Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Bill Esterson and Mike Penning

Monday 6th July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mike Penning]

The most important thing is that people have the confidence to come forward and report crimes such as domestic violence, which was dramatically under-reported over the years. If that has an effect on crime statistics, so be it. The police already have the discretion to give cautions. It is up to them what they do. We want people to come forward and report these crimes.

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

Both reporting and fighting crime have become much harder in Merseyside now there are 600 fewer police officers since the Minister’s Government came to power. Is not the real guilty party when it comes to running down the police the Minister and his colleagues, who have run down police numbers and taken away their ability to fight crime?

[Mike Penning]

I do not know if the hon. Gentleman has noticed, but since 2010 crime in his constituency has fallen. That is because the police are doing fantastic work and a great job with less assets and less money.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Bill Esterson and Mike Penning

Tuesday 9th September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mike Penning]

Although I cannot interfere in the role of barristers in the courts, we are looking at the matter very closely and have piloted the use of video conferencing so that evidence can be given remotely or from behind a screen. It is vital that victims have the confidence to become witnesses, and I will do everything in my power to ensure that they have the support they need to do so.

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

Colin McGinty was murdered almost 14 years ago. His parents recently gave a victim statement remotely, but the chair of the parole panel forgot to turn off his microphone and they overheard him say that their views would be disregarded. No doubt the Justice Secretary is explaining what happened. They have received an apology for what happened, which was incredibly distressing, as Members will understand. Can the Minister confirm that the Justice Secretary’s written advice is that victim statements are an important part of rehabilitation because of their role in the demonstration of empathy and remorse by offenders, and will he ensure that that is put clearly to the Parole Board and to parole panels?

[Mike Penning]

I have not yet had an opportunity to look at the full details of the case the hon. Gentleman refers to, but I know that there is an ongoing investigation to find out how it happened and to ensure that it does not happen again. I can only emphasise, as a human being, that it must have been horrible to hear that being said in the background. We must ensure that it does not happen again. The Secretary of State met the group only last week to discuss the matter.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Bill Esterson and Mike Penning

Thursday 31st October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mike Penning]

I will commit myself to giving everybody who wants to get into work the opportunity to do so, whether they are disabled or have health difficulties or not, and to keep their jobs and continue in employment. I will look carefully at the figures. The Access to Work scheme is working very well, but nothing is perfect.

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

Only 3% of disabled people in the employment and support allowance group in the Work programme found a job after two years. Given the Government’s failure to help long-term disabled people into work, is it not a bit rich for Tory MPs to be lecturing disabled people to get a job?

[Mike Penning]

Nobody is lecturing anybody apart from Labour Members who have selective memory loss about the past 13 years. We will do everything we can. I am sure that the previous Administration did, but they did not do it very well.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Bill Esterson and Mike Penning

Thursday 12th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mike Penning]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right and the fact that he mentions is a sad indictment. Boys aged between 17 and 25 are 10 times more likely to be involved in an accident than a lady of that age. Low-cost schemes are vital, and some of the very low-cost schemes, such as retro-reflective paint on roads, have moved things on a huge amount in the last 10 years. I assure the hon. Gentleman that I am considering such schemes.

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

The Government have approved construction of the Switch island to Thornton relief road. The land is owned by a number of Government agencies, including the Forestry Commission, the Vehicle and Operator Services Agency and the Highways Agency. Will the Minister encourage his ministerial colleagues to speed up negotiations with Sefton council, so that work can start on the road?

[Mike Penning]

I am working with other Departments and Ministers. This is a vitally important scheme and we will push it forward as fast as we possibly can.

Coastguard Modernisation

Debate between Bill Esterson and Mike Penning

Tuesday 22nd November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mike Penning]

I thank my hon. Friend for reiterating the importance to his constituents of Portland. However, I am sure that he would join me in saying that the front-line emergency personnel—the volunteers—are the most important people here and their resilience and ability to do their job is the most important thing. We will be able to enhance their training and enhance the pay in our coastguard co-ordination centres. Not in a million years could I have been able to afford to build the facility in Fareham. It was folly of the previous Government to do so and I will utilise that building to its best abilities.

