HC Deb 31 January 1986 vol 90 cc1227-34

Order for Second Reading read:

12.7 pm

Mr. Michael Mates (Hampshire, East)

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

The Bill will make it an offence to interfere with the remains of crashed, sunken and stranded military aircraft and vessels without authority. The main purpose of the Bill is to protect the sanctity of wrecks that contain human remains. There are other reasons why it may not be desirable for the general public to interfere with the wreckage of military aircraft, such as safety and security. The Bill will help to prevent that.

During the last war, many military aircraft of various nationalities crashed in the United Kingdom, on land and at sea. Some landed in remote parts of the country and have become totally buried. Whilst it is possible to ascertain from Government records what aircraft went missing, in many cases it is not known where they came down.

In recent years there has been an upsurge in what has become known as aircraft archaeology. Several individuals, groups and organisations have been searching for and excavating crashed military aircraft. That has caused distress to relatives and friends of the deceased aircrew. As many of the aircraft contain munitions, their activities can be a danger to themselves and to others.

Similarly, many military vessels that sank during the world wars still contain the bodies of their crews. The activities of amateur and professional divers who like to explore the wrecks and remove treasures from them are a continuing source of distress, especially to relatives and ex-shipmates. Many of those engaged in such activities seek the consent of the Ministry of Defence and are prepared to desist when permission is refused.

Many non-military aircraft and vessels crashed or sank with their crews and passengers on board. Many would feel that similar protection should be given to those graves, although it must be recognised that, in general, there is little evidence of public concern — perhaps because special honours are always accorded to those who gave their lives defending their country. But any effort to protect all vessels and aircraft, civil as well as military, would create immense practical difficulties.

By limiting the Bill to military wrecks, including merchant vessels requisitioned or chartered for the direct support of the armed forces, enforcement becomes more manageable and protection is given to the wrecks in respect of which there is the greatest public concern. Therefore, the Bill would cover vessels such as the Atlantic Conveyor, but not the Titanic or the Lusitania.

The protection of the Bill is not limited to vessels and aircraft that contain human remains, nor to those that were lost in time of war. There are three main reasons for that. First, if the Bill made it an offence to interfere with only those wrecks that contained human remains, the prosecution would have to prove that the wreckage contained human remains. Digging up the evidence would defeat the purpose of the Bill. Secondly, although it might be relatively easy for a person to recognise the remains of a military aircraft or vessel, he may have no means of knowing whether they contain human remains. Therefore, the Bill as drafted enables a potential offender to know more clearly whether he would be committing an offence. Thirdly, a potential offender might have no means of knowing the date of a crash or sinking, and if the offence related only to wartime wrecks, he may not know clearly whether he was committing an offence.

The Bill extends to the remains of aircraft and vessels in the service of the armed forces of other countries which lie within the United Kingdom and its waters. There are many of those—American, Canadian, French, German and others—and it is right that they should be given the same protection as our vessels. I know that the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Wallace) is worried about the German vessels that were scuttled in Scapa Flow. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will have something to say about that, and I am happy to assure the hon. Gentleman that we shall try to make certain that the activities of divers round that fleet will not be affected by the Bill. However, in international waters, only the wrecks of British military aircraft and vessels are protected by the Bill. It will allow the Secretary of State to give a licence to any person to carry out any specified act which would otherwise be an offence under the Bill. He will also be able to issue a general licence, which should meet the point made by the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland. Such a licence would normally be issued in respect of a wreck that did not contain human remains and did not need protection for other reasons.

The Bill will protect the wrecks of British and foreign military vessels and aircraft in the United Kingdom and its territorial waters from interference by people of any nationality. The majority of British naval wrecks are in international waters. Although it will be impossible to assert jurisdiction over the activities of foreigners outside United Kingdom territorial waters, unless the offence is committed on a ship registered in the United Kingdom, the Bill will make it an offence for British subjects to interfere with such wrecks. Wrecks in overseas territories will not be covered by the Bill, but there is a power to extend its provisions to colonies by Order in Council. That would include the Falkland Islands.

The provisions relating to offences in international waters have been carefully drafted to avoid suspicion in other countries that the United Kingdom is claiming excessive jurisdiction. The size of a controlled site is strictly circumscribed, no powers of entry are prescribed, and jurisdiction in respect of offences is limited to those persons who have some connections with the United Kingdom or who commit offences on British-controlled ships. Furthermore, the Bill provides that no proceedings for an offence committed in international waters shall be instituted without the consent of the Director of Public Prosecutions. That will provide some assurance that considerations of international law and comity will be taken into account before a prosecution is brought. It has been thought necessary to provide powers to board ships for the purpose of investigating possible offences, and that power extends to foreign vessels in United Kingdom waters. Again, that provision has been carefully drafted to be consistent with our international obligations.

