Antarctic Bill

Lord Avebury Excerpts

Friday 1st February 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Avebury]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Viscount, Lord Montgomery, on his skill in introducing the Bill and wish him every success in piloting it through this House, with his long experience and great knowledge of the Antarctic. I congratulate my honourable friend the Member for Stroud on choosing this important subject for his Private Member’s Bill and on his skill in piloting it successfully through another place.

The Antarctic is a region of tremendous political, scientific and environmental importance, and I am delighted to support this Bill today. The Antarctic Treaty, and the related agreements described together as the Antarctic Treaty System, is a great achievement, reserving as it does the whole of the land and ice shelves south of 60 degrees latitude for scientific research and excluding all military activity in the region. This was largely a British achievement as my honourable friend emphasised in another place, and we were the first to ratify the treaty in 1961.

Britain not only played a leading role in the development of the ATS, but we continue to provide an effective and powerful contribution to scientific research on the continent for the benefit of mankind as a whole through the British Antarctic Survey. I was delighted when the Government decided, on the basis of solid evidence, rehearsed here and in another place, to maintain the independence of the BAS. That outcome was a good example of Parliament working together with the Government to avert a serious error of judgment, and I am pleased to see that the BAS is specifically referred to in the Bill, as my honourable friend the Member for Cambridge pointed out in Committee in another place. If my noble friend the Minister could say anything about the timescale for the appointment of the new director, I am sure that would be appreciated by your Lordships.

This Bill tightens the protection of the Antarctic environment by enabling us to bring into force the mechanisms in the liability annex to the protocol, “Liability Arising from Environmental Emergencies”. The simple description of this process is that the polluter pays, as the noble Lord, Lord Giddens, explained. Every person, public or private, who organises an activity in Antarctica must take reasonable, prompt and effective action to deal with an environmental emergency, defined as an event which threatens or results in significant harm to the environment. Operators are required to insure against liabilities that may arise under this provision. The explanation by the Minister in another place of how the limits on liability in the schedule complement those in the 1996 protocol to the limitation of liability for maritime claims generally under the 1996 protocol was not entirely clear, and I look forward to discussing that with my noble friend the Minister, although I have no intention of delaying the Bill.

The most likely type of major environmental disaster to happen is the loss of, or spillage of oil from, a tourist vessel. The “Nordkapp” ran aground near Deception Island and spilled 757 litres of diesel oil, for instance, while the “Explorer”, with 150 passengers on board, sank near the South Shetland Islands in November 2007. Recently, much larger cruise ships have sailed into these waters, and, considering that the UK-occupied sections of the territory are the most popular destinations, I wonder whether the Government would consider imposing a charge for permits based on the number of passengers carried. Looking at the fees charged by the tour operators, £500 per passenger would not be an unreasonable levy, enabling us to accumulate a fund to cover some or all of the clean-up costs that were not within the maximum liability. I dare say the Minister will point out that if other parties to the liability annex did not impose similar levies, the operators would seek permits from state parties where the cost was lowest. Have the Government broached this subject with the other parties and would they take a lead on the matter, bearing in mind their general disposition to recover the cost to the taxpayer of providing all kinds of services?

The larger the volume of tourism to Antarctica, the greater the danger to its fragile environment. That applies particularly to the UK dependencies, which are the most popular destinations, such as Deception Island and the South Sandwich Islands. A charging regime such as I am suggesting would help to slow down the growth of the traffic, as well as providing a shield against recovery costs that exceed the limits in the schedule.

Tourism is not the only threat to Antarctica’s environment. Large-scale fishing operations have developed in recent years, and my noble friend will be able to confirm that they are not covered by the Bill. The activities carried out in Antarctica which are dealt with in Part 1 are defined in Clause 13(9) as those carried out on a British expedition, defined in turn in Section 3(3) of the Antarctic Act 1994 as an expedition organised or starting from the UK. That would seem to include the tourist ships but not fishing vessels, which are treated separately in the 1994 Act. If my interpretation is correct, does this not leave a gaping hole in the Bill, and presumably in the underlying “liability annex”, since fishing vessels are no less likely to have accidents that pollute the environment than tourist ships?

New Zealand discovered the toothfish in the Ross Sea in 1996 and now some 3,000 tonnes of this fish are caught every year and sold as Chilean sea bass in expensive restaurants around the world. The New Zealand NGO, The Last Ocean, has initiated a campaign to ban commercial fishing altogether in the Ross Sea, claiming that it will destroy the natural ecosystem. The Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources, CCAMLR, has committed to designating a network of marine protected areas, including the Ross Sea, but according to The Last Ocean, that means allowing commercial fishing, including krill trawlers. The CCAMLR was established in 1982 by an international convention to conserve Antarctic marine life, but that does not exclude harvesting as long as it is sustainable and takes account of fishing’s effects on other components of the ecosystem.

The Antarctic Treaty System prohibits exploitation of natural resources on the land mass of Antarctica, but the Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources allows for conditional exploitation of marine resources, including krill. The president of the World Bank and the noble Lord, Lord Stern, both issued warnings at Davos last week of far more serious climate change than has so far been predicted. As drought and floods reduce agricultural production, there will be huge pressure to loosen the controls on the abundant source of food in Antarctica.

