HC Deb 10 June 1971 vol 818 cc1383-94

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Fortescue.]

10.29 p.m.

Rear-Admiral Morgan-Giles (Winchester)

On this wet and windy night I should like to raise on these crowded benches the subject of the availability of recreational facilities for sailing and boating. This is a large subject and one with many ramifications. First, I ask the Minister whether he appreciates the magnitude of the explosion that has taken place in sailing and boating during recent years. One and three-quarter million Britons participated in recreational boating, using coastal or inland waterways, during 1970; 30,000 went water skiing; 80,000 went canoeing. It is estimated that 430,000 pleasure craft of all types and sizes are now floating in United Kingdom waters.

These statistics mean nothing by themselves. It is necessary to look at the value of all this to the nation. I believe that this sport is essentially a healthy and wholesome activity. It keeps huge numbers of people, especially young people, healthy in mind and body. It contains just that element of challenge and endurance to make it appeal to the best side of our national character. Further, being essentially an amateur sport, it avoids some of the more questionable aspects of professionalism which arise in other fields; and it involves almost no betting activities whatsoever.

Sailing and boating is available to anybody—men and women, boys and girls—and at almost all economic levels. One of the nicest things about it is that there is a camaderie among all sailing men who together pit their skill against the elements, from the largest and most expensive ocean racers down to a couple of boys in a pram dinghy. The owner of a "12-footer" sailing along on a fine sunny day is just as pleased with himself and with his boat as is the owner of a "12-metre".

I draw attention also to the value of sail training as an Outward Bound type of activity—for example, the Sail Training Association's schooners, and the Navy League's new ship "Royalist" now fitting out; and there are many others.

Finally, in the international sphere there are the Olympics, the many international racing competitions of one sort and another, and, last but not least, the Prime Minister's continuing success in his yacht "Morning Cloud". All this is prestige for Britain.

On the more material side, the industry is flourishing and prosperous; 59,000 boats of all sizes were built in 1970. Hundreds of firms are engaged in boat building and engine building, in providing chandlery, equipment, masts, spares, sails, in hiring, storing, insuring, repairing, and moorings, and so forth. In 1969–70 the total production amounted to £72 million—a surprisingly large figure, which represented an increase of nearly 50 per cent. over that for 1967–68. This is now big business. Over the course of the last three years exports rose from £12 million to £13 million to nearly £20 million in the last financial year.

There have been many manifestations of interest in this sport. The Boat Show gets larger and larger every year. There is the international power boat race organised so efficiently by the Daily Express. There are more and more regattas and increasing use of reservoirs, canals and inland waterways particularly. Legislation has passed through the House relatively recently for the Brighton Marina: this scheme is going full speed ahead. The Chichester Harbour Bill is still under consideration in another place.

But one has to be a practical sailing or motor-boating man to know the difficulties which arise in present-day conditions. There are scores of different places on the coast and on inland waterways where the sport flourishes, but almost all these lack the necessary basic facilities. I will now hand to my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for the Environment a copy of a map which shows where all these facilities are located throughout the United Kingdom. In all these places many owners of small boats and dinghies have the utmost difficulty in finding launching hards and places where boats can be stored and their cars and trailers can be parked. Owners of larger boats experience nightmares trying to obtain mooring anywhere. The facilities required are not complicated and need not be expensive to install, except perhaps in the case of marinas.

One of the difficulties is that so many different associations and organisations, official and unofficial, are all doing their best to sort out the problem. The Ship and Boat Builders National Federation has produced a very interesting booklet, "Boating Facilities 1971", with concrete proposals for a boating facilities commission. The objectives of the suggested commission are contained in paragraph 4 of the booklet, which I shall let my hon. Friend have if he has not got a copy.

The objectives are first to identify and recommend suitable sites for private enterprise development; second, sites where the environment should be developed by Government to a point where private enterprise can take over and continue the development; third, sites suitable for public sector development, including smaller projects where sports funds may properly be utilised for development of the smaller-type facilities, such as dinghy parks, launching beaches, minor breakwaters and so on.

