Examination of Witnesses (Question Numbers
233-239)
MR PETER
BARHAM, MR
ALAN CARTWRIGHT
AND MR
HOWARD HOLT
18 NOVEMBER 2008
Q233 Joan Walley: Can I welcome you all
before our Committee, and I know we have had a fairly lengthy
session already this morning and it is perhaps good that you have
been able to at least listen to some of the discussions that we
have had. Given that there are three of you from three very different
organisations or companies, could you perhaps set out very briefly
what each of you has responsibility for in the organisation that
you represent?
Mr Holt: I am Head of Corporate
Affairs for the Port of Dover, which means that I look after all
the external stakeholder relations—anything that is outward-facing
from the port, if you like. We are probably one of the larger
members of the British Ports Association which represents 90 ports,
and I am here on behalf of the British Ports Association today.
Mr Cartwright: I am the Marine
Engineer for the Port of London Authority and, as such, I am responsible
for designing, building, maintaining and eventually disposing
of our fleet of vessels that we need, to keep the port open and
working well; but, because of some background experience I have
got from my Royal Naval jobs and the work I do for the PLA in
a broader sense, I provide advice to the United Kingdom Major
Ports Group on environmental matters relating to ships, and especially
all aspects of MARPOL. I have a colleague who deals with the land
issues and marine build issues and so on; but I deal with the
interface between the ships and the ports for UK MPG.
Mr Barham: I work for Associated
British Ports. We operate 21 ports throughout the company; and
we are about 25% of the port industry in the UK. My role is: I
am the Sustainable Development Manager, which makes me responsible
for environmental management across all aspects in all 21 ports,
and also in terms of trying to promote new developments and achieve
environmental acceptability for those, so it is quite a big role
and I have a small team behind me. I guess I am also here representing
UK MPG as well.
Q234 Joan Walley: So we have got
fair degree of expertise before us this morning. Let me just start
then with the issue of air quality, which we have not really touched
on up until now to any great extent, and the issue of MARPOL Annex
VI. Could you give us a sense of how big an impact shipping emissions
altogether have on air quality in the UK?
Mr Cartwright: Shipping emissions
do have an impact on the air quality. The exhaust plumes from
merchant ships do travel a long way. There are three aspects to
the emissions: if you look at the CO2—we have heard before
that the carbon dioxide emissions affect on a global, certainly
large regional basis. The emissions of sulphur and nitrogen have
a more local effect—regional; and those are certainly emissions
that have an effect on the UK and Western Europe. On a very local
basis you get the effect of particulates from what is a fairly
heavy diesel fuel, or heavy fuel being burnt in a diesel engine.
You get soot and particulates falling out which can have a very
localised effect; which has been most widely emphasised on the
western seaboard of the USA where a lot of action has been taken
there. We do those effects, and from time to time we get people
complaining about certain ships with very sooty exhausts and so
on.
Q235 Joan Walley: Given the ports
connection that you all have, how much do you feel, with extent
of shipping activity in coastal regions all the way round the
country, that tighter controls over ports could contribute towards
reducing some of the more harmful effects of emissions?
Mr Barham: I think the simple
fact is, as Alan has said, there is an understanding that ships'
emissions do have an impact on local air quality. As I said, we
operate 21 ports—in nine of those we are currently working
with local authorities on air quality management area studies.
There is quite a lot of work going on. One of the things that
shows is that, of course, problems with air quality are not entirely
the responsibility of shipping. I am not trying to let shipping
off the hook. I am saying that there are other aspects of transport
infrastructure that also need to be taken into account, in the
sense of trying to be equitable; in that there are contributions
from road, there are contributions from rail and there are contributions
from shipping. It is trying to work across all three areas.
Q236 Joan Walley: We are just concerned
with shipping here.
Mr Barham: Just concerned with
shipping, yes, there is a contribution from shipping. In some
cases it is probably greater than others. Work as I understand
is being done in some of the air quality management areas to see
what the contribution from shipping is.
Mr Holt: Your question referred
to the UK but of course it varies a lot as you go around the UK.
The English Channel is of course one of the busiest shipping lanes
in the world. What we have effectively noticed is that there is
a higher background from traffic that is actually nothing to do
with our port. We then have our own traffic which is quite intense
which, in effect, has been giving us some exceedences over that
fairly high background. Just to give you the really wide picture:
we have a suspicion, for example, a steelworks in Dunkirk actually
puts some sulphur dioxide in the air as well, because the gas
does not respect national boundaries obviously. What we have had
to do, with both nitrogen dioxide although that is largely a land-based
problem for us, but on the shipping side it is a sulphur dioxide
problem, we have actually had to declare an air quality management
area in the area of the port. We have been working with all our
stakeholders in terms of managing that area and coming forward
with some actions.
Q237 Joan Walley: In terms of MARPOL
Annex VI, how effective do you think that is going to be, for
example, in respect of Dover and other ports around the country?
