MERCHANT SHIPPING BILL (Hansard, 4 March 1952)

§ THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE CO-ORDINATION OF TRANSPORT, FUEL AND POWER (LORD LEATHERS)

My Lords, I rise to move the Second Reading of this Bill. The purpose of the Bill is to add a subsection to Section 1 of the Merchant Shipping Act, 1948, and to Section 1 of the Merchant Shipping Act, 1950. The first sections of both these Acts relate to the provision of crew accommodation in ships registered in the United Kingdom. The Merchant Shipping Act, 1948, gives the Minister of Transport power to make regulations as to crew accommodation in merchant ships other than fishing boats, and the Act of 1950 gives similar power in regard to fishing boats. The additional subsections which this Bill would add to these two Acts will give the Minister power to exempt particular merchant ships or fishing boats, or particular classes, where this is necessary, from the requirements of the regulations.

As the Bill relates to the two different types of vessel—merchant ships and fishing boats—it may be convenient if I deal with its effect on each in turn. I will begin with the proposal as it relates to merchant ships—that is, the ships dealt 475 with in the Merchant Shipping Act, 1948. As your Lordships may know, the regulations to be made under the 1948 Act are to give effect to the provisions of the International Labour Convention on Crew Accommodation which was adopted in Geneva in 1949. The Act requires that, before the regulations are made, there should be consultation between the Minister and the organisations representative of shipowners, officers and men. This consultation has taken place and draft regulations have now been agreed (subject only to final drafting in legal form) with the National Maritime Board, which is, of course, fully representative of the shipowners, the officers and the men. So soon as they are made, these regulations will be laid before the House. They provide for a standard of crew accommodation which, in certain respects, is higher than the standards laid down by the Convention and they will apply to certain ships, particularly small ships, which are outside the scope of the Convention. In fact, the object of the regulations will be to provide for the best possible standard of crew accommodation in all classes of ships, down to the smallest types.

The fact of the matter is that we cannot adopt these very high standards, which we all welcome, unless there is some satisfactory provision for dealing with special cases. Ships differ widely, even within one class, in their size, in the trade in which they operate, in the climates in which they sail, and in many other ways. Either one must have lower standards with which every ship will be able to comply in full—a sort of lowest common denominator—or one can maintain high standards, as we propose to do, with provision for making appropriate exemptions or alternative requirements in special cases. I think everyone is agreed that the latter—the more flexible way—is much the better one. Certainly that is the view of both sides of the shipping industry.

At the moment, this flexibility has not been provided. It is true that the 1948 Act gives the Minister power to make different provisions for different classes of ship. But it is not an easy matter to formulate separate regulations for each of the many different classes into which 476 ships may be divided, and, in any case, the Minister has no power to relax any of the regulations for individual ships within a class. The lack of this power would mean that the general standard of accommodation required by the regulations made for any particular class would have to be reduced to a level which could be attained by all ships in the class. It is for these reasons that, with the full agreement of the representatives of the shipowners, the officers and the men, this Bill was introduced by the Minister in another place and is now before your Lordships' House.

It may perhaps help to clarify what I have been saying if I give an example of the sort of case in which it may be necessary to grant exemption from a part of the regulations. One of the requirements of the draft regulations is that in merchant ships of over a certain tonnage there must be separate messrooms for petty officers of the deck department, for petty officers of the engine room department and again separately for the other ratings of each of those departments—four separate messrooms in all. As a general standard there is no doubt that this is a very proper requirement. But it may well he that there are some ships in which this requirement would be quite inappropriate. It might mean, for example, on some particular ship that a messroom had to be provided for one man, and this would obviously be quite foolish. It is in this sort of case—many other examples could be given—that it is essential that the Minister should have discretionary powers.

There is another important case that should be mentioned. The Convention of 1949 provided that crew accommodation could depart from the strict requirements laid down so long as the variations resulted in a general standard equal or better than it would have been if the Convention requirements had been applied literally. But the main purpose of this new provision, which was incorporated in the Convention at the instance of this country, was to ensure that the Convention and any regulations giving effect to it did not become so rigid as to stand in the way of progress in design. If the Minister is not given the power to grant exemption from the regulations, it will not be possible to incorporate in the regulations this very desirable new provision of the 477 Convention. To sum up, therefore, this Bill is intended to avoid too great rigidity. The power to exempt particular ships and classes of ships will give the regulations that elasticity which they need if they are to apply to all merchant ships, while at the same time securing the general high standard of accommodation which it is considered should be required whenever it is practicable to provide it.

There is one point which I should amplify. I have been talking a good deal about the power to make exemptions from the regulations. But I must draw your Lordships' attention to the fact that in this Bill the power of exemption also includes the power to impose alternative conditions. If, therefore, a particular requirement cannot be met, it will be open to the Minister to require an alternative arrangement which will meet the particular need so far as this can reasonably be achieved. This is in accordance with the express wish of all sections of the industry—owners, officers and men. They consider it necessary that the Minister should have this power to exempt, and, in all suitable cases, to attach conditions to that exemption. The position has been discussed in great detail with the industry, and the types of cases in which the Minister will normally find it necessary to use his discretion to grant exemptions have been agreed with the National Maritime Board. Accordingly, it is correct to say that when the Minister exercises his powers, he will, in fact, only be applying already agreed principles to particular cases.