As an indication of the ramifications of the subject, it is interesting to refer to the list of interested bodies in an appendix to the same booklet: the Association of River Authorities, the British Tourist Authority, the British Waterways Board, the Central Council of Physical Recreation, the Countryside Commission, the Forestry Commission, local and regional government, the Ministry of Defence, the National Parks Commission, the Nature Conservancy, the Royal Yachting Association, the Sports Council, the Town and Country Planning Association, the National Yacht Harbour Association and the Ship and Boat Builders National Federation. It is extraordinary how many bodies are involved in trying to do something about the problem we are discussing.

What should the Government do to help rationalise the situation? I think that there is a number of things, and this is the crux of what I am trying to say to my hon. Friend. The first necessity is to recognise the extent of the problem, and the second is to write from the Department to all local authorities, particularly planning authorities, pointing out the extent of the problem and asking them to take heed of it and realise that it has come to stay and must be faced up to.

Third, many admirable local councillors, with the best will in the world, just do not know port from starboard or a bowline from a clove hitch. The Government should recommend the local authorities to seek advice on this very specialised subject from qualified bodies such as the Ship and Boat Builders National Federation and particularly the Royal Yachting Association.

I should like to say something about the Royal Yachting Association, which used to be called the Yacht Racing Association. It had a very specialised rôle with the bigger and more specialised type of yacht racing when it was developed originally in 1875, but since the war it has been reorganised into the Royal Yachting Association. It is now widely recognised and respected and, in particular, its general purposes committee has done valiant work on behalf of the owners of boats and yachts of all sizes, and there is no rival to it. I think that everyone interested in yachts and boats recognises the Association as his friend and helper and as a very efficient and adequate national organising body. The Association feels that it is well treated by the Government, generally speaking, particularly by the Department of Trade and Industry Marine Division, which appreciates that it has useful and practical advice to give.

My hon. Friend should tell the House, when he can, about the Government's plans for encouraging the necessary coordination, either by way of a boating facilities commission, as recommended by the S.B.B.N.F., or otherwise. Will he confirm that the new composition of the Sports Council will contain adequate representation of those actively involved in this sport?

My fifth, and a particularly important, point is to ask my hon. Friend whether he can reassure the community that the Government recognise the tremendous merit of independence for the sailing and boating fraternity and no not visualise any form of compulsory registration or numbering of the boats or anything similar. That would be disastrous. The bureaucracy would be frightening to contemplate. In an increasingly regimented society, I believe that just "messing about in boats" is a fundamental freedom. Bits of paper will not make the sea a safer place. What we are asking the Government for is paternalism in a wide sense and not regimentation in any sense.

My sixth point concerns safety. I believe that there is outstanding need to co-ordinate rescue functions, perhaps to consider the setting up of a national search and rescue committee. I believe that Service headquarters in the United Kingdom present the obvious sort of basis and network for this. It is perhaps first and foremost a radio and communications problem. I am a member of the R.N.L.I., which would wish to be associated with any arrangement for such co-ordination, but personally I believe that it is also very important for the R.N.L.I. to retain its independent status.

I have two or three smaller points to put. My hon. Friend the Member for Worcestershire, South (Sir G. Nabarro) earlier this week raised on the Adjournment the question of marine survey fees. He made the point—which went home to the Government—that there has been an astonishing increase in these fees. The fees may be actuarily correct in that it costs this increasing amount to do the inspections, but what may have gone wrong is the extent of inspection, particularly where series production boats are concerned. These inspections may have become so overdone as to be almost absurd. We should consider whether the degree of inspection cannot be rationalised or cut down to a sensible size.

Lastly, can my hon. Friend say anything about Government encouragement and support for the Royal Yachting Association and the clubs in organising British participation in international sailing competitions, the Olympics, and so on?

