Refugees (Family Reunion) (No.2) Bill

Debate between Angus Brendan MacNeil and Louise Ellman

2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 16th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. I have seen a blog post from the Government, under the headline “Bill to reunite refugees with families will make their lives harder”, which is Orwellian doublespeak of the worst kind. Hopefully the Government will think again about the words they have chosen. My hon. Friend the Member for Central Ayrshire (Dr Whitford) made that point well when she talked about the photograph.

[Mrs Louise Ellman (Liverpool, Riverside) (Lab/Co-op)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on bringing forward this important Bill. Governments are often constrained because they think that the public are hostile to family reunions and to having more immigrants, but the reality is that once they know the details of the circumstances those individuals are fleeing, their attitude towards them becomes very positive. There are many examples of the public in Liverpool rallying around refugees when there are threats to remove them.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

I thank the hon. Lady for making that stellar point. She is absolutely correct. We know that from our own experience here, because often we change our minds when we start to understand a little more. The public do the same as their representatives.

High Speed Rail (Preparation) Bill

Debate between Angus Brendan MacNeil and Louise Ellman

Thursday 31st October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Ellman]

I am a firm supporter of High Speed 2. I believe that it will increase capacity and create the infrastructure that is essential for the future of the nation.

[Mr Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)]

Rail infrastructure in Spain has been mentioned. Studies show that the economies of both Seville and Madrid have benefited from a high-speed line, although only Seville was expected to benefit.

[Mrs Ellman]

That is an important point.

Aviation Strategy

Debate between Angus Brendan MacNeil and Louise Ellman

Thursday 24th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Louise Ellman (Liverpool, Riverside) (Lab/Co-op)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered aviation strategy.

May I congratulate you on your new role, Madam Deputy Speaker?

I am pleased to have the opportunity to debate aviation strategy in the UK, which was the subject of a Transport Committee report published in May. A decision on capacity in the south-east has been in the “too difficult” box for too long. The independent Davies commission set up by the Government has been asked to submit its final report after the next general election, but the Transport Committee felt that this was too important an issue to ignore in this Parliament. I therefore thank the Backbench Business Committee for this opportunity to debate our findings.

Our main focus was inevitably on the controversial subject of runway capacity in the south-east. We concluded that the expansion of Heathrow was the best option, because that recognises the importance of aviation to the UK’s economy and the need for more hub capacity to maintain international connectivity, and reflects consideration of the feasible options. The report considers future demand forecasts for aviation, the impact of aviation growth on the global and local environment, the importance of hub airports in securing connectivity, the role of airports outside the south-east, and aviation taxation, especially air passenger duty, and I will refer to all those issues during the debate.

It is vital to recognise the importance of aviation to the economy. In 2011, the UK’s aviation sector had a turnover of some £53 billion and generated about £18 billion of economic output. It employs more than 220,000 workers directly, and it has been estimated that the total number of jobs supported could be as high as 921,000. Aviation is also important for the lives of many citizens by providing transport, and trade and leisure, links to the rest of the world. Demand for aviation links is growing. In 2012, UK airports handled 221 million passengers, which was 1.4 million more than in 2011. The latest passenger forecasts predict that demand at UK airports is set to grow. Unconstrained forecasts—those in which there are no airspace constraints or capacity limitations—show that passenger numbers will grow to 320 million a year by 2030 and 480 million a year by 2050. It is likely that there will also be greater demand for air connections to new destinations.

The UK has direct air links to more than 360 international locations. There are, however, serious and growing concerns about poor connectivity between the UK and some of the world’s emerging markets, such as the BRIC group of Brazil, Russia, India and China. There are particular concerns about the absence of links to China’s manufacturing centres. The lack of capacity at Heathrow, the UK’s only hub airport, is reducing the UK’s connectivity to important destinations. For many years, Heathrow has operated with two runways at full capacity while competitor hubs such as Paris, Frankfurt and Schiphol have benefited from four to six runways each. The growth of large hubs in the middle east, such as Dubai, has also threatened the UK’s position as an international hub. If the necessary hub capacity is not available in the UK, airlines use competitor hubs to places such as Schiphol, Frankfurt and Madrid, and if no action is taken, the UK will continue to lose out.

[Mr Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)]

What weight would the hon. Lady give to the warning from Michael O’Leary of Ryanair, who says that the UK’s current approach to airport expansion will mean that another runway will be built at Heathrow and at Gatwick some day, but it will be done in an incredible hurry, will not be well planned, and will be the usual sticking-plaster solution?

