HC Deb 01 December 1980 vol 995 cc14-5
16. Mr. Nicholas Baker

asked the Secretary of State for Trade if he is proposing to introduce legislation to amend the Merchant Shipping Act 1894.

Mr. Nott

Our only immediate plans for amending the Merchant Shipping Acts are to make some essentially technical changes to the provisions determining shipowners' liability.

Mr. Baker

Does my right hon. Friend accept that owners of small boats have been taken by surprise by French action on registration? In the discussions that he is having will he bear in mind the difficulties of registration for small boat owners, the need for any resulting arrangement to be reciprocal between Britain and France, and the possibility that the registration rules in the 1894 Act should be changed?

Mr. Nott

If we had reached question No. 20, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch and Lymington (Mr. Adley), I should have told the House that we have had a sensible—

Mr. Deputy Speaker

Order. I would much rather the Secretary of State did not do that.

Mr. Nott

The answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Dorset, North (Mr. Baker) is that we have reached a sensible compromise with the French. For the period up to the beginning of 1984, the French will accept Customs documents of a sort now in circulation for pleasure craft entering their ports. I think that this is a satisfactory outcome, in a transitional period, to the problems that have been bothering my hon. Friend.