I will now deal very briefly with the second Act to which the present Bill will add a subsection—the Merchant Shipping Act, 1950, which deals with crew accommodation in fishing boats. The position arising with regard to the crew accommodation in fishing boats is very similar to that arising in merchant ships, except that, at the moment, there is no International Labour Convention applicable to fishing boats. Because of the small size of some fishing boats and the peculiarities of their employment, the need for powers to exempt particular fishing boats from the requirements of any regulations made under the 1950 Act is as great as in the case of merchant ships. The regulations in respect of crew accommodation in fishing boats are still being drafted, but the Minister hopes soon to be able to arrange 478 for them to be considered by the representatives of the owners, officers and men in the fishing industry. For it is his intention that the regulations shall be made only after the same full consultation as has taken place in the case of the merchant ship.

I feel sure that your Lordships, having heard this explanation of the reasons why these powers are necessary, will support this Bill. I beg to move that the Bill be now read a second time.

§ VISCOUNT HALL

My Lords, I am sure I shall be expressing the feeling of all your Lordships if I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Leathers, upon his brief but clear exposition of the purposes of this Bill. Of course, the noble Lord has been dealing with matters of which he has had long experience, in both peace and war. There is no need for me to remind your Lordships that during the war he was the Minister of Transport, and shipping caused him many headaches at that time. Now, in his present position as overlord over other Departments, he still has some responsibility for merchant shipping, and I hope that that important department will not be the most exacting of his many responsibilities. I think his position is made much easier by the fact that the heavy shipping losses which unfortunately were incurred during the war have almost been replaced, thanks largely to the work of the shipbuilders and the men employed in the, yards. The construction of something between 10,000,000 and 12,000,000 tons of shipping in six years is a remarkable achievement. I feel it can be rightly said in relation both to the fact that we have these ships at our disposal and to the selling of ships overseas, that a great contribution has been made by the shipbuilding industry to the rehabilitation of our economic standard and, indeed, to the prestige of this nation as a sea power. I do not think it would be out of place for me to mention here how deeply all those who have been connected with shipping during the last ten years regret the death of two outstanding persons on the shipbuilders' side. I refer to Sir Amos Ayre and Sir James Lithgow, both of whom gave tremendous service to this nation during both great wars.

479 The noble Lord, Lord Leathers, rightly said that this measure is contained in a small Bill. It is a modest Bill, but an important one, for it rounds off the work of four international Conventions and three Acts of Parliament which have been passed since the end of the last war, all of which have dealt with merchant seamen's conditions and have covered important matters such as their food, catering services, ship's cooks, able seamen's certification and social security. All these matters have been provided for and have meant a great improvement in the working conditions and in the standard of the officers and seamen of the merchant ships. As the noble Lord rightly said, this Bill deals with crew accommodation. When it has passed through all its stages and the regulations are operating, the last of the Conventions will be ratified, and we hope that greatly improved accommodation will be provided in many ships in which conditions are not quite up to standard.

I should like to take this opportunity of saying that credit for many of these improvements can be attributed to the intimate and friendly relationships existing between the shipping industry of this country and the Ministry of Transport—and this applies to both sides of the industry, the shipowners and the officers' and seamen's Unions. There exists what I consider to be a very wise and far-seeing policy of industrial co-operation between them which has produced beneficial results to both sides of the industry. This co-operation has enabled Parliament to indicate its deep appreciation for the great service which the Merchant Navy give to their country in times of peace and war. I understand that the view of both sides of the industry is that the Minister should have these powers given to him under the Bill and the regulations if the highest standard of accommodation in British shipping is to be achieved. The Minister in another place pointed out that these agreed regulations will set an extremely high standard, which will, in many respects, go beyond the provisions of the Convention and will extend to ships which are outside the scope of the Convention altogether.

As I understand the position, the regulations provide that in no case will a 480 Convention ship be permitted to have accommodation below the standard fixed by the Convention itself, but that after consultation with representatives of the industry crew accommodation may be permitted which does not strictly comply with the requirements of the Convention, provided that the standard of accommodation in the ship is equal to or better than that laid down in the Convention. As I see it, the type of ship likely to be exempted by the Minister will be one which provides a standard of crew accommodation above the average. If I may say so, I think the Minister of Transport has been a little slow in bringing these regulations before Parliament for examination—not that there can be much doubt as to their efficacy and usefulness, because, as the noble Lord rightly said, they have been agreed to by both sides. I hope that this Bill will have a speedy passage, and that the regulations will soon come before Parliament.

I was also pleased to hear the noble Lord say that the same kind of consultation is likely to take place when the regulations for fishing boats have been drafted. A question was asked in another place as to whether the union which is mainly concerned with fishermen's conditions—the Transport and General Workers' Union—will have an opportunity of being consulted on behalf of their members. As I have said, we on this side of the House will give full support to this measure, because it is evidence of the constructive consultation between the Ministry and all concerned in the shipping industry who have done so much to establish and improve the general standard of service and working conditions for the men who "go down to the sea in ships." As the noble Lord rightly said, it is essential that we do not make conditions so rigid or standardised that we rule out the creative spirit of enterprise and initiative which British shipbuilders and shipowners have in the past shown themselves to possess, and must always display to keep this nation in the forefront of world shipping. We are bound to develop specialised ships from time to time, otherwise we should not have the two "Queens" and other magnificent ships which do not come within any other class of ship in the 481 world, for no nation has such ships as those of which this nation is justly proud. We will support this measure through all its stages.