HL Deb 04 June 1986 vol 475 cc1075-80

9.40 p.m.

The Earl of Lauderdale

My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time.

It comes to us from another place unopposed on party lines, carried on Second and Third Readings without a Division, the product of, and a tribute to, the ingenuity and imagination of the member for Banff and Buchan, sometimes known colloquially and affectionately as the bulldog or the bull terrier of Banff, Mr. Albert McQuarrie.

This is a Bill to help save lives of fishermen aboard something like 2,000 British fishing vessels of more than 12 metres length, and another 4,000 or so shorter and smaller than that. Together the men at sea number about 30,000, among whom some 3 per cent.—that is nearly 1,000—were lost at sea over the 20 years 1961 to 1980. We sometimes do not realise the mounting losses at sea because the news of them comes to us fragmented, incident by incident; but that figure of 1,000 British fishermen lost at sea over 20 years is in itself horrific.

This is a useful rather than a magnificent Bill, but its utility could well prove historic, especially when it is recognised that more than 400—in fact the figure is 424—United Kingdom registered fishing vessels were lost over the 20 years 1975 to 1984. To me the most exciting and most imaginative provision is in Clause 1, requiring the 2,000 or so vessels of more than 12 metres to carry a radio beacon known officially as the Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon—or EPIRB for short, my Lords, if you really want a nasty acronym.

Should a vessel founder, this beacon floats free, is set going by seawater immersion, and sends out signals on a wavelength of 406 MHz which will continue for three days—72 hours—and which can be picked up 100 miles away; but, best of all, will be picked up and relayed to the coastguards by satellites passing overhead about every 90 minutes.

A final refinement which to me is fascinating is that each unit of this mechanism, each signal of the beacon, is different from that of any other beacon, so that the coastguard not only learns where, within a five square mile block, the boat has foundered, but which is the vessel that has gone down and therefore how many men to look for. It really is a remarkable technical advance; and the imagination of Mr. McQuarrie in seizing on this as something for a Bill was very noteworthy indeed.

The equipment is not all that expensive. The cost is rather over £1,000 apiece; but when you realise that the capital cost of a fishing vessel of 12 metres or so will be of the order of £1 million or more, £1,000 for the safety beacon is not a great sum. It will not only attract a 25 per cent. grant from the Seafish Industry Authority, but it can be set off against costs. Then there is another device made possible—indeed ultimately mandatory—by the Bill, and that is a most exciting innovation in Clause 2. This is an automatic release mechanism for life rafts. The mechanism is known as HRU—hydrostatic release unit. It ensures that life rafts float free of a vessel instead of remaining lashed to it as it goes down. These HRUs are likely to cost less than £100 each and may well be about £80.

One further new and important point is that vessels smaller than 12 metres in length were hitherto only required to carry a lifebuoy. This Bill will make rafts with HRUs compulsory.

Then comes Clause 3. This requires that the smaller fishing vessels of less than 12 metres carry extra lifejackets of varying size so that there is not only one for each crew member but also for those of larger or smaller size. This is not a provision for the eventuality of my going to sea because I am indeed of large size. The significance of the smaller size provision is important for it is for young folk in their early teens who often accompany their fathers to sea to gain exposure and a taste for the career of fishing.

Then there is Clause 7. Here there is a power to enable the Secretary of State to make regulations providing for the compulsory training of fishermen. This is of particular significance because fishing is so dangerous it is essential that fishermen are trained in survival at sea. It is quite true that perhaps half of those who go to sea have already attended such courses on a voluntary basis, but it is not enough because one can have in a crew two or three men who have been trained and several others who have not. Those who have been trained then have to look after those who have not and their own chances of survival are that much diminished. Thus there is good use to be made of this provision.

There are also one or two rather more general tidying up provisions in this Bill. One relates to the drunkenness of skippers at sea and another to a power to make sure that foreign vessels when they enter British ports do not leave them without being properly vetted for safety. All these requirements will have to be defined in regulations, and these we hope will be agreed and made within 18 months or pehaps two years at the outside, but the sooner the better. They depend on the proceeding of current consultations which are being conducted by the fishing industry safety group in the Department of Transport. That body is in consultation at regular intervals with the industry's representative bodies, the Scottish Fishermen's Federation, the Shetlands Fishermen's Organisation, the Association of Sea Fisheries of England and Wales, the National Federation of Fishermen's Organisations, the Fisheries Organisation Society and what I think will be of particular interest to the noble Lord opposite, the Transport and General Workers Union, which has an important part in this.