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

I remind the Minister that the two issues that will anger people about the decision on Crosby are those to do with local knowledge of the north-west coast of England and the west of Scotland, which will now be lost, and those to do with the proposal put forward by the staff to host the maritime operations centre at a significant saving. He said in answer to an earlier question that he was not looking at new plans in the second consultation, but would it not have been a good idea for the Government to have done so and to have considered the good ideas coming forward from staff, such as those proposed at Crosby?

[Mike Penning]

On the hon. Gentleman’s second point, the consultation was quite specific about whether we should have one MOC or two MOCs. The second proposal was for a MOC in Aberdeen and I needed to say that we were not going to do that if we were to have the money to keep the other stations open and that we would have the resilience without it. Even though the facilities at Swansea are good, they are nothing compared with the fire control centre I have taken over in Fareham, and I invite any hon. Members to visit that facility. The communications and build quality are second-to-none. As I have said, I could never have afforded to build it so the deal that I have done with the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government is absolutely brilliant. As the hon. Gentleman knows, when I was at Crosby—on my very first visit—the full-time coastguards told me that having the existing 18 centres was wrong and they suggested there should be nine. I am sorry that Crosby is not one of them.

Coastguard Service

Debate between Bill Esterson and Mike Penning

Tuesday 14th June 2011 Westminster Hall

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship this morning, Dr McCrea. This is the latest in a long series of debates on the coastguard service and I look forward to debating it again with the Minister.

With the coastguard station, police officers, community support officers and the second fire engine under threat in Crosby, it struck me as odd that the Government had not carried out a risk assessment of the impact of such cuts on public safety. I want to look at the co-ordination between the emergency services and see how police, fire and ambulance services will carry out their duties without coastguard staff, who have immense local knowledge and years of experience. There will also be an impact on the RAF mountain rescue service, the British Transport police and the many volunteers who carry out vital rescue services up and down the country. I plan to look at the ability of other emergency services to support the remaining coastguards to carry out their duties following the cuts to their budgets.

In the spirit of “Have I Got News For You”, I have brought along two guest publications. The Royal Yachting Association’s members’ magazine stated:

“It is clear that changes to the current system are needed to improve the safety of boaters.”

Will the Minister tell us how organisations such as the RYA were involved in drawing up the original plans?

The second guest publication, Firefighter, is probably well known to the Minister because he has a distinguished record in the fire service.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Mike Penning)]

I would not go as far as that.

[Bill Esterson]

Well, he has served in the fire service.

Firefighter states:

“Voluntarism, good neighbourliness and a desire to perform ‘public service’ have a limited place in the fire and rescue service on safety grounds.”

I raise that comment because cuts in budgets and staffing have led to the expectation that some of the work of the emergency services will have to be delivered by volunteers. The question is whether that is a safe or acceptable risk for the public. It would be helpful to see how the emergency services and public safety will be affected by the planned cuts. Coastguard staff at Crosby work closely with the police, fire, ambulance and search and rescue services.

I have a number of questions for the Minister, some of which he will be able to answer and some of which he may have to refer to his colleagues in other Departments. The proposed changes to the UK-wide service will have a huge knock-on effect and this debate aims to tease out some of the wider issues, many of which have been briefly addressed in our previous debates.

There is a disagreement between the Minister and many coastguard staff and stakeholders about whether an adequate risk assessment was carried out as part of the Maritime and Coastguard Agency plans. It would be interesting to hear what assessment was carried out of the impact on other emergency services and on their ability to continue to support the coastguard. I include in that assessment the impact of funding cuts on voluntary organisations, including the Royal National Lifeboat Institution—an organisation’s ability to raise funds may suffer as a result of the economic climate—and local volunteer services such as the Southport rescue service.

I attended a consultation meeting at which more than 200 people were present, including representatives from the Southport rescue service. Concerns were raised by the shipping industry, the oil and gas sector, search and rescue volunteers and pleasure craft users. Will the Minister tell us how far those sectors were involved in the drawing up of the original plans? It is said that staff were not asked for their views, and that has been repeated right the way through this process and by many hon. Members here today. Could the Minister confirm whether the plans were drawn up by former front-line staff with no recent operational experience? Will he tell us whether the police, fire service, ambulance service and volunteer search and rescue teams were asked for their views before the plans were drawn up?

The lack of front-line involvement in drawing up the proposals is a key flaw and a matter of grave concern for hon. Members here today and the staff and public who rely on the coastguard and other emergency services. It is at the heart of the difficulty that the Government face during this process.

