Tyne Marine Office

Ian Mearns Excerpts

Monday 27th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Ian Mearns (Gateshead) (Lab)]

I will not detain the House for long, but I want to put on record the fact that I agree with every word that my hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mrs Lewell-Buck) has just said. The UK maritime workforce continues to diminish, and important skills are being lost to the industry. We must never forget that we are a maritime nation. We seek to increase our trade significantly beyond the confines of the European Union, but we are reducing our protective infrastructure for looking after the interests of UK-based seafarers in a growing international market.

The offshore oil and gas industry along the North sea coast has been in the doldrums, and many ships and vessels are tied up in ports along the north-east. Yet we are losing our regulatory capacity to make sure that the people who work on those vessels are the right people and of the right nationality, and that they have the requisite skills and work permits to do so. I find it beyond belief that the Government are taking the measures that my hon. Friend has talked about in this important Adjournment debate. We need to reverse this retrograde step for an industry that needs the Government to act on its behalf rather than abandoning it.