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Lord Greenway: My Lords, perhaps the noble Lord will give way. I was not concerned about the price of petrol. I was trying to say that people shout and scream about certain disasters, but if the ships that bring oil to our shores were not allowed to come here for environmental reasons there would be no petrol at the pump with which to fill up their cars. They cannot have the argument both ways.

Lord Berkeley: My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Lord. I understand what he says and I agree with him.

My point is that all transport has to be subject to some kind of regulation and control. It has to be subject to monitoring, enforcement and accident investigation. If we consider other types of transport, in the air industry the CAA plays a major role; road transport is to some extent regulated and controlled by the Department of Transport; for the railways there is the Health and Safety Executive. However, even in the Bill, I still detect a comparative free-for-all for the big shippers. Perhaps the word "klondykers" fits here. Perhaps the Minister will explain what the word means in the circumstances referred to by so many noble Lords in the debate.

I have a feeling that the Government are frightened of introducing too much regulation. Trade has to come to the UK somehow. The noble Earl, Lord Caithness, expressed a fear that ships would go elsewhere. Freight has to come to this country, by ship, tunnel, air or whatever. As we found in legislation following the "Herald of Free Enterprise" disaster, if Britain leads it is often followed by the European Union. My message to the Government is to have a little more courage, more power to the elbow. The Bill is a good start--but it is only a start.

To turn to one or two of the main points in the Bill, we welcome the new wording in Clause 2, "significant pollution", as providing a wider definition of the scope of the legislation. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Donaldson, made the very powerful point that it probably needs to be widened a little further so that real control can be exercised by the Government when a disaster occurs. We certainly support that.

Nick Ainger, the Member of Parliament for Pembroke, where the "Sea Empress" accident occurred, has also stated on many occasions that he believes that experts responsible only to the Government must take

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charge of a salvage operation and have the power to commission commercial salvage contractors with the resources to provide successful salvage rather than allowing commercial interests to outweigh the national and environmental interest. That is a very strong point.

I turn to Clause 10, which deals with the parking of ships. My noble friend Lord Clinton-Davis referred to the matter. Several consultees have commented that this measure would simply transfer the problem of parked ships to somewhere else. That may be true, but it is better than leaving matters as they are. If elsewhere the European Community follows this lead, it is a start. It is no reason for not having this legislation, which we strongly support.

There is, however, concern on the part of pilots that they may be required to become involved with a ship that is not capable of being moved. They remind us that Clause 21(1) of the Pilotage Act 1987 states that a pilot shall be guilty of an offence if he,

"does any act which causes or is likely to cause the loss or destruction of, or serious damage to, the ship or its machinery".

Those matters will need to be examined in Committee.

I now turn to lighthouses. I am no expert, although I do a spot of sea-sailing. The noble Lord, Lord Greenway, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon of Glaisdale, and the noble Lord, Lord Cooke of Islandreagh, spoke very powerfully about the idea of winding up the General Lighthouse Fund. I cannot add anything of the quality that they brought to the debate. However, the noble Viscount, Lord Goschen, said that the legislation is required because the present regime may conflict with future legislation. I am not sure that that is a very good reason for doing it now.

We received very strong comments from the General Lighthouse Fund. As we have heard, it is private money. The private status of the fund was confirmed by the Government in evidence to the Public Accounts Committee in 1982. The Treasury saw the GLA service as being provided by the private sector for the private sector. Is this back-door nationalisation? I hope the Minister can give some explanation as to why this measure is so necessary now.

The noble Lord, Lord Napier of Magdala, and my noble friend Lord Clinton-Davis spoke about insurance. Both were strongly in favour of comprehensive insurance policies for all ships coming to British ports or waters. Road vehicles are insured; train operators must have £155 million of cover. That figure came out of the privatisation process. I do not think anybody would necessarily disagree with it. The air industry has insurance, so why not shipping in the same way? I refer to any shipping entering UK waters, not just visiting ports.

Perhaps the Minister will explain the purpose of Clause 19, relating to the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, and say whether the RNLI approves it. I am sure that the idea is excellent, but what is the purpose of it? I should like to hear some explanation.

I now turn to what was not included from the Donaldson Report. A general comment would be: "information". There are many ways in which the report identifies the lack of information on ships; the quality

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of the mechanical equipment; the electrical equipment; the crews; the cargo, and what is discharged. The noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, mentioned tagging. It is an extremely important method of knowing where a container or load is. I know of a new approach called "active tagging" which is being tested at the moment on some dozen ships around the world. One of the containers bearing such a tag got lost, and about a month later was found well into the middle of the Sahara in Upper Volta being used as a chicken-house. It is useful to be able to locate a container in that way and that example emphasises the importance of proper and adequate statistics, monitoring, records and assessment of where the risks are.

Lord Graham of Edmonton: It's a fowl situation!

Lord Berkeley: My Lords, I thank my noble friend.

The Advisory Committee on the Protection of the Sea has made strong representations that there need to be detailed surveys of shipping volumes and practice to enable appropriate recommendations for change to be made. That is a matter for the IMO. Crew competence, age, conditions, maintenance and identity of the flag state are also mentioned. However, I can see nothing in the Bill to deal with the various elements of "information".

I move to paragraph 22 of the Donaldson Report and the Government's response which concern non-accidental discharges of oily wastes, garbage and noxious liquid substances. Recommendation 22 suggests that the Government should,

"regard the adoption of the North Sea, the English Channel and the Irish Sea as special areas for oily waste as a long-term aim".

The response states that the point is under consideration. Perhaps the Minister could tell us when the consideration will be complete.

I turn to Recommendation 59 of the Donaldson Report. Several noble Lords mentioned MEHRAs or marine environmental high risk areas. We support the principle and the recommendation that,

"the Department of Transport should monitor MEHRAs to see whether Masters' behaviour has changed".

There is a half-page response stating that it is "under consideration" by the Government. I have a feeling that they do not wish to make it too complicated by putting extra lines on marine charts. If you cannot read a marine chart, you should not be driving a vessel anyway. The Government use that as a weak excuse for not putting a different coloured line to designate an extremely important recommendation from the Donaldson Report.

Recommendation 99 is for the Government to make an annual report to Parliament on the implementation of the Donaldson Report. The CAA and the railway inspectorate produce them. It would not be a marine inspectorate report but a progress review on an extremely important accident report by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Donaldson. The Minister kindly told us that there was a report in the Library. I could not find it but, as usual, our Library did so and it was delivered to us late in the day. We have not had a chance to study

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it because it is 60 pages long. I thank the Minister for at least telling us about it, although it was too late for the debate. May we expect an annual report on progress?

In conclusion, we welcome the Government bringing forward the legislation. Information, monitoring and enforcement will be the key to its success. From the Minister's opening remarks, it appeared that he is adopting an open mind on some details in the Bill. That was my impression and I therefore look forward to a positive discussion in the Committee stage that will follow soon.

6.33 p.m.

Viscount Goschen: My Lords, I feel sure that we shall have a positive discussion in future stages of the Bill. At this point I wish to say how much I enjoyed listening to the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, winding up this incredibly interesting debate for the Opposition. I understand that it is the first time he has performed the task from the Opposition Front Bench so he has our congratulations. We have had an interesting debate and it has again shown the level of expertise contained within your Lordships' House, particularly on all matters maritime.

My noble friend Lord Boyd-Carpenter commented that the Bill might be described as a "rag-bag" of various measures. That would be a difficult assertion to contradict. The number of measures in the Bill is large and the provisions are wide and varied.

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