Cruise Industry

Caroline Nokes Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd September 2021 Westminster Hall

[Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Efford. I congratulate my neighbour and hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen (Royston Smith) on the brilliant work he has done in highlighting the massive contribution that the cruise industry makes, particularly to us in Southampton.

As I came in this morning, I was struck by the memory that one of the first debates I led in Westminster Hall was on competition in the cruise industry. It is great to see so many towns and cities from around the country with ports that play their part. Of course, I will always re-emphasise that Southampton is the capital of cruising in the United Kingdom. It is important to reflect that there are many hundreds of jobs in my constituency, even though it has no coastline and does not contain the port, that are reliant on the cruise terminal at ABP.

What we have seen over the past year or so has been really difficult for those employed in the sector and the large companies based in and around the port of Southampton, as well as all the smaller suppliers that have been so reliant on the sector for income over the past decade of massive expansion in the popularity of cruising. As my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen said, cruises are not just for wealthy pensioners but for all ages and demographics, who really enjoy the opportunities that cruising gives. In my constituency in 2019, 28 different small suppliers with a value of £11.9 million supplied the cruise industry. Last year, their incomes fell dramatically to just £6.9 million. We can understand the devastating impact on the local economy.

About 18 months ago, I remember being quite critical of the difficulties we had in repatriating cruise passengers and getting cruise ships into ports around the globe so that passengers could make it home. However, as the Government’s maritime biennial report indicates, following the repatriation of UK national passengers, Carnival alone repatriated more than 19,000 UK people and 13,000 international crew members last year. That was an enormous effort. The company has been pleased to continue to work with the Government to learn the crucial lessons of covid. The industry has learned to ensure that, should there be a resurgence of this or any other hideous virus, there are new protocols in place, so that we do not see those scenarios again. To bring all those passengers home took a massive financial investment and no small human effort.

It is important to look to the future and not focus on the challenges that there were but at the opportunities ahead. I was pleased to hear Carnival use the word “celebrate”. It is celebrating the reopening of international cruising. It has enjoyed a summer where UK passengers have been able to experience the waters off the British Isles and visit towns and cities on our own islands, but we have to get back to full-scale international cruising.

I am pleased to see the protocols and measures put in place to keep passengers safe. They include pre-departure testing, rigorous cleanliness onboard and encouraging sanitisation and hand washing. My hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen was right to point out the medical facilities onboard those ships are second to none. In many cases, they have intensive care units that one would expect to see only in hospitals. It is important to emphasise that cruising is now the safest form of transport. It has the potential to start regrowing and to contribute to the UK economy again, which we so desperately need.

I want to re-emphasise the massive changes to the environmental impact that we have seen. On tours of cruise ships docked in Southampton I have seen the efforts that go into minimising consumption, maximising recycling and ensuring that their waste is treated as sustainably as possible. Huge strides have been made not just by the cruise companies but by the port, which has reduced its emissions into the atmosphere of Southampton.

I want to reiterate the economic point that my hon. Friend made. There are questions around the support given to British seafarers, but over the next few months we could see them making an unexpected windfall net contribution to the Treasury. We desperately need mechanisms in place to encourage British seafarers to stay in the industry and new people to arrive. In the local area, I can name some inspirational British female seafarers, working in an industry that is not known for having large numbers of female sea captains. They exist and they do a great job. It is important that they are not driven out of the industry by unexpected additional taxation just because they have not been able to be at sea in international waters for the required number of days. I would like the Minister to consider that point, and I look forward to his undoubted words of wisdom about how bright the future of cruising is for Southampton.

I would like to finish with a “thank you” to the Minister. He is always there for the great events—the happy celebrations, opening new terminals and launching new ships—but over the last year or so he has also been there for the difficult times. I know how hard he and the Department for Transport have worked to ensure that the industry can restart in a safe and sustainable way.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mike Kane (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)]

What an astonishing debate we have had today—I thought that we were all going to burst into song at one point. Far from “Under the Sea” from “The Little Mermaid”, from the speeches that we have heard today I was going to suggest that “(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay” by Otis Redding might be appropriate.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Efford. As a Member for a landlocked constituency yourself, let us not forget that you have one of the most historic palaces in the nation, Eltham Palace, one of my favourites—a world-class blend of art deco and medieval, the medieval bit being, obviously, where Henry VIII grew up. I wanted to throw that in there, as Members were talking about their own heritage sites, in particular the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon)—what a pitch he made for the new chief executive of Tourism Ireland! I will come back to that in a few minutes. I am a Manchester MP, and we are a seagoing city, as Members know. There may be seven locks between us and Liverpool, but I am proud of that heritage and the canal that Daniel Adamson built in the 1880s.

This is a timely debate. I congratulate the hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Royston Smith), who spoke so eloquently and stood up for his port. He even mentioned Portsmouth in his speech—I am never sure which city is the pride of Hampshire.

