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Lord Beaumont of Whitley: I am grateful to the Minister for what he has said and for the fact that the Government will consider holding up the issuing of the licence until the fines have been paid.
The noble Viscount referred to consultation. The DoT issued a consultation document in June of this year and has consulted on klondykers. Why does the Minister want to delay further and consult more?
Viscount Goschen: We have indeed consulted already on the issue of klondykers, but not on the detailed provisions. In the spirit of modern government under which we live, we believe that it is best to obtain the views of interested parties on specific requirements that we may bring forward in order to improve the regulations that eventually emerge.
Lord Greenway: Before we leave the question of klondykers, can the noble Viscount confirm that klondykers come within the overall remit of port state control and can be inspected even though they tend to inhabit rather out-of-the-way places?
We have heard about the incidents up north, so I was very surprised last Monday to see some 14 of these ships anchored off Weymouth, which is very much closer to home. Thankfully, there has not been an accident in that part of the world yet, but I gather that these ships, some of which looked extremely rusty, refuel each other there. I know the port authorities in Weymouth are very worried that there might be an incident sooner or later. I wondered whether the usual inspections of port state control apply to those vessels, and how many have been inspected recently.
Lord Clinton-Davis: Before the noble Lord sits down, would he define whose home he was referring to?
Lord Greenway: Not mine! I was just meaning nearer to us here in London.
Lord Berkeley: It depends where home is.
Viscount Goschen: The sedentary intervention from the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, rather sums it up. It depends where home is.
The noble Lord, Lord Greenway, raises a very important issue and put his finger on the difficulty: klondykers are no different from any other vessels at the moment in terms of being subject to port state control inspections, but that is only when they come within the ambit of the regulations when they are in or, I understand, very near to, a port. Often they are outside the power of the current regulations, hence the difficulty, and hence our addressing this issue of the transhipment licence without which they have no business. We are seeking to use other controls to impose
higher standards on klondykers. It is something that there has been a great will to do for some time, and this Bill provides a good opportunity to do just that.
Lord Beaumont of Whitley: Although I am dubious about the spirit of "modern government", it does say that we should consult more and I am totally in favour of consultation. This is an area which calls for very strong action and a lot of people are getting away with something which is not far short of murder. I hope the Government, having consulted, will act extremely firmly but, in the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
6.15 p.m.
Lord Clinton-Davis moved Amendment No. 47:
The noble Lord said: I beg to move Amendment No. 47 and for the convenience of the Committee to take with it also Amendment No. 49 standing in my name and that of the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley. Clause 11, as we have heard, is the way in which the Government propose to implement Recommendation No. 77 of the Donaldson Report.
I want to address the question of adequate insurance at this stage. The recommendation was that vessels should have adequate insurance, but Clause 11 seeks to address this only by the indirect method of reference to the proposed new Section 192A which is to be brought in by Clause 15. I believe I am right about that.
Clause 15 provides powers to require insurance for ships while in UK waters. By adding the requirement that the vessel carries adequate insurance as a condition of the issue (which still has to be implemented) and/or continuance in force of the transhipment licence under Clause 11, the Bill would do the following things: first, it would provide an important opportunity to ensure that klondykers possessed adequate insurance before a licence was issued, in addition to the general requirement for all vessels to hold insurance while in UK waters unless they are exempted from doing so. Secondly, it would ensure that such vessels carried adequate insurance while outside the territorial sea. Thirdly, Clause 15 is dependent upon inspection to check that the requirement for insurance is complied with, whereas including that requirement in Clause 11 (and in the requirements for the issue of a licence in the first place) would ensure that checks are made on the first granting and/or continuance of the licence.
What we do not know is how the Government would go about ensuring monitoring in relation to the provisions of Clauses 11 and 15 regarding the adequacy of insurance. It is not an easy matter, and it occupied a number of paragraphs in the report. The present
I am glad that the Government have grasped the nettle and introduced the provisions they have, but I worry about whether they are adequate. I ask the Minister in particular to give an assurance to the Committee that there are ways and means of ensuring that these insurance policies and their adequacy can properly be monitored. Scraps of paper are readily available in the shipping industry. This could easily fall into that category and one does not want that situation to persist. I hope the Minister will be able to give that assurance, but I shall sit down at this stage and listen with interest to what he has to say.
Viscount Goschen: I listened carefully to what the noble Lord said about the issue of adequacy of insurance, and about not simply having a worthless piece of paper. Perhaps I may advise the noble Lord to look at Amendments No. 72 and 73, which are government amendments, because they refer to insurance as a whole and its adequacy, and not just with regard to klondykers. Amendment No. 72 states:
We have also included provisions in the Bill to link this requirement to the transhipment licence. This is achieved by means of new Section 100G, which states that if regulations under new Section 192A (contained in Clause 15 which, as we have heard, provides for compulsory insurance) are contravened, a notice can be served prohibiting transhipment activities. The liabilities which can be provided for under new Section 192A include pollution damage. The noble Lord, Lord Clinton-Davis, indicated that he was keen that that should be covered. This effect of the provision may not have been apparent as the word "insurance" does not appear in the clause. However, perhaps when the noble Lord reads my somewhat tortuous explanation of how to find one's way around the Bill, he will recognise that we take on board the points that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Donaldson, made at Second Reading about making sure that insurance contracts were more than mere pieces of papers. I hope that the noble Lord will be satisfied with that explanation.
Lord Clinton-Davis: It may have slipped by me--I do not disguise the fact that things do slip by me in my old age--but what I wanted to know was the Minister's thinking on the adequacy of insurance. I believe he has dealt with it by cross-reference, so to speak. Obviously, he has in mind using regulations to define that term. I
The way in which you define "adequacy" is of course of maximum importance. What the Minister did not say--unless I missed it--was how you go about ensuring that this is properly monitored. If an insurance policy is issued and is regarded at the time as adequate, what happens if circumstances then intervene which have the effect of rendering it inadequate in the particular circumstances which then arise? Such a situation could arise once the original licence becomes operative or subsequently. How would the Government go about ensuring that that situation can be properly supervised and monitored effectively? If they cannot, there could be a lacuna. Perhaps the Minister would like to reply to that point.
Page 12, line 41, at end insert (", and
(e) the purpose of ensuring that an adequate indemnity is available in relation to the costs of preventing or reducing pollution or the provision of compensation for loss and damage, or both of them, caused by pollution.").
"after ('specified') insert ('and satisfying such other requirements as may be so specified')".
Insurance as a whole is dealt with a little later in the Bill, and I shall come back to that in a moment. However, I believe I can be helpful to the noble Lord. We agree that we should take enabling powers to require that klondykers hold insurance, or some other means of meeting liabilities. Powers to do so are contained in Clause 15 containing new Section 192A, which deals with insurance for all ships of which klondykers could be specified as a category. Amendments Nos. 72 and 73 relate to Clause 15.
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