Merchant Shipping (Cargo Ship) (Bilge Alarm) Regulations 2021

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Tuesday 13th July 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, for securing this debate, which is, at the level of detail, about a specific and very disturbing case. As the noble Lord outlined, there was a known, clear, evident solution to a dangerous safety risk, one that the crew of the “Abigail H” escaped without serious injury and risk of deaths only through the luck of a vessel rolling one way rather than another. It has taken 11 years to implement. In the meantime, we have subsequently seen nine similar incidents, while 425 similar ships on the UK ship register remain at risk.

I support this regret Motion while noting the conclusion of our Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, but it is a matter of concern that the Department for Transport has failed to follow up promptly Marine Accident Investigation Branch recommendations.

I note also that the subsequent sinking of “Abigail H” led to the release of 100 litres of lubricating and diesel oil into the marine environment—our already pollution-choked, much-damaged marine environment. It is hard to believe that, had this been a safety issue with cargo planes or with HGVs, we would not have seen far faster action, or certainly a greater outcry until action was taken. This raises a far broader issue than bilge alarms, as crucial as they are to hundreds of vessels. It raises the whole issue of safety—human and environmental—in the marine environment.

Last week, I think, the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, asked an Oral Question on human rights at sea. Human rights are supposed to be universal but it is only now that human rights at sea campaigners are seeking effectively to secure those rights because they are not in place. Although there have been some improvements regarding fishing, it is acknowledged as being one of the most dangerous jobs on these islands. The Fishing Industry Safety Group has a commendable vision of zero deaths but given that there have been 71 deaths in the past decade, we are a long way from that.

I note that working on cruise ships in the pre-Covid age—ships that regularly polluted our ports and caused enormous environmental damage—was notoriously exploitative and unsafe for the crew. Covid has only helped to expose the conditions faced by so many of those working on cargo vessels, the crucial foundation of so much of our lives in our import-based society: safety is terrible, pay is low and flags of convenience make it a wild west with no sheriff in sight.

What is going on? Why do we have that lack of knowledge? Certainly now, few people in the UK go to sea, are employed in maritime jobs or know someone who is. According to the latest figures that I have found, there are about 220,000 such jobs in the UK. That is a change from the past when, for good or ill, many Britons went to sea or came into contact with seafarers from all around the world who went to sea in their service.

However, it is hard not to think that this is not a question of “out of sight, out of mind” but deliberate, careful ignorance. We bear a responsibility for what happens in the vessels that sail from or arrive at our shores, whichever flag of convenience they fly—certainly if they fly our own. Their environmental impacts, too, are our responsibility. In your Lordships’ House, when we next debate trade, I invite noble Lords to consider that issue and think about the underpaid, overworked seafarer putting their life in danger to bring us the latest must-have toy or fashion item to be worn casually and discarded. They should think about the climate impact of the fuel that brings them, the damage done when containers fall from vessels, as they regularly do, or when rust-bucket ships break up and sink, spilling their cargos into oceans, to drift and endanger animal life, and sometimes human life, as they do.

We cannot say that that is a cost over the horizon. Overall, it is a real and present danger, which the “Abigail H” highlights our current failure to attend to.