OIL SPILLAGE

HC Deb 27 November 1978 vol 959 cc35-106

[Commission documents: R/1004/78, R1315/78.]

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

3.44 p.m.

The Secretary of State for Wales (Mr. John Morris)

I think that I should carry the House with me were I to say that the awareness of the problems resulting from oil spillage has grown rapidly in recent years—an awareness regrettably fuelled by experiences around our shores. As members of an island community, most of us find our way to our shores in the course of a year, and the too frequent presence of oil is a factor that we could well do without.

In recent weeks we have experienced in Wales two simultaneous examples of serious oil spillage. When the"Christos Bitas"ran on to the Hats and Barrels rocks, about 14 miles off the Dyfed coast, there were the makings of a major catastrophe.

Fortunately the worst did not occur. The skill and effort of a large number of people, swiftly applied, were successful in keeping the ship afloat while 32,000 tons of oil were pumped out of her. The quantity of oil that reached the shore was limited to amounts that could be dealt with without too much difficulty by the resources available to the local authorities. Even so, there was a tragic loss of bird life and seals. I pay tribute to all those who contributed to the success of this operation. They were, I think, greatly encouraged by the support which they received from many people in the area and did what they could by deed and word in support. To all who were involved in the efforts that were put in I express my thanks—to officers of the Department of Trade, local authorities, a whole host of organisations, and the local Member of Parliament, the hon. Member for Pembroke (Mr. Edwards), to whom I wish in particular to express thanks for his support.

At the same time, Gwynedd was experiencing a separate incident of pollution, resulting from a spillage of oil at the Anglesey marine terminal. These events, of course, were preceded by the major incidents of the"Amoco Cadiz " and the"Eleni V ", which form, as it were, a backcloth to this debate.

These tragedies give us vivid warning of the environmental disasters that can occur and which have to be guarded against. The first need is to see, by tightening up on preventive measures at national and international level, that they do not occur. I shall deal with that in a moment. If they do occur, and if oil comes ashore in large quantities it has to be dealt with.

We were particularly concerned in Dyfed with the possible effect on the tourist trade and with the effects on a number of ecologically sensitive sites of importance to sea birds and seals, and on a national park. Some of the most beautiful and popular beaches in Wales. which attract many thousands of visitors who contribute much to the local economy, were under threat. Happily, I can give a firm assurance that the beaches are as attractive as ever.

It is not, however, only the tourist industry which suffers. All industry which depends on a wholesome sea and shore is at risk. The problem cannot always, moreover, be confined to the coast. Cleaning up pollution on the beaches means that oil and oily waste which cannot be dealt with on the spot have to be taken to places where they can be dumped either until nature completes the disposal process or until they can be treated and, in the case of beach material, returned to the beaches. It is essential that these places should not themselves become sources of pollution and, in particular, should not affect the wholesomeness of local water supplies.

Some of us represent communities too well aware of the price of coal. Oil, I fear, has its price, too. While it is undoubtedly one of the very foundations of our way of life, we must strive to contain its harmful and unpleasant effects. We have heard over the weekend of the sad fatalities in the diving bell in the North Sea, and I am sure the whole House will join me in conveying heartfelt sympathy to the bereaved.

Hon. Members

Hear, hear.

Mr. Morris

Public attention focuses on oil that is discharged into the sea from ships, but I should begin by reminding the House that this is not the only, or even the major, source from which oil enters the oceans of the world. Perhaps the most reliable estimates in this field are those prepared by the American Academy of Sciences in 1973. These suggest that shipping then accounted for perhaps one-third of the total input of petroleum hydrocarbons.

I now turn to the second broad category of discharges of oil into the sea. These are the accidental discharges, and they represent but a part, and the smaller part, of the totality of oil that is discharged. Our primary concern must be, and is, to prevent accidents happening in the first place. The action that the Government have taken to this end would in itself provide subject matter for a lengthy speech, so I shall confine my remarks as briefly as I can.

No country has devoted more time and effort than has Britain over the years, both nationally and internationally, to measures to protect the safety and well-being of ships and those who go to sea. For many years British merchant shipping legislation served as the model for much of the world and Britain convened the international diplomatic conferences.

The Intergovermental Martime Consultative Organisation, the only specialised agency of the United Nations in London, is now the primary international forum on maritime matters, and it is no accident that it is based here. We can take pride in our record over the years and in our standing in the international community, and the Government are resolved that this long and honourable tradition will be maintained, and if possible, enhanced, in the future.

However, I ask the House to face some harsh realities, as the Government have done.

First, it is a self-evident proposition that men and machines are fallible. That means that despite our best endeavours, those of the international community, of responsible shipping companies, and of very many masters, officers and crew—for let us not forget that there is a large measure of common purpose in the pursuit of safety—laden tankers will continue to be involved in accidents and oil will continue to be spilled.

Mr. Robert Adley (Christchurch and Lymington)

Does the right hon. and learned Gentleman intend to deal with the issue that his ministerial colleague did not deal with, namely, the steps that the French have taken? Will he be telling us what the French have done and why the British Government are unwilling to take action in this Parliament when the French have taken action in their Parliament?

Mr. Morris

I am aware of the points that the hon. Gentleman has made and the differences in our approach. My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State will deal with those matters if he catches the eye of the Chair. My hon. Friend will compare and contrast, I hope, the common purpose of both countries in the prevention of these accidents at the earliest opportunity. I concede that the approaches are somewhat different. However, the purpose is common.

Experience shows that the generality of spills are measured in tens, hundreds or thousands of tons of oil, but from time to time there will be spills to be measured in tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of tons of oil. The House will need no reminding of the stranding of the"Torrey Canyon"in 1967 or the stranding of the"Amoco Cadiz"earlier this year.

The second harsh reality that I ask the House to face is that if there is one of these abnormally large spills near our coasts, in the present state of technology and for the foreseeable future we must expect pollution of our shores. The quantities of oil involved are so great that neither we nor anyone else can make any arrangements that will prevent that happening. As I have already said, that risk is part of the price that we pay for our modern way of life and its dependence on the use of oil, and was an important factor underlying our decision to review the contingency arrangements for beach cleaning following an oil spill.

Mr. Neil Macfarlane (Sutton and Cheam)

The right hon. and learned Gentleman has referred to the United Kingdom's high standard of legislation over a number of years. Does he not agree that in the past 20 years or so successive Governments have failed to acknowledge the tremendous growth of tankerage not only on the high seas but in the estuaries and rivers of this country? Does he accept that the Government—especially the Department of Trade—have never tried to appreciate, from information given by the international oil companies, the tremendous range of oil products that are now carried? Will he say precisely what measures he intends to introduce to try to prevent accidents, whether at sea or in estuaries?

Mr. Morris

If I had been allowed to proceed with my speech I should have dealt with some of the matters that the hon. Gentleman raised. It would be an extremely lengthy speech if I were to go through the whole range of Government activity, even over the past 20 years. I do not accept that the Department of Trade has not been fully cognisant of the major problem along our shores. I am saying that with the present state of knowledge we can deal with a whole range of spillages, but that from time to time there are abnormally large spillages, which, in the ordinary course of events, we are not able to deal with given the present state of technology, or are able to deal with only, perhaps, with an enormous range of resources. That is the proposition that I was seeking to put to the House.

Mr. Wyn Roberts (Conway)

Does the right hon. and learned Gentleman accept that, by the same token as these extraordinary spillages will cause pollution on our shores—which is excusable because of the volume of the spillage—the small spillages, such as the 100-ton spillage that occurred from the offshore oil terminal at Amlwch and affected a significant part of my constituency, are far less excusable, because there is every opportunity for the Government and all the authorities involved to ensure that such terminals are absolutely foolproof and safe?

Mr. Morris

I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will wish to make a speech on that very issue if he catches the eye of the Chair. I look forward to listening to it. I do not regard any of the spillages as excusable. I was putting to the House the fact that with the present state of knowledge and the available resources it is not possible to deal with all spillages. I was referring to the larger spillages, as was the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Mr. Macfarlane).

I hope that I shall be allowed to get on with what I want to say. I have a great deal of ground to cover and I know that many hon. Members will want to catch the eye of the Chair to express their constituency interests, as I am sure will the hon. Member for Conway (Mr. Roberts).

I turn to contingency measures. The fact that we cannot prevent extensive coastal pollution following an abnormally large spill does not mean that we should give up hope of dealing effectively with the generality of spills, which are of more modest dimention, or of mitigating the effect of large ones. We do not go away because there is a large spill and we cannot deal with it wholly. On the contrary, the Government are determined to make the arrangements for dealing with such situations as effective as possible.

That is a matter to which we have devoted considerable care and attention over a period. About two years ago we published a report on oil spills and cleanup measures under the title"Accidental Oil Pollution of the Sea ". We announced our decisions in the slimmer of 1977. Immediately after the"Amoco Cadiz"disaster, we set in hand a further careful review of our contingency measures, which we published at the beginning of August. At the same time, my right hon. Friend the then Secretary of State for Trade informed the House of the Government's conclusions and decisions.

The present broad allocation of responsibilities has been confirmed on each occasion. That is based on the fact that oil spills occur relatively infrequently along any particular stretch of coastline and that it therefore makes good sense to make full use of organisations and expertise that exist for other purposes. Accordingly, the Department of Trade is responsible for cleaning oil inshore and offshore.

The Department of Trade's marine survey organisation located in our major ports is staffed to a large extent by former merchant navy officers well experienced in seagoing operations. Her Majesty's coastguard is also readily available with a communications network. The Department's plans and practical measures to fight pollution at sea are based largely on the use of dispersants of only a very small fraction of the toxicity of those used at the time of the"Torrey Canyon"disaster.

In each district tugs and other vessels have been identified, which can be fitted with spraying equipment and deployed at short notice. This was done notably quickly in the case of the"Christos Bitas"operation, when 66 vessels in all were deployed, of which 48 were engaged in anti-pollution operations.

Should the district require more resources, it can call for assistance from other districts or from the Ministry of Defence and the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries in Scotland, which can supply patrol vessels, or from the United Kingdom Offshore Operators' Association, which has stockpiles of spraying equipment and dispersant at the major ports serving the offshore oil and gas fields. The Ministry of Defence also normally supplies a command ship, from which a marine surveyor will direct spraying operations at sea, as well as helicopters or fixed-wing aircraft for aerial surveillance.

While tactical decisions on oil clearance operations at sea can be made locally, certain decisions, which involve wider or international considerations, have to be made centrally, with the involvement of Ministers. The Department of Trade therefore maintains a marine emergency information room in London, which serves as a focal point for collecting the information used for briefing Ministers and keeping the rest of Whitehall in touch with developments.

The contingency arrangements also have an international dimension. The 1969 Bonn agreement for co-operation in dealing with pollution of the North Sea by oil—which also covers the Channel—provides for the exchange of information between the eight parties, including the United Kingdom, about oil slicks which are likely to affect other member countries. There are, of course, special contingency plans between Britain and France for dealing with any disaster in the Channel.

As I have said, the local authorities are responsible for dealing with oil spills close inshore and onshore. They have substantial resources of men, vehicles and mechanical equipment for their other functions, which can be used for oil clearance, as well as specialised equipment for this purpose.

The Government announced in the review into contingency measures to deal with oil pollution that a separate study is being undertaken, in conjunction with local authorities, of the arrangements for dealing with oil which comes ashore. We have been taking every opportunity of drawing on the experiences gained by the French Government as a result of the massive land pollution problems caused by the terrible"Amoco Cadiz"disaster of March 1978, when, of course, we were engaged with them as allies in the fight at sea, and from the"Eleni V"incident.

We have this year faced undoubtedly major challenges. Oil pollution incidents present complex and difficult problems, and each is also apt to present novel features. For example, getting equipment to the rockbound beaches of Wales is of necessity different from getting it to the flatter sands of East Anglia.

I thought it important, as soon as the"Christos Bitas"incident was over, to gather as much material as possible for this study from those who had been concerned—

Mr. Macfarlane

Why not before?

Mr. Morris

Because—without spelling it out in child's language—I thought that it was right, immediately the"Christos Bitas"incident occurred, and within a matter of weeks, before people forgot exactly what happened, to draw together all the local authorities, the county councils in North Wales and South Wales, the Devon county council and all other organisations, so that we could immediately recount what exactly had happened, what suggestions could be made for improvements and what should be done before people forgot.

Mr. David Price (Eastleigh)

Since the"Torrey Canyon"incident, the report of the Select Committee, of which the right hon. and learned Member and I were both members, has been available to the Government. We warned the Government in that report that this was inevitably going to happen. There is no party point about this. It is so obvious.

Mr. Morris

I was dealing with the point made by the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam. He asked me why I did not call a conference on the"Christos Bitas"incident before it occurred. It could not be held before. That is a simple proposition, which is self-evident. But what is important is that there is a difference in each of these disasters, and the arrangements necessary to deal with them have to be different. When one can learn from each of them, certainly I would be the first to agree that one should collate that experience and adapt it for a possible, regrettable and unfortunate future occurrence. However, I repeat that one cannot, in the present state of knowledge, deal with every one of these contingencies if a very large amount of oil conies ashore within a very short period. I should have thought that that, again, was a self-evident proposition, from the state of knowledge that we have.

I should have thought that the House would agree readily that it was a good thing to have a conference of all those who were involved in order to see what could be learned—not months afterwards, and not years, and not dealing with evidence related, perhaps, at second or third hand but hearing immediately from the people concerned of what action was taken and what suggestions could be made by them for an improvement of the situation.

Mr. Peter Emery (Honiton)

Perhaps I may remind the Secretary of State that The Government are now considering the lessons, both national and international, to be drawn and the formulation of proposals to improve conditions will be pressed forward with urgency. That was written in a White Paper, following the"Torrey Canyon"incident, and it was published in April 1967. Why are we still talking in those terms?

Mr. Morris

I am not in a position to answer for the Government of which I believe the hon. Gentleman was a member—

Mr. Emery

In 1967?

Mr. Morris

—between 1970 and 1974. He was a member of a Government for some of that time. I am sure that my memory serves me right and that he served in that Government, in the Department of Trade and Industry—a very apposite Department, perhaps, with some relevance to the kind of decisions that should have been taken in that time. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman's memory is very short.