The way in which Ministers pushed ahead with the proposals is similar to the way in which so many other policies are pushed through by the Government—too fast and too soon. They failed to engage with stakeholders and staff and they failed to involve the other emergency services when they drew up the plans. That led to many of the flaws that have been so graphically illustrated during the consultation. It would have been far better to get the proposals right in the first place and not to have the plans systematically dismantled by staff, volunteers, maritime experts, commercial and leisure users and the general public.

Like many other places in the country, the Merseyside fire and rescue service is set to lose its marine service as a result of Government cuts. I would be interested to hear what discussions have taken place between the MCA and the fire service about the work done jointly between coastguards and river and coastal fire and rescue boats, and what the impact of the cuts will be. Has the Minister spoken to his colleagues in the Department for Communities and Local Government about the cuts in the fire service and has he raised concerns about the impact of the cuts on Merseyside and elsewhere in the country?

Did the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government ask the Minister or the Secretary of State for Transport whether the cuts in the fire service would have any effect on the coastguards and what the impact would be on public safety? These questions would have been addressed if the fire service had been asked to help draw up the plans for the coastguard.

Co-ordination between rescue services would have helped to deliver changes without compromising safety. This story appeared in the Liverpool Echo on 5 March:

“Four people had to be rescued from a pilot boat that caught fire on the River Mersey today. The alarm was raised at around 3.10 am that the crew of the Dunlin were drifting in the river after the fire knocked out the engine. The New Brighton RNLI boat was launched to save the people onboard, who were transferred to another pilot boat, the Petrel. Firefighters tackled the blaze on the water before the stricken Dunlin was towed back to the landing stage at the Pierhead. The fire crews finished dampening the smouldering boat down at around 6 am. No-one on the Dunlin was hurt.”

There is praise there for the RNLI and the fire service, but after the cuts, will the RNLI have the contacts to respond? Will the coastguard be able to direct the RNLI or another rescue team to the scene in time?

[Bill Esterson]

The hon. Gentleman makes his point well. His example ties in with the concerns that I was expressing about the co-ordination of rescue services and about getting them to the scene in a timely fashion.

That point was illustrated by the example I gave concerning the Dunlin which suggested that a combination of organisations work together to effect speedy rescue services; that all of them are affected by Government plans; and that all of them have raised questions for a variety of Government Ministers. I hope that we will start to get some answers from the Minister today.

The suspicion remains that the reorganisation has been rushed and that the cuts to police, fire, ambulance and voluntary agencies that provide an emergency response have also been rushed. The cuts to all the emergency services are possibly the worst example of cuts that are happening too fast and too soon, as they will undermine the ability of the emergency services to protect the public.

The issue of local knowledge applies to all emergency services. When discussing co-ordination of emergency services, it becomes a critical issue. The loss of Crosby coastguard station would mean that the police and fire services, working with search and rescue volunteers, would be ever more crucial in identifying where incidents take place. The cuts to police, fire and voluntary organisations mean that those organisations will not be in a position to provide a replacement service for the coastguard service. That brings me to another question that I want to put to the Minister—how will that replacement service be provided? I would like an answer to that question.

The Government must now come clean on the estimates that they have made about the increased time that it will take to reach maritime incidents as a result of these closures. If the coastguard at Crosby goes, if the local fire service loses its river service and if the funding for the RNLI and other voluntary rescue services is under pressure, what will happen in incidents such as that involving the Dunlin? How will co-ordination of services happen in future? What assessment was carried out before the proposals were published? Was the RNLI asked to help draw up the plans? Did the Minister ask his ministerial colleagues about the impact of cuts to organisations such as the RNLI and whether the funding of such organisations would be affected by the slow-down in economic growth that has resulted from the Chancellor cutting public spending?

[Mike Penning]

Evidence was given to the Transport Committee the other day by the RNLI, but what evidence is there of any cuts in the RNLI services anywhere in the UK and southern Ireland? If there is no evidence, the hon. Gentleman is scaremongering and frightening communities around the country. There is no evidence at all.

[Bill Esterson]

I am glad that the Minister has asked me that question, because it highlights the fact that that was the sort of issue that was not considered when the plans were drawn up. The reason that I raise the issue is—

[Mike Penning]

indicated dissent.

