Coastguard Centres (Staffing)

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd December 2014 Westminster Hall

[Mr MacNeil]

I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s intervention. He will recall, I think, that the word I used about Stornoway was relief. To see that the stations in Forth, Clyde, Crosby and other areas were to close and the jobs of professionals with years of expertise under their belts were to be lost brought no pleasure at all—in fact, it brought great sadness. I am interested to hear what he said about staff, because I am coming on to that point. If there are surplus staff somewhere, the Maritime and Coastguard Agency might consider that fact when dealing with some of the problems I will be highlighting.

It has been three years since the reorganisation, so we would have thought that most of the changes would have been brought through by now and the organisation would be running as smoothly as it could and should be. Many people would expect the changes to have bedded down, yet reports have come to my ears—actually, to my eyes—of one coastguard officer saying to another, “Let’s hope the latest Minister does something, because the whole issue—the closure of stations, the loss of experienced staff, the undermanning—is a disaster waiting to happen.” Those are strong words—not my words, I stress, but words I feel need to be checked up on.

We must remember the value of our coastguard staff, as the hon. Member for Sefton Central (Bill Esterson) pointed out with regard to the staff in Crosby, who sadly lost their station. We know they are trained to a high standard and that their professionalism is exemplary. I know that not just from visiting coastguard stations as an MP but from an earlier life working on fishing boats, and travelling regularly on ferries as I do, I am aware of yet another aspect of the work of coastguard staff. Each time I have been in the wheelhouse of a fishing boat or on the bridge of a passenger ferry and the words “Stornoway coastguard” have come over the radio, that radio has been turned up and there has been silence from those assembled within earshot, because, nearly always, serious and important words are coming across the airwaves.

How are those in the stations—the people broadcasting into the wheelhouses of fishing boats and the bridges of passenger ferries—faring at the moment? No one would know it from the professionalism that I hear coming over the radio, but in reality, although they may not show the strain, it seems that the stresses are most certainly there. When I visited Stornoway coastguard recently, the watch was at 75% of its strength. That brings us back to the point about Crosby. There is a problem with staffing, and people are working overtime to cover a shortage of staff—it is a regular occurrence. Some retired coastguard officers are coming in to help out, if only for a limited time due to the restrictions on what they can earn, and their expertise is still looked to. The demands on present staff are high.

I have good news for the Minister. I am sure he will be pleased to know that fortunately there are many people waiting to join the coastguard service. Sadly, I have not got much more good news than that—that is where the good news ends. Perhaps, by extension, we could say that the fact that 60 or so people came to Stornoway coastguard station in May and June to apply to join the service is good news, but six months later there is still a shortage of staff, and none of those people has been appointed. I am told that that pattern is being repeated across the service; in fact, some at Stornoway would argue that their situation is better than that at many other stations.

The problem has lasted for six months and is set to go on until February. That means the MCA’s recruitment process for the coastguard will have taken eight months in total. And there is more: although three staff are in the pipeline for Stornoway—they are due to start in February—the reality is that eight more are needed and the glacial pace of recruitment could go on for ever.

Can anything be done? There are indeed things that can be done, which were identified quite quickly by the staff I have met—these ideas are not mine, but are emerging within the coastguard. The bottleneck seems to be the fact that new recruits cannot start until they go to training, which takes place in Fareham or perhaps Highcliffe. There are certain dates set aside in March and new recruits can start at their stations six weeks before, hence the eight-month delay. However, there will be a knock-on effect. When will the next opportunity be? Surely the Minister and the MCA either have to look to increase training so it starts at more regular intervals, in order to shorten the recruitment period, or else think of another solution so that stations are not left with such stresses on the shoulders of their watch staff—stresses that have obvious knock-on effects on morale.

The most obvious solution would be to let new recruits into the operations room once they have been through the application process and have been accepted, so that they can do most of their training in there. Coastguard officers—seasoned people with a wealth of knowledge under their belts—tell me that that is where most of the training occurs anyway. The training centre helps to top and tail those skills; it is a useful check on quality, and is useful, too, as a refresher course.

The current situation cannot be allowed to fester—that is how it feels to many at the moment. Some in the service feel that it could be a cack-handed way to save money, but I am not sure it is that sophisticated. I would not say it is incompetence. Perhaps it is mismanagement, or I might be a bit kinder and say that it is not mismanagement but people cleaving to a system and a model idealised for some time, which they think should be delivering for the coastguard. However, it is not—it is simply not cutting the mustard.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

The coastguard station at Bangor in Northern Ireland was saved when the last changes took place. I was aware earlier this year of issues similar to those outlined by the hon. Gentleman at Stornoway. Action was taken in Belfast and at Bangor coastguard station in regard to issues of sickness and overtime, and I understand that those matters have been addressed. When changes have taken place successfully, that might be a precedent for what to do in Stornoway.

[Mr MacNeil]

I thank the hon. Gentleman. I understand from what he says that, unfortunately, Stornoway is not the only place affected like this, but I am pleased to hear that Bangor had a successful localised approach.

The situation facing some of us is an eight-month delay, which has had an unfortunate result for at least one new recruit, who gave up her job when she accepted the coastguard job, only for it to become apparent later that she would have to wait many months, until February, without salaried employment while she waited to start the job with the coastguard.