What I am saying is that over the years there has been a development in the techniques and in awareness, and lessons have been learned. I certainly do not want to adopt—I have not done so—a posture of complacency. What I have said is that in accordance with, I believe, a request from the Select Committee that one should, as soon as possible, consider lessons to be learned from these disasters, this was done in public, a Carmarthen and in Dyfed, and a great many lessons —if the House would allow me to get on to the lessons—were put forward by those who were gathered. This was following that very successful handling of the"Christos Bitas"incident.

I hope that the House will accept that proposition, too. This was a very successful event indeed. Great tragedy was averted through the speedy concentration of a whole host of organisations and resources. People may say"No lessons have been learned ", but if the "Christos Bitas"affair had been handled in some other way and had, perhaps, turned out to be a total disaster, if there was oil despoiling our beaches for many months to come, perhaps those who are now critical would be in a better position so to speak. However, I hope that the House will join with me in congratulating all those who took part in the very successful handling of a most difficult operation. I hope that some of the lessons of what had happened in the past had been learned and applied in the course of what occurred following the"Christos Bitas"incident. That should be put on record today. To ignore that is to do a disservice to the hundreds of people who took part in the handling of the"Christos Bitas"incident.

Mr. William Molloy (Ealing, North)

I agree with what my right hon. and learned Friend has just said. It was a magnificent effort. However, millions of people in Britain also believe that there was grave error of judgment and that there was maritime misbehaviour on the part of those who owned the vessel. What they want to know is what sort of compensation this nation will have for the millions of pounds that the affair cost Great Britain.

Mr. Morris

On the first point, the question of fault is obviously being examined. An independent inquiry is looking into that matter. It is not right for me to comment on that at this stage. Secondly, the procedures for handling compensation are well known. There is a recourse to the international funds made available. In the event, I do not think that any difficulty will arise from that. Both of those matters are covered by well established procedures.

I hope that the House would like to know what suggestions emerged from the conference at Carmarthen. The first very practical consideration was the need to identify in advance sites where oil and oily material recovered from polluted beaches could be safely placed. This proved a difficult problem with the"Christos Bitas"because of the need not to pollute water supplies. There appeared to be a shortage of known suitable sites. It would obviously have been helpful if sites had been earmarked in advance. We are calling a meeting of waste disposal authorities in Wales to look at this problem, and similar arrangements are contemplated in England. The problem has also emerged as an important one in Scotland, to which the local authorities in Scotland are giving attention.

The second point was a suggestion that someone should be appointed by the Government as a co-ordinator, possibly having powers of direction, to oversee the measures taken to deal with pollution; to secure an immediate response by Government Departments and other public bodies; to decide on priorities after consultation with all the interests concerned and to give decisions where there is a conflict of views. I think that there is a strong case for such an appointment or appointments, and I nominated an officer of my Department who could have filled such a role with the"Christos Bitas"had the need arisen. The question of powers does, however, need careful examination, and this will take place in the review to which I have referred.

A third point related to the treatment of oil which comes ashore. This is a matter which is receiving a good deal of attention. We are redoubling our efforts with regard to research into new ways and means of protecting our coastline against the menace of oil pollution. The research laboratory at Warren Spring has an international reputation in this area. In collaboration with the Warren Spring laboratory and the Uni- versity of Wales, I am hoping to promote in Wales an experiment in the bacteriological decomposition of oil. If succesful, this will be a useful supplement to other measures to deal with pollution which comes ashore.

Mr. Hamish Watt (Banff)

Does the Secretary of State agree that the best people to deal with the waste oil wherever collected, be it from the beaches or from the sea itself, should be the oil companies? Surely it should be their responsibility to tidy up the mess that they make. They should be made to pay for all the experiments which are presently being carried out.

Mr. Speaker

Before the Secretary of State answers, I respectfully suggest that there have been a large number of interventions. I know that several hon. Members hope to speak this side of 7 o'clock, not after the next debate. Too many interventions not only spoil the flow of the right hon. and learned Gentleman's speech but lengthen it.

Mr. Morris

I shall be as brief as I can, Mr. Speaker. I dealt with the question of cost when I answered the question from my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, North (Mr. Molloy). As to the disposal of oil and oil pollution, it is certainly not for the oil companies to decide where the oil or the oil pollution should be put. This is very much a matter in which the local authorities and water authority would want to take a strong part. It was at their request that the question arose time after time about the collation of powers, and that someone should take the responsibility for deciding these matters where there was a conflict of views. As I have said, at first sight the proposition has attractions, but the question of powers would obviously lead into great difficulties and needs to be considered.

Mr. Anthony Fell (Yarmouth)

Will the Secretary of State ask the Minister who will be winding up the debate to find out precisely what the situation is with regard to the repayment of expenses incurred by the local authorities at East Anglia since that time? I am not sure how much has been paid or whether anything has yet been paid.

Mr. Morris

I know that the hon. Gentleman has taken a great deal of interest in this problem and I am sure that my hon. Friend will deal with this point. In principle, there is no difficulty, although I do not know what the practice is with regard to actual payments.

Finally, at that conference there was an acknowledgment of the need for local resources to be supplemented by specialised equipment made available by the Government. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment is building up the central Government stockpile of specialised equipment to be made available to local authorities faced with large-scale pollution problems. This will have a most important part to play.

Although successive reviews have confirmed the present broad allocation of responsibilities, the Government have by no means closed their mind to the possibility of change where this seems likely to result in more effective arrangements. One such change recently announced is the setting up of a new marine pollution control unit in the Department of Trade.

While the arrangements which the Department have operated so far have been generally effective, they have imposed a very considerable strain on staff who have other heavy responsibilities for marine safety. Also, the experience gained by marine survey staff in one part of the country is not readily available to guide the operations which may be necessary elsewhere on another occasion. For these reasons, a new organisation is needed which is able to devote its full time to the task and to get the continuity of experience which is necessary whenever pollution occurs elsewhere. As was announced last Monday, Rear-Admiral Stacey has been appointed as the first director of the unit. Its main tasks were announced at that time, and I shall not take up the time of the House by going over them now.

There is also the possibility of new techniques for dealing with oil spills. As our latest review made clear, we have been investigating the possibility of using aircraft to spray dispersant and have used this technique with light aircraft in recent operations. This could add a flexible and mobile weapon to our armoury.

At this point, perhaps I might refer to the European Communities and to the two instruments which the Scrutiny Com- mittee recommended should be further considered by the House in the context of a future debate, such as this, on marine pollution arising from the carriage of oil at sea. I also recall that the Scrutiny Committee recommended that this further consideration need not delay the adoption of those instruments by the Council of Ministers.

The Council of Transport Ministers met at the end of last week. It was attended by my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State who will be winding up the debate. Since the Scrutiny Committee considered the two documents that are now before us there have been a number of developments and, therefore, I can give the House an up-to-date account of where we stand. The House will recall that before last week the Community had reached agreement on two topics. The first was a recommendation that member States should ratify three IMCO and one International Labour Organisation conventions by agreed dates. The second was that the Commission should undertake an action programme of preliminary studies to identify any gaps which need to be filled in the present arrangements to deal with oil pollution. In due course, the Commission will doubtless put forward proposals for action based on these studies.

Last week the Transport Council reached agreement on a recommendation that member States should ratify the recently concluded IMCO convention on standards of training certification and watchkeeping for seafarers by the end of 1980. We intend to conform to this timetable, and my hon. Friend will sign the convention subject to ratification on 1st December—the first day it is open to signature.

The Council also reached agreement on a directive by which member States are to take all necessary and appropriate measures to ensure that there are sufficient adequately qualified deep sea pilots for the use of vessels in the North Sea and English Channel, and member States have to encourage vessels flying their own flag that, if they use a pilot, they use only an adequately qualified pilot.

The Council further reached agreement on a directive setting minimum requirements for certain tankers entering or leaving community ports.

Finally, the Council welcomed the intention of Italy and the Republic of Ireland to apply to join The Hague memorandum of understanding, and noted that member States intend to give their full and whole hearted support to the memorandum.

These are generally constructive measures. Bringing conventions into force, promoting high standards of pilotage and effective enforcement of agreed standards are important steps towards improvements in safety and we welcome a Community contribution to that end.

In my opening remarks I referred to the Christos Bitas ". I would also like to refer to the earlier incident which affected our stores this year—the collision between the"Eleni V"and the"Roseline"off the coast of East Anglia, and the resulting pollution. Here we have the benefit of a report from the Select Committee on Science and Technology. As the House will be aware, we expect to reply fully to that report, in the customary manner, before Christmas. That remains our intention. Even so, it may be for the convenience of the House if I comment on some aspects of the report at this stage.

First, the Government emphatically reject the suggestion, in paragraph 21 of the report, that the present arrangements for dealing with oil spills at sea leave the south coast virtually unprotected ". These arrangements are geared to providing a capability in each of the Department of Trade's south-eastern and south-western marine survey districts to treat about 3,000 tons of oil a day at sea—that is a total of 6,000 tons a day, not 6,000 tons for any one incident as stated in the Committee's report.

In each case this would involve mustering about 20 spraying vessels. At present it would take 48 hours or so to build up to that number, but experience shows that the greater part of the oil in large spills generally remains at sea for some days. Moreover, the resources available on the South Coast can, if desirable, be augmented over a period from other parts of the country, and from France and North Sea countries under the Bonn agreement for co-operation in dealing with pollution of the North Sea by oil 1969.

Mr. Arthur Palmer (Bristol, North-East)

I am interested in what my right hon. and learned Friend has just said, but as Chairman of the Select Committee I must point out that our report was based on the evidence given to us, which did not bear out what he said.

Mr. Morris

As I understand it, this is the evidence given on behalf of the Department of Trade to the Committee. I have read the report from the Committee. In the fullness of time a considered answer to the proposition put forward by it will be given by the Government. On this issue certainly there is a disagreement between the Government and the Committee. On that basis I am sure that there will be further consideration. Therefore, I rebut the suggestion of total lack of protection. There may be an argument about the degree of protection, but certainly the position is not as the Select Committee says in its evidence.

We agree that there is a limit to the number of vessels that can be safely and effectively deployed in a confined area and that the weather, the location of the spill, visibility, the rate of emulsification and other factors mean that a capability to treat oil is not necessarily equivalent to preventing all of it from coming ashore. But the current level of capability on the south coast is certainly substantial when compared with the size of the generality of spills, which were given in evidence to the Select Committee.

We do, however, agree with the Select Committee that the anti-pollution aspect of the"Eleni V"operation has emphasised the problems posed by heavy fuel oils. The primary emphasis of our research and development programme on methods of combating oil pollution at sea has certainly been directed towards dealing with crude oils which account for the great bulk of the oil which passes the United Kingdom coastline. However, the particular characteristics of, and problems posed by, heavy crude and heavy fuel oils have certainly not been ignored in that programme, in published material or in training courses.

Warren Spring laboratory has reappraised its research and development programme in the light of recent incidents. Its recovery system for oils which can be pumped is in an advance stage of development, but heavy fuel oils cannot be pumped at sea temperatures and consequently present special difficulties, which the laboratory is studying further, together with improved methods of using dispersants.

In the meantime, if a restricted spraying operation on a heavy oil appears in future to be relatively ineffective, it may be necessary to concentrate on cleaning up any oil which comes ashore by mechanical means.

There is a good deal more that could be said about the Select Committee's report, and will be said when we present our formal reply. At this stage, I will add that there were a number of adverse factors which were bound to cause difficulty, and which were not perhaps fully appreciated by those who have the benefit of hindsight.

Most of the oil was released at the time of the collision only about six miles from the coast, and the winds and tides carried much of it ashore within 48 hours. No country has yet demonstrated any means of dealing at sea with the type of heavy fuel oil carried by the"Eleni V ". The salvage operation was extremely difficult and complex in character. At every stage, the objective underlying the measures taken—which were supported by a wide range of informed opinion—was to minimise the risk of further pollution.

Mr. J. Grimond (Orkney and Shetland)

I represent a constituency in which the largest oil terminal in Europe is just receiving oil. It is in extremely enclosed water. The Secretary of State has spoken about disasters at sea. If there were a disaster on the approaches to Sullom Voe it would be nothing like six miles from the coast. Will the Secretary of State say something about the Government's proposals for dealing with collisions or wrecks in very enclosed waters, which are very practical matters in the approach to Sullom Voe? Who will be responsible? Where will the central depot of equipment be? How long will it take for the equipment or detergent to get there?

Mr. Morris

I shall leave to my hon. Friend the question of the location of the depot or depots. The intention is to have more than one depot—perhaps three. We may need sub-depots as equipment becomes available. Certainly it is the intention to have these depots in more than one place. Because these incidents occur in a wide range of places it is not prudent or possible to have depots dotted along innumerable spots on the coast. We hope to have them at strategic points, so that they can be readily available within the shortest possible time. It is unusual for the oil immediately to come ashore. There is usually the time to deploy the resources available to whatever part of the country they are needed. I shall leave the other point about restricted space to my hon. Friend as well.

Sir Frederic Bennett (Torbay)

Earlier, the Secretary of State said that the Government's full reaction to the Select Committee report would come"in the fullness of time". He has made a preliminary attempt to answer some of the Committee's remarks today. There is a Written Answer to myself saying that the Government's reply will be forthcoming before Christmas. I hope that he regards"the fullness of time"as not in any way varying that pledge.

Mr. Morris

That is our intention. I wrote to my hon. Friend the chairman of the Committee at the weekend indicating the time scale. That remains the order of things.

Mr. Palmer

I have written to the hon. Member for Torbay (Sir F. Bennett).

Mr. Morris

I understand that my hon. Friend has written to the hon. Gentleman on that basis. As this debate is being held today I thought it right to deal with the one point on which we differ substantially from the Committee, and the other on which we accepted part of the proposition on the need to deal with heavy oil. These were matters that it was right to bring before the House in this debate. There are a whole host of other points which it would be right and proper to deal with at some length in reply to the Committee, in accordance with tradition.

I have been generous in giving way to a host of interventions, which have taken up a great deal of time, for which I apologise. We should not underestimate the anxiety that is felt when various parts of the country have an oil spillage tragedy on their doorsteps. That was how I felt about the"Christos Bitas"and I am sure that the hon. Member for Yarmouth (Mr. Fell) felt the same way when his constituency was affected.

