§ Mr. McCrindleasked the Secretary of State for Transport what assessment he has made of the adequacy of existing legislation for ensuring that vessels registered in British territories adopt internationally accepted safety standards; and if he will make a statement.
§ Mr. Michael SpicerPresent United Kingdom legislation contains no provision to control the standards adopted by the marine administrations in the British Dependent Territories. For this reason a number of international conventions do not apply to ships registered in some of the dependent territories. The Government recognise that this is not a satisfactoy situation and propose to introduce legislation when the parliamentary time allows to remedy this defect in the law by seeking powers to control the type of ship which can be registered in different territories. In the meantime the Government will continue to provide advice and assistance to marine administrations in dependent territories so that safety standards can be improved and more international conventions extended to them where appropriate.