[Mrs Ellman]

It is undeniable that additional capacity is needed, so we need to make decisions now. We may well need to make more in the future and I will refer to them in due course.

Coastguard (Maritime Incident Response Group)

Debate between Angus Brendan MacNeil and Louise Ellman

Thursday 17th October 2013 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Louise Ellman (Liverpool, Riverside) (Lab/Co-op)]

I welcome the opportunity to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Rosindell, and to debate the Select Committee on Transport’s second report on the coastguard service since the 2010 election. I pay tribute to the nation’s coastguards—both professional staff and volunteers—who provide an essential emergency service, protecting life and limb at sea throughout the year in all weathers.

Last year, Her Majesty’s Coastguard dealt with 2,859 incidents—a 23% increase on the previous year— including rescuing swimmers, divers and people falling off cliffs, cut off by tides and endangered by boat failures. The changes are wide-ranging and involve the maritime rescue co-ordination centres, search and rescue and the maritime incident response group, which deals with firefighting and chemical hazards. I am concerned about all those aspects of the service, and I know that there are ongoing issues, in particular about arrangements for emergency towing vessels.

Today, however, I will focus on changes to the maritime rescue co-ordination centres, which handle calls for assistance and co-ordinate rescues. Reform has been discussed for several years, and the current proposals date back to 2010. The proposals raise major concerns, which is why the Transport Committee has paid close attention to them. We published our first report in 2011 and followed it up in 2012, and we are raising the issue again here today.

In 2010, there were 18 centres spread around the UK coastline, of which the Government proposed to close 10. Their work was to be taken over by the two new 24-hour maritime operations centres in Aberdeen and the Solent area. Five co-ordination centres would remain open during daylight hours only. Under those plans, the number of coastguards would fall from 596 to 370 by 2014, a reduction of 38%.

The main rationale for the changes was the claim that individual co-ordination centres were largely independent of each other and that, as a result, the system as a whole lacked resilience. If a centre was affected by a power cut or overwhelmed by work, we were told, other coastguard stations could do little to help. The proposed maritime operations centre would be able to deal with incidents all around the country and would be able to allocate work to remaining co-ordination centres to iron out peaks and troughs in work load.

The proposals unleashed a storm of protest. There was alarm about the potential loss of crucial local knowledge, particularly in parts of Wales and Scotland where local landmarks can have more than one name in different languages. Local knowledge includes awareness of place names, dialects, tides and currents, geography and the volunteer rescuers available in the area for which the coastguard is responsible. Claims that such local knowledge could be replaced by technology were met with incredulity.

There was alarm, too, about the concept of daylight-only coastguard stations. Would it really be safe to hand over co-ordination of a major incident to new staff, perhaps hundreds of miles away, because it was time to finish work for the day and nightfall had come? Redundancy plans unsettled staff, as did talk of redefining roles, grades and terms and conditions. Many coastguards faced a choice between accepting a new role at a new maritime operations centre in a different location or leaving the service.

In our original 2011 inquiry, we visited coastguards in Falmouth, the Clyde and Stornoway and spoke to coastguards from many other co-ordination centres. We shared many of their concerns about the original plans. In particular, we asked the Government to reconsider introducing daylight-only co-ordination centres, because of the difficulty of handing over rescues. We also highlighted concerns about the loss of local knowledge and the limitations of technological alternatives. I will return to that issue shortly.

The Government published a revised plan in July 2011, which took account of some of our concerns. That plan is now being implemented, but disquiet remains. There will be one maritime operations centre in Fareham, backed up by a co-ordination centre in Dover and eight other co-ordination centres. Eight centres will close; Clyde, Yarmouth and Forth have already shut down. The remaining centres will be open around the clock. The Government have abandoned the concept of daylight-only centres, and I welcome their change of mind.

[Mr Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)]

The hon. Lady is making a good speech, highlighting the Government’s indecisive “suck it and see, make it up as you go along” approach to maritime coastguard stations in 2011. The same thing is happening to the emergency towing vessels. In the report’s conclusion, the Transport Committee asks the Government to explain how an emergency towing vessel stationed in the Northern Isles can serve the west coast effectively. Is that not a mirror image of what the hon. Lady outlined in respect of the coastguard stations?

[Mrs Ellman]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his comments. He highlights a crucial issue causing major concerns that have not yet been resolved.

