pm
Mrs. Louise Ellman (Liverpool, Riverside): I support the detailed points made by my hon. Friends the Members for Crosby (Mrs. Curtis-Thomas) and for Bootle (Mr. Benton) on why the Liverpool station at Crosby should be retained. I find it absolutely incredible that, at a time when port trade, ferry services and the use of leisure craft are expanding, we should even consider closing a station where local knowledge has proved so invaluable in saving lives.
I urge my hon. Friend the Minister to consider the important issue of accountability. When the previous Government set up executive agencies, they tried to
dissociate the decisions of those agencies from elected Government. I am glad that this Government have changed that situation and we now have to convince the Minister who is responsible for what happens.
Mr. Bernard Jenkin (North Essex):
I congratulate the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody) on her report. I hope that it is not too controversial to say that her Select Committee works very well. The Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions has received no leaks from her Committee. She runs a tight ship and this is an excellent report which pulls no punches. We have had an excellent debate, although it may be a bit churlish for the official Opposition to say that it was a good debate when not a single hon. Member, from any party, supported the Government's position.
I speak also for my hon. Friends the Members for Poole (Mr. Syms), for Gosport (Mr. Viggers) and for South Dorset (Mr. Bruce), who have spoken in previous debates on this subject, and others who share the concerns about the situation. The hon. and learned Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Wallace) mentioned the importance of local knowledge, and that is included in a recommendation in the report. He mentioned the existence of a number of Sandwicks and Sand Wicks in his constituency, and there are several Tarberts in the constituency of the hon. Member for Argyll and Bute (Mrs. Michie). The hon. and learned Gentleman rightly pointed out the importance of people in the application of local knowledge, and it is the people, mostly volunteers, who put their lives at risk when things go wrong.
The hon. Member for Cunninghame, South (Mr. Donohoe) said that he did not want to be a hypocrite, and I am sure there is no danger of that, but I am reminded of a campaign about 10 years ago with people unfurling banners in front of the House of Commons which read, "Don't sink the coastguard". The Deputy Prime Minister--the Minister for coral reefs--was at the forefront of that campaign and it is not unfair to ask him to be consistent on the issue.
The constituency of the hon. Member for Argyll and Bute contains some of the most dangerous tidal waters in the northern hemisphere, and I have personal experience of those stretches of water. She spoke of the huge increase in demand for Maritime and Coastguard Agency services and the communications black spots in that area. She asked who was in favour of the changes, which is a question that many other hon. Members posed. The hon. Members for Crosby (Mrs. Curtis-Thomas) and for
Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs. Ellman) both questioned the situation in Liverpool, and I have received similar representations. Questions were asked about the meaningfulness of the consultation exercise, by the hon. Members for Tynemouth (Mr. Campbell) and for Bootle (Mr. Benton).
There are several key questions for the Minister. Are the proposals part of a strategy to rely more heavily on volunteers from whom the state is withdrawing its commitment? Who has made representations in favour of the proposals? What is the view of the Scottish Office? It is distressing that no Scottish Office Minister is present, when we are discussing an issue of such importance to Scotland. The tradition that Ministers support each other on important issues for which they have shared responsibilities seems to have died a death under this Government.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions (Ms Glenda Jackson):
I add my thanks to those already presented to my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody), as Chairman of the Transport Committee, for the work that she and every member of the Committee have put into the report on the Maritime and Coastguard Agency. As is usual, the Government's response to the report will be made within the next month. I congratulate the Committee, which is probably the hardest working of all the Select Committees.
The Government will respond to the report in due course, but I shall respond directly to the contributions from hon. Members on both sides of the House this morning. The hon. Member for North Essex (Mr. Jenkin) said that party politics should not be involved, but he then proceeded to attempt, in his short contribution, to make empty party political points. All the other contributions this morning have treated the issue with the gravitas that it warrants.
I am the daughter of a fishing family and my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister began his working life as a seaman. It is inconceivable that this Government would contemplate for 30 seconds any strategy that would increase the risks and dangers to those who live and work on the sea. No other considerations will influence our approach to the issue.
The contributions from the hon. and learned Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Wallace) and the hon. Member for Argyll and Bute (Mrs. Michie), and from my hon. Friends the Members for Cunninghame, South (Mr. Donohoe), for Crosby (Mrs. Curtis-Thomas), for Tynemouth (Mr. Campbell), for Southampton, Test (Dr. Whitehead), for Bootle (Mr. Benton) and for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs. Ellman) have contained
recurring themes. As well as justifiable constituency concerns, it has emerged from the debate that the coastguard is regarded by the entire population of this United Kingdom as a service that deserves the highest possible respect and is immensely valued. It has a special and particular place in the hearts and minds of all the people of our maritime nations. Therefore, I trust that I can, in this comparatively short contribution, put to rest some of the fears that have been expressed on both sides of the House, including the possible loss of local knowledge; the misperception that the five-year strategy is a cost-cutting exercise; the fear that the new equipment is so technologically difficult that it will be hard for coastguards to operate it; and the belief that the new equipment does not have a safe track record.