It seems that there is a possible conflict between the objectives of the CCAMLR and the purpose of this Bill, which is to reduce the likelihood of environmental emergencies anywhere south of 60 degrees latitude, and to provide the resources for dealing with the situation when emergencies do occur. Allowing more shipping into sensitive areas such as the Ross Sea is bound to increase the risk of accidents, in addition to the risk of disturbing the ecosystem if the scientists who advise the CCAMLR get it wrong. Yet the duty to take preventive measures and make contingency plans in Clause 5 does not apply to fishing operators, nor will they be required to notify the Secretary of State as soon as they become aware of an environmental emergency. They may be required to pay compensation for any environmental emergency they cause under the Merchant Shipping Act 1995, but not to the Antarctic Environmental Liability Fund, as would be the case if they were subject to the Bill. Can my noble friend explain whether, in the event of an environmental emergency caused by a ship which is not an expedition, that fund receives compensation, or alternatively, how the operators can be made to pay the recoverable costs of the response action? In practice, the costs of recovery will fall on the BAS, and there must surely be a procedure for its reimbursement where ships that are not expeditions get into trouble.

I have a couple more questions about Part 1. What are the criteria that determine the threshold of an environmental emergency? In January 2007, the “Nordkapp”, operated by Hurtigruten, hit a rock near Deception Island and, as I said earlier, lost 757 litres of diesel fuel into the ocean. In December 2008, the “Ushuaia”, run by Fathom Expeditions, ran aground near Wilhelmina Bay and lost an unreported amount of diesel fuel, and there may well be other similar accidents that I have not been able to identify. Would these events have come under the provisions of the Bill, and what is the limit below which a loss of fuel need not be reported? Who is paying for the clean-up of the pollution caused by marine accidents generally in Antarctica now and until the liability annex comes into force?

The annex will come into force only when all the 28 parties to the protocol have ratified it, and when we have passed this Bill that will make only six out of the 28. My honourable friend the Minister said at Committee stage in another place that we would then encourage the remaining countries to get a move on with their own ratifications. Bearing in mind that it has taken seven and a half years since the adoption of the annex for less than a quarter of the states to ratify it, I hope this does not mean that the rest are going to delay implementation until 2035. If my noble friend can say anything about the prospects for accelerating the process, it might cheer us up.

On Part 2 I shall be very brief. I warmly welcome Clause 14, which allows multinational teams from UK universities to undertake research in a special area, provided the domestic legislation of their home country allows them to do so. My question here is whether this means that only nationals of the other five countries that have already ratified the annex can participate in our university expeditions, or whether any of the others have already made arrangements to grant their citizens the necessary permission.

With regard to the historic sites, I note that there are two that are co-managed with Chile and one that is co-managed with Argentina. Mawson’s Huts, remaining from the heroic Australasian Antarctic Expedition of 1911-14, described in last Sunday’s Observer, are an exclusively Australian responsibility, but Sir Douglas himself was Yorkshire born and three of the 22 members of his expedition were British. Is there some way in which the UK might contribute expertise or resources to the management of Mawson’s Huts in recognition of our role in an enterprise which equalled those of Scott, Shackleton and Amundsen?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Greenway]

My Lords, I, too, thank my noble friend Lord Montgomery for introducing this important Bill. I shall not wax lyrical about Antarctica like the noble Lord who has just spoken because I have not been there, although I have been ice-breaking up in the Arctic.

As your Lordships would expect, I shall confine my remarks basically to the maritime side of the Bill and, in particular, to cruise ships, which have been mentioned by a number of noble Lords.

Under the Bill, any vessel visiting Antarctica has a duty to have contingency plans in the event of an environmental emergency there. There is also a need to have adequate insurance cover or other financial security to cover liabilities in the event of an environmental emergency. The UK Chamber of Shipping and the International Group of P&I Clubs—that is, protection and indemnity clubs—raised some concerns while the Bill was going through the other place. They thought that it needed to be made clear that the liability limits found in existing conventions which allow ship operators to limit liability, as ratified by the UK, would be respected in implementing this Bill’s limits for environmental emergencies. Several exchanges took place and I believe that a ministerial Statement was made in the other place to try to quantify those concerns. I hope that the Minister can confirm that under this Bill the liability provisions will come in only when existing liability provisions, already ratified, have exhausted themselves.

There are a number of maritime conventions to which this country has provided ratification and which cover specific liabilities in relation to oil pollution and so on. For liabilities not covered by these conventions, there is the right to limit liability under the Convention on Limitation of Liability for Maritime Claims—the LLMC—of 1976, to which a protocol was added in 1996. In essence, the right to limit liability for ships or ship-source pollution stems from the need for the risk to be quantifiable, and therefore insurable, with the advantage of prompt settlement of claims arising from such incidents. I should be grateful if the Minister could confirm that.

I was interested in the suggestion of the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, that ships should be charged according to the number of passengers on board. The larger ships which used to visit Antarctica are not doing so so often now. They are mainly smaller ships—including expedition ships, as has been mentioned. A lot of them are former Russian ships which are ice-strengthened, and the Russian masters are very well versed in dealing with ice conditions.

[Lord Avebury]

Advertised tours include ships as large as 260 passengers. That seems to be about the maximum.

[Lord Greenway]

Yes, 260 passengers is a very small cruise ship these days when some of them can take 4,000 passengers. We are talking about fairly small ships. My understanding is that no large British ship has been there for a number of years and certainly no British ship is scheduled to visit this year. Basically, this Bill relates to the UK. Ships that belong to other countries, some of which have not ratified some of these conventions, are a different matter and there is concern about them.

I understand that the International Maritime Organisation is in the process of developing a new mandatory polar shipping code which could be completed next year but we do not know yet whether it will be. That was activated by the sinking of the “Explorer”, which the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, mentioned. These things are not always as simple as they seem. My feeling is that companies feel that it is difficult for the larger ships to visit Antarctica because, quite simply, there are too many people on board to go ashore. That is why smaller ships are being used.

This is a very worthwhile Bill and I think that it should be passed expeditiously.