Coastguard Service
Debate between Baroness Clark of Kilwinning and Mike Hancock(13 years, 10 months ago)
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Mark Lazarowicz (Edinburgh North and Leith) (Lab/Co-op)
I have been in another Committee, which is why I was not here earlier. This issue is important to my constituents and to the constituents of many hon. Members who are here in Westminster Hall today. Of course, my concern is particularly about the Forth coastguard station, which is on the other side of Scotland to my hon. Friend’s constituency. The Forth station is also proposed for closure. There is also a sub-centre that covers my constituency’s shoreline.
In the firth of Forth, we have three major oil and liquid gas terminals. We also have a new bridge and a number of anchorages, and a new wind farm is being built. Does my hon. Friend agree that the firth of Forth is another area where safety means that closure should not go ahead and that having one coastguard station for the whole of Scotland is not acceptable?
Mr Mike Hancock (in the Chair)
Order. I think that you are pushing your luck there with that one. That intervention was more like a speech.
Katy Clark
It is far from clear what criteria have been used to develop these proposals. I hope that, when the Minister responds to the debate, he will address that issue. It has been suggested that the Clyde coastguard station has been proposed as one of the stations that will close, because its lease is due to expire in the next few months and it is therefore cheaper to close that particular station than, for example, the station in Aberdeen, where the costs of closure would be extensive.