[Bill Esterson]

The Minister can shake his head, scowl and express his dissatisfaction all he wants. However, the reality is that in a downturn—in tough economic times—charitable giving falls. He must know that; I think that everyone in Westminster Hall today must know that. I am interested to know what assessment was made of the impact of the downturn, not only on the RNLI but on all the voluntary organisations that provide emergency services. That is the key question and I had hoped that I had asked it clearly before.

[Mike Penning]

The specific point that the hon. Gentleman is making is that there are likely to be cuts in the service of the RNLI. The RNLI gave evidence to the Transport Committee only the other day and I myself have met local and national representatives of the RNLI on numerous occasions, and there is absolutely no evidence that such cuts will happen. To suggest that they are likely is scaremongering. As I say, I have met the relevant bodies and the Select Committee has taken evidence on this subject, so the hon. Gentleman must not scare the public by saying that there will be cuts to RNLI services.

[Bill Esterson]

I do not need lectures from the Minister about what I must and must not do. He should really think through what he is saying before he makes that sort of comment, because I am asking questions about the kind of assessment and analysis that was carried out about the impact of these plans, and about the process that was gone through when the original proposals were drawn up. This issue is of grave concern to many staff, many members of the public and many people who rely on the coastguard. It is about what analysis was done on a range of issues related to the ability of all the emergency services to protect the public. I am asking about that.

I say again that in a downturn—in tough economic times—charitable giving falls. We have already seen evidence of that. I do not know what the situation is with the RNLI. That is why I am asking the Minister about the RNLI. It is a very important question and I would be very worried if the Minister did not consider it so.

Greenock Coastguard Station

Debate between Bill Esterson and Mike Penning

Wednesday 8th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Mike Penning)]

It is a pleasure to respond to the debate initiated by the hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Katy Clark). It is one of many debates on the subject in which we have engaged in the last few months, and that is right and proper, because the Government are making a very important decision.

May I take the first opportunity that I have had to pay tribute to David Cairns, whose Inverness constituency contains the Clyde maritime co-ordination centre? He was very active in the campaign as it is now, but long before these proposals were made he had engaged considerably with the Maritime and Coastguard Agency and had visited the station on many occasions, particularly when the Ministry of Defence indicated that it was likely to withdraw the lease and that, in this respect, we would be homeless in that part of the world. His attitude to his constituents was exemplary, as was the way in which he conducted himself during our debates. He will be sorely missed by the House, and whoever replaces him—I understand that the writ for the by-election was moved today—will have a very large pair of shoes to fill.

Although I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing the debate—and I also congratulate the hon. Members who are present for sticking around when they could have disappeared this afternoon—I should point out that the consultation process has ended, even though we extended it considerably, and all representations from all parts of the coastguard community as well as from the public and colleagues in this House will be carefully considered.

All the information will be looked at, as will all the concerns. Let us take the costings, for instance. It is difficult for a coastguard representative or member of the Public and Commercial Services Union to work out the modelling costs. That will be undertaken by the Department, and we will publish all the consultation documents on the website. There are a lot of them, and we will publish them online because we do not want to chop down too many trees. We will also reopen the consultation for a very short time to allow for the Transport Committee report to be taken into account when we draw our conclusions. Finally, the Secretary of State has announced that we will make our announcement before the summer recess.

We realise how emotive this subject is. I come from an emergency service background, so I know very well how emotive issues involving the emergency services in general are. I am enormously proud to be an ex-fireman, and it is a great honour and privilege to be the Minister responsible for Her Majesty’s Maritime and Coastguard Agency and everything to do with it. The MCA is world-renowned. If my hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth (Sarah Newton) was not being so nice, I am sure she would want to tell me about the fantastic international work done at Falmouth on behalf of the coastguard nationally in this country.

But we are talking about a co-ordination centre, and we are in the position we are in today because a set of station cuts and closures were made over a series of years. I do not think anybody in the Chamber or in the country would claim that the current structure has any logic at all. I have gone around the country visiting stations, and my chief executive, Sir Alan Massey, has been to every single coastguard station during this process, and we have had some robust discussions; I had such a discussion when I was up by Liverpool. Everybody knew that these sorts of changes were coming down the line, however. The previous Government had the current proposals on their desk, and they have been discussed with the PCS for almost two years; I have a record of the dates when those meetings took place, and I myself met and held discussions with PCS representatives before these announcements were made.