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for taking notice of this problem, which is only one facet of the vast environmental problem faced by his Department, but which has real bearing on the day-to-day life of a country which has the sea in its blood.

10.43 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Eldon Griffiths)

As my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Winchester (Rear-Admiral Morgan-Giles) always does, he has raised a matter of genuine public interest and has made a most eloquent plea for more boating facilities in this country. I agree with him at once in recognising the extent of the problem. He is right. Over the last few years, there has been an explosion of interest in water recreation. He gave some of the figures. I would add to those he gave that I am informed that more people are in and around boats on the average summer weekend in this country than attend any professional football matches on the average winter weekend. The Royal Yachting Association in 1959 had under 900 affiliated clubs. Today it has 1,550. In 1948, there were only one dozen canoe clubs. Today, there are more than 350. So I can give him the assurance that the Government certainly recognise the extent of the problem.

The Government are not only aware of but very much welcome this explosion of interest in sailing and boating. We welcome it because it reflects the public's desire for a higher quality of life. I agree that there are few things which are of more benefit to character building and endurance than sailing. But my hon. and gallant Friend will also accept that the recreational explosion in water sports is also putting a great pressure on our water space and that this pressure is to be seen not only on marinas and boat-house facilities along the coasts but also on our inland waters.

This pressure, as I am sure my hon. and gallant Friend recognises, is bound to increase. It will increase in part because of the good example being set by my hon. and gallant Friend and by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, and also because the National Sailing Centre at Cowes is now turning out a goodly number of instructors and teachers who in turn will train many more young sailors who will want more facilities.

One of the main problems of coastal sailing is the shortage of marinas, yacht harbours, moorings and hards. A number of good marinas and yacht harbours are already operating. For instance, there is the Chichester Yacht Basin and Birdham Pool and, of course, the New-haven Yacht Harbour. But, of course, the provision of marina and yacht harbours can be very costly, and such developments are almost entirely a matter for commercial companies and local authorities.

But there are some less expensive facilities which are also urgently needed—for example, the provision of more hards for use by the occasional sailor who may not be a member of a club. These need only consist of a car park where the owner can leave his car and trailer, with a hard into the sea from which he can launch his boat. This sort of facility could be provided fairly cheaply by the local authority, and I hope very much that they will recognise that it is a comparatively cheap way of meeting a need.

I want to say something about inland waters because, although my hon. and gallant Friend did not refer to them, I think he will agree that there is great opportunity here for sailing as well. I am thinking, of course, of the rivers, canals, natural lakes, the wet mineral workings and the reservoirs. Here, too, there has been rapid growth. At the moment about 500 reservoirs are available. Unfortunately at present, of the 500 reservoirs available, angling is allowed on only 257, sailing takes place on 44, and canoeing is permitted on six. I do not think this is good enough. I want to achieve a great improvement.

That is why my Department has asked water undertakers to review the recreational use being made of their reservoirs in consultation with regional sports councils. Of the 81 water undertakers approached, 80 replies have been received, and of these 34 have recently made, or plan to make, increased recreational use of their reservoirs.

These reports are now being considered in conjunction with the reports of the regional sports councils. Where it appears that the reason for not making fuller recreational use of the reservoir is not justified and the regional sports council report indicates that there is a demand, then I shall be making a further approach to the water undertaker.

I am sure the reservoirs have a lot to offer to sailors. I have visited several where recreational use is already well established. One is Grafham Water of the Great Ouse Water Authority. This is the largest land-locked stretch of water in Southern England. As well as fishing, there is a sailing club with 1,750 members. A grant of £30,000 was made by the Government towards provision of a club house.

Again, I recently visited Derwent, of the Sunderland and South Shield Water Company.

This reservoir covers some 1,000 acres of water. The sailing club has over 700 members and 180 boats. Again, the Government made a grant of £25,000 towards a club house, car and dinghy park. Slipways were included in the original design and construction of the reservoir. We want to see this process repeated.