The Bill is small and relatively minor, and I shall detain the House no longer. We shall consider it in Committee, when I hope that any points that hon. Members may wish to raise can be covered. I hope especially that we have covered the point that will be raised by the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland.

12.13 pm
Mr. James Wallace (Orkney and Shetland)

I agree generally with the motives that prompted the hon. Member for Hampshire, East (Mr. Mates) to introduce the Bill, especially having regard to the sensitivity surrounding wrecks that contain human remains. That was brought home to us in recent years by the loss of life during the Falklands campaign. As the hon. Gentleman said, my special worry relates to the vessels of the German fleet that was scuttled in Scapa flow in June 1919. There are still substantial wrecks remaining which have proved popular to ever-increasing numbers of divers. The Orkney tourist bureau estimates that between £250,000 and £500,000 was generated for the local economy last year by the divers who wished to examine those wrecks.

I hope that the Minister will ensure that the diving can continue. I hope that he can tell me—if not, perhaps he will write to me—about the progress of the negotiations between the Orkney Islands council and the Ministry of Defence to buy three of the wrecks, the Dresden, the Bremer and the Koln. The negotiations have become bogged down in the legal department of the Ministry of Defence. If the process could be speeded up a little, it would be very welcome.

12.15 pm
Dr. Norman A. Godman (Greenock and Port Glasgow)

I welcome the Bill. Its objectives are honourable, and it should be supported by everyone in the House. It is revolting that people should wish to dive on those wrecks to, among other things, aquire mementos. My worry about the Bill—this was not mentioned by the hon. Member for Hampshire, East (Mr. Mates)—is that clause 1(2) defines a protected place as one which contains the remains of such an aircraft or vessel at or near the site of the crash, sinking or stranding or is on or in the sea bed. I hope that, in Committee, we can insert in the Bill a guarantee that there will be no interference with the lawful activities of commercial fishermen who fish above or close to wrecks.

Over time, wrecks become the habitat of a wide range of species of fish—shellfish and demersal species—so such areas become a productive ground for fishermen. Some British fishermen specialise in wreck fishing. That usually involves line fishing, or bringing nets — very skilfully—close to a wreck on the sea bed. I would like an assurance from the Minister that this fine Bill will not harm the interests of British fishermen. I am worried that fishermen may have to obtain a licence before fishing above or close to a wreck.

Mr. Mates

I note what the hon. Gentleman has said. For my part — my hon. Friend the Minister will no doubt give his own assurances—the Bill is not intended to restrict fishermen going about their lawful business as they have before. There may be a point about nets, but I should have thought that the nets would be more disturbed by the wreck. That often happens by accident. We must ensure that line fishing does not become an offence under the Bill.

Dr. Godman

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. He is right to mention nets becoming snagged on wrecks. I recall fishing on a large trawler off the Norwegian coast which lost its entire gear when its nets became snagged on a wreck. The overwhelming majority of fishermen welcome the Bill, as do I, but their interests must be safeguarded.

12.19 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence Procurement (Mr. John Lee)

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hampshire, East (Mr. Mates) on his good fortune in the ballot and on his presentation of the Bill. The Government welcome it.

I hope that the House will think it right to respond to public anxiety on this sensitive issue. For a number of years, concern has been growing in my Department and outside about our inability to prevent the desecration of the graves of airmen who crashed with their aircraft, and of sailors who went down with their ships, whose bodies have not been recovered.

There is no question of the Bill interfering in any way with the normal activities of fishermen. Most of those who are interested in the wreckage of military aircraft and vessels for pleasure or profit are thoroughly responsible people who take care to obtain our consent before they act. The main groups are those with a genuine interest in aviation or marine archaeology or marine life, commercial sailors interested in the cargoes of sunken vessels or in non-ferrous metal fittings such as propellors and sport divers who like to take souvenirs of their dives. Unfortunately, there are a minority who pursue their interest or business with little respect for the dead or regard for the feelings of others.

Public sensitivity about interference with vessels that are the tombs of those who died in them began to manifest itself strongly about 30 years ago. A growing feeling in the country that the naval vessels that were lost with their crews in wartime should be left undisturbed led the Admiralty to review its war grave policy in 1955.

I should stress that the term war grave does not have any formal significance or legal status. Indeed, it may be argued that the term war grave, used to describe a place where an unrecovered body lies, is a misnomer. These are not formal graves such as those for which the Commonwealth War Graves Commission is responsible. It is important to recognise that fundamental difference. Formal graves are already protected by statutory and other means. They do not need the protection of this Bill and are not affected by its provisions. I should like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to the excellent and devoted work of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission in perpetuating the memory of the fallen.