I hope that hon. Members will keep the sense of proportion that the House would wish to see shown in the debate. More than 1 million tons of oil is moved by ships every day through the Channel alone, yet since 1970 the biggest oil spills for which the Department of Trade's antipollution plans have had to be activated were 6,300 tons from the"Pacific Glory ", 2,100 tons from the"Olympic Alliance"and, this year, about 5,000 tons from the"Eleni V"and about 2,400 tons from the "Christos Bitas ". The remainder were much smaller, and few in number. I exclude the"Amoco Cadiz"case in which the Department mounted a successful operation to save the Channel Islands from the pollution which might have seemed inevitable.

None of the incidents this year has involved loss of human life, even though a great deal of the work had to be done at personal peril to the people involved in the operation and it would not be right for me to finish my speech without paying tribute to everyone who took part.

We are not complacent. We realise that the amount of tanker traffic around our coasts means that there is always a risk of accidents, but I sincerely hope that the House will not over-react to the point of advocating costly and disproportionate measures that would be unused for almost all the time and would, in any case, be inadequate to deal with the exceptional disaster.

4.32 p.m.

Mr. John Nott (St. Ives)

On 18th March 1967—nearly 12 years ago—the"Torrey Canyon"went aground on the Seven Stones in my constituency and I found myself, having just been elected to the House, having to face all the problems that my hon. Friend the Member for Yarmouth (Mr. Fell) has had to face in the much smaller but equally distressing case of the"Eleni V ".

It is to the experience of my hon. Friend and the knowledge of members of the Select Committee that I defer in the debate. It would be inappropriate for me, before hearing their remarks, to embark on a detailed post mortem of an event which I did not experience. I shall refer to it with a little more knowledge than the Secretary of State has because I have studied the report of the Select Committee with considerable care. How- ever, I shall leave my hon. Friend the Member for Pembroke (Mr. Edwards) to answer points made by members of the Select Committee when he winds up for the Opposition. I want to concentrate mainly on the question of prevention.

In opening the debate from this side of the House, I want to make two preliminary remarks. First, although I do not want to be over-critical, I must say that it is less than satisfactory that the new Secretary of State for Trade will not be speaking. The right hon. Gentleman has probably just slipped out for a moment, so he is not even here for this part of the debate. As a matter of principle, when a Select Committee severely criticises a Department—whether the criticisms are valid or not—it is right that the head of the Department should answer for it, even if he is new and bears no personal blame.

There are considerable international and national legal matters to discuss. Many of the remarks of the Secretary of State for Wales were concerned with the"Christos Bitas"affair, which is relevant, but is not specifically part of the motion.

Mr. John Morris

We are not discussing the report of the Select Committee. That might be a matter on which the hon. Gentleman could properly criticise us, but the motion before us is for the Adjournment. We are discussing oil spillage, which has wide environmental considerations.

Mr. Nott

But the Secretary of State knows that the House was informed that this was a debate on oil spillage in which the Select Committee's report on the"Eleni V" was relevant. Since the report is relevant, the Secretary of State for Trade should have spoken in the debate.

Since the House is discussing oil spillage today, why do we have to wait until Christmas for the Government's response on the Select Committee's report? I am aware, of course, that there is normally a delay between publication of a Select Committee report and the Government's reply, but as we have a debate on the matter today one might have expected the Government to give their full reply at this juncture.

The Under-Secretary of State for Trade (Mr. Clinton Davis) rose—

Mr. Nott

The hon. Gentleman will speak later. He can answer then.

However difficult these issues—and I think that they are extremely difficult—none of us should underrate the widespread and growing concern of the British public. That concern goes far beyond the interests of fishing, tourism and business generally in coastal constituencies. Conservationists, with their expression of profound disquiet about the dangers of our modern industrial society, only reflect a rather less strident concern among millions of ordinary people about the social and ecological consequences of where twentieth century society is going.

When I read the Select Committee's report, I was struck by the similarity of many of the criticisms and of the defences put up by the Government with the position that I remember from the"Torrey Canyon"and our debate on 10th April 1967. Of course, every spill and every accident is unique, but the same concern has been expressed in the case of the"Eleni V"about the lack of contingency arrangements, about the failure to anticipate events and about delay and indecisiveness as was expressed over the"Torrey Canyon"nearly 12 years ago.

After weeks of indecision in the"Torrey Canyon"case, the then Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Huyton (Sir H. Wilson), flew to my constituency, set up a sort of operations room on the cliffs at Land's End and personally directed the destruction of the vessel by the RAF. In West Cornwall we still think of that incident as being perhaps the most tenacious and decisive act of the right hon. Gentleman's career.

The point is that Prime Ministers and Ministers come and go, but their advisers in the Civil Service go on for ever."Immortal and invisible ", in the words of the hymn, they are honest and decent people who are full of intelligence, but on the whole they are, by disposition and training and because of their accountability to the House, not always the appropriate people to take risks in an emergency. The natural reaction of Ministers' advisers in a crisis is to assemble a committee, which invariably decides to call an interdepartmental committee to advise a sub-committee of the Cabinet.

My hon. Friend the Member for Honiton (Mr. Emery) calls in his interesting early-day motion, for which he will argue with his usual skill, for a change in interdepartmental responsibility. I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Member for Finchley (Mrs. Thatcher) will note his recommendation. But I wonder whether it is wise to divide prevention from cure. My hon. Friend will explain why he thinks that that would be advisable and say whether he thinks that much will change if the chairmanship of an inter-departmental committee—in the end that is what it will be, in view of the vast list of Departments involved—switches from the Department of Trade to the Department of the Environment. I have doubts.

Subject to my hon. Friend's arguments and the feelings of the 132 supporters of his motion, I should like to pursue a rather different course, although I think it brings me to the same objective.

Mr. Tim Sainsbury (Hove)

Does not my hon. Friend agree that the Department of the Environment is the Department with major responsibilities for pollution and environmental matters over a wide range of areas, and that therefore it would make a great deal of sense to bring this aspect of pollution control under the same general supervision?

Mr. Nott

I understand my hon. Friend's point, but if one reads the Select Committee's report on the"Eleni V ", the"Christos Bitas"report, published this morning, and the reports of all the other inquiries into the matter, the departmental studies, one sees that in the end the meetings that take place in a crisis are meetings among many Departments. Suddenly to create an artificial subdivision at one mile from the shore may not necessarily change anything very much.

However, I want to make a point that is very much along my hon. Friend's lines. The letter from the Rotary Club of Lowestoft, to be found on page 113 of the Select Committee's report, struck a chord with me. In that letter the club, which may be a peculiar source but is nevertheless an interesting one, says in a simple way—

The Secretary of State for Trade (Mr. John Smith)

What is peculiar about it?

Mr. Nott

I am saying that I think that it was a peculiarly good, simple letter. If the right hon. Gentleman, who has not spoken in the debate, will listen to what I have to say, he will understand the point that I am making.

Mr. John Smith

I understand that the hon. Gentleman criticised my absence from the Chamber during the debate for all of three minutes. He said that the letter was from a peculiar source. I merely questioned what was peculiar about that Rotary Club.

Mr. Nott

I criticised the fact that the Secretary of State for Trade, whose departmental responsibilities these matters are, was not speaking in the debate. That is the criticism that the right hon. Gentleman should answer. I also remarked that the right hon. Gentleman was absent for a few minutes.

The Rotary Club of Lowestoft said in its letter that although there was of course ultimate ministerial responsibility in these matters, there was no single executive power of a trouble-shooting kind. There was no single full-time paid person who could swing into action in an emergency and command the full resources of the nation. It is in that light that I very much welcome the appointment of Rear-Admiral Stacey to his post, together with his technical adviser, Captain Ralph May-bourn, from British Petroleum. But is it right to put the admiral within the departmental structure of the Department of Trade? Where a critical emergency arises, the chain of command should be from a person with executive responsibility direct to senior Ministers, with civil servants in attendance, as it were. Here we need much more someone with executive authority working direct to Ministers. Civil servants should be acting in an advisory, not an executive, capacity in this kind of case.

I want to enlarge on that, because I am aware of the tremendous experience in the marine division of the Department of Trade and of all the experience in other Departments. It is in executive action that so often we have gone wrong.

The Select Committee's report is a very useful document. Hon. Members who served on the Committee are to be applauded for it. But if I were looking for a specific criticism—I want to leave aside entirely for the moment the general question of how far it is possible to hold sufficient resources of men, materials and money available to meet a major catastrophe—it would be that nowhere can I find any mention of the role that might have been played by the oil industry itself.

Of course, in the"Eleni V"case Chevron and the owners' agents and the P. and I. Club played an undistinguished role. As far as one can make out, they were anxious to sit back and let others tackle the crisis. But in the"Christos Bitas"case, which I think was well handled on the whole, BP played a most successful role.

The oil industry possesses vast knowledge of spillage clearance techniques. It has mechanical recovery equipment and large dispersant stocks and unparalleled knowledge of the properties of oil and its behaviour. I am told that a simple test of viscosity on the spot by an oil industry expert might well have shown immediately that the normal dispersants were not entirely suitable for the particular kind of oil that was spilled in the"Eleni V"case. In fact, it took three whole days to obtain that message from the Warren Spring laboratory.

Therefore, I am left with the impression that in this case the Government were too anxious to go it alone. I trust that Admiral Stacey will draw in the oil and shipping industries' expertise more than in the past, as well as consulting and working very closely with the marine division of the Department of Trade and with the Defence Department.

Mr. Palmer

The hon. Gentleman is slightly criticising the Select Committee, as he is entitled to do, for not looking further into the role of oil companies. The problem of all Select Committee investigations is that if one is to take evidence from absolutely everybody one will never finish. We felt that it was very important to get the report out quickly.

Mr. Nott

That is a fair reply. I was simply making the point that in the"Christos Bitas"case BP played a valuable and important role, whereas in the Select Committee's report the possibility of the oil industry's playing a role is not referred to.

I shall not go into the question of the movement of oil. The Secretary of State for Wales has mentioned that 1 million tons goes through the Channel daily, and I think that over 21,000 very large crude carriers have passed through those narrow straits in the past 12 years. It is for this reason that every hon. Member representing coastal areas has grave concern.

It may be that in due course—the sooner, the better—we shall find a replacement for fossil fuels, a renewable source of energy that is cleaner and more acceptable. In the meantime, modern industrial society is in a trap and it does not help to rail against the oil companies, which are merely in the end responding to the demand for a basic source of energy.

I want to criticise the oil companies in one or two respects, but if every tanker were well found, well manned and in the best possible condition, human error would still occur in the dangerous medium of the sea, as the Secretary of State for Wales said. As the right hon. and learned Gentleman himself remarked, the advisory committee on oil pollution of the sea, which has done a much better job than the Department of Trade has done in identifying spillage, points out that only 5 per cent. or so of oil entering the sea does so as a result of accidents. Mention has been made of the cleaning out of tanks at sea, but I understand that the greatest source of oil pollution in the sea is oil washed down our rivers, through, for instance, ordinary people emptying the sump of their motor car down the drain. That oil finds its way into the sea.

Mr. John Smith

The hon. Gentleman should be serious.

Mr. Nott

That is a statement made by a committee for which the right hon. Gentleman, who is not speaking today, is responsible—the advisory committee on oil pollution of the sea. The Secretary of State for Wales said that that finding was the result of research in America. I had to study the report over the weekend. The right hon. Gentleman might have done so as well, and then he would not make inaccurate remarks from a sedentary position.

Hearing the speech of the Secretary of State for Wales and reading all the material on the subject, no one would deny that intense activity has taken place in international and national bodies in the past few years. However, it is mirrored by an equal lack of sufficient practical and effective progress. We cannot simply have government by catastrophe. The impression remains that we move forward only after each incident instead of being prepared to meet the next.

The commendable activity of IMCO—and several recent conventions have been of the highest importance and value—is not mirrored by equal vigour in ratification and enforcement by the member States. As IMCO accelerates its work, as it is doing now, the number of non-signatory States to the conventions may well accelerate as well. The 1973 convention on the deliberate discharge of waste was ratified by only three States when it became obsolete and was amended by a protocol in February. So that when Ministers claim, as they do, that because our coasts are polluted by the ships of every nation the problem can be tackled only on an international basis, they must expect there to be growing concern in the country at that statement.

Although the conventions are agreed, ratification is an extremely slow and ineffective process. Despite international agreement and all the valuable work done by IMCO, there are still no enforceable standards of ships, ship equipment and crew training and there are no really enforceable rules in international law concerning substandard ships. We move forward largely by voluntary arrangements around our shores, backed up by tough sanctions against our own flag carriers and such foreign-owned carriers as happen to come within the three-mile limit. Even where it is within our legal jurisdiction the Department of Trade has hardly shown much sense of urgency.

I hope that the Under-Secretary will be able to answer some questions. Why is it, for example, that certificates of competence for the deck watch for our own flag carriers do not come into effect until September 1981? I know that we felt able to sign the North Sea agreement on the basis of what is called"substantial equivalence ", but could not the relevant regulations about competence for the deck watch have been laid in this House before September 1977?

Then the international fund for compensation for oil damage provides a fund of £19.5 million, which has been contributed by the oil industry. It came into force only on 15th October of this year. But we are entitled under the convention to require a fund of double this amount. Will the Under-Secretary of State say why the doubling of this figure, which is allowable under the international convention, is not yet in force and why it has not proceeded in parallel with the date of 15th October for the £19.5 million which is already agreed?

Mr. Clinton Davis

It is not for want of trying on our part. We tried only last week to get a doubling of this. We were supported by the French, but other nations were not prepared to come into line.

Mr. Nott

I am happy to have that answer, and it leads me on to what I want to say about international action.

When we debate the Merchant Shipping Bill on Thursday, we shall want to look at the international convention of 1969 which sets a limit of £9 million per ship on compensation for a single disaster. I expect that the Under-Secretary of State will say that the Government have tried unsuccessfully to raise that figure too. Will he also say whether the Department of Trade is resisting—and, if so, why—the proposed EEC directive on tanker reporting, initiated by Germany and supported by France and the Netherlands?

Mr. Clinton Davis indicated dissent.

