Tyne Marine Office

Debate between Emma Lewell-Buck and Alan Campbell

Monday 27th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)]

South Shields has a proud maritime history, present, and, I hope, future. The shipping industry is a major employer in South Shields, its contribution to the industrial and social history of the region being well documented. As one seafarer commented to me, South Shields used to be the centre of the universe for the maritime industry.

The Tyne marine office was previously based at Compass House inside the port of Tyne. It provided seafarers and our local area with a range of vital services, including managing and issuing seafarers’ documentation, and conducting oral exams and eye tests. Our surveyors fulfilled the UK’s legal obligation to conduct port state control inspections of foreign-registered vessels working from our ports in the UK, as well as providing a public counter service for advice and complaints from ship owners, seafarers, and members of the public.

The Maritime and Coastguard Agency’s consultation on the future of the Tyne office stated that it would close by September this year, yet it closed on 6 March, with the lease expiring just a week later—a move that was supported by the Government’s maritime growth study. I accept, of course, that some alternative provision has now been made at South Tyneside College for an initial period of five years, but the move has seen a depletion in crucial parts of the service. Not only was the office closed ahead of schedule, but what is in its place does not, quite frankly, fit the bill. The new office will not have on-site surveyors, nor a counter service. The 18 surveyors have been redeployed in the “flexible, customer-focused” way the Government believe to be an essential strand in their plans for maritime growth. The consultation proposed

“to put in place a remote, IT-enabled working regime to minimise any adverse impact. This would be based around our surveyors working remotely, from other suitable MCA or Government locations or from home.”

This is now in practice. However, can the Minister advise me on when the new IT system for remote working will begin to be used by MCA surveyors? It is important that ports and ship owners in the north-east, but also taxpayers, know how much the IT procurement exercise will cost, in order to balance it against the estimated £330,000 total annual savings that the MCA will make from the marine office closures.

The loss of the Tyne marine office has left a 350-mile stretch of UK coastline between Aberdeen and Bridlington with no physical base for MCA surveyors who are required to inspect and, if necessary, detain a diverse range of UK and internationally registered shipping. Its loss has increased the prospect of the private sector carrying out port state control work at ports where an MCA surveyor may not be available at short notice. This was recognised by some local RMT members in the north-east who made their feelings clear to the Government and to the MCA, stating that

“the closure of the Port of Tyne office and opening an office in Bridlington will open the North East coast to be exploited by shipping companies when inspectors are working from home and do not have a centre to coordinate their inspections and monitor shipping movements along the North East coast.”

In November 2013, a Panama-registered ship called the Donald Duckling was detained in the Tyne by MCA surveyors. This cargo vessel of over 46,000 tonnes was found to be unsafe and crewed by 18 Filipino seafarers who had run out of food. The vessel owners then abandoned the ship and the crew, who were stranded on the vessel, without pay and reliant on international freight transport and our brilliant South Shields Mission to Seafarers and assistance from our port of Tyne to survive. The crew had to wait nearly a year before receiving any pay or safe passage home. Moving MCA survey work away from a physical base may compromise response times when a substandard vessel of concern is in the north-east ports, even if only for a relatively short period.

The other change is the loss of counter service. Marine offices traditionally provide that service to cater for matters such as discharge books, training record books, seamen’s cards and other certification, including duplicates of lost certificates. As our marine office covered Berwick to Whitby, this is a loss not just for my constituents but for the whole north-east and parts of Yorkshire. Seafarers now have to travel to Hull or send their documents by post, all at increased cost and risk. Providing the service is an administrative task, and I am led to believe that the same number of administrative staff are to be retained at the college, so I am completely at a loss as to why the service has been removed, especially when the range of certification required to work at sea is extensive and subject to regular updates.

Just this January, the key convention on standards of training, certification and watchkeeping, which sets out basic requirements for all seafarers, was subject to changes, and the MCA is in the process of reforming its fee structure, including for the basic medical certificate, without which a seafarer cannot work at sea. Marine information notice 541, issued by the MCA earlier this month, states that the Hull marine office will offer a number of services previously provided in the Tyne marine office. The Hull office, which was under threat, is to remain open, but that does not take away the fact that the counter office for seafarers in South Shields and in the north-east will be 100 miles down the coast.

The number of seafarers at work or in training in the UK shipping industry is in long-term decline, with records showing that there has been a 60% decline in the number of merchant seafarers over the last 30 years. We are seeing a decline in offshore supply activity in the North sea following the collapse in oil prices, and there is a constant threat, especially for ratings, of being replaced by low-cost crew from overseas. In that context, I cannot see how the loss of the Tyne marine office will encourage my region to recover jobs and skills in this industry. The Government speak of wanting to recruit and train more British seafarers, but surely taking steps such as the closure of this office and the removal of the counter service will have exactly the opposite effect.

[Mr Alan Campbell (Tynemouth) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend will be aware of the planned merger between South Tyneside College and TyneMet in my borough. With our history of seamanship and engineering excellence, should we not be encouraging young men and women who seek a career at sea, rather than discouraging them?