Are you geared-up to really making sure that that gets implemented?
Mr Holt: Obviously that is largely
something for the shipping operator in terms of MARPOL. We have
our own port to look after and we are very concerned about the
emissions from our own port. In terms of the ships, since 2006
when the sulphur content of the ferries was put down to 1.5%,
we have actually seen a reduction in the number of sulphur dioxide
exceedences. Taking that experience and looking forward, undoubtedly
as we go through the various tiers, that will bring an improvement
in sulphur dioxide.
Q238 Joan Walley: You say what the
MARPOL Annex agreed is largely for the shipping companies. Clearly
you must have some indication of how what is happening there affects
the operations of ports, and the ability of infrastructure that
is needed in ports to link up to putting the new MARPOL agreements
into practice?
Mr Holt: If you talk about some
of the practical ways of implementing it then, yes, obviously
ports have a part to play. We are very keen to work with our stakeholders
in order to do that. There are various ways forward. For example,
effectively ports like the shipping industry have been working
through the NOx and SOx problem and we have perhaps taken a little
longer to get to the carbon problem. That is really because the
others manifested themselves quite obviously to us, if you like.
We have actually got air quality management areas which are specific
to the port. They are a local problem to us and, therefore, that
has been our main concern. We are now looking ahead and saying,
yes, in terms of bunker fuel and ways of solving problems, then
ports have a particular part to play. Certainly if we begin to
talk about things like cold ironing and shoreside supply of electricity
then that is a huge issue for us in terms of the infrastructure.
Mr Cartwright: I was just going
to remind the Committee that in the UK we have various models
of ports within our organisations that are quite different from,
let us say, the European model where, typically, ports are either
centrally owned or municipally owned and, therefore, can be directed
by either central or local government to do this or that. In the
UK we have a variety of ports. We have the plc companies, such
as ABP; we have privately owned ports, such as Bristol, and Bristol
is a member of UK MPG; we have small trust ports such as Whitstable,
which are fishing harbours and places like that but nevertheless
are still a port; and then we have the larger trust ports, such
as the Port of London, where the Port of London Authority is the
trust port. We look after navigation, safety and all sorts of
aspects. The actual operations that go on within the ports are
owned by private companies, either privately owned, plc companies
and so on. We have actually got quite a vast array of types of
organisation that the lay person might just thing "Oh, it's
a port", as in you might think "Oh, that's a shipping
company". That introduces some of the complexities and the
places whereupon various instructions, guidances, regulations,
mandations and so on apply. We cannot just treat a port as an
entity because some of them really are quite complex.
Q239 Joan Walley: I think you raise
a very interesting question there. I remember the port privatisation
legislation very well indeed. I am just wondering in terms of
what you said—given the complexity of this issue in relation
to the public health, emissions and now the global warming issues
that we face—whether or not the regulatory measures that
were put into place in respect of the port privatisation are actually
consistent with the agenda that we now face, in looking at the
way in which port operations which you have said yourself are
different from other areas to meet the national objectives that
we have. How would you feel about the overarching machinery that
is in place to actually address that?
Mr Barham: Perhaps I will lead
off because I represent the biggest area of commercially owned
ports industry in the country. The simple fact is that alongside
our commercial interests we have statutory authorities that we
retained at privatisation in 1983, so we are the Harbour Authority
in 21 port areas. On that basis we act as a public authority and,
therefore, we have to take account of Acts like NERC and CROW.
We are a public authority and publicly accountable for the Marine
Authority. Where we are working on land as a commercial organisation,
clearly we work closely with lots of environmental regulators,
not least the MCA. When it comes to the enforcement of shipping
issues, then we certainly do not see that as our responsibility;
we see that as the responsibility of the MCA. There is quite a
background there with things like some of the waste regulations,
where we make facilities available for ships to use them, but
it is not our job to police them. We would follow that parallel
through in terms of some of the IMO stuff.
Mr Cartwright: I would like to
support that, in that regulation of shipping should lie with the
national authority, which is the MCA. We have a very close relationship
with them obviously, both as individual ports and as organisations
we have bilateral meetings and so on with the MCA on a whole variety
of things. There are some of our activities that are regulated
by the MCA; and some of our activities that are regulated by the
EA because you pass over that line from the wet side to the land
side. The EA take over environmental responsibility there. Clearly
we work closely with them when we can to make sure that we are
complying with all the requirements. To try and make a port a
regulator on shipping in this regard is really quite difficult.
We do in some instances, with vessel licensing; and in the PLA's
case, river works licensing, yes, we have got certain powers within
our Act: but to try and make us regulators of ships, we do not
have the mechanism for doing that, whereas the MCA does. The mechanisms
that they employ for other aspects of environmental compliance—be
they international regulations or vested in UK law—those
work quite well and we work with them on that.
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