Mr. Nott

I see the Under-Secretary of State shaking his head. That is good news because, as he knows, there is now a trial arrangement going on between the French and the British for tanker reporting in the Channel, and I was puzzled when I read in press cuttings that the Government were unhappy about the EEC directive on tanker reporting.

Can the Minister increase penalties for the infringement of traffic separation schemes? Why are the penalties so low for the infringement of existing schemes which come under our authority? Is his Department following the very interesting correspondence in the Nautical Review mainly consisting of comments from tanker masters who are using these routes?

Mr. Molloy

And misusing them.

Mr. Nott

Some of them may be misusing them, but I think that the great majority of them are not doing so. The Nautical Review of September 1978 says that great concern about the Casquets crossing area and the confusing three-lane scheme off Ushant has been expressed, and it goes on to say that drilling rigs are now coming into this area and that IMCO has adopted a scheme which on the face of it mariners do not like.

I am not saying that I am a total supporter of the Trinity House proposals. Nevertheless, the Minister has set his face against any change in the IMCO scheme.

Mr. Clinton Davis

No.

Mr. Nott

I had understood that he had. If, then, there is a preparedness to consider a variation of the recent traffic separation scheme—

Mr. Clinton Davis

It was important, following the"Amoco Cadiz ", to reflect upon the French proposals, and we decided to support them. Trinity House has put forward a variation of those proposals. But all that I have said in the House hitherto is that we ought to see how the IMCO proposals work out in practice and, in the light of that, consider what Trinity House has to say as a matter of experience.

Mr. Nott

I shall not pursue that further, because I want to draw my remarks to a close. Will the Minister also comment on the reform of standard salvage procedures? Haggling over contractual arrangements can cause fatal delays, and there seems to be a recognition at Lloyd's and among the shipping industry that salvage procedures need to be changed.

I come finally to what in a way is the most important question, and it is the extremely interesting one posed by the French Government's actions following the"Amoco Cadiz ". The Secretary of State for Wales did not touch upon this matter. The French regulations unilaterally extended French territorial waters to 12 miles, and they apply to the vessels of all flags within those limits. Some of the French requirements probably are not in accordance with generally accepted international law. Some people will say that they are in the nature of political propaganda. Others will say that they are a brave attempt to carve out new ground. Those are the two arguments.

Are the unilateral actions of the French adding to greater confusion, given that if every nation regards its own national interests as paramount the painstaking work of IMCO will be undone? Or are we likely to be forced as a group of Channel States with a vital concern with oil pollution matters in the Channel—possibly through the EEC—to push the lawyers and international law in a manner reminiscent of what Peru, Iceland and other countries did with fishing limits on the law of the sea?

These are questions that we must ask ourselves. They are the current interesting questions posed by international law. As a nation, we have to recognise that we have a huge stake in the world oil business and a vital interest in the shipping cross trades. The danger of pursuing the French course for us as a nation is all too clear for our national interests—retaliation against our ships, uncertainty and, in the end, no real means of catching offenders. Those are the arguments against.

It would be clearer if the Government told the House which side they were on in this argument. If the Government do not agree with the actions of the French and believe that they are contrary to international law, they must say so. The Foreign Office cannot run everything. If the French action is contrary to international law and is damaging to our shipping interests, let the Government come out and say so.

My own preferred course is for far more vigorous action under the principles of the North Sea agreement. The Hague memorandum involves from next July much more rigorous port State action. This has come about with the support of IMCO and the ILO. It means that standards of international conventions come into force for all ships calling at the ports of a ratifying State whether the flag country has ratified or not. I was glad to hear that Italy and Ireland are prepared to attach their names to The Hague memorandum. If we can couple that agreement with the inspection procedures of the United States coastguard, it means that more and more ports in the main oil-consuming countries will be closed to substandard ships. It provides a much more rapid means of raising standards.

I fully recognise the difficulty of these issues, and my hon. Friends will want to debate them. Will the Under-Secreretary say whether he thinks that the French action in trying to move forward into new areas of international law is correct? If so, I believe that the Government should be getting together with other coastal States of the English Channel, under The Hague memorandum, to push international law and the lawyers. If this is not possible because of our national interest in shipping and our national interest in the oil industry and it is necessary to proceed purely by means of IMCO and international agreements we should be clear that what the French have done is wrong.

I apologise for the technicality and length of my speech. Occasionally, I think we have to go into details on these issues. This is an emotive issue. It is an issue where it is easy to catch the headlines. At the same time, it is an issue that is very difficult. It is highly important to the country, and neither the country generally nor Parliament will forgive any Government who do not respond with urgency to the needs of the moment. I believe that the Select Committee was absolutely right to sound its warning. I shall listen to the comments of its Chairman and other members, who I hope will speak shortly, with considerable interest in what is a most difficult area of our law.

5.3 p.m.

Mr. Arthur Palmer (Bristol, North-East)

This debate has been brought on at short notice; nevertheless I am glad that we have this early opportunity to discuss these important questions. I am obliged to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales for writing to me saying that he would be dealing, partly at any rate, with the report of the Select Committee on Science and Technology on the"Eleni V"oil tanker incident.

The hon. Member for Honiton (Mr. Emery) made a not very convincing attempt to bring in party points, but there is no party point in this issue, as the House must know. The Select Committee, like all Committees of this House, is made up of hon. Members in proportionate strength of the parties of the House. We looked at the issue according to the obligations placed on us by the House as a practical administrative question. One of the silliest fictions in British parliamentary government is that, with vast, modern Government Departments, Ministers can be directly responsible for and know about every detail of administration. Of course, they have to carry the ultimate responsibility to Parliament, but to suppose that every administrative detail, and every happening that goes wrong, can be put at the door of the Minister is an absurdity that does not accord with modern life.

We on the Select Committee looked at the"Eleni V"incident from the point of view of the way in which the Department handled it. We believed that some general lessons could probably be learned for the future. I made that point when I intervened in the speech of the hon. Member for St. Ives (Mr. Nott), who said, quite fairly, that the Committee did not take a lot of evidence and did not go to the oil companies. Since its inception, 11 or 12 years ago, the Select Committee has published about 35 reports under my chairmanship and the chairmanship of the hon. Member for Abingdon (Mr. Neave). Some of these reports are lengthy, some of them are short. If one wants to get out a report quickly, one must exercise economy in taking evidence. We called the former Secretary of State for Trade, who very willingly came before us. We also called the local authorities with experience in this type of incident on the East Anglian coast—the Suffolk and Norfolk county councils, the Great Yarmouth local authority, the Suffolk coastal authority and the Waveney district council—and we deliberately limited ourselves to those witnesses. We had also written evidence, which has been published. If the report is inadequate because we did not probe further, then we must accept that criticism. Perhaps we should have gone further, but, if so, the report would not have been before the House today.

We looked at the national organisation for dealing with these matters. There is a general wide division between the Department and the local authorities. The authorities are responsible for dealing with oil spilled on beaches up to one mile out. The Department of Trade is responsible for any shipwreck or other sea hazard that threatens to cause oil pollution.

The Select Committee said plainly that it thought that there was little justification for this curious"mile out"division between the Department of Trade and the local authorities. Why the limitation of one mile out to sea should be selected is hard to understand. No one seems to have justified it. I should have thought that the Department of Trade should have entire responsibility for dealing with the spillage actually on the water and approaching the beaches.

The Department of Trade marine survey office has divided the United Kingdom into nine districts, each headed by a principal officer—as the Minister said —with seagoing experience. We make no criticism of the officer dealing with the"Eleni V ", of whom everyone spoke highly, but we strongly criticise the lack of independent authority given to him. It was clear that too much had been referred back to London for approval to be given for action. Men of this competence and this kind of natural courage to take decisions should be given full opportunity to do so. They understand that if things go wrong they run the risk of being called before Committees of this House, among other sanctions. We would get much closer to administrative reality then. I emphasise that there is no criticism of the officer; we are criticising the lack of independent power given to him.

Each principal officer, we understand, is obliged to produce his own pollution plan after consultation with the local authorities and all other relevant bodies. The local authorities have their own plans. Warren Spring, the laboratory that has great knowledge of oil matters, also has its responsibilities. The local authorities told us, rightly or wrongly, that there was consultation, in the sense that the Department of Trade told them what it proposed to do. The Department kept them well informed but did not consult them in any way when planning its proposed action or actions.

There again, if the officer on the spot had more independent authority, he could naturally work much better with his local authority counterparts. We deal in detail in our report, in paragraphs 14 to 17, with the schemes of preparation for these eventualities.

An important point to note about the"Eleni V"operation is that the ship was carrying heavy fuel oil. There is apparently hardly any preparation for dealing with a spillage of this commodity. There is preparation for crude oil but we were told that heavy fuel is difficult, chemically, to disperse. Warren Springs is now busy trying to find solutions. Perhaps its expert researchers will find them in the end, but the assumption seems to have been made that nearly every tanker wrecked in this way will be carrying crude oil, not fuel oil.

Between 7 per cent. and 10 per cent. of the oil carried around our coasts is fuel oil. With land transport costs rising all the time, more is likely to be carried, so all energies should be bent to finding a solution for dealing with heavy fuel oil.

Mr. Clinton Davis

Will my hon. Friend accept that with all the good will and expertise in the world, no country has yet found an antidote to this problem?

Mr. Palmer

I said more or less the same thing—that it was extremely difficult. Nevertheless, the assumption made in the preparations was that normally crude oil would be carried in tankers. I have heard of many scientific and technical problems which had no solution at one time, but solutions were found, with persistence. I merely suggest that much more effort and money should be devoted to that end.

Mr. Gordon A. T. Bagier (Sunderland, South)

Is it not true also that the Norwegian approach is to have booms for collecting the oil rather than to seek to disperse it?

Mr. Palmer

I am dealing with the chemical solution, but I believe that that is so.

One of our major criticisms—I think a fair one—of the handling of this incident was that it took 25 days before the wreck was finally disposed of. We set out our criticisms in paragraph 51 of the report and list in detail some of the options considered—some of which were never options at all. Time was taken talking about them, yet they should never have been seriously proposed.

Instead of taking thought at the beginning about what the options might be and then, to use an electrical phrase, placing them in parallel so that those in charge could move quickly to the next if one did not work, in this case, if one method did not seem to work, a day or two was spent consulting or referring to London before another course was tried. That was the series approached when that option broke down, they went to the third, and so on. Altogether it seems much like the strategy followed by generals who lose wars. In short, the practical handling of the"Eleni V"incident did not reflect well on the general organisation of the Department and the methods that it applies.

Mr. Fell

From the point of view of the Department, the incident was handled well at the beginning. The clearing up of the beaches went splendidly, although there was some delay at Lowestoft, but the difficulty was in decision-making, as the hon. Gentleman so rightly said. The difficulty was the days spent in waiting for decisions.

Mr. Palmer

I am glad to have the agreement of the hon. Member for Lowestoft (Mr. Fell) who has a real constituency interest and no doubt has been very much in touch with those on the spot who handled the situation but were handicapped by those on high.

To give an example of what I mean: in the end, Smit International, a Dutch salvage firm, disposed of the wreck. We were told that that was the only firm with sufficient experience to do it. If so, why was it not consulted in the first place, instead of after some weeks? That is an example of how not to make decisions.

My colleagues on the Select Committee will agree that a report by a Select Committee can never be the last word in a matter of this kind because it is based upon limited evidence, but we shall have served our purpose—the report gained considerable publicity, even if some of it was a little sensational—if the Department of Trade is now rescued from any charge of complacency. I think that there was early complacency. Without flattering ourselves too much, I think that the Select Committee's investigations stirred up the Department. The Department will never admit it, but I am sure that that was the the case.

There have been these new appointments, which might never have been made without our investigation. I may be wrong, but it is a natural suspicion. There is no need for the Department to apologise. We all learn from experience and should learn from our critics. I am hoping that the White Paper that we are promised will come before Christmas will show in more detail the new or more developed organisation that the Secretary of State has in mind.

I think that we are fair to the Department. We accept that no two incidents can be the same. In paragraph 70 we take the side of the Department—because we are anxious to take a balanced view—by saying that it could not foresee everything: no human being could. But we say later that although the Department could not foresee the future, once the incident occurred everything took much longer than it should have done.

The Secretary of State referred with some little feeling to the statement of the Select Committee that captured the headlines—our report came out at about the time that the"Christos Bitas"wreck was on the boil, so it was very topical—that the South Coast was virtually unprotected even against moderate spillages. That view was based on the evidence given to us. We said: The probability of a major disaster occurring in the Channel is far higher than the preparation level of DoT for the Channel as a whole of 6.000 tons suggests. The size of tankers and the frequency of their using the Channel makes the likelihood of any incident involving a spill of over 6,000 tons (as opposed to under) very high. Furthermore, in any one part of the Channel the spraying capacity is far less than 6,000 tons. This means that, in effect, the DoT's preparations in the Channel bear no relation to the likely size of any oil pollution incident, and leave the south coast virtually unprotected. That is the charge that we make. If the Department is now able to provide a full answer to show that that charge is not justified we shall be happy to take note of it.

The Under-Secretary of State worked hard during this incident. He was constantly on the job. In several statements he said that there was a limit to the size of preparations that a Government could make for dealing with such matters. I agree; that limit is set by money. One could compare the situation with preparing for a drought of the size of that which occurred two or three years ago. If a Government put down enough reservoir capacity to deal with such a drought they would waste a great deal of money, because such droughts are not likely to occur often.

Nevertheless, the Select Committee was of the opinion that, judged by the"Eleni V"incident—the only incident that we examined—the medium-run oil tanker wreck must be better handled in future by advanced planning, where that is appropriate, and by better tactical decisions at the time.

Much has already been said about the ultimate solution, which is to avoid the wrecks. It is obvious to most of us that the navigational standard of oil tankers leaves much to be desired. I am not a seaman, but I am told by those with experience of the sea that while the automatic devices for navigation no doubt add to the total safety of ships, reliance is sometimes placed so much on them that seamanship of the good old-fashioned kind is neglected, but is still needed in an emergency.

All the nations of the world must examine that situation. I was encouraged by what the Secretary of State said about the European nations coming together. In waters that are as busy as those which surround our coastline we require lanes along which ships must move, similar to the arrangements that, of necessity, have been made for aeroplanes.