We knew in advance, therefore, that we needed a reconfiguration of the coastguard service, so that we have the resilience, training and communication systems that are required, as well as a pay structure that is fit for the 21st century. Anybody who has visited a coastguard station in this country will know that one of the first subjects the staff talk about is pay and career, because £13,500 a year as a basic salary in an emergency service is unacceptable. That is one of the reasons why we are looking at this reconfiguration and realignment of the way the service works. That is a fact; this topic was discussed with me because there was a dispute that I inherited when I first became the responsible Minister, and which had been going on for several years. It is unacceptable that such a dispute went on for such a long time.

We must also look at the geography—at where the co-ordination centres are located. We are talking specifically about the Clyde today. The Clyde station is twinned. The hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran might be aware that each of the coastguard stations, apart from the Western Isles and Shetland, is twinned with another station so that they have some resilience. The Clyde station is twinned with Bangor in Northern Ireland, so if the systems go down in the Clyde and the local knowledge—which I accept is there—disappears, Northern Ireland will look after that coastguard area. I have visited Bangor and put the following point to its staff: if local knowledge is so important—and I accept that it does have importance—why are there such huge geographical distances between twinned co-ordination centres? Interestingly, in other parts of the country twins are ridiculously close, such as Brixham and Falmouth. That makes it very difficult to have a national co-ordination facility, and we do not have it; there is no national resilience within the coastguard service in the UK today. We need to look at that.

The very first visit that I made—I know I am going to repeat myself, but some of these comments need repeating—was to Liverpool, on 13 January. A robust and free debate took place, and I do not think I held much back; nor did some of the coastguard representatives, who included volunteers as well as full-time staff. Interestingly, during that debate—the hon. Member for Sefton Central (Bill Esterson) was there—one of the senior members of uniformed staff said to me, “But Minister, we’ve been talking about nine co-ordination centres for years.” I said, “Please put that in writing—be part of the consultation.” I also went to Bangor, where a very detailed report was put in.

[Bill Esterson]

I remember the exchange about the nine co-ordination centres extremely well. It was an informal proposal put forward by members of staff there some years ago. It is important to put it on the record that they had suggested it to the agency at an earlier date.

[Mike Penning]

That is exactly the point I am trying to make: this has not come out of the blue. The coastguard representatives there, in front of the hon. Gentleman, me and everybody else assembled there, said that they had previously suggested having nine centres around the country. If the hon. Gentleman remembers, I said to them, “I’m talking about eight, you’re talking about nine. We’re not that far apart, are we?”

On 9 March, I visited Bangor, in the Province, where a detailed presentation and submission was put to me suggesting having 10 centres around the country. As I have said before, three types of submission have been made in this lengthy consultation process. One suggests that we should leave things alone, and that everything is okay. Another says, “Leave us alone”, without making any real comment about anybody else. Then, there are the really detailed submissions, such as that from Falmouth, which I also visited. They say, “We know there needs to be change—standing still is not an option. We’ve said that since day one, when we started the consultation, but actually, we think the figure for the country as a whole should be about 10.” There have also been discussions about how many national co-ordination centres, or maritime operations centres, there should be. The suggestion arising from the consultation is two; others have suggested one. I do not think anybody is suggesting that there should be none—at least, not in the detailed submissions. There is no national co-ordination at the moment, and I think everybody accepts it is needed.

We are proud of our extended coastline, and we should perhaps look at how other countries are dealing with their co-ordination centres. I must stress that this issue is purely to do with co-ordination—the wonderful volunteers who carry out the rescues, and the RNLI and others, are not affected. In fact, we are going to enhance those services by providing them with more investment and more full-time staff. So, naturally, when I first looked at our proposal, I examined how other countries with an extended coastline structure their co-ordination centres. I looked at other English-speaking countries that might have replicated our approach, and Australia, for instance, has one centre. Spain, I believe, also has one; Norway has two; France has seven. It is not feasible for us to stand still and say that what we have today, in this ad hoc procedure, is suitable going forward.

