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The Devon coast is an area that depends heavily on tourism and our coastline is very important to the economic and social well-being of our community. A new study, conducted by the non-profit regeneration consultancy Era Ltd, on the Jurassic coast suggests that it has exceeded expectations in bringing economic, social and cultural benefits to the region since it was awarded UNESCO world heritage site status in 2001. Its status has given a boost to the area of Dorset and East Devon in terms of learning and education, business opportunities, facilities and services, especially benefiting the local
tourism industry—and we in East Devon are rightly very proud and also very protective of maintaining this special coastline. Does the Minister consider that Lyme bay, given its recognised importance as a marine habitat and its UNESCO world heritage status, is an appropriate site to be used for a shipping emergency?
Lyme bay is also an important wintering site for many bird species and within two days of the beaching more than 900 birds were reported oiled. It is estimated that for every bird found oiled on the shore, between three and 10 times as many will have been oiled at sea. The wreck of the Napoli may also have threatened as many as 28 sites of special scientific interest, including the Exe estuary, Chesil beach and the Fleet SSSIs. Will the Minister therefore ensure that provisions specifically to keep ships away from environmentally sensitive areas, as my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset has just suggested, and legislation covering navigation are built into the Marine and Coastal Access Bill, particularly in the light of the Napoli incident?
The beaching of the Napoli was an event that highlighted serious deficiencies in many aspects of dealing with such an occurrence, which is why action must be taken now. This report must be heeded, the national contingency plan must be strengthened, maritime legislation must be adapted and a single person to take charge on land must be appointed. Only two months ago, police admitted that they were powerless to stop members of the public helping themselves to sawn timber that had washed up on the Kent coast, which had been lost by a Russian ship, the Sinegorsk.
For an island nation with a proud maritime heritage, it is now high time that the Government demonstrated some form of real commitment to the shipping industry and seaside communities and ensured that costly situations such as this are avoided in the future. The channel is one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world and although economic times are more constrained at present, with container ships less frequent along our coast than they once were, that is not to say that things will not pick up again.
Figures from Lloyd’s Register-Fairplay show that as the world fleet has grown, so has the propensity for accidents to happen. In fact, the number of serious navigational accidents rose from around 30 in 2000 to more than 120 in 2006, and statistics now show that a ship is twice as likely to be involved in a serious grounding, collision or contact accident today compared with only five years ago. The grounding of the Napoli demonstrated the costly dangers to a marine nation such as ours, and while mistakes were made, this need not happen again. Instead, it is time to grasp this opportunity to learn lessons and implement real changes that can prevent these disasters in future. When will the Minister finally listen to what he is being told from all sides and implement effective change? If the Government are not simply paying lip service to marine conservation and planning, they will adopt the recommendations set out in the report.
Finally, I would like to add that without the professionalism and efforts of all those who worked tirelessly on the operation, including Robin Middleton, the SOSREP at the time, the situation could have been far worse. What I and those affected by this and similar incidents would like to see is these actions replicated on future operations on land. The Napoli incident has exposed many problems that must be taken seriously
and addressed by the Government as soon as possible. This event could and should be used as a template for future containership casualties and provides an opportunity to frame legislation accordingly.
10.33 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Jim Fitzpatrick): I begin by congratulating the hon. Member for East Devon (Mr. Swire) on securing this important debate. I am very pleased to see in their places the right hon. Member for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin) and my hon. Friend the Member for South Thanet (Dr. Ladyman), the distinguished former Shipping Minister, who is continuing to take an interest in these important matters.
With respect to the hon. Member for East Devon, I would suggest that the successful way in which the MSC Napoli was dealt with demonstrates the effectiveness of the UK’s arrangements for handling incidents at sea and the professionalism of all those involved. Mr. Robin Middleton, whom the hon. Gentleman has just mentioned, was then the Secretary of State’s Representative for Maritime Salvage and Intervention—commonly known as SOSREP. He came in for a good deal of praise, and rightly so.