As well as reservoirs, I should mention mineral workings and gravel pits. Some 4,000 acres of land are taken each year for gravel production, and since two-thirds of these 4,000 acres lie in river valleys, they leave behind lakes or lagoons offering tremendous scope for recreational use. Gravel workings, I understand, supply more inland water than nature managed to supply. They are in great demand, as I saw when I recently visited two in the Cotswolds to present plaques to members of the Sand and Gravel Association.

One of these was at Fairford Lake, which is a flooded gravel working of about 30 acres. It is now used by the Cotswold Motor Boat Racing Club who are buying the lake with the help of a Government grant. The other was at South Cerney, and is now being used by the local education authority as a training centre for sailing and canoeing.

The Cotswold Water Park is hoped eventually to cover 14,000 acres in Gloucestershire and Wiltshire. This is a fine example of co-operation between local authorities and industry, and we want to see more of that.

My hon. and gallant Friend spoke about writing to local authorities to make planners aware of the need for more marinas. I cannot undertake that the Government will write to all the local authorities, but I am sure that they will have noted his remarks and mine.

He also spoke, rightly, about the fine record of the R.Y.A. I have met the Association a number of times and I know that what he says is right. It has a very good governing body and we have been able to give it a certain amount of grant, which will help in international competition and the provision of facilities in this country.

Yatching of course is one of the Olympic sports and one in which we have in the past achieved very fine results. I am conscious of the need to give our yachtsmen the opportunity to bring themselves to the peak of fitness and preparedness by 1972 for the next Olympic Games.

I have told the Royal Yatching Association that, if it will put forward some costed plans in conjunction with the local authorities, the Sports Council will consider them sympathetically. The Sports Council has set up a working party to examine the possibilities of having an Olympic training area or some additional training facilities somewhere on the coast between Ramsgate and the Hamble area, in my hon. and gallant Friend's constituency. I hope that it will be possible before very long for some hard and costed proposals to be put forward. Of course, they will be greatly assisted by the new organisation of the Sports Council which I announced today.

The new Sports Council will have a higher status in this country—a royal charter, extended powers and responsibilities. I am anxious that the local authorities, the Armed Services, private industry and such agencies as the Countryside Commission, the Nature Conservancy and the Forestry Commission should work much more closely with it, because sport is widening into recreation as a whole. Water creation is a large part of it, and the new Sports Council, with executive power and its own finance which it can spend in the interests of sports as a whole, will be in a much better position to take schemes such as that which I hope will emerge from the study of yatching needs. The Sports Council will look sympathetically at any proposals that are forthcoming.

My hon. and gallant Friend spoke of the registration of boats and was somewhat scathing about the possibility that they might be numbered. I take note of what he said, but I bear in mind that safety can benefit from the authorities knowing where boats are or where they are registered, and also from having some idea of their tonnage and all the rest. Registration is desirable, but my hon. and gallant Friend has influenced me by what he said about this problem and I take note of his remarks.

On the question of safety, I also take note of my hon. and gallant Friend's suggestion about the rescue functions of the National Search and Rescue Committee of the R.N.L.I. and I will consult about them. The main point is that there can be no doubt that there is an explosion of demand for more recreational facilities and in particular dinghy sailing, which is a reflection of a desire for a better quality and wider range of recreational facilities by the British people. The new Sports Council will be able to make a fresh start in providing better facilities for these matters.

We must bear in mind the problems of pollution. In some of the estuaries where large numbers of yachts are moored. I have seen this myself on various parts of the South coast. The Jeger Report warned about the consequences if this matter is not examined. The Secretary of State will reveal his conclusions on those recommendations soon.

The Royal Navy can make some contribution on this matter. I am glad to say that the new Sports Council will have representation in some way which is not yet determined in the Armed Services. This is important since the Services will have a real contribution to make and it will be in their interests to be associated with the new Council. My hon. and gallant Friend, not for the first time, has put his finger on growing pressure—a matter in which we all have an interest. We have a duty to tackle this in the general interest.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at two minutes to Eleven o'clock.