The consultation was put out and there were discussions with the PCS. These proposals, in one shape or form, have been around for about four years. Evidence was given to the Select Committee, and a letter was published in The Guardian only the other day from the former chief executive of the MCA, saying that Ministers had fudged this issue for years and it had not been addressed. We are determined to bring the coastguard service and the MCA into the 21st century—to have a fully resilient service with a pay and career structure that is fit for the service and its dedicated staff.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mike Penning]

I do not want to disappoint the hon. Lady, but the Scottish National party has absolutely no chance of my breaking up a national emergency service such as this one. That will not happen. If we go down the avenue of saying that we can break up the service and that it can be operated in a completely independent little station, we will move completely away from the needs of the service. The service needs national resilience. If we do not have that, we are not offering the service that our constituents—including the hon. Lady’s constituents—deserve. It cannot happen.

When I visited the Western Isles, I saw that when the power goes down—I understand that it does so on a fairly regular basis—volunteers go up to the wireless towers on the hills and operate them manually. That is the situation we are in in the 21st century. There was a lightning strike at Falmouth and they luckily managed to keep going, but there is no proper resilience to lock in the service. In our part of the world, the police love the VHF system we operate because they operate on Airwave and although we use some of it we have a very good radio system. However, what we need is networking.

I am sure that the hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran is aware that at Clyde we have a hub that comes into the existing building, but we cannot stay in that building. That is one reason for the decision. We have talked about costs, and of course costs are involved—there is no illusion about the fact that costs are involved and there would be significant costs if we had another station in Clyde that was not in that building. Even if we stayed in that building, there would be considerable costs, and we cannot do so, as the Ministry of Defence has decided that it wants to be gone from that building in Clyde by 2013. We will have to move from that building. There are significant costs that we will publish and put out there, but I am in the middle of the consultation and I will not jeopardise that. Judicial review or something similar could be pushed against me if I broke into the consultation in the middle of it. I am trying to be as open as possible.

[Bill Esterson]

I assume that the Minister has finished with the previous interventions. Let me make a few points about learning lessons regarding future consultations and advice. First, there is grave concern among coastguard officers that at one point he advised them that they could give evidence in public to the Select Committee.

[Mike Penning]

No, I did not.

[Bill Esterson]

Well, he will get his chance in a moment to answer my points, but that has categorically been stated by a number of coastguard officers. I think there is a lesson to learn there about the advice given by Ministers.

The other point is that we should listen to front-line staff when drawing up proposals on such important issues as these emergency services and we should include their ideas. The Minister mentioned what happened at Crosby when he visited: the ideas of those staff were not put into the consultation document and were not part of the proposal, and that is of concern to staff there.

Coastguard Service

Debate between Bill Esterson and Mike Penning

Thursday 24th March 2011 Westminster Hall

[Bill Esterson]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her points because it reminds me that, of course, originally Liverpool was excluded from the consultation. That is something that staff at Liverpool noticed. They have great concerns that the late inclusion of Liverpool as one of the options shows the true intentions of the agency.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Mike Penning)]

Just for clarification, Liverpool was not excluded from the consultation; it was just not one of the stations that was proposed for closure. No stations were excluded from the consultation, no matter where they are in the country.

[Bill Esterson]

I accept the Minister’s point. I was merely expressing a concern raised by staff. To return to the point made by the hon. Member for North Down (Lady Hermon), staff at Liverpool do not feel equipped to address issues around the coast of Northern Ireland, and I am sure that staff in Belfast would say the same about dealing with issues around Liverpool. There is a very good reason why we have the current network. A lot of staff do not think that the proposals have addressed how the current network will be replaced without compromising safety. That is at the heart of the concerns that are being raised by staff and those who rely on the service.

The proposals were drawn up by former front-line staff who, it is fair to say, do not have recent front-line experience. That is a particular concern. The lack of input from front-line staff during the early stages of the process has caused a lot of disquiet. I know that a consultation is under way but, when things are done in such a way, there is always concern that the consultation is the wrong way round. I shall not accuse the Minister of anything stronger than that at the moment. He will have time to explain the matter.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr MacNeil]

That statement shows unbelievable arrogance.

[Mike Penning]

rose—

[Bill Esterson]

I think that the Minister would like to intervene.

[Mike Penning]

If an accusation has been made against certain coastguard officers, will the hon. Gentleman indicate exactly who said that? Otherwise, will he withdraw that until he has the evidence to say who said it?

[Bill Esterson]

I have it in writing from a serving coastguard officer who has asked me not to give his name, so I am not going to give his name.

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

Would my hon. Friend give way?

