§ Mr. AingerTo ask the Secretary of State for Transport (1) if he will make it his policy fully to inspect all non-EC registered oil tankers over 10 years old calling at United Kingdom ports;
(2) if he will make it his policy to scrutinise fully the qualifications of officers and crew on all non-EC registered oil tankers calling at United Kingdom ports.
§ Mr. Norris[holding answer 18 January 1993]: The criteria for inspecting ships under the memorandum of understanding on port state control (MOU) are agreed by all the signatories. They are amended from time to time in the light of experience and are continually under review.
It would not necessarily be the best use of resources to inspect all non-EC tankers over 10 years old calling at United Kingdom ports, or to make a full scrutiny of the qualifications of the officers and crew an automatic duty for a surveyor conducting such an inspection.
Inspections do include operational aspects which enables the surveyor to "look behind" the paper qualifications and make some assessment of the abilities of the officers and crew to respond to emergency operations and other duties assigned to them.
Responsibility for standards, both of a ship and a crew, lies primarily with the owner and the flag state, but where a port state inspection reveals deficiencies in crew qualifications the surveyor may detain the vessel until suitably qualified personnel are found.
The United Kingdom has been pursuing the necessity to improve standards of vessels worldwide and will continue to do so. We will bestriving to raisecrew qualification standards when the standards of training, certification and watchkeeping convention comes up for review at the International Maritime Organisation in March.