Then there are certain local fishing organisations such as that at Eyemouth, which is quite near my stamping ground, and the Cornish Fish Producers' Organisation. These organisations have all accepted—or perhaps it might be more accurate to say they have acquiesced—the provisions of this Bill. We all know that fishermen are independent-minded, very much like the miners; and they do not have the high regard for Parliament that parliamentarians have for themselves. They take the view that they know far better than we what to do at sea, just as miners know far better than we what to do underground. So it is not surprising that their attitude has been one of acquiescence rather than enthusiasm. But, at any rate, acquiescence there is, and that is a very satisfactory and important stage to have reached. Once again, however, I think we have to pay tribute to Mr. McQuarrie for the tact and courage, persistence and bonhomie which he has brought to the task of talking with fishermen's organisations, or with their leaders.

The Bill commanded all-party support in another place, but there are problems yet to be resolved. One is the general question of costs. I am not referring now so much to those of administration. There are 15 or so inspectors of the fishing vessel safety section in the Department of Transport whose four-yearly inspection of each vessel rarely constitutes the eventual enforcement mechanism.

The cost questions are important and are more generally related to how the industry itself shall bear the costs involved. I have explained that the beacons and the raft units will attract a 25 per cent. grant and can be set off against costs, but that does not necessarily answer the whole thing, let alone the cost of training. The obvious vehicle for the source of funds is the SFIA, the Sea Fisheries Industry Association, which draws on a levy of fish landings, a levy met not by the fishermen but by the merchants.

Of course, £1,000 a vessel which costs between £750,000 and £1¼ million, and, say, £1,000 for up to eight life jackets on the smaller vessels, are not great on-costs in themselves, but they are costs. It is very easy to talk about large sums of money with a sort of bland indifference. This is a building where conversations are often in millions and quite often in billions; but £1,000 to a fishing skipper or a fishing crewman is a great deal of money, so there is no use in pretending that there is not a quite serious problem here. One should realise that these on-costs are real and that they are incisive in the sense that vessels are now compelled to go farther away and for longer periods to make any sort of a living at all.

Then the safety at sea training will be an on-cost, but so are the guards that are necessary around dangerous machinery in factories. There was much opposition to those at one time by careless employers, but they are now accepted; and so must the cost of training at sea also be accepted.

As I have said, these are matters yet to be resolved in consultation. What the Bill does is to establish the key objectives for later definition and implementation as agreed in detail with the industry. In moving the Second Reading, I again invite a due tribute to the persistence, the initiative, the imagination and the courage of Mr. Albert McQuarrie, the Member for Banff and Buchan. This piece of legislation should really go down in history as "the McQuarrie Act". I beg to move.

Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time.—(The Earl of Lauderdale.)

9.54 p.m.

Lord Underhill

My Lords, despite the lateness of the hour after the all-night vigil undertaken by many Members in the past 24 hours, it would be wrong for this very useful Bill to enter your Lordships' House without some word or comment from this side. We are grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Lauderdale, not only for bringing it forward in your Lordships' House but also for the very useful way in which he has explained its provisions. I am totally with him also in expressing thanks to Mr. Albert McQuarrie, the Member for Banff and Buchan, who brought the Bill forward in the other place.

This is a welcome contribution to safety at sea. I have been reading speeches by Members in the other place on Second Reading, Committee stage and Report stage. One can see speeches of many Members with experience and knowledge, particularly those from Scottish fishing constituencies. They make interesting and informative reading and testify to the necessity for this Bill.