[Mike Penning]

Who said it?

[Bill Esterson]

I am going to give way to my hon. Friend.

[Bill Esterson]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, because I think that that is important. Staff are making those allegations, and I know they have made them to other Members.

[Mike Penning]

May I reiterate that any member of staff has the right to give evidence not only to the Select Committee, but to the consultation? The point that I was trying to make is that the accusation is about a senior member of staff. I think that initially the hon. Gentleman said that the chief coastguard had said that, and then he said, “Another member of staff”. If they are going to make that sort of accusation against a senior member of staff—not the person who was making the accusation anonymously—then they must indicate who that was. Was it the chief coastguard, or not? That is the point the hon. Gentleman was trying to make. If it was not the chief coastguard, then he must retract that. We have to have evidence about who the person was who was alleged to have said that, otherwise it is unfair.

[Bill Esterson]

As I said earlier, my constituent has indicated that he is concerned that if I give his name, or the name of other members of staff, they will be victimised. They are very concerned about that. Perhaps that is something that the Minister can discuss with me a little later, but I am certainly not going to give names now.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Mike Penning)]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth (Sarah Newton) for being so diligent in securing the debate and for the tone in which the debate has, in the main, been conducted. I, too, would have liked to have had the debate on the Floor of the House. I do not dispute that argument, and I think that the issue should have that sort of airing. The decision is beyond my pay grade, but I note that the deputy Chief Whip, my right hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael), is here to represent his constituents, even though he is not allowed to speak. If the issue could be brought back to the House, that would be right and proper.

This is a really important debate. I will sum up what others have said and my hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth will finish off the debate. I pay tribute to all coastguard staff—full-time, part-time and volunteers. More than 3,000 volunteers do it because they love their community and want to serve it, as do so many others throughout the country. I also pay tribute to the RNLI. It is an amazing organisation that looks after not only us in the United Kingdom, but the Republic of Ireland. That is really important. I also pay tribute to what are called private rescue boats, but which are really volunteers. There are hundreds of them. Some of the constituencies represented here today do not have any, and others have so many that it would be impossible to visit all of them in the time available during a Parliament. They are fantastic and are dedicated to, and love, their community.

Nine parties are represented in the debate. I am proud of that. I served in Northern Ireland for many years and never got the parties together, but I have managed to do it now—for a while. Many hon. Members have come to this Chamber on a one-line Whip, when they could have been in their constituencies. Instead, they are here doing what is right and proper, and what I would have been doing if I were a Back Bencher with a seat associated with the coastguard service.

I have listened to all the points made by colleagues, but the most important representations have come from the public and, in particular, from the coastguards themselves. I have heard some disturbing comments today. I do not want to dwell on the matter for too long, but if a member of my staff—they are my staff because I am the Minister responsible for shipping and the MCA works for me—has gone out and said, “Don’t worry about it; they are a bunch of whingers,” I do not want to know who they told; I want to know who said it because, believe me, I will come down on them like a tonne of bricks. Hon. Members who know me will know that that is the case.

It is important that employees of the coastguard feel confident that they can make submissions. Some have put submissions in anonymously and I understand that. However, they really do not need to do it anonymously. As I have gone around the country—I shall touch on some of the meetings I have had—people have been positive.

[Bill Esterson]

I am glad that the Minister has said that staff do not have to worry about what happens. I know that I am not the only hon. Member to have experienced this, but I have had more than one representation from a staff member who is very worried about the possibility of—and this is the word they use—recriminations if they take part in the process. I am glad that the Minister has made it clear that that will not be tolerated.

[Mike Penning]

As the hon. Gentleman knows, I have been to the coastguard station at Crosby and the people there did not hold back when they spoke to me. Everybody was in the room. The staff should feel confident that if they wish to do so, they can express their views robustly. By the way, as he may have noticed, I was robust back. That sort of confidence should be out there. The coastguard community is quite small and some people do not have that confidence. If they want to submit anonymous representations, that is understandable. Those representations will be dealt with in exactly the same way as those to which people have put their name.