In 1955 the Admiralty Board reconsidered its policy of selling wrecks for scrap. Until then, the only grounds for refusing to sell a wreck had been security. The question which the board had to consider was one that was being asked increasingly—should sunken wrecks which may contain the bodies of their crews be disturbed? The Admiralty was faced with a dilemma. If it adopted a policy of freely giving permission for salvage operations it could thereby hope to ensure proper treatment for the remains of ships' companies, but at the cost of appearing to condone the disturbance of the bodies in what many people would feel was their appropriate resting place. If the Admiralty declined to grant permission for such operations, they would not thereby be prevented, and desecration of the remains would normally occur whenever the salvage was successful. There had been examples of this in the previous few years, which included the salvage of ships near Anzio and of submarines near Helsinki.

The Admiralty therefore decided to establish a policy by which wrecks known to contain human remains were to be left untouched unless there were special circumstances. These special circumstances came to be defined as cases when there was a danger to navigation, the presence of explosives, a strong risk of unauthorised access which might be reduced by an official pre-emptive operation to remove attractive items and where reputable groups wanted to undertake valuable historical research. In all cases, there would need to be some guarantee that every care would be taken to minimise disturbance to any human remains.

Those criteria were applied to all naval wrecks from 1914 known to contain human remains. Older wrecks were dealt with on their merits. The problem is of course that the irresponsible elements do not usually bother to ask our permission. If they are not sensitive to our wishes, there is nothing that we can do at present.

On aircraft, it was also our policy to ensure that, as far as possible, human remains should not be disturbed. However, when aircraft are unearthed, it is customary to remove any remains for proper burial. The policy has the support of all concerned, including the Royal Air Force Association, the Royal British Legion, the Soldiers', Sailors' and Airmen's Families Association, the Royal Air Force Benevolent Fund, and the War Widows of Great Britain Association.

The Department's guidelines continue to be respected by some and ignored by others. Every so often, a report in the press about souvenirs or more valuable items being brought up front a war grave, or about a world war 2 aircraft being dug out of the ground, draws public protest and renewed criticism of our inability to prevent such acts of desecration.

For example, in January 1967, a letter to the Daily Telegraph asked whether it was true that the British Government had given permission to a scrap metal firm to salvage three British cruisers—the Aboukir, the Cressy and the Hogue—that had been torpedoed in the North sea in August 1914 and sank with much loss of life. The writer thought it deplorable that British war dead should not be allowed to lie peacefully in what was their grave. The director of public relations to the Royal Navy wrote to the paper explaining Admiralty Board policy, but the correspondence nevertheless generated public concern. The Royal British Legion had complaints from some of its members, and one of its branches registered the strongest protest.

We were in that case able to explain that the wrecks had been sold to a British firm in 1954, and that the conditions of sale had included a clause requiring the nearest naval authority to be informed with dispatch in the event of the bodies of any naval personnel being recovered during the salvage operation, and for all reasonable steps to be taken to comply with instructions given regarding burial at sea or delivery to shore. Although the firm removed some external metal from the vessels, it gave an assurance that the inside of the vessels would remain undisturbed. Such assurances are welcome, but they are not of course enforceable in law.

In 1973, reports appeared in certain newspapers that the wreck of HMS Royal Oak had been looted and desecrated by amateur divers. This vessel, as hon. Members may know, was torpedoed in 1939 in Scapa Flow, with the loss of some 800 lives. The reports gave rise to ministerial correspondence and Parliamentary questions which appear at Column 299 on 12 June 1973 and at column 212 on 22 June 1973. As a result, the then Scapa Flow Dockyard and Port Regulations were amended to put a legal ban on unauthorised diving. The ban is now applied by an Orkney council byelaw. Similar protection could be provided for any wrecks in other dockyard port waters, but the House will recognise that this would only be scratching the surface of the problem.

The hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Wallace) has written to my Department about the vessels that were scuttled in Scapa Flow. There is no question of our wanting to restrict diving and commercial activities associated with them. We recognise their importance to the economy of Orkney and Shetland and, as we know that there are no bodies in them, we shall issue a general licence virtually immediately to enable those activities to continue. That would not necessarily apply to HMS Royal Oak, where bodies lie.

A couple of years later, there was parliamentary and public concern about reports that the wrecks of the Prince of Wales and Repulse were to be salvaged. These vessels were lying in international waters off the coast of Malaysia. More than 800 members of their crews were lost when the ships sank following Japanese air attacks in 1941. The possibility of Japanese salvage companies being interested in those vessels led to Oral Questions in another place on 21 October 1975 and 13 July 1976. Feelings of outrage were expressed. There were critical articles in the press. The Daily Mirror's account began with the words The wrecks of two British warships which still entomb more than 800 sailors are in danger from Japanese grave-robbers". The Royal British Legion at its annual conference passed a resolution calling for the wrecks to be protected. The City of London Branch of the Royal Naval Association passed a similar resolution.