Mankind has used ships since about 4000Bc. As a result, there are ancient customs about navigation which are not easily overthrown. The freedom of the sea is a basic convention, but I doubt whether the civilised world can continue to tolerate the old assumptions about ships being able to move anywhere they want, when they please.

The French have a direct naval way of dealing with such matters. The new French policy is either to shoo the ships away or bring them in. I do not think that that system can be operated by the United Kingdom, and the French will soon discover its crudity.

Mr. Adley

Is not one of the problems that the requirement for navigational skill is laid down by the country concerned? Britain has a high standard and other countries a lower standard. Most of the ships are well insured with Lloyds. At the moment there are inadequate inducements for"driving"skills for those countries which have lower standards than Britain.

Mr. Palmer

The hon. Member is probably right. The seagoing records of the"Eleni V"and the "Christos Bitas"are appalling. One cannot help thinking that those ships have had a whole series of captains who are blind in the ordinary sense and that that is why they have kept hitting rocks and imposing hazards on other people.

An ultimate international solution must be found. In the meantime, I hope that as a result of the Select Committee's investigation there will be an improvement in the Department's administration for dealing with tanker spills when they do occur.

5.25 p.m.

Mr. Peter Emery (Honiton)

The hon. Member for Bristol, North-East (Mr. Palmer) emphasised the fact that the debate was demanded by hon. Members in all parts of the House. The demand was made as a result of his report and because of the bland assurances and over-confident attitude of Ministers in a sometimes lackadaisical approach to the problem of coastal oil pollution.

The hon. Member for Bristol, North-East said that there were no party political points to be made, but it is necessary to be highly critical of what the Government have done. It is no use hiding this away. Proof of this slight pomposity and over-confident approach was given this afternoon in the reply to a Question tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch and Lymington (Mr. Adley) and a subsequent supplementary question by myself. These answers implied that everything was under control and that all possible facilities were there to deal with the problem. Those hon. Members who represent coastal constituencies and are close to the problem know that this is anything but the truth.

One need not go as far back as the"Torrey Canyon"disaster for proof of the present situation. I raised the matter in an Adjournment debate in July. I was given bland assurances. There were also bland assurances by the Secretary of State for Trade in his statement on 2nd August. He said that everything was all right and well under control. But we who are concerned with the matter know that that is anything but the case.

If further proof is necessary, one has only to look at the correspondence that I have had since the early-day motion was tabled from the Association of District Councils, the Association of County Councils and the advisory committee on pollution of the sea to realise their anxiety that things are not as they should be.

Mr. Molloy

How many letters has the hon. Member received from the oil companies about this matter?

Mr. Emery

I have been discoursing and in correspondence with the oil companies for 12 years about these matters. I believe that oil companies could do more. I hope to make some suggestions that the Minister might wish to adopt.

I shall take a slightly different approach in order to try to convince the House of the significance of the problem. Lord Rothschild, in his Dimbleby lecture on BBC television, talked about risk-taking and probability as factors in coming to decisions in everyday government. I should like to apply that principle to the problem of coastal oil pollution. That might suddenly awaken the great British public to the extreme risk of coastal pollution.

Statistically, the risk of an"Amoco Cadiz"type of tragedy affecting the British coast stands at 3,500 to 1. The risk of an incident of the"Eleni V"or the"Christos Bitas"variety is as low as 500 to 1. That means that the probability is that a vast disaster will hit the British coast every 10 years and a minor pollution tragedy will occur every 18 months. They will arise because of collision, bad management at sea, the breaking of oil lines during transhipment, as a result of lightening or because of the fracturing of an oil pipeline delivering oil from North Sea collection platforms. That last disaster has not yet happened here, but it has happened in the United States, and there is every likelihood that at some time it will present us with a major problem.

These incidents will arise however good or strict are the regulations on shipping lanes, pumping out, or boat movements. They will happen because human error is bound to arise. The risk of a disaster happening between six and nine times in the next decade is quite unacceptable. Therefore, while I welcome the able speech of my hon. Friend the Member for St. Ives (Mr. Nott), who concentrated on the question of prevention—I wish everything possible to be done to stop or control the cause of coastal oil pollution —I want to concentrate on the need to upgrade all aspects of the cure for coastal pollution after it has occurred.

Mr. Robin Maxwell-Hyslop (Tiverton)

Is that not the intention of the debate? Is it not intended that we should concentrate on what happens after oil has been released, rather than on the means of preventing collisions, about which another Select Committee will be reporting, anyway?

Mr. Emery

My hon. Friend may or may not be correct. I sought guidance on this aspect from the Leader of the House last Thursday. He said that the debate would be on oil spillage and that the Select Committee report could be considered. He felt that a debate of the type now suggested by my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton (Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop) would probably be preferable in order to prevent this subject arising in the Second Reading debate on the Merchant Shipping Bill later this week.

I wish to deal, therefore, with five categories. These are oil dispersal at sea after the event; the cleansing of the coast; wild life preservation with bird cleaning and marine preservation; the research to cover all of these matters; and planning and co-ordination for coping with the whole subject.

The natural breakdown, by weather, of oil before it reaches the coast or coastal waters and the spraying of oil with detergents are still the most effective methods of dispersal. However, when there is a major tanker wreck on rocks off the coast, time is likely to preclude either of the above methods of dispersal stopping vast tonnages of oil from reaching the beaches. The"Amoco Cadiz"was absolute proof of that.

The circumstances surrounding the"Amoco Cadiz"are particularly worrying for hon. Members with coastal constituencies in the South-West. The vessel was bound for Lyme Bay to lighten before it went aground off the French coast.

As vast quantities of oil are bound to come ashore after a collision, have all methods for dispersal been thoroughly examined? How thorough has been research into the use of hovercraft or helicopters, in conjunction with base detergents, for first-stage emulsification? It is suggested that the creation of much greater surface disturbance by hovercraft or helicopters could more quickly assist natural dispersal than would be achieved by a number of small craft spraying.

How far have we progressed in considering suction pumping with gravity separation—a system described by the Americans as a massive Hoover? Work has been done on that in the United States.

Mr. A. P. Costain (Folkestone and Hythe)

Does it surprise my hon. Friend to know that a small company in my constituency which specialises in pumping peculiar materials says that it could produce a pump that would pump crude even at sea temperatures, if someone would ask it?

Mr. Emery

That is what concerns me. A whole host of ideas have been presented to me in correspondence—ideas which it seems have not been thoroughly examined, or at least for which there is no evidence of their having been examined.

Mr. Adley

Is my hon Friend aware that as long ago as May 1976 I took the chairman of a company in my constituency to the Department of Industry, which is supposed to be in charge of the Warren Spring laboratory, to try to get more impetus put behind a technology that this company was developing, and that now, two and a half years later, there is a certain amount of interest in correspondence back and forth? At last a British company has put up £100,000 to finish the development of this technology, but the Department is not very interested.

Mr. Emery

I thank my hon. Friend for making that point, which he has been able to get clearly on the record.

I need convincing that there exists a catalogue of small craft that could be available, with crews who know exactly what to do, should they be needed to deal with a major oil slick. Will the Minister say how many stand-by boats have been recruited on the south coast of Cornwall and Devon? Do they have the necessary equipment, and the crews the knowledge and training to use detergent spray equipment in the event of an emergency?

It would be no use our thinking, after the event, that we should have had such a list. That list should be prepared now, in advance, for the entire British coast. Who would take the lead in supervising that? Would it be the Minister, or would it, as I fear, be left to chance?

I move on now to the question of cleansing the coast. If the planning and co-operation of emergency procedure is so good, and if the pools of equipment are adequate, why are local authorities, mainly the district councils, spending large sums to purchase dispersal equipment of their own? They are not spending ratepayers' money for fun; they are doing it because they have no confidence in the present plans or in the availability of equipment in an emergency. Does the Minister consider that it makes sense for local authorities to continue with this sort of local expenditure?

Is there an overall inventory—updated annually, I hope—of the equipment possessed by the Departments of Trade and the Environment, the Navy, the district and county councils, and the coastguard and harbour boards, so that those concerned may know where the equipment is, to draw upon it? If not, why not? This has been done in Australia for years. That country has an overall plan, with all this sort of information available and updated annually.

There is also extreme criticism about communications and emergency planning. The Select Committee report makes this quite evident, as did my hon. Friend the Member for Yarmouth (Mr. Fell). Whatever the Minister may have said about information from his officials, or whatever he may honestly believe, local authorities are not clear about the lines of communication. Nor do they consider that there is any sense of leadership. They are uncertain on co-ordination, on action to be taken, and on the assistance available to them if tragedy hits their part of the coast.

Eleven years after the"Torrey Canyon"incident this situation is unforgiveable. Local authorities are uncertain about the monetary aid that will be given if a vast effort has to be mounted because tragedy has hit their locality. Why? Surely these matters could be clearly defined? It is not acceptable that such costs should fall unevenly on the electors of unfortunate boroughs or local councils. We have known this all along. A scheme should be devised and published

The work of the RSPCA and other voluntary bodies in saving the lives of sea birds deserves the highest praise. However, each time there is a tragedy. Heath Robinson measures—I suppose British measures—are brought into play so that, somehow, voluntary help is made to go a long way in saving flocks of birds otherwise condemned to a lingering death. An expert speaking after the"Christos Bitas"affair made it plain that if there had been properly co-ordinated plans before the event many hundreds, if not thousands, of wild birds could have been saved. Why cannot we even deal properly with that aspect of the problem?

I turn now to the question of research, although I have already touched on the problem in talking about new methods for dispersal at sea. I understand that the Government research laboratory at Warren Spring has spent much time on these problems. Everybody accepts that, but is the Minister satisfied with what has been achieved? Does he believe that, practically and reasonably, everything has been done that should have been done'' Surely this debate, if nothing else, will convince him that that is not the case. Surely he must realise that a great deal more effort is needed to deal with detergents, bunker"C"oil, and the methods of collecting heavy oils at sea and from rocky surfaces around the coasts? If he is satisfied perhaps he will tell the House. Let him be quite certain that I am particularly dissatisfied. Something extra has to be done.

I know that I shall be accused of demanding extra Government expenditure at a time when the Tories are urging a cut in such expenditure. I do not believe that that is necessary. It is here that I come to the point raised by the hon. Member for Ealing, North (Mr. Molloy). I believe that the Government ought to be calling on the oil companies operating in this country which, I believe would be more than willing, to put up considerable sums of money for further research into action on pollution. It is in their interests so to do because in the long run it should be realized—

Mr. Molloy

Who has been stopping the oil companies?

Mr. Emery

I do not believe that the Government have invited them to do so. So let us ask the Government. This is part of the criticism that I make. It should be realised that 60 per cent. of every British oil tanker is owned by the oil companies and that 30 per cent. of all oil tankers throughout the world are owned by the shipping companies. When a problem of pollution on the beaches arises these oil companies and the shipping lines will be called upon for the many millions, if not hundreds of millions, of pounds needed to pay for the clearing up.

Why, then, should the oil companies be against putting more money into research, to save themselves this cost in the long run? I have been led to believe that, so long as this could be done sensibly and could be properly co-ordinated, the oil companies would be willing to co-operate. Will the Minister take this idea on board and see whether action could he taken to see such a plan implemented?

Mr. Palmer

The oil companies have their own laboratories.

Mr. Emery

That is true, and that is why I say that the companies ought to he told what is necessary in terms of coordination. I believe that a degree of co-operation has not been achieved, because the Government have not approached them to try to find ways of bringing it about.

I turn to the question of planning and co-ordination. I know—and every Member of the House must have the evidence —that a vast amount of paper work has been done in Whitehall in connection with the problem of oil pollution. There are Cabinet Office papers, departmental and inter-departmental papers, Her Majesty's Services papers, and papers on co-ordination, approach, reaction, action and counter-action. So it goes on. More and more paper proliferates. Assurances are given and statements made, but what positive action has been taken about the creation of a body to mastermind this problem? The answer, 11 years after the"Torrey Canyon," is"None ". Some form of overall master plan is necessary.

It is nonsense that the co-ordinating Minister responsible for oil pollution should be in the Department of Trade. My hon. Friend the Member for St. Ives asked me to argue this point, and I shall do so as quickly as possible. For the sponsoring Minister for shipping, who plays a major role in the international coordination of the oil companies' interests with the Department of Energy, to be responsible with the local authorities for all the action of clearing up and dealing with pollution control is like having the perpetrator being made responsible for the prevention. I believe, as many do, that on a matter affecting such specific issues as finance, equipment, local government factors at district and county level, the work of voluntary bodies, and the efforts of the military, the Minister responsible should be from the Department of the Environment.

I accept immediately the argument that to change from one Minister to another will not automatically mean that the problem will be cured. It needs an active Minister who takes this problem on board and sets about creating the kind of master plan that I have been urging. The present situation is unacceptable. Opinions about our ability to cope with a major tragedy range from"Well, with a typical bit of British patching up we might get by"to"I do not know how we would be able to cope if it was on the ' Amoco Cadiz' level." That sort of approach is unacceptable, and must be unacceptable to the House as a whole.

The House needs to know when the Prime Minister intends to turn over to a Minister in the Department of the Environment overall responsibility for dealing with coastal oil pollution. When will this new Minister organise central and regional conferences, so that everyone concerned with this subject will know what is expected of them? That is certainly not the case at present. When will this new Minister cause the Department to publish an inventory of the equipment available for an emergency clearing-up operation? When will regulations be established enabling local boats to be used? When are we to have a register of small boats, which can be used in this way as well as for training purposes? When will the Government seek better co-operation with and funding from the oil companies for research into the problems of coastal pollution? Arising from this, when will the Minister publish his thoughts on co-ordination between local authorities, coastguards and the voluntary organisations? All this deals with what must be done in an emergency. Many of these bodies do not understand how things will be arranged.

I want more than assurances; I want dates put to these answers. In that way we shall be able to check whether things are being done. Assurances have already been allowed to slide. Until we have these assurances, with firm dates attached, every constituency around our coast has reason to be worried about the unacceptably high degree of risk of pollution. Until we know that there are curative methods being employed, this is a matter which must concern every Member of Parliament.

5.53 p.m.

