Marine Navigation (No. 2) Bill

Baroness Primarolo Excerpts

Friday 19th October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Sheryll Murray]

Will the Minister give way?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. You cannot have an intervention on an intervention. I would wait until Andrew Miller is back on his feet if I were you.

[Andrew Miller]

I was wondering where we were getting to with that point. I listened carefully to the Minister and I welcome that assurance. This is a question of language and whether there needs to be a stop-gap for circumstances where the port is not in public ownership. For publicly owned ports the line of accountability is through the ballot box.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sheryll Murray]

It is intended that before any competent harbour authority introduced harbour revision orders or general rules of direction it would consult all users of the area. In Plymouth, the Queen’s harbourmaster has authority over the port of Plymouth, but we have two other major ports in Plymouth sound—Associated British Ports at Millbay docks, and Cattewater harbour, which takes in a tremendous amount of fuel to serve the south-west. We have Brittany ferries using the Millbay docks area, and we have our naval base and dockyard. I am absolutely certain that the Queen’s harbourmaster would not introduce any general rules of direction without consulting Associated British Ports and the Cattewater harbourmaster. In fact, they regularly sit on a committee called the Tamar estuaries consultative forum, which takes account of every interested party before starting to make any rules.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. I appreciate that the hon. Lady is providing lots of information, but she is making an intervention, not a speech. However, I am sure that her hon. Friend is very grateful for the information.