Shipping: Towing Vessels

Lord West of Spithead Excerpts

Thursday 3rd November 2011 Lords Chamber

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, the world has moved on since the report of Lord Donaldson. We have port state control and inspection of ships, the integrated safety management code of ships, much more reliable ships and much better situational awareness for the coastguard, coupled with the SOSREP system. Finally, most tankers are double-hulled. Single-hulled tankers are not allowed in UK waters except in exceptional circumstances.

[Lord West of Spithead]

My Lords, is the Minister aware that there is a growing perception that the coalition Government are suffering from collective sea blindness? We have just discovered that over the last few weeks we have no ship at immediate readiness for counterterrorism or disasters around the UK—no Royal Navy ship at all. We have got rid of our broad area surveillance in the SDSR. We have just heard about the tug towing, and I have to say there are still a lot of single-hull tankers around, not least in the Royal Fleet Auxiliary because there has been no money to replace them. The National Maritime Intelligence Centre, which he referred to, is not up and running at full speed, which it should be. I can go on and on.

I am sure these perceptions are not right, but could the Minister confirm that the Government are looking at this in a co-ordinated way because there is very real worry? Perceptions often seem more real than reality, and there is a very real perception that this is not being pulled together.

[Earl Attlee]

The noble Lord is right, he has gone on—he has gone on about defence matters. This is a commercial matter. One of the impacts of the Government funding an emergency towing vessel, say at Falmouth, is that it prevents commercial operators from stationing an ETV at Falmouth because there is no work for them.