HC Deb 16 May 1939 vol 347 cc1172-3
14. Mr. Benjamin Smith

asked the President of the Board of Trade whether his attention has been drawn to the large number of cases in which verminous bunks and bedding are detected in crews' quarters; and whether any special attention is being given by his Department to this problem?

Mr. Stanley

The cleanliness of crews' quarters is primarily a matter for the shipowners and the officers and men, and special attention is being given to the question. At the end of last year a joint committee of the Shipping Federation, the National Union of Seamen, and the officers' societies, was set up to consider the matter. The report of that committee was adopted on 3rd May by the National Maritime Board, who are now in consultation with the Board of Trade on certain questions which arise on it.

Mr. Smith

Will the right hon Gentleman tell the House what the Board of Trade itself is going to do in this matter? Those people are the people who are the culprits. What is the Board, whose business it is to see that conditions on board ship are healthy and clean, going to do?

Mr. Stanley

I should have thought that an agreement between all the interests concerned, voluntarily entered into, was the very best way of ensuring the quickest improvement, and the Board of Trade will certainly lend every assistance in their power to see that it is done.

Mr. Smith

The point is that those people are, in fact, the delinquents—we cannot get away from that—and will the right hon. Gentleman undertake to introduce a regulation requiring that in every case the ship should be reported not only to the master but to the owner, and that the inspector should see that the owner carries out a proper fumigation, so as to secure cleanliness?.

Mr. Stanley

I will certainly look into any point the hon. Member brings forward.

Mr. Kirkwood

Is it not possible for the Board of Trade, in this day and generation, to issue instructions that verminous bunks and bedding must cease on board British ships?

Mr. Stanley

Such instructions have been given.

24. Mr. Benjamin Smith

asked the President of the Board of Trade the extent to which masters of vessels are carrying out the recommendation contained in the instructions as to the survey of masters' and crews' spaces that the result of their inspections of crews' quarters should be entered at least once a week in the official log and in the owners' log?

Mr. Stanley

From reports which the Board of Trade have received from superintendents of Mercantile Marine offices, I am satisfied that masters of ships are generally carrying out the recommendation in so far as the official log book is concerned. I have no information in respect of the entries made in the owners' logs.

Mr. Smith

Will the right hon. Gentleman undertake to see that both recommendations are carried out? Would it not be one of the most effective means of declaring to everybody the condition of the ship?

Mr. Stanley

I have no reason to suppose that they are not being carried out. I should have thought that the fact that they were being made in the official log book was more important still.