§ Ms WalleyTo ask the Secretary of State for Transport how many incidents have taken place involving commercial(a) fishing vessels and (b) merchant ships in 617W the Bristol channel during each of the last five years; and how many lives have been lost as a result of those incidents.
§ Mr. NorrisThe figures given relate to incidents involving UK-registered merchant or fishing vessels where it has been established that the accident happened in the Bristol channel.
The figures are given only for the years shown as information relating to a particular sea area can only readily be obtained from the Marine Accident Investigation Branch computerised accident database. The database contains data from 1991 onwards only. To obtain the information requested for 1989 and 1990 would entail a great deal of research of the manual records for those years.
1991 1992 1993 1994 (to date) Registered Fishing vessels 6 2 13 3 Registered Merchant vessels 2 1 — 1 None of the incidents involved loss of life, but the Department is aware that an incident involving an unregistered fishing vessel resulted in the death of two sea anglers.