Examination of Witnesses (Questions 174-179)
MR MARTYN
PELLEW, MR
FRANK ROBOTHAM,
MR DAVID
WHITEHEAD AND
MR RICHARD
BIRD
6 FEBRUARY 2008
Chairman: Good afternoon, ladies and
gentlemen. I am sure those of you who have been here before know
our ground rules. The microphones in front of you record your
voices, they do not necessarily project your voices, so we are
going to need a little bit of voice from you, but we have one
little bit of housekeeping first to perform. Members having an
interest to declare. Mr Clelland?
Mr Clelland: A Member of UNITE.
Graham Stringer: A Member of UNITE.
Clive Efford: A Member of UNITE.
Chairman: ASLEF.
Mrs Ellman: A Member of UNITE.
Q174 Chairman: Gentlemen, I am going
to ask you first to identify yourselves. If there is anyone who
wants to start off with a few general remarks, perhaps you would
indicate. If you agree with one another, please do not repeat
what somebody else has said. If you disagree, please seek to catch
the Chairman's eye. Can we begin, on my left and your right, for
the record?
Mr Whitehead: I am David Whitehead.
I am Director of the British Ports Association.
Mr Pellew: I am Martyn Pellew.
I am the Group Development Director for PD Ports.
Mr Bird: I am Richard Bird. I
am Executive Director of the UK Major Ports Group.
Mr Robotham: I am Frank Robotham,
Marketing Director, Peel Ports Group.
Q175 Chairman: Thank you very much.
Does anybody have anything to say, or may we go straight to questions?
Thank you. Is the Government's approach to ports appropriate for
supporting a healthy United Kingdom ports industry?
Mr Whitehead: Yes, if I can begin,
Chairman. We had an interim ports policy statement last July,
which pretty much confirmed the status quo, which is that the
industry is very much a market-led industry, and that is the situation
the industry itself has cultivated over a long period of time.
It is strategically and financially independent. There are a few
signs that the Government is becoming more interested in the overall
direction of travel of the industry and capacity requirements
in the future.
Q176 Chairman: Such as?
Mr Whitehead: We have a proposal,
something completely new, which is for a national ports policy
statement, which will include forecasts for the first time for
many years. So we will have some kind of national understanding
of requirements, particularly on unitised freight capacity, rail,
road and container capacity. That is a very significant stage
in change because that, we hope, will feed into the planning process
and it is the planning process with which we have a lot of problems
at the moment.
Q177 Chairman: Is the Government's
support commensurate with the importance of ports in the United
Kingdom's economy?
Mr Pellew: I think with the Eddington
Report identifying international gateways as being important and
the ports policy recognising the importance of the ports in terms
of their economics and local contribution to GVA, yes, Government
policy is making progress in that area, but I would endorse the
point made by my colleague on my right, that planning is the fundamental
issue and does not seem to have been addressed in the ports policy
particularly, although the recent white paper on Planning seems
to be addressing improving infrastructure in particular, but planning
in general remains a problem.
Q178 Chairman: Touching on actually
what Mr Whitehead said, is there a vision for the development
of UK ports at Government level?
Mr Bird: If I can respond on this
one, the vision, I think, is a good one in terms of providing
a structure for ports to develop. I think it would perhaps be
a bit ambitious to expect Government to have a complete vision
of how things will look for the port sector in 20 or 30 years'
time. After all, who could have predicted 20 years ago the enormous
growth of container business from the Far East, for example? So
there is a danger of a vision which can be a little time limited.
The key thing is that there should be a structure in place which
enables ports to develop and invest with confidence, and I think
the Government recognises that. I agree with my colleagues that
the ports policy statement and the Eddington review taken together,
plus the new planning legislation, do represent a good package
which will certainly help for the future.
Q179 Mr Hollobone: Several of you
have described a situation where major ports on the Continent
seem to be getting financial assistance from their governments,
whereas you are not getting support from Her Majesty's Government.
Would any of you like to enlarge on that?
Mr Whitehead: Yes. There is a
systematic method of subsidising Continental ports. Money goes
into operational help, help in construction. The cost of that
to those ports is that they do not have independence strategically,
so Continental ports are very much creatures of government. They
also get a great advantage in that road and rail connections are
funded publicly, and this is a big issue for us here because there
is a tendency now for Government to push responsibility for funding
of road and rail back to the ports. So there is an uneven system,
a quite fundamentally opposed system in some ways.
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