Mr. John Pardoe (Cornwall, North)

The hon. Member for Honiton (Mr. Emery) has detailed a large number of the things that hon. Members want to see done. I start from the same point as the hon. Member for St. Ives (Mr. Nott). He and I entered this House at the same time. We were both blooded on the beaches of Cornwall—wading in Wellington boots through what seemed to be brown chocolate, in the aftermath of the"Torrey Canyon."

I was a member of the Select Committee that was set up following the"Torrey Canyon"disaster. The Committee reported in 1968. Reading the report on the"Eleni V"gives me an appalling feeling of déjà vu. It is all there again, even to the bewilderment of the boffins from Warren Spring, stirring the stuff around with their feet and saying"Let's try this and that." Much the same thing was being done at the time of the"Torrey Canyon"affair. We do not seem to have made many steps forward since then.

I know that with the"Eleni V"we are dealing with a different and particu- larly difficult type of oil. We have not had the same experience of dealing with it as we have had with normal crude oil. However, it still appears that we have not made much progress. Perhaps we can conclude either that there has been a degree of incompetence on the part of the authorities responsible in the intervening years, or that some of the problems do not have solutions.

I accept that some problems may not have solutions. There is clearly no answer to the overall problem other than, perhaps, the solutions of the eco-extremists who would give up oil for Christmas, and beyond. That does not seem to be something that any of us can accept, certainly not in the short or medium term. As long as we use oil it has to be brought to us and accidents are bound to happen.

The aims of policy must be common to all of us. First, we must seek to minimise the number of accidents. Secondly, we must try to minimise the harmful effects of oil spillages when accidents occur and, thirdly, we must reach some decision about who pays for the after effects, for the measures to counter spillages and to clean up. I deal first with the problem of how to minimise the number of accidents, and in doing so I concentrate on the"Torrey Canyon"and the"Christos Bitas ". The accidents involving those vessels occurred in the area that I know best. The accidents affected my own constituency and the whole of the South-West.

These two incidents are of further interest because neither was a collision in the sense of two ships colliding. We all know about the problems of the English Channel. We have read about them in the evidence to the Select Committee. We have seen the number of traffickings backwards and forwards and the amount of oil carried. We know that this is one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world and that the likelihood is that in bad—sometimes even in good—sea conditions two ships will collide. With the"Torrey Canyon"and the"Christos Bitas ", no other ships were involved. I was utterly mystified at the time of the"Torrey Canyon"disaster as to how it could possibly have happened. We were told"Well, it takes a long time to steer these things. Once you have decided you are on the wrong course, you go on that course for a long time and cannot turn the ship round."

The mind boggles as to how the "Christos Bitas"managed to get on the rocks. We can but conclude that it was due to plain lousy seamanship, or something worse. There are four ways in which the crew of the"Christos Bitas"should have known that they were off course. First, there was plain eyesight. There was perfectly good visibility, in broad daylight. They must have been able to see the Welsh coast for a long time before they got there.

Mr. Nicholas Edwards (Pembroke)

indicated dissent.

Mr. Pardoe

The hon. Member for Pembroke (Mr. Edwards) knows that coast better than I do. That is all that I can deduce from the reports that I have seen.

Next, there was the radio fix. There was no lack of radio stations on to which the vessel could have fixed. It was so much off the correct course that a radio fix of approximate accuracy would have warned the crew a long time before the vessel hit the rocks. Thirdly, there is the geography of the sea bottom. For a long time before the vessel hit the rocks it was in shallow water. Any chart of that area shows that the sea bottom slopes away quickly. The vessel should have been in very much deeper water. The difference between the depth which the vessel was in and the depth in which it should have been was no marginal matter. It was a distinct difference. Fourthly, there was the radar. Even if the crew could not see the Welsh coast—and no doubt the hon. Member for Pembroke will tell us why if he succeeds in catching the eye of the Chair—they could certainly have seen it on their radar screen.

There are four methods by which the crew ought to have known that they were off course. Yet for some inexplicable and incredible reason they steered straight at the rocks. Why? A great deal of tanker work is excessively boring. Much of it is obviously put on to the automatic pilot. Nevertheless, there are supposed to be members of the watch keeping a lookout. I suspect that boredom is having much the same effect on tanker crews as it has had on the American Service man serving in Europe.

I suspect that far too much alcohol, and possibly even worse, is being taken on board these tankers. That is something with which we cannot deal. We can write all sorts of international regulations. How experienced seamen could have got that ship on to these rocks other than in the way that I have suggested I do not know.

There are only two radical proposals for dealing with the problem. The first is that there should be compulsory pilotage, and the second calls for a vast array of surveillance. Both these are recommended in the EEC document before us. R/1004/78. Page 19 says: Enhancing the safety of navigation. The coastal State would have power to require the use of a pilot in dangerous zones and towage in the event of damage. We all say"Hear, hear"to that. Unfortunately, the evidence given to the Expenditure Committee by Department of Trade representatives on 10th May was as follows: Deep-sea pilotage operates in international waters: in United Kingdom and other European countries the service is offered by commercial organisations. That evidence concluded Any proposal to make the use of deep-sea pilots compulsory in certain circumstances or for, say VLCCs, would interfere with the freedom of movement of shipping in international waters. That is what the House must call for. We must interfere with the freedom of shipping in international waters, or that international shipping will interfere with our constituencies and with our constituents' interests. Therefore it is vital that we take these powers. If we have to do it through international organisations, let us hurry. That is one of two radical proposals that can deal with the problem.

The other proposal mentioned on the same page of the EEC documents is surveillance. The document says on that topic: It is also necessary to study the introduction of a reporting and surveillance system for tanker movements and of an obligation to notify any damage or discrepancy without delay to the riparian state. That is essential and has to be done. All the reports that have appeared on minor and major incidents since the"Torrey Canyon ", both in this country and abroad, have indicated that those are the only two ways in which we shall substantially reduce the number of accidents and incidents.

We have learned a great deal through the activities of our Select Committee"Eleni V"about the lack of preparedness for heavy fuel oils. If we are trying to deal with the problem we have to realise that it presents a substantial difficulty. The dispersants do not easily work on the oil. I am sure that Warren Spring has done a great deal of research, but it has not cracked the problem. The Minister agreed that the problem has not been cracked elsewhere in the world. At present we do not have an answer to the problem posed by heavy fuel oil, but let us at least concentrate on the oil problems to which we can find an answer.

Mr. Macfarlane

If the research laboratories do not have the answer to heavy fuel oils, surely the oil companies should have a social responsibility in this respect. What depressed me about the evidence on that matter was that there is now a wide range of petroleum products, in so many waters off our coasts, and the oil companies do not seem to be volunteering as much detailed information to the Department as many people believe they should.

Mr. Pardoe

I am glad that that intervention came from the hon. Gentleman who has a considerable knowledge of these matters.

We can be certain that normal crude oil will burn provided that it is burnt at once. In the case of the"Torrey Canyon"we had to burn it eventually, or at least we had to try to do that by bombing but by the time we got round to bombing all the burnable substances had disappeared. It was almost impossible to set the rest alight.

I believe that we have now reached the situation, following experience with the"Torrey Canyon"the"Amoco Cadiz"and the"Eleni V ", where we can be certain that it is better to deal with the oil at sea than to wait for it to come ashore. Secondly, we do not know how to stop it coming ashore, and no amount of debating about booms will solve the problem. There are booms that can cope with certain kinds of waters but we know that most booms cannot cope with more than about 1½ knots of current. Around the British coastline 1½ knots of current is common. We have to do something to deal with the oil at sea, and quickly. That means that we have to set it alight. We have to take power to deal with the ship immediately the incident happens.

In 1968 the Select Committee said that bombing was the last resort. Of course it is, because it is not an accurate operation, as was illustrated by the"Torrey Canyon ". It is very difficult to hit a ship several times in that way. But at least with the experience of the"Eleni V"behind us we know that it is possible to explode a ship. It can be done by divers and should be done at the very first instance. I believe that those are the types of solutions at which we should aim.

I should like to comment briefly on the subject of finance. The hon. Member for Honiton gave the proportion of tankers owned by the oil companies. If we go only for those who own, we shall always be in difficulty about getting payment and compensation. The answer, surely, is to make the charterer responsible. He is the person who owns the oil. The owner of the oil must be responsible. One then finds that the oil companies are about 100 per cent. responsible rather than 30 per cent. That matter must be cleared up. We shall argue backwards and forwards on every incident on the lines"It is the charterer who is responsible or is it this company or that company?"We shall then have to ask"Is the ship registered in this country or that?"We shall also have to determine whether international law applies and all the rest of it. Therefore the matter must come back to the oil companies. It is their oil and they must be held responsible.

I believe that those are the only real solutions to the problem. Nobody claims that he has a total solution. There will be accidents and accidents with which we cannot deal satisfactorily, but in the foreseeable future those are the measures that should be adopted.

6.7 p.m.

Mr. Gordon A. T. Bagier (Sunderland, South)

In opening the debate my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Wales asked the House not to over-react to these matters of oil spillage. My complaint is that over the years there has been a great deal of under-reaction.

A number of hon. Members have complained about the lack of action since the " Torrey Canyon"disaster 11 years ago. It is only when disaster occurs that minds appear to click into action. It takes a dramatic event to start anything happening. We first had the"Torrey Canyon"disaster and then"Ekofisk Bravo ". There was a great deal of fuss in the House at the time because of the large amounts of oil that spilled on to our coasts. However, a short time afterwards the indignation simmered down. Then came the"Amoco Cadiz"disaster, followed by the"Eleni V"incident. The latest episode has involved the"Christos Bitas ". However, in the intervals following all those incidents there was a lack of action.

Let me gently chide the hon. Member for Honiton (Mr. Emery) who said that these events have been taking place since 1967. I have recently become the rap-porteur for a Council of Europe committee on environment and we are engaged in producing a report arising out of the"Eleni V"disaster and the"Ekofisk Bravo"incident. During my background research I discovered that way back in 1954 my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, who was then a member of the Council of Europe, raised the subject of oil pollution in the North Sea. However, it took four years before anything was put on the statute book on that subject. The convention was not ratified by all the nations concerned until 1958.

In 1961 more action was demanded. What happened then? The reply given by the Committee of Ministers was: The Committee of Ministers is well aware of the importance of the intergovernmental conference…and several member governments fully approve its aims. However, the committee does not think that it is possible at the present stage to fix any date after which the discharge of oil into the sea shall be totally prohibited. The special port installations for the discharge of oil are still inadequate and, as well as being costly "— I suspect that the cost factor is the main reason for inaction— their construction raises difficult technical problems which it will take some time to solve. Therefore, this problem did not begin as late as 1967, but very much earlier.

I believe that there is a serious problem of pollution of the North Sea from our rivers. More than 50 per cent. of North Sea pollution arises from coastal-based installations and from activities in our rivers. That is a fact, and the House will have to do something about that form of pollution. That is not the subject matter of our debate today, but it is as well not to forget, when we consider the 5 per cent. of pollution created by major disasters, that we have that other pollution of the sea by oil—well over 50 per cent.—coming from shore-based installations and from our rivers.

I shall not dwell on the question of dispersants. There have been adequate illustrations from hon. Members with constituencies directly affected showing what they consider ought to be done with regard to dispersants and the like. This is a difficult question. It figured in part of the evidence which we took in an all-day hearing in Paris on 4th July. Great worry was expressed by the companies which gave evidence. For example, I understand that the dispersant which was used to get rid of the"Torrey Canyon"oil did more harm than good, especially to flora and fauna and sea life along that coast. Since then there has been a lot of research, but it is difficult to produce a quick put it right"answer. I believe that the various bodies concerned, however, are actively taking themselves along the line for settling the dispersant question.

What worries me is the maritime situation, the substandard ship and the possibility of collisions. Those are the worries which must activate our minds. One reason why I say that is that when we took evidence in Paris we heard some remarkable statements. For example, Mr. Walder, representing the international oil companies' marine forum, said: The view of our industry, which is supported by many independent studies, is that by far the greatest single cause of tanker accidents is human fallibility. Some 85 per cent. of all navigation accidents can be directly attributed to human failure. Those are remarkable figures when taken in the context of the number of ships passing through the Channel between Britain and France today. Mr. Walder's comment was that we should do well if we tackled the question of the substandard ship.

At the same hearing we heard comments about flags of convenience and the difficulties that we have with them. Here, I quote Mr. Humphrey of IMCO: I say ships entering their ports ', and I cannot emphasise too strongly that this applies without reference to flags. There are no substandard flags; there are only substandard ships, substandard crews and substandard owners. Here the question of the nature of criteria for registry is irrelevant. What matters is whether the authorities of the State have the power and will to control "— that is, to control ships when they come into their ports.

That is an important criterion to be taken on board. Over many years IMCO has put it forward to all the flag States, stressing the problem of the substandard ship. The question for us is what we do about it and about agreements which are proposed or entered into. In this respect, we find that IMCO complains bitterly about the small number of nations ratifying the conventions which are produced. For example, to take an important convention which was referred to by my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State, the MARPOL convention of 1973, with the 1978 protocol attached to it, only three nations have adopted it. Who were they?—Jordan, Kenya and Tunisia, and according to Mr. Sasamura, the spokesman of IMCO, that amounts to zero per cent. of the world's maritime nations.

What have we done? I look forward to hearing on Thursday, when we discuss the Merchant Shipping Bill, what we are doing to take ourselves a little further along those lines. It is no good international bodies putting their energies and expertise into these matters, at the behest of all the nations involved, if no one takes any notice.

Again, the evidence which we took revealed a strong feeling about what happens with regard to substandard ships and the like. The substandard ship presents a problem. How does one do anything about it? The Americans have found a way. They have an extremely strong coastguard system, and there is nothing more influential towards putting a substandard ship right than the certainty of being hauled to order and, if necessary, being detained in port.

There is a difficulty for us here. We are acting not as one large maritime nation but as a conglomeration of nations with coastlines on the North Sea and the Mediterranean. If we hope to control the substandard ship, there must be some co-ordination among nations. The hold- ing of a conference on the law of the sea on the world stage looks marvellous, but none of the large international concerns has accountability to anybody, and we must find some means of control.

