Marine Navigation Aids Bill [HL]

Baroness Scott of Needham Market Excerpts

Friday 21st January 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Scott of Needham Market]

My Lords, I am sure that the whole House will recognise the tenacity and commitment of the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, to this important issue. I am sure that he will understand that for the reasons expressed by the noble Earl it is difficult to have a debate today in anything other than general terms on the important question of the UK system of providing aids to navigation.

However, it is useful to have such a debate at this time. It is also refreshing to have a debate on shipping in your Lordships’ House because it is a topic that we seldom cover, which is interesting when we consider how important the shipping industry is to this country’s economy and to our maritime heritage. I believe that it is timely to revisit the question of light dues. We are the only country in the world to have a user-based scheme for the funding of light dues. While that is not in itself a reason to change the system, it should at least give us the opportunity for pause for thought and to reflect on why we are the only country left which does it in this way.

Clearly, money is the essential driver, as it so often is. The budget shortfall within the General Lighthouse Authorities can be dealt with only in the way that any organisation deals with budget shortfalls; that is, you increase your income, you cut your costs or you do both. The original proposal to increase the budget at a time when all other departments were slashing theirs was ill advised. I am very glad that the Government have stepped in and have given some firm guidance that this is not acceptable.

I very much agree with the point made by the noble Earl that having a stop-start approach to light dues where they are frozen for many years and then increased very fast is not a sensible way to treat the shipping industry, which now has far more options available to them. As we have heard, a large number of companies are simply deciding to go to Rotterdam or to Antwerp and to use feeder ships to try to ship. This is having a serious effect on the maritime industry generally and has the effect of making the budget crisis within the GLAs even worse because they are trying to bring more money in and actually are bringing in less. They then get into a vicious circle from which it is difficult to escape.

The Government need to reconsider the principle of whether a 41p per tonne levy on ships in UK waters is still an appropriate way forward, given that it is described as a user tax, when there is no mechanism for measuring whether these ships are using the lights at all. With modern navigation and so on, things have moved on. The Chamber of Shipping is adamant that this is a tax on trade. We need some clarity of thinking as to whether that is what it is.

The budgetary problems will be eased by the recent announcement of the agreement with the Irish Government that they should take on responsibility for their own lights. I congratulate the Minister, Mr Penning, on achieving what previous Governments said was impossible. Therefore, either Mr Penning has been very persuasive or we have a lot of extra leverage after having written some large cheques to the Irish Government lately. Whichever way it is, we certainly seem to have made progress that has eluded us before.

I understand that the subsidy to the Irish Lights this year is around £12 million, which will come as a significant benefit to the budget. Will the Minister say whether this saving will in part or in whole be reflected in reduced fees to the ship operators or will simply disappear into the lighthouse funds to help to deal with the pension deficit?

The issue of operating costs is important. I know that the Government are working with all sectors of the transport industry to look at why UK costs are much higher than overseas comparators. They are doing that for rail, roads and so on. I suspect that this is as much of a problem with marine navigational aids as with any other sector. As we have heard, an article in the Lloyd’s List of 23 August 2010 by the former chief executive of the Australian Maritime Safety Authority has highlighted how Australia transformed its lighthouse system during the 1980s, improved service quality and reduced costs. I know that a lot of other countries are looking at the Australian model and I hope that our Government are too.

On 14 January, the Government in Hong Kong announced that they will reduce fees for a range of maritime services, including lights, by about 20 per cent. Clearly, there is a wealth of international experience on which to draw. That is appropriate because shipping has well established international organisations, including the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea in this area.

The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, has done the shipping industry a service by bringing this forward today, although I hope that he will accept the difficulties of scrutinising a Bill that has disappeared before our eyes. Nevertheless, I thank him.