§ Mr. Prescottasked the Secretary of State for Energy how many inquiries or investigations into diving deaths in the North Sea are presently taking place; and when such accidents occurred.
§ Mr. MayhewI have been asked to reply.
Inquiries are being made into two fatal accidents involving diving operations in the North Sea. In the first, which occurred on 8 August 979, two men died when a bell from which they were working broke loose from the hoisting wire. In the second accident, on 17 October 1979, a diving supervisor died as a result of being dragged overboard from a diving support vessel by a diving bell cable.
554WIn 1978–79, £207,000 was spent on this project by the United Kingdom. Comparative figures for the United States and Japan are not known.