I was extremely interested to read the documents presented from the EEC. The EEC has put forward a proposal to help control in the ports of its member States, the port States. That is fine. But the larger the geographical area which can be controlled, the better the outcome will be. I urge that something be done within the Council of Europe, now with its 20-nation membership and its enlarged Committee of Ministers. That body of 20 Ministers could be the body to which we turn. When discussing these matters, that committee could determine the standards which ships should meet if they came into the ports of their member States. Those nations would control the whole of the Mediterranean seaboard of Europe, the whole of Portugal and Spain, the two new members, together with the Scandinavian countries as well as the EEC ports. We should have something to get our teeth into there.

If a standard high enough, fairly applied right across the board in all ports, were applied to all ships irrespective of flag by the port States concerned, that would have a bigger effect in putting the substandard ship out of existence than would any other single factor.

I suggest, therefore, that the documents from the EEC could be taken as a springboard towards creating a wider body. Mr. Humphrey of IMCO, for example, said: It seems very reasonable that the countries which are members of the Council of Europe should do the same as the EEC and establish a coherent geographical region applying the same standards to ships entering their ports, and advise each other of what they are doing. This is necessary because ships' captains and owners must know what the standards are; they must know that they will reasonably be faced with the same standards as they go into the various ports.

Mr. Clinton Davis

I am obliged to my hon. Friend for giving way. I do not dissent from the propositions which he is advancing, but is he not aware that the memorandum of understanding of the North Sea States under the aegis of the EEC, as encouraged now to be enlarged, is aiming at precisely that objective?

Mr. Bagier

I am obliged to my hon. Friend for reminding me of that fact and of the Hague memorandum. What I am considering is how to enforce it, because nine times out of 10—in fact, all the time —the willingness of the member countries to get something done goes without question, but the problem is to find the means. I am suggesting that the Hague memorandum, excellent as it is, could be extended and could be helped if we had the Committee of Ministers as such covering a much larger geographical body than the EEC, putting its efforts into bringing about what we want. I believe that that would have an excellent effect, and certainly that is the wish of the members of the Council of Europe as expressed in our recent debate. There was a unanimous wish to do that.

I recognise that there are many hon. Members on the Opposition Benches with constituency interests who wish to speak, so I shall conclude with some observations about the new contingencies planning and operations unit to which reference has been made, through which Rear-Admiral Stacey will operate. I make no complaint about the particular Ministry under which it will operate. I am delighted that there is to be such a unit because, as I understand it, it will talk not only about oil pollution and tanker accidents but about seepage, about control of the North Sea oil rigs and even, perhaps about some of the factors which worry our Scottish colleagues, namely other pollution which comes from the rigs.

I ask the Minister to remember that that was the wish of the Council of Europe. It accepted the resolution in which it was suggested that consideration be given to an international agency, comprising the European countries, acting in an overseeing capacity. If it were thought by the other countries that Britain was taking a step in the right direction by having an operations unit of the sort to which I have referred, they would accept that it made sense to coordinate their efforts to achieve the end product that we all desire.

The debate has been useful, as it has provided a sounding board for future action. If we do not act and if we continue to pollute our seas, our children our grandchildren and their children will never forgive us.

6.21 p.m.

Sir Frederic Bennett (Torquay)

The hon. Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Bagier) said nothing with which I disagree. The hon. Gentleman and I were in Paris together, and the quotation that he put before the House about the 85 per cent. margin of human error was in response to one of my questions. I was equally astonished that the percentage was so high.

When I first heard that the debate was to take place I was not altogether happy. Although I welcomed it intrinsically, I did not and do not want it to be used as an excuse by the Leader of the House for refusing the House a full debate on these issues. I know that today's debate will not be used as such an excuse by the Under-Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Hackney, Central (Mr. Davis). I do not want the Leader of the House to say, when the Government's response has been published to the detailed criticisms of the all-party Select Committee-I have had some experience of this sort of response—that because we have had a short debate, we should not press the Government, it being only recently that the House debated the same subject. For that reason I felt rather unhappy when today's debate was announced. I exempt completely from my suspicions the Under-Secretary of State for Trade.

I referred to my suspicions in an intervention when the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Secretary of State for Wales was speaking. At that time I did not know that the Under-Secretary of State for Trade had courteously written to me explaining that the Government's response would be available before Christmas. I hope that when we return after the Christmas Recess there will be no argument by anyone on either side of the House that we have had our debate and that there is no need to press on to examine the matter further.

I make those remarks with considerable seriousness. I believe that they reflect the opinion of the majority of Members on both sides of the House. Three-hour debates must not be used as an excuse for not holding a debate on the report of a Select Committee, especially when the report reflects all-party criticism of the Government of the day.

I wish to concentrate on the practicalities. My first comment flows from the fact elicited by the hon. Member for Sunderland, South and myself in Paris, namely, that 85 per cent. of all the tragedies arise from human error. What we really mean is that there is no logical reason other than the fact that captains, navigators, crews or the state of ships are responsible. In other words, factors apart from the fallibility of human control are limited to about 15 per cent.

There must be an answer to the percentages. I was interested when the hon. Member for Cornwall, North (Mr. Pardoe) said that we must do more to bring about compulsory pilotage. As the Minister knows, that is a suggestion that I have plugged over and over again. I have been told that compulsory pilotage is not a panacea. I have never said that it is. Human error leading to 85 per cent. of accidents can apply to pilots as well as to others. However, such pilotage would obviously reduce substantially the chance of a major accident occurring.

I have spoken to a number of captains whose ships cover long distances. The problem that they face is similar to that faced by a driver who approaches London after a long drive from the country. The driver bound for London is tired at the very moment when he reaches the most hazardous and dangerous zone. I do not offer compulsory pilotage as a panacea, but, as with the driver who approaches London, it is when the maximum hazard appears and when the period of boredom and exhaustion is at its worst that extra facilities should be provided.

Mr. Molloy

The hon. Gentleman has given an excellent example of the tired driver who approaches London. However, when the driver reaches London he finds signs, aids and police to help him. Many of the tankers receive maritime aids such as coastguards, radar and direct messages. Tanker masters commit monstrous crimes when they blatantly ignore such facilities.

Sir F. Bennett

I do not disagree with the hon. Gentleman. I was saying that when the master of a tanker enters our waters he has reached the most difficult stage of the voyage. The hon. Gentleman's argument may be added to mine in favour of compulsory pilotage.

I forecast that if there is another major tragedy in which human error is shown to have caused the collision of a couple of large tankers the demand in Britain for compulsory pilotage will be overwhelming. Why not let us anticipate that and press on with a practical measure?

The second practical proposition that I put before the House was mentioned by the hon. Member for Cornwall, North, namely, increased surveillance so that if captains or pilots go off course they receive more warning. We must take into account that these errors occur although they should not. The same error may be repeated. We should be concentrating on remedies rather than arguing whether recommendations made in 1965 or 1967 have been implemented. We should not wait for yet another horrible tragedy before taking some decisive action.

I ask that the Minister publicises as widely as possible the facts about how accidents occur. I have the honour of representing Torbay. At every waking and sleeping hour my constituents and those of my neighbouring colleagues see many tankers conducting lightening operations only a few miles offshore. Psychologically that is extremely disturbing. The presence of what could cause a major disaster is within easily visible distance.

When the Minister replies to the debate I hope that he will take the opportunity to emphasise that if the lightening operations have to take place it is better that they are conducted in secure waters, bearing in mind the 85 per cent. margin being the major cause of disasters. As has already been said, one of the major causes is a ship in transit that goes off course and runs on to rocks when it should not have run off course in the first place.

Another psychological factor is that members of the public want to see for themselves that something is being done. They do not read just detailed reports. In Brixham there happens to be one of the very first examples of an oil spillage ship permanently on station. It may be seen by members of the public. The vessel is provided by three of the oil companies jointly. It is more or less a gesture, but it is a good one.

The suggestion that I have put to the owners—they have not yet taken it up—is that they should have a large flag portraying the fact that it is an oil spillage vessel. When we have such resources along our coasts, I suggest that the Department makes it clear that they are available. Those who are interested will not read booklets and pamphlets about which port has one facility and which port has another. They will want to see for themselves. They will want to know if a major disaster takes place the Government and others have at least tried to provide effective measures.

I do not propose to waste my time criticising what one Minister or another may or may not have done. I do not wish to decide which of several Departments should take responsibility. I believe that every hon. Member knows what should be done. There is no logical reason for the present Government or a future Government not taking that action. If the necessary action is not taken, there will be a major upset when a disaster takes place that is infinitely worse than any that we have witnessed so far.

6.30 p.m.

Mr. William Molloy (Ealing, North)

I agree very much with what my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Bagier) said, with his particular knowledge of the Council of Europe. Much of what he said confirmed my experience as a Member of the European Parliament. I agree very much with the succinct, forceful and correct points made by the hon. Member for Torbay (Sir F. Bennett).

This matter is nothing new. It seems a terrible tragedy that whenever sources of energy are involved, people die, areas become polluted and nobody takes much notice until something really ghastly happens. In the area where I was born, nobody was concerned about the filth and muck that poured out of the mines and ruined our local environment. Nobody was even concerned about the appalling conditions under which men worked in the bowels of the earth until there was a terrible accident. Indeed, it is probably true to say, of all of us, that we seldom arrive at the frontiers of understanding until our own soul is smitten with grief.

The House may be surprised to know that the issue of oil pollution was very serious—even more serious than it is today—in the 1930s. The reason for that was that around Great Britain there were only a few ports at which oil tankers could offload their crude oil, and it had to be stored, sometimes—certainly in Swansea, where I was born—a couple of hundred yards from where people lived. Then, there was no law—and if there had been, we know that oil companies take no notice of laws.

The only criticism I make of the hon. Member for St. Ives (Mr. Nott), who opened the debate for the Opposition, is that though he quite rightly criticised and savaged, from time to time, Her Majesty's Government, he was extraordinarily shy about discussing the oil companies. They are the real culprits. They always have been. I shall tell the House what they used to do.

Not far from where I was born there is a little village called Oystermouth, which was once beautiful and picturesque. The oyster catchers used to go out and collect oysters. Then, suddenly, with the increased use of oil, great oil tankers would put into Swansea. When they left they would clean their great tanks in Swansea Bay. That not only caused us kids to get covered in rotten, filthy oil when we went bathing; it completely destroyed an industry that had been operating for hundreds of years and, indeed, an industry that is mentioned by Shakespeare in his plays about that area. The name"Oystermouth"today is a bit of a farce.

There is one other aspect that I should like to mention. I agreed with everything that was said by the hon. Member for Cornwall, North (Mr. Pardoe)—I am glad that he has returned to the Chamber—but he left out one important item. Of course, one can have certain pilots who will pilot these ships through, and better navigational aids; that is all right and proper. But human error and human malevolence can apply even to professional people engaged for a specific task. The sort of thing that happened when some of the oil tankers—usually owned by Greeks, hard up multi-millionaires—came hurtling up the British Channel to the Welsh coast immediately after the war was that they would get caught in a bit of a storm and fall to bits. But before they had fallen to bits, and before the terrible problem of pollution arose, there was another item of which we ought to take cognisance.

In the great 1947 disaster—I am sorry that the hon. Member for Cornwall, North finds this funny—lifeboatmen went out and brought back 90 Greek sailors. In their final endeavour to bring back the last 10 sailors, they found that the storms were too strong. A few hours before, the lifeboatmen had been with their families. My own cousin, the deputy coxswain, was drowned. He had left a game of billiards. These men were suddenly called out to the lifeboat. Ships cracked up and the lifeboat rescued the men.

In my judgment, one has got to put that in the book of reckoning in deciding what one must do about instances such as these. We talk about the problem of, for example, the"Christos Bitas"or the"Torrey Canyon ", but they were massive and instant occurrences. Much of this pollution has been going on round our coastline for donkey's years and the House has done very little about it. It is only because of the sudden size of the problem that we are now having this debate.

The probability is that more filthy oil was deliberately washed out of the tankers around the Welsh coast than anything that the"Christos Bitas"has poured out, as it happens, in one evening or one afternoon. I understand, reading from certain specialised sections of the media, that this practice is still going on, because, we are told, there is no way of controlling it. There is no way of knowing whether these great tankers still cleanse themselves within a couple of miles of our coast—rid themselves of the filth which they know will take some time to come ashore, so that no one can be identified.

I know well the area in which the"Christos Bitas"affair took place. The reasons for this so-called accident involve a very serious maritime point. I shall not bore the House with the details, but I believe that it is fair to say that what the captain of the"Christos Bitas"did was almost the equivalent of going up the M1 or M4 motorway on the wrong side of the road. All the lightships and aids were there to tell him where he was going, and he ought to have kept to one side of the lightship. He did not. Then, when he was told where he was going, he took no notice.

People talk about faceless organisations. There is nothing so faceless as these multinational oil companies. Quite frankly, they seem to get away with murder. I hope that the investigation which is to take place will not merely bring this incident into proper focus by saying that it should not happen again, but will say that on the question of compensation —and there ought to be compensation, for all the damage caused—the people who ought to be included in that compensation are all those volunteers who did their best to clean the beaches—which cost some of them quite a lot—and those who spent a great deal of time, and lost working time, trying to save our wild life.

We must consider these comparatively new, massive tankers. When I was a child we used to be able to recognise a tanker very easily because its funnel was always at the back. Nowadays, when we see one coming round the Mumbles Head, we wonder whether it is, as Rudyard Kipling said, a massive, floating city full of dredge. If something happens to it, we know that our coast will be damaged.

Is there a need for tankers of such a size? At one time it was submitted that it was a very clever thing, because if the ship got into trouble and ran on to the rocks a number of the great containers could be floated off on their own to prevent the sort of pollution that has occurred. 'But that, apparently, is not the case at all. We were conned into believing that that was why they had to be that size. The oil companies did not want to give the real reason, which was for some form of economy—and we pay the bill in what seems to me sometimes deliberate despoliation of our environment.

I criticised many aspects of the"Christos Bitas" incident when it happened, because I have a deep interest in it, both from a human life point of view and because of the despoliation of a very beautiful part of Wales. I think that the speedy co-operation of the Government Department concerned is necessary. Incidentally, the Irish Government were admirable and could not have acted more quickly. But when we talk about full co-operation it has to be not merely cooperation in doing something after such a tragedy has happened but co-operation in its prevention.