I shall touch on some of the points raised by hon. Members. In the short time I have, it will not be possible to answer every individual point. However, my officials are here and, if necessary, we will write to hon. Members on individual points. I have a background as a member of the armed forces and, probably more significantly, as a member of the fire service for many years, so saving lives is in my blood. There is no way that this change to the way in which the coastguard operates is going to put lives at risk—far from it. To some extent, I inherited the plans from the previous Administration. Some hon. Members were at the briefing upstairs in, I think, Committee Room 9, when the chief coastguard and chief executive were present. When the chief coastguard was appointed over two years ago, he had the proposals on his desk. At that time, I was not a Minister and this coalition Government were not in place. The hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick), the shadow Minister, knows that the proposals were on his desk and the desks of others for four and a half years-plus.

As I have gone around the country, no one I have met who is in the know has said that there does not need to be dramatic changes to how the MRCC is run. When I was in Crosby, one very senior officer said to me, “Minister, we know it should be nine. We have been saying it should be nine stations for many years.” That was said in front of the hon. Member for Sefton Central (Bill Esterson). I asked for the submission that actually said that.

I had a wonderful trip to Bangor in Northern Ireland. It was a trip down memory lane for me in many ways. There was a breath of fresh air at that and other meetings, and in some of the early submissions. I have not looked at them in detail because it is not right and proper for me to do so yet. However, if I am sat in a presentation, it is difficult not to listen to what is being said. The presentation at Bangor looked at having 10 stations—one headquarters, and of the remaining nine stations, about half would be full time and half part time.

There is an acceptance out there that the present 19 stations are an anomaly left over from previous closures. There were closures in the ’80s and in early 2000 and 2001. We are left where we are now. I understand fully the passion of every hon. Member and why communities are coming together and saying, “Don’t close my station. This is very important to us.” We have had more than 1,200 submissions to the consultation. They fall into three groups. One group of people are questioning my parent’s parenthood or my parenthood. Some of those submissions will have to be redacted before we publish, but we will publish every one that has been received.

Some submissions are based purely on individual stations—a bit like what we have heard in the debate. People are saying, “This is our station. We think it should stay and these are the reasons why.” That is fine. However, we have also had a number of submissions saying, “Let’s not just look at our station; let’s look at how we can have a national service.” That is what I heard in Crosby, in Bangor, in Milford Haven and what I know I am going to hear in Falmouth.

I have the honour of looking after the only national emergency service, and I am very proud of its history. However, it is the only national emergency service with no national resilience. There is more resilience in all the other emergency services than the one we are talking about today. That is not acceptable in the 21st century. This is not just about resilience in computers, which we are all a bit sceptical about. I share that scepticism on computers. I was shadow Minister for three and a half years. In the great city we are in now, the ambulance service control centre just across the river looks after 10 million people. People are transferred from a 999 call to that control centre. The operators have hardly asked the caller anything before they know where they are, within reason, and they are looking to see who they can dispatch. We do not have that sort of facility in the coastguard service. That is the sort of thing we need. It is a different sort of service because of the myriad methods of contacting the coastguard emergency service. However, we must have a better, more resilient service.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Bill Esterson and Mike Penning

Thursday 10th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mike Penning]

It might be easier to speak to manufacturers of satellite navigation systems than to build a bypass. As I said, software specifically for hauliers is now available, which should alleviate the problem as it rolls out.

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

14. If he will carry out a risk assessment of his proposals for the reorganisation of the Marine and Coastguard Agency.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Mike Penning)]

The coastguard service is under consultation at the moment. A suite of documents published on 11 February are part of the consultation as we go forward. We have received more than 1,000 submissions, and it is important that the public should feel part of the consultation. We are coming towards the end of that consultation period, on 24 March, but further submissions will be allowed via a six-month extension, which I announced today.

[Bill Esterson]

Can the Minister explain how staff in Aberdeen or Southampton will make decisions on which search and rescue units should respond to emergencies? No matter how much training takes place at the new control centres, staff at existing centres, including Crosby, have decades of experience and know the local search and rescue staff personally, so will the Minister explain how the new control centres will improve safety?

[Mike Penning]

First, Mr Speaker, may I just correct myself? The extension of the consultation is for six weeks, not six months.

All the control centres that I have visited—I was in Belfast yesterday, and I have been to Crosby—accept that we must modernise the service and go forward. The robustness and resilience of the service is not there. We have had some fantastic submissions and people have engaged with the consultation. The submission made yesterday in Belfast accepted that we need to close stations and have a resilient system. As soon as we have that we will have a better service, but we will look at all the submissions as they are made.