That concern was again in evidence, both inside this house and elsewhere, in the wake of the Falklands compaign. Assurances were sought that the sunken warships in Falkland Islands waters would be protected. Two of those wrecks, the Ardent and the Antelope, lie in territorial waters and are protected under the Falkland Islands Protection of Wrecks Ordinance 1977. The Coventry, Sheffield, Atlantic Conveyor, RFA Sir Galahad, and the sea king helicopter which crashed into the sea with the loss of 21 lives, are outside territorial waters. They would all come under the protection of the Bill, on a basis analogous to the example of Prince of Wales and Repulse that I mentioned.

Two well-publicised salvage operations claimed particular public attention in recent years. In 1981, a salvage consortium was permitted to recover gold from HMS Edinburgh. Authority to dive under Government supervision was given on the grounds that the gold bullion on board was sufficiently valuable to tempt other salvors who might not respect its status as a war grave. Nevertheless, the operation provoked adverse comment, particularly from the Survivors' Association.

It was the salvage operation on HMS Hampshire which really brought matters to a head and convinced us of the need for legislation. HMS Hampshire sank in 1916 off the Orkneys after striking a mine, with the loss of many lives, including that of Lord Kitchener. In 1977, the Ministry of Defence was approached by a group of German business men who wished to be allowed access to the wreck. Permission was eventually given, on the understanding that only the external features of the wreck were to be filmed and that no attempt would be made to land on, gain access to or otherwise interfere with the wreck. Permission was again requested and given in 1979.

The consortium again applied in 1983 to dive on and film the wreck. Ministers considered the request in the light of the heightening in public sensitivity on the War Graves issue since the Falklands conflict and decided that it should be refused. Despite that refusal, the consortium arrived with a diving salvage vessel and in a well-publicised operation raised some 30 small items, some personal, together with the ship's wheel and her huge phosphor-bronze propellor. The matter was widely reported in the press and the Ministry's inability to enforce its War Grave policy attracted some unfavourable comment.

Legislation would appear to be the only effective way of curbing the activities of the more irresponsible elements and assuaging public feeling. I hope that, if the Bill is passed, it will act as a deterrent and that it will seldom be necessary to prosecute.

We have no wish unnecessarily to hinder the activities of responsible individuals and groups, and we will ensure that permission to dive on a wreck or excavate an aircraft is not unreasonably withheld. A list will be compiled of known wrecks and crash sites which we have no reason to protect. That will be pulished under the general licence provisions of the Bill. Among the wrecks for which a general licence will be issued from the outset will be those that sank with no loss of life: for example, the German fleet that was scuttled in Scapa Flow in 1919. We also have it in mind to publish a list of wrecks and sites believed to contain human remains.

In summary, it is hoped that the Bill will provide a more powerful deterrent than has been available in the past. It will give only partial protection to wrecks in international waters, notably Prince of Wales and Repulse, as it can only reach United Kingdom citizens or United Kingdom vessels interfering with such wrecks. It will cover all Her Majesty's ships sunk in peace or war since 1914. As in the past, authority to dive will not be withheld unreasonably from genuine scientific and archaeological research groups; my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence will be enabled to issue licences to such groups, and a general licence covering, for example, wrecks where there are not human remains.

Applications for licences will be dealt with as expeditiously as possible. Initially, it is not our intention to charge a fee on the making of applications, but if the work load becomes greater than expected, we may decide to do so to cover our costs.

I hope that the House will agree, in the light of the evidence, that there is an obvious need to introduce some means of controlling access to the remains of military aircraft and vessels and that the Bill's provisions offer a reasonable way of dealing with this often emotive problem.

Mr. Wallace

I take on board and am grateful for the assurances that the Minister has given me. I have never been entirely clear about the legal status of some of the German wrecks off Scapa Flow. Some salvage rights belong to one of my constituents, a Shetlander, albeit that the wrecks are in Orkney waters. Will those rights be protected under any licence that is subsequently given?

Mr. Lee

It would be unwise of me to give a categorical assurance or firm commitment on that problem, but I guarantee to study it and to write to the hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Harold Walker)

Does the hon. Member for Hampshire, East (Mr. Mates) seek the leave of the House to speak again?

Mr. Mates

No, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time.

Bill committed to a Committee of the whole House. —[Mr. Mates.]

Mr. Deputy Speaker

Committee what day?

Mr. Mates

Now, Sir.

Mr. Deputy Speaker

It is an unusual procedure for the House to take a Bill through all its stages on a Friday. Does any hon. Member have an objection?

Bill immediately considered in Committee; reported, without amendment.

Motion made, and Question, That the Bill be now read the Third time, put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 58 (Third Reading), and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the Third time, and passed.