This, I believe, was the gravamen of the speech made by the hon. Member for St. Ives. I endorse what he said. I only wish that he had found it equally necessary, as indeed the hon. Member for Honiton (Mr. Emery) did, to make it quite clear that, when it all boils down, the major responsibility for this lies with the multinational oil companies.

If we can find a way of examining the question whether there was proper cooperation, this has to be done quickly. If we cannot get co-operation from other nations, the risk is too great. It means that this country ought to institute its own reasonable actions so that something can be done without having to have to form a committee to decide what to do. I t has been said that if Moses had had to form a committee to consult on how to cross the Red Sea, the Israelites would never have made it. We are in a somewhat similar position today. It is getting worse and worse. It is not a bit of use saying that first there was the"Torrey Canyon ", then the"Amoco Cadiz"and now the"Christos Bitas ". The probability is that there will be more.

There is one thing that I should like to see. It is in the arguments submitted by the Council of Europe and by the European Parliament. We should take one short, sharp principle and base our legislation and our preventive and curative action on it. That is that the polluter pays. There should be no arguments about acts of God, human error, not seeing the rocks, radar not being effective, or taking no notice of the coastguards. When that is all over, it will still stand that the polluter pays. The deterrent must be of such realistic and massive proportions that the oil companies will at last start taking cognisance of not only the laws of our land but the anguish felt by millions of ordinary people throughout our country.

Such a policy should and would receive the approval of the wise and, indeed, the applause of everyone in Britain. We are now approaching a situation in which we shall be so concerned about the dangers that energy brings that it might be as well if we did not have this form of energy and we returned to the old-fashioned days when all these threats did not exist. But it is possible, with resolute action and deterrents, for us to have the best of both worlds. We should make an international crime of anything like the"Christos Bitas"incident in the future. It ought to have the condemnation and invoke the severest penalties not only of our country but of every other country that values its environment and its coast.

6.41 p.m.

Mr. Dafydd Wigley (Caernarvon)

The remarkable unanimity in this debate on what needs to be done, and done urgently, should be the writing on the wall for the Department of Trade. At last people on all sides have woken up, without any question, to the dangers inherent in this question. All that we want to see now is that action takes place before there is another reason for another debate in this Chamber, triggered by an even greater tragedy.

I have a constituency interest in this matter. The tip of my constituency in North Wales is 15 miles away from the location of the"Christos Bitas"incident. The prevailing winds would most certainly have brought all the oil to the beautiful coast there, to places such as Abersoch, Cricieth and Nefyn, had the wind and weather not been remarkably lenient and had those responsible not acted very quickly in this instance and avoided a major tragedy.

Points have been made from both sides of the House about what needs to be done. The emphasis has been on prevention and avoidance, rather than on anything else. I take up a point made by a fellow Welshman, the hon. Member for Ealing, North (Mr. Molloy). He mentioned that much of the pollution comes from the bits and pieces which are very often deliberately thrown into our seas. I am told that of the 6 million tons of oil that is disposed of in the sea every year. 1 million tons comes from the deliberate washing out of tanks—one-sixth.

That is a major cause of pollution. It caused a serious problem in my own county of Gwynedd two years ago. Oil was washed ashore along all the beaches on a stretch of the coast on every day for a month and this went on intermittently from April through to the following January. It was not possible to trace the origins of that oil because some of it had decomposed since being dumped at sea. It cost the county council £30.000 to clear up the mess caused by that oil. That is a minor example of the type of thing that occurs time after time. It is the other side of the coin from the three major incidents that we have been debating and have in mind at present.

The avoidance of pollution, as seems to be agreed by everyone present, should be initiated, first, by a more stringent definition, if necessary, of the channels along which tankers should move. There should be a restriction to keep tankers away from coasts, except when they are berthing. There should be greater use of pilots and there should, if necessary, be levies on the oil companies to pay for this.

Representations have been made by many bodies in this regard. In passing, I refer to the ACC, which has been dealing with my county council on this issue. Many other bodies have been pressing in the same direction. There seems to be agreement on the action needed.

There certainly needs to be a tightening of the routines for washing out, which causes so much of the difficulty. There needs to be tighter control on the ships themselves, both on the quality of the ships and on the information that is available about them and their cargoes. Paragraph 63 of the report published this morning refers to that matter. It says that information should be available on all the ships and on all cargoes carried by ships, and that it should be readily available for immediate action to be taken. There appears to be a need also for a greater standard of navigational aids.

However, having done our best to prevent these disasters occurring, we need also to upgrade the facilities available for fighting pollution at sea. A suggestion has been put forward by my own county about having tugs strategically located around the coastline, with the proper equipment available on 24-hour call, and thus avoid having to hunt around as soon as a tragedy occurs to find out where this or that item is located.

We have seen the report published this morning of the intention to have certain locations where equipment and facilities will be available. We should like to know where these locations will be and whether they will be frequent enough to be able to respond very quickly, because time is of the essence in this problem.

As we have heard, we need greater research facilities to find better ways of disposing of oil at sea and to study the long-term effects on the environment and on marine life of some of the substances used to clear up the oil. We need sites for depositing oil that has been spilled. We need ports to which we can take any stricken tankers which are recovered.

The third aspect of the matter is the cost. I have already referred to the question of making sure that the major part of the bill goes to those who, as the hon. Member for Ealing, North said, cause the pollution—"Let the polluter pay ". But there are other aspects. From the point of view of county councils, why should authorities with long coastlines have to deal with a major cost such as this—I have referred to a minor incident costing £30,000—when the pollution is totally outside their control? Very often the cost lands on authorities which have fewer resources to deal with the problem.

Following the 1969 international convention there is an agreement and it can be applied reasonably easily for dealing with the major disasters. They can be sorted out, as the Minister mentioned. But what about the pollution that continues from day to day and from month to month? How can we ensure that adequate resources are available to local authorities to deal with that problem and make sure that when money is available it comes through as quickly as possible?

The danger that we are facing is that unless there is early international co-operation on a multilateral basis, countries will go off on their own course of action. We can understand why people are likely to take action on their own. We ourselves shall be tempted into that course. It would be much more desirable to get a multilateral agreement, if possible, at an early date, because that could overcome so many of the problems that we would set for ourselves if we all took separate action.

In the last quarter of the twentieth century it is totally unacceptable that we should still be polluting our environment in the way that we are doing. I say that not only because of the beauty of our coastline but because the sea is the future source of much of the food and other resources that we shall need. We shall be acting very irresponsibly unless we regard this as a major problem and take those necessary steps which everyone in the House can recognise but which so far have not been acted upon by those in power.

6.48 p.m.

Mr. Kenneth Warren (Hastings)

I had the privilege of sitting as a member of the Select Committee which examined the"Eleni V"accident. I am sure the Minister will not be surprised to hear me say that I think it was the unanimous opinion of the Committee that the Government were running behind the problem of tanker accidents. One thing that I say in mitigation of the present Government is that I think I would be saying the same thing about the Government if my own party was in power. I do not see any realism attached to the problems surrounding this country and the dangers facing Britain. In running behind the problem today, the present Government are merely exhibiting the propensity of their predecessors over the past 30 years.

That said, however, I hope that the Government will be willing to encourage the inherent and necessary questioning in Government laboratories of the problems which arise around our country and how to challenge and solve them. This is something on which a Government can and must give leadership. In our inquiry, it was not apparent that that leadership existed.

I wish every piece of good luck to the gallant admiral who is taking up his supremo post. He will need every bit of luck that he can get hold of, because he will first have to clear away a whole slick in Whitehall. He is entering a difficult situation, with a backlog of problems which ought to have been disposed of long ago.

I do not think that tonight we want to go over the past. Instead, we want to look to the future. I should like to put forward one or two ideas of my own which arise from the hearings that we had in relation to the"Eleni V"accident and from other areas where I had the opportunity of working in engineering. I do so to try to suggest how we can face the realities of the enormous problems of tanker control and how we can solve the problem of accidents.

My first point relates to design. The Minister will not be surprised if I harp on the merits of the aircraft industry. The International Civil Aviation Organisation has its parallel in the other United Nations' authority—the Inter-Governmental Maritime Consultative Organisation. Both organisations have developed over the last 30 years or so. I should like to see the technology and knowledge of the International Civil Aviation Organisation, with which the Minister is familiar, being used to ensure that the mandatory design requirements for future tankers and the operating standards of present tankers meet the safety requirements which is expected by the people of this country. I do not see why we should not act unilaterally if we want to, because someone has to take the initiative. The French have taken"gunboat"diplomacy, perhaps we can take"drawing board"diplomacy. We ought to do something rather than just sit around and wait for the next accident.

I have been harping on my second point for many years, both from Hastings as a coastal constituency and from my air transport industry experience. It is that we ought to have a positive sea traffic control system for all vessels passing through busy seaways. In the English Channel, 2,000 vessels pass through the Straits of Dover every 24 hours. It is the world's busiest seaway. If one tried to operate air traffic on the same scale, one would not put the command in the hands of the pilot of the aircraft. Rather, one would put the command in the hands of the air traffic controllers. As captain of the aircraft, a pilot is ultimately responsible for the safety of his passengers. That is quite right. But his directions are dictated by the requirement to separate him from every other aircraft in his vicinity. He is not allowed to make any manoeuvre over the English Channel which would be anything other than in the best interests of his own safety and that of his passengers and other aircraft operating anywhere in the vicinity. I do not see why ship captains should in any way be exempt from such a requirement.

That means that equipment must be on board which, if necessary, can give the captains complete automatic control of their operations. In other words, they would select a certain course and would be directed, both in distance and in time. in carrying out their manoeuvres. There is nothing unusual about this. The sea captains of the past laid down the rules of navigation for the air, but I think that the time has come to reverse the role so that sea captains can learn from the captains in the air.

As the Minister will remember, I put down a number of Questions about the cleaning out of oil tankers in harbour. I was told how difficult it was to deal with the problem. Indeed—this is no reflection on the Minister—that seems to be the general reaction from Whitehall. The attitude seems to be"It is all rather too difficult to do. Far better to let them clean out at sea"I believe that in the case of the"Christos Bitas"radar plots showed other oil tankers moving into the"Christos Bitas"area to clean out their tanks so that they could not be accused of spilling the oil.

Mr. Clinton Davis

The hon. Gentleman will know of an initiative that we took at IMCO to encourage the crude oil washing procedure, and that"load on top"was itself something which the British Government encouraged. Those are two definitive courses that we have pursued.

Mr. Warren

After the many parliamentary Questions that I have put down I am delighted to hear the Minister tell me that he has taken action and I give him full credit for the initiative that he has taken.

But let us be quite clear about it the next big accident will happen. We might as well face the probability as being a piece of mathematical certainty rather than a question. From the many letters that I have received—and I am sure that other hon. Members have received similar correspondence—about what to do in the event of an accident, it is clear that a lot of bright ideas have for too many years been wasted on Whitehall. I have sheaves of letters from people who have written saying"Look at what Mr. Mulley, or someone else from a Government in times past, said about suggestions which were put forward when they held positions of responsibility in various Ministries ". I believe that the Government must have a system which examines ideas as they come in. As the Minister said, we have at the moment no solutions to the problem of oil separation from the sea. But someone will emerge with the right idea. There is a Frank Whittle somewhere in the world —I hope that he is British—who will find the way to solve this problem.

Two things spring immediately to mind from the correspondence that I have received. One is that we ought to have sea rescue tankers which can immediately and quickly get to the scene and pump out oil. The other is that there should he a mandatory requirement that valves are on top of the decks of tankers so that when they list one can pump straight out rather than having to worry about the list. Those are two bright ideas which have been discarded by Government, not necessarily the Government of the day.

I believe that insurance levels are too low. One has only to look at the way in which the French are suing the carriers in the"Amoco Cadiz"incident in the United States courts. Something must be done about this at an international level, but I believe that the French are really taking it a little too far.

With regard to the"Eleni V ", I understand that the councils in East Anglia have still not been paid. I hope that the Minister will be able to look into this problem.

The Minister knows all the details of the"Eleni V"accident. One of my correspondents hopes that I and other Members of Parliament will not be"mugged ", as he has been in the past, by officials of the Ministry of Defence, the Department of Trade or the Department of Industry. It is clear that speed is of the essence in dealing with these accidents. I am sure the Minister will not be surprised to know that in the case of the"Eleni V"accident, which happened on 6th May 1978, with the wreck being blown up on 30th May 1978, the Waveney district council did not hear from the Government chemist until 2nd August about the type of oil in the tanker, which had already been blown up and had polluted the council's beaches. Surely it is possible to do something more rapidly than that.

Warren Spring laboratory was responsible for the anaysis of that oil, but the Suffolk county oil pollution officer has never heard from it. I am sure that the Minister will wish to look at this problem of the lack of communication so that we do not continue to have simple dispersant conditions held up for failure of a simple, straightforward telephone call, even if it is reverse charge.

I know that separation techniques present the most difficult problem of the lot. There are hundreds of ideas floating around. I know that the Minister will be aware of the Question which I put to his colleague in the Department of Industry last week, in which I asked why the Marine Technology Requirements Board has no funding requirements over the next two years to try to solve this problem, particularly as it relates to heavy fuel oil which was the substance in the"Eleni V"accident.

We have tremendous problems around our coastline. I still believe that we are just waiting for the next accident to happen. I just hope that it is not as terrible as I think it can be.

6.59 p.m.

Mr. Robert Adley (Christchurch and Lymington)

My hon. Friend the Member for Hastings (Mr. Warren), with his engineering and acute political back- ground, made a number of points which the Minister would be wise to follow. It was particularly interesting when he suggested that we should follow the analogy of the aviation industry and pinpoint the responsibility for control of the movement of tankers away from the skippers to some form of centralised control, certainly around our coasts.

We start with the obvious assumption that oil has brought great benefits to our community. But it brings great hazards, too, as we have heard today. The Secretary of State pointed out that the tragic death of two divers on Saturday was the latest human tragedy as a by-product of the oil industry. But if the impetus for the development of the economic benefits of oil has come from the companies, they have unfortunately left Governments to develop the facilities to provide the cures and deal with the environmental hazards which are the inevitable side effects of oil exploration and exploitation—

It being Seven o'clock. and there being Private Business set down by The CHAIR-MAN OF WAYS AND MEANS, under Standing Order No. 7 (Time for taking Private Business) further Proceeding-stood postponed.