[Caroline Nokes]

I can answer that: it is Southampton.

[Mike Kane]

As TS Eliot stated—the Minister likes a good quote—

“The journey,

Not the destination matters”.

That is a saying that rings true to those in the cruise industry more than most. The past 18 months have been an ordeal for the industry to say the least, starting with a scramble to get passengers and crew members home, ports closing to our ships and some crew members remaining stuck at sea. I pay tribute to the industry and the workers who found themselves in such extraordinary circumstances.

I am a huge fan of this country—Members may be aware—and its coastline in all its rugged beauty, but I imagine that, for some, that is a hard sell in comparison to the Caribbean, the Mediterranean or the magnificent fjords of Scandinavia. At the end of July, it was really great to hear that cruise ships were again able not only to traverse the seas but to drop anchor and have passengers disembark to sample the sights and sounds of foreign climes. That was a point made eloquently by the right hon. Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes).

As the hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen said, when the cruise industry thrives, it contributes £10 billion to the economy. I find this incredible: every ship that docks in the Solent—the capital of cruising, as has already been pointed out—is worth a staggering £2.7 million to the economy. However, the industry does not just benefit Southampton. The Minister and I were in Liverpool, at Anfield, on Friday night at the Merseyside Maritime Industry Awards, an amazing evening and a fantastic, world-class display of British ingenuity. We saw how the docks are being regenerated through Wirral Waters, the Peel Ports Group, the Mersey Docks and Harbour Company, and Mersey Maritime. The project is really innovative for the city region in the north-west.

The right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) will know that I have seen huge change over many years—so much so that, when I now visit the islands, I have to get the cruise timetable to make sure that I can get to the Broch of Gurness, Skara Brae, St Magnus Cathedral or Maeshowe. When those coaches turn up, it is almost impossible to get into those sites, which are some of the most historic on our planet. I have also seen the great growth in visitor attractions, new interpretation centres and so on. He is right that the cruise industry needs to co-operate with local authorities to ensure the maximum advantage for islands, highlands, towns and cities when they are visited.

I can tell the hon. Member for Strangford that I will visit Grey Abbey. It is one of the few Cistercian monasteries in our lands that I have not visited, and I am absolutely convinced now that I will get there. In Belfast, Titanic Belfast is an amazing innovative interpretation centre, drawing tens of thousands of visitors and building on the heritage that Northern Ireland has in the cruise industry. I want to make a point for “Game of Thrones” and the port of Derry/Londonderry. We would like to see more cruise ships stopping there in future and exploiting the potential of that fine medieval walled city.

Many jobs in the cruise industry are highly localised. 20% of those employed on cruise ships are based in the UK and the industry is an important source of employment both aboard ship and on shore, and in wider supply chains. However, the industry must be mindful of pay, hours and conditions, particularly of non-UK staff, as the hon. Member for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman) eloquently pointed out in her speech. We should be paying the living wage to all those who dock at and work in our ports. I congratulate and thank the hon. Member for Thurrock (Jackie Doyle-Price) for her work on the all-party parliamentary maritime and ports group, and join her in paying tribute to the industry, which has worked so hard through the pandemic to get people home, to respond to the changes and to get the industry back up and running.

Another thing we must address within the industry is its environmental impact, which the hon. Member for Inverclyde (Ronnie Cowan) spoke eloquently about. He also pointed out that Greenock is still getting more visitors than Edinburgh—I think there is a little needle going on across the central belt. We know this takes many forms, such as the emission of greenhouse gases and waste from ships, and reducing the resilience of marine ecosystems and damaging marine environments. All shipping generates an impact, but cruise ships have traditionally created waste disproportionately as their thousands of passengers create a waste stream, so I was delighted to see the industry yet again showing initiative to do the right thing as we transition towards greener shipping.

I know the Minister visited the port of Southampton last week and opened the Horizon cruise terminal. This innovation and infrastructure is vital to helping the sector build back greener and reach its targets of reducing carbon emissions by 40% and of carbon-neutral cruising by 2050 across Europe. It cannot do this alone. It is vital that the Government fund innovation and research in the wider maritime sector and cultivate an environment where the cutting-edge green and just transition can happen. As the hon. Member for Aberdeen North said, we must not see a race to the bottom.

The industry has invested almost £17 billion into ships, bringing on board new technologies to reduce emissions and to be more efficient. Cruise ships are increasingly equipped to support shore-side electricity use, and the development of infrastructure in ports, such as we have seen at Horizon and Kirkwall, will be key. We know there is a levelling-up agenda and that coastal communities are among the poorest. We also know maritime can offer well-paid, highly-skilled jobs, as well as true regeneration and transport connectivity, and I call on the Government to make the investment in the sector as we sail out of the troubled waters of the pandemic.