To return to coastguards and co-ordination centres, under the revised proposals, the number of professional coastguards will fall to 436. The new maritime operations centre was due to be operational by April 2014. That has now been delayed until September 2014. Co-ordination centres at Solent, Portland, Brixham, Liverpool, Swansea and Thames are due to close after that.

We published a second report on the revised proposals in December 2012, and we continue to receive deeply disturbing information from coastguards about staffing and morale in the service. It is to those issues that I now turn. The Committee accepted that there is a case for a national maritime operations centre to manage particularly large or difficult incidents, which could overwhelm an individual co-ordination centre or two centres working together. However, we remain unclear about what coastguards at the national centre would do at times when such an emergency was not taking place. Coastguards giving evidence to us said that they had no idea how the new maritime operations centre and the co-ordination centres would work together.

In their reply to our report, the Government spelled out in more detail what they saw as the main responsibilities of the maritime operations centre, particularly in co-ordinating the work of coastguards across the country. The recent agreement on the roles and responsibilities of coastguards under the new system might also bring greater clarity in this area. Will the Minister explain how the new system will work—not just during a major incident, but at quieter times?

We heard strong criticism of the decision to close three maritime resource co-ordination centres before the new system is in place. For example, Shetland coastguards explained that they had to use their own time to gain local knowledge of parts of the northern Scotland coastline for which they would be responsible after the closure of the Forth station. There have been continuing concerns that some co-ordination centres are now severely overstretched.

We were told in March this year that, already, staffing at Belfast co-ordination centre had been below the risk-assessed staffing level on 124 occasions out of 158 shifts. At the same time, Yarmouth co-ordination centre, which has since closed, was moved to daylight-only operations because of staff shortages. It is testament to the professionalism of the service that the closures have been accommodated without major incident.

It was widely believed that ministerial statements and Maritime and Coastguard Agency documents had given a commitment that the maritime rescue co-ordination centres would not be closed until the new system was put in place. This was denied, but the language used by the Minister’s predecessor in the House and some of the documents published by the Maritime and Coastguard Agency back in 2011 were at best ambiguous.

One key area of the dispute is the importance of local knowledge. Coastguards emphasise its importance in their work, and they are tested on their local situational knowledge. Knowing that a particular rock or headland has three names in two languages can help to ensure that assistance reaches people in distress as quickly as possible. The Maritime and Coastguard Agency discounted its significance, considering that local knowledge could be stored electronically, so that it could be used by any coastguard based anywhere. Indeed, when we heard evidence from the chief executive of the Maritime and Coastguard Agency, he seemed to disregard the importance of critical local knowledge, which is about geography, tides and currents, language and dialect, and the availability of additional volunteer sources for rescue in the area concerned.

Coastguards remain concerned about the issue. They challenge whether the knowledge built up over many years by experienced coastguards working in their areas can be replaced by databases. Coastguards taking on new areas of responsibility will still be assessed on their understanding of local factors, although it is hard to see how this will apply to the coastguards in the new marine operations centre. Perhaps the Minister will explain what importance he attaches to coastguards having local knowledge and how it will work under the new system and be tested.

Select Committee Inquiry (Aviation Strategy)

Debate between Angus Brendan MacNeil and Louise Ellman

Thursday 13th September 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Ellman]

The Committee would be very interested to receive evidence along the lines that the hon. Lady mentions, given the importance of looking at the significance of aviation for economies—regional as well as national.

[Mr Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)]

Will the hon. Lady and her Committee look into the historic reasons for the congestion in the south-east of England—namely, the signing of bilateral agreements between the UK and other countries that stipulated the use of only London airports as a point of access into the UK. It is interesting to note that people in Iceland want to be able to fly to Glasgow rather be forced to fly to London and then north again to Glasgow.

[Mrs Ellman]

The issues of international agreements and the decision-making powers of the aviation sector itself are highly relevant to our inquiry.

I have referred to environmental concerns, and the inquiry will address environmental issues. The aviation industry has a number of environmental impacts. The issue of noise can be particularly important to local residents, and we want to know whether this is being regulated appropriately. We will also consider the wider environmental impact of aviation and how the industry can reduce carbon emissions so that further growth can be sustainable. We want to consider the full range of options. We will, for instance, consider whether a new airport should be built in the Thames estuary, whether Heathrow should have a third runway, and, indeed, whether there are other options. We will approach those issues with an open mind, and will consider the evidence submitted to us.