Examination of Witnesses (Questions 120-126)
17 NOVEMBER 2004
RT HON
ALISTAIR DARLING
MP AND MR
DAVID ROWLANDS
Q120 Chairman: Can I ask you very briefly
about your financial support for ship cadets? How is it working?
Mr Darling: The tonnage tax? It
has worked well in the sense that we have now a number of companies,
60-odd companies, who are engaged in it. They are taking on trainees.
Where there is concern, of course, is their future employment.
As you are well aware, not just within NUMAST, the shipping union,
but others are beginning to say should there be further guarantees?
The big question is, if you have further guarantees, would companies
presently in the scheme say "We are willing to train but
we cannot guarantee a job"? Would they go away? I have had
discussions with NUMAST themselves and I think they accept this
as a question that would have to be answered. What they have done,
which I tend to think is probably the right answer, is they have
successfully negotiated a deal with a number of shipping companies
whereby they will not only guarantee the training through the
tonnage tax but also guarantee to keep people on at least for
an initial period. They cannot guarantee it indefinitely, of course.
Q121 Chairman: Persuasion would in fact
deal with some of this, because all the related industries to
shipping, insurance, etc, would be affected if you do not have
the work force coming through.
Mr Darling: Absolutely. It would
be a worry if we did not have a cadre of people with sea-going
experience. As you rightly say, we need them in the MCA for example.
There are other on-shore industries that rely on that expertise.
Actually, if you look at where we were half a dozen years ago,
we have made huge strides because of the tonnage tax. If you look
at the additions to the British flag, you would not have imagined
that was possible in 1997, taking a year at random.
Chairman: We could expand that but we
will not. I am going to allow you to escape, but I want to ask
you about your departmental objective.
Q122 Clive Efford: On the Dartford crossing,
why did you need to transfer £11.5 million to the Dartford
crossing maintenance fund when the charges are still in place?
Mr Darling: I think this came
from something in the SR02 settlement, did it not?
Mr Rowlands: Essentially, what
we are doing is really what government accounting requires us
to do, which is to account gross, so if you look in the report
you will see all of the gross receipts coming in, £67 million
a year, and then you have to put money back into maintenance,
into the maintenance fund. So £67 million comes in, and we
put £12 million back in, rather than just netting it off,
which you might think would be more sensible, but in accounting
terms, we need to do it gross. So it comes in and we give some
of it back.
Q123 Clive Efford: What about the long-term
future of the charge?
Mr Darling: It is probably a policy
issue. In relation to the charge, I expect it will remain there.
It is certainly part of the SR04 arithmetic, and I cannot hold
out any prospects for it not being there.
Q124 Chairman: Can I just ask you finally
this. There are other objectives in your annual report. You are
going to provide for the development of sustainable airport and
air space, improve logistics, modernise service for drivers, promote
mobility, develop, monitor and enforce appropriate security. Are
you going to do all of those?
Mr Darling: Yes.
Q125 Chairman: How are you going to monitor
them and how will we know how well you have performed?
Mr Darling: It varies. You mentioned
the airports. That is relatively easy to monitor, although it
takes time to do it, in relation to the environmental impact.
That is one example. On security, it is rather more difficult.
As I have said to you before, security has moved to being part
of our core business, and it will remain such for ever. As for
monitoring it, that is much more difficult, because by its very
nature, it is very difficult to measure what you stop.
Q126 Chairman: Secretary of State, you
understand perfectly we want to see clarity. We think you have
a good tale to tell, and where you have problems, we just want
to see what they are and we want to see what the difficulties
are. We are very grateful to you for coming this afternoon. I
am sorry it has been an exercise in stretching your legs, but
I am sure it has done you an enormous amount of good. We are very
grateful to you for bringing Mr Rowlands with you.
Mr Darling: Thank you very much.
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