Mr. Letwin: Let me make it clear, as I did at the time, that I have the greatest respect for the way in which the then Minister handled the situation—he kept us fully informed—and indeed the way in which the SOSREP handled it. The question is whether the ship should have been anywhere near there in the first place, which is a wider issue.
Jim Fitzpatrick: I hope, if I have time, to explain in a few moments the Government’s position on where ships go if they run into difficulty.
The United Kingdom’s handling of the MSC Napoli incident received widespread approbation domestically and internationally. Ever since establishing the SOSREP function, and whenever the subject of command and control of maritime incidents has come up for discussion in any forum, we have consistently expressed the view that the UK’s system for dealing with them is exceptionally good. Nevertheless, there are lessons to be learned from shipping incidents even when they have been handled in an exemplary way, and the MSC Napoli incident is no exception. The Government identified a number of lessons, which were set out in the document entitled “MSC Napoli Incident: The Maritime and Coastguard Agency’s Response”. As the hon. Gentleman said, that document was issued in November 2008.
One of the most prominent lessons learned is about the communication of the role of SOSREP and the MCA to other bodies involved in incidents of this type. The emphasis in the MCA’s counter-pollution and response branch has been on training courses for local authorities. We now realise that the MCA needs to inform other category 1 and 2 responders about the role of SOSREP in salvage and the role of other MCA units in counter-pollution activities, including the command and control procedures that are implemented at the scene of a maritime incident. We believe that briefing local resilience forums and strategic co-ordination groups, and conducting suitable exercises with other responders, may be a more effective way of explaining the procedures that are in place to deal with shipping incidents of this nature.
Communication is at the heart of another of the lessons that we have learned. Communication of the potential level of risk between the salvage control unit, where the most up-to-date information is available, and any land co-ordinated response organisation needs to be improved.
The document entitled “National Contingency Plan for Marine Pollution from Shipping and Offshore Installations” sets out the Government’s response procedures. The plan is reviewed periodically to take account of lessons learned from the incidents that have occurred during that period. We consider that the next review of the national contingency plan should consider the scope for dealing with medium-sized incidents through the use of combined response centres. In such a scenario, the marine response centre and the salvage control unit could merge to form a single unit. During the review process, the MCA could also expand on mechanisms for dealing with beached material other than oil and chemicals.
In the next review of the plan, consideration needs to be given to the interface between the at-sea, shore and near-shore protection activities. The review also needs to address the issue of which bodies are best suited to carry out shoreline protection and clean-up, and consideration should be given to the interrelationships between the civil contingency representatives and the MCA.
There are still more lessons to be learned. The co-location of response units should be used whenever possible. A number of MCA officers should be trained specifically for the role of Acting Receiver of Wreck and for liaison with police gold commanders, and suitable procedures should be added to the operational manuals. The use of dispersant on more viscous oils should continue to be considered as a useful tool in future responses to oil spills of this type. That was demonstrated during the MSC Napoli incident with the use of dispersant on IFO 380, a quite viscous oil.
The MCA needs to explore with the other agencies involved how the process of preparing multiple environmental impact assessments for a range of options, and achieving agreement from all the authorities involved, could be expedited in future.
Action is being taken to follow up the marine accident investigation branch’s finding that discrepancies in the declared weights of the containers on MSC Napoli were a contributory cause of the accident, a very important point raised by the hon. Gentleman. The International Chamber of Shipping and the World Shipping Council have published “Safe Transport of Containers by Sea, Guidelines on Industry Best Practice”. When it met in December 2008, the International Maritime Organisation’s maritime safety committee referred those guidelines, and the associated concerns about misdeclared cargo and the false or incomplete declaration of contents, to an IMO sub-committee for detailed consideration.
Let me turn to some other points raised by the hon. Gentleman. I am, of course, aware of the report of the local public inquiry which was conducted by Devon county council. The Government do not necessarily agree with all the conclusions and recommendations of the inquiry, but some of its recommendations are very close to the conclusions that we ourselves reached. We
are currently considering the recommendations, and will respond in due course. The most prominent recommendation is, of course, the creation of a new post ashore, with powers of command and control on land which are equivalent to those that SOSREP exercises at sea.