I was pleased that the noble Earl gave us a reminder not only of the loss of vessels but also of the number of lives of fishermen lost over 20 years. It so happens that, looking through post-recess post yesterday morning, I found a press notice from H.M. Coastguards, dated 20th May, in which the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, was shown being winched from the sea by helicopter in a search and rescue exercise. The need for this Bill is expressed in these words: Usually the most pressing task facing coastguards at the start of a search and rescue operation is to decide the likely position in the sea of those who are missing. This involves a complex series of time-consuming mathematical calculations, until now done mechanically, which allow for the varying effects of wind and tide. As the noble Earl has said, the provision here for the emergency radio beacon is the main provision of this Bill. Admittedly there are liferafts and lifejackets provisions also, but I hope your Lordships will notice that this is the most important provision. I noticed that the Minister of State, in a series of very helpful speeches, indicated that a register would be set up to record the unique signal of each radio beacon. This will be related to each fishing vessel to which it is attached. That deals with the point made in this coastguards notice.

Reading the reports of the Committee stage, I noticed that most clauses were disagreed to on the initiative of Mr. McQuarrie himself and that alternative clauses were substituted. I assume that was done because the Government favour the Bill and have assisted Mr. McQuarrie with the new clauses. I hope that is the case and that the Government will give this Bill a ready passage. I end by again thanking the noble Earl, Lord Lauderdale, for bringing forward the Bill in this House.

Viscount Davidson

My Lords, my noble friend Lord Caithness has asked me to apologise to your Lordships for his absence this evening. He had a prior official engagement in Paris, where he is seeking to promote the deregulation of shipping services in the European Community.

As the noble Lord, Lord Underhill, mentioned, your Lordships will have seen pictures in the national press recently which prove that my noble friend takes a personal practical interest in the subject of safety at sea. I know he is disappointed that he cannot be here this evening. I should also like to add my congratulations to those already expressed by my noble friend Lord Lauderdale and the noble Lord, Lord Underhill, to my honourable friend Mr. Albert McQuarrie, who so ably piloted this Bill through another place. If I may say so, he has found a worthy advocate here in my noble friend, who I am sure will enable this estimable Bill to reach the statute book safely and surely.

I am most grateful to my noble friend for explaining the provisions of the Bill so clearly and I am glad to say that the Government are in complete agreement with the draft now before your Lordships' House. I think it is right to say that the Bill has achieved a notable consensus within the fishing industry and among all those who are concerned with occupational safety. This has been achieved by consulting closely with all those likely to be concerned. I think it is well worth noting that for consultation to be effective in the circumstances of a Private Member's Bill, a prompt, well-informed and co-ordinated response is invaluable. I understand that a well-established consultative body, the Fishing Industry Safety Group, certainly provided such a response in relation to this Bill at an early stage, and the group's contribution to the Bill's success deserves full recognition. It is my noble friend's intention that this process of consultation should be maintained and that there shall be ample opportunity for all concerned to comment further before regulations are made under the powers that this Bill provides.

To take a particular instance, it has yet to be determined whether the radio beacons which are the subject of Clause 1 of the Bill are best attached directly to a fishing vessel or to a liferaft carried by that vessel. No decision about this will be taken pending further consultation with the industry.

Similarly, specific proposals on training will also be the subject of further consultation. I should add, however, that it is the Government's intention to provide in the regulations that all new entrants to the industry shall be required to undergo a course of training in survival at sea before taking up a job as a fisherman. This Bill is an admirable measure and we feel that it deserves your Lordships' full support.

The Earl of Lauderdale

My Lords, I am greatly obliged to my noble friend for his response to this Bill and also for the co-operation offered by the noble Lord, Lord Underhill, opposite. It would be a pity to let this moment go by without regretting the enforced and undesired absence of the noble Lord, Lord Boothby, who had hoped to speak tonight, whose identification with the fishing industry is, of course, historic and has been admired for many years, and whose mantle has to a degree fallen upon Mr. McQuarrie.

It is also a pity that my noble friend Lord Caithness cannot be here. I have a particular feeling myself, because I was much involved once upon a time with Caithness and Sutherland and it is a part of the world where I learned something of the fishing industry. Anyhow, Lord Caithness is busy doing good for fishermen in other ways. All I can do now is to say thank you to the Government, thank you to the Opposition and thank you, above all, to Mr. McQuarrie.

On Question, Bill read a second time, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.