I shall deal first with whether the change is a cost-cutting exercise. That is not the case. We propose massive capital investment in the five-year strategy. The Government's clear commitment is to ensure that a search and rescue service regarded as the best in the world should maintain its primacy.
There will be a massive capital investment programme, and the £500,000 mentioned by several hon. Members relates to the savings arrived at by combining the two services into the Maritime and Coastguard Agency, and locating them in one headquarters. There has been no reduction in investment either on the coast or in the proposed strategy. The combined budget for the new Maritime and Coastguard Agency before the merger was £88.8 million; this year, it is £92.1 million, and is expected to rise.
Mr. Jenkin:
Will the Minister give way?
Ms Jackson:
No, I am sorry, but I have too little time.
Concerns have been expressed that the strategy will lead to a reduction in coastguard numbers. Again, that is not the case. We expect an increase in the number of coastguards by July, because the agency is taking over radio services that have until now been the responsibility of BT. That will lead to an increase of 42 new coastguards, taking the total to 600.
There has also been confusion over watch assistants. In the past, watch assistants were often volunteers, and--I mean no criticism of them--they were not necessarily reliable. Coastguard watch assistants are no longer volunteers; they are trained, they form part of the coastguard service and they are properly paid for the vital duties that they perform.
Proposed new equipment will be bench tested at Highcliffe training centre for at least two months, and the equipment will be mocked up as if it were in an operations room. It is not true that such equipment would be put into place on the stroke of midnight on a particular date. It would be installed at relevant co-ordinating centres and, only when it was clearly doing the job for which it was created, would the switch from the existing equipment take place. Obviously, all relevant coastguards will be trained. This is the third time that there has been a change of equipment, and the present equipment, which is vital for receiving and disseminating information, is coming to the end of its shelf life.
There are two central issues, and I shall deal first with the second. As several hon. Members said, during this debate not a word has been raised in support of the
five-year strategy, and they would be interested to know who has supported it. The report last year by the National Audit Office into civil search and rescue said:
I should spend the bulk of my time dealing with an issue that rightly concerned every hon. Member who has spoken--what they perceive to be a deleterious loss of local knowledge as a result of the proposed five-year strategy. The informed speeches that I have heard this morning lead me to believe that all Members in the Chamber are aware that each co-ordinating centre deals with a large area of coastline. They average 500 miles and they are typically responsible for many thousands of square sea miles. I visited Holyhead recently and spoke to a coastguard whose most recent rescue co-ordinating duty had been for a vessel in danger off Argentina. That gives some idea of how valuable the coastguard is, not only to vessels in immediate sight of our shores, but to those around the world.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Crosby obliquely said, it would be inconceivable for any person or team of people to retain an absolutely detailed knowledge of such lengths of coastline and areas of sea. Such knowledge is not exclusively held in the brains of the remarkable human beings who are our coastguards. Their undoubted knowledge is supplemented by computer databases and the equally valuable local knowledge of people who carry out the rescues, such as the RNLI, the helicopter services and the other emergency services. Radio direction-finding
equipment is of tremendous benefit in providing a positional fix, especially for calls by radio or telephone, which are the overwhelming source of search and rescue calls to co-ordination centres.
There must be, and always will be, a programme of familiarisation wherever the coastguard centre or the co-ordination centre is sited. We are talking about a national service. Each coastguard is a member of that national service, and coastguards expect to move around the country to ensure that the ability of rescue services to protect and save life at sea is fully national.
Part and parcel of that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich said, is the ability proposed in the five-year strategy for coastguards to take part in the vital work of preventing accidents. My hon. Friend mentioned the vast increase in the number of recreational craft around our shores, a point also noted by other hon. Members. Education on prevention of accidents used mostly to be concentrated around our coastline, but the coastguard must now move further inland because people pulled by the sea are going ever-greater distances in the attempt to enjoy such recreational activities both within our shores and around our coastline. Far too frequently, people engage in activities on the sea with little or no knowledge of how dangerous they can be if one is not practised or not educated in the dangers.
There will be no compulsory redundancies. We do not expect to lose any coastguards. I have mentioned the need to increase coastguard numbers when the agency takes over radio marine safety information from BT. The coastguard will deal with weather reports and navigational hazards and will give medical advice. It will be linked to hospitals in Aberdeen and Gosport, and that service will begin on 1 July.
"The number of centres could be reduced without adversely affecting search and rescue operations, and positive benefits in allowing more flexible and effective use of staff."
In response to our consultation, the Royal National Lifeboat Institution said:
"We have been fully supportive of the rationale behind the closure of the four MRSCs."
It added:
"We fully appreciate that the availability of new digital communications technology will allow a reduction in the existing number of Rescue Centres required, without affecting the radio coverage."
As time is running short, I will send a list of other supporters to the hon. Members who have spoken today.
| Next Section
| Index | Home Page |