The Government's position is that the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 provides the legislative framework for civil protection in the United Kingdom. That includes a well established generic national framework for managing emergency response, irrespective of the size, nature or cause of the incident. That framework is adapted to the particular needs of the emergency. By using an adaptable, but generic framework, rather than an incident-specific approach, it allows for the integration of emergency plans across agencies and boundaries, and ensures that all involved understand their roles and responsibilities, in a combined response.
Within that framework, the local management of an emergency is undertaken at three ascending levels—bronze, silver and gold commands—responsible, respectively, for operational, tactical and strategic command. I recognise, however, that in the case of the MSC Napoli a local gold command was not established, as the hon. Gentleman has outlined, until it became apparent that events on the beach were descending into disorder. It appears that local commanders, given the unprecedented nature of events, did not anticipate the effect that the beaching of that container ship would have, specifically with regard to the looting of property. I understand, however, that once gold command was established and SOSREP joined that group, control over the scene improved and co-ordination between the land-based and sea-based operations improved dramatically.
All that is not to say, however, that we are complacent. When the Civil Contingencies Act was enacted, there was an explicit intention to review it within three years. That will include recommendations contained in the recent report into the events following the beaching of the MSC Napoli.
The hon. Gentleman went on to recommend that the legislation that relates to salvage and wreck be clarified and updated. However, it would not be true to say that the existing merchant shipping legislation prevented the police from taking the necessary action after the beaching of the MSC Napoli. The law states that anyone finding or taking possession of wreck material, regardless of size or value, must report it to the receiver of wreck. Failure to report recovered wreck is a criminal offence. That was the initial information given, after the beaching of the MSC Napoli, to the media and to finders on the beach.
It was the actions of many of the people who came to Branscombe after the beaching of the MSC Napoli which clearly showed that what they were doing could not be categorised as “salvage”. That compelled the Receiver of Wreck, MCA colleagues and the Devon and Cornwall constabulary to reassess the situation and to invoke the receiver’s power under section 237 of the Merchant Shipping Act 1995 to use force if necessary against anyone who refuses to hand over recovered wreck material or attempts to conceal it or to keep possession of it. Accordingly, we do not envisage that the Government will be seeking to change the legislation on salvage and wreck on this account.
The hon. Gentleman referred to the local public inquiry’s recommendation that the Government make a general and permanent commitment to reimburse the extraordinary costs of handling the aftermath of an incident from a central fund along the lines of the Bellwin fund. That is an issue on which further discussion needs to take place within government but, on the face of it, it appears problematic. The Government cannot make a generic commitment because every emergency is different, and incidents are considered on their individual merits.
The hon. Gentleman suggested that coastal areas that have national and international conservation significance should not be used as places of refuge in the event of a maritime incident. However, as the right hon. Member for West Dorset mentioned, this proposal is at variance with the UK’s tried and tested policy for protecting our seas and coasts, which is that anywhere around the UK’s coastline could be a place of refuge. When a ship in need of assistance requires a place of refuge, SOSREP inevitably takes account of all the factors that relate to that specific incident, such as the
weather, the location, the type of threat posed by the vessel and its cargo. This established process allows SOSREP to determine the most appropriate place of refuge, minimising adverse consequences for any incident. It is important to stress that ships are not brought into a place of refuge in order to cause pollution. On the contrary, ships are brought into places of refuge to avert or minimise pollution.
Let me conclude by thanking the hon. Member for East Devon for his continued interest in the issues surrounding the handling of the MSC Napoli. I have tried to answer his concerns, although perhaps I have not done so to his complete satisfaction. We accept that this matter is of great importance, and it is to his credit that he maintains his interest and has secured the opportunity to raise this debate tonight. I assure him that we will follow up the issues he has raised.
10.44 pm
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