Water Safety

Debate between Jim Shannon and Sharon Hodgson

Tuesday 17th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)]

Just under a year ago at the start of the six-week summer holiday on 23 July 2013, 15-year-old Tonibeth Purvis from Barmston in Washington in my constituency, and her friend Chloe Fowler who was 14—she was from the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Houghton and Sunderland South (Bridget Phillipson)—tragically died after drowning in the River Wear at Fatfield in Washington. It was a lovely hot sunny day, much like we saw last week and will hopefully see again this summer. To cool off, Chloe jumped into the river. Unfortunately, that particular stretch of the River Wear has a fast current and is up to six metres deep in the middle. It is full of hidden hazards, as many rivers are. It was not long, therefore, before Chloe sadly got into difficulty. Seeing her friend in trouble, Tonibeth immediately jumped in to help her, along with a number of other friends they were with. They quickly found themselves in trouble as well, Tonibeth to the point where she was also overcome. The emergency services were called immediately, shortly before 3 pm. Unfortunately, by then it was already too late. Tonibeth was not located until 8.49 pm, and it took a huge team of emergency service workers—who by all accounts were fantastic—another hour to find Chloe.

The only saving grace of this terrible tragedy is that more young people did not die that afternoon. As her friends said in paying tribute to her in the days following the tragedy, Tonibeth died a hero, trying her best to rescue her friend. She was quite rightly recognised for that heroism as the winner of the editor’s choice award at the Sunderland Echo’s Pride of Wearside awards in November last year. As a mother myself, I do not know if that brings much comfort to her family. I sincerely hope it does.

The parents of Tonibeth and Chloe are not the only ones currently living through the nightmare of losing a child to drowning. Drowning is the third most common cause of accidental death among children in the UK. According to the response I received from the Office for National Statistics to a parliamentary question I tabled in September last year, between July 2008 and December 2012 coroners recorded 48 accidental deaths of children and young people aged under 20 in natural water. That is 48 individual tragedies, 48 families devastated and 48 schools, colleges and wider communities affected—and one persistent problem. Those figures may not tell the whole story, as coroners figures only record the primary cause of death.

The figures for deaths in water—the water incident database, or WAID, statistics compiled by the National Water Safety Forum—were put at 47 for under-20s in 2011 alone and another 42 in 2012. Those figures show that this is primarily an issue for boys, who account for 78 of the 89 deaths in those two years. None of these figures, of course, include Tonibeth and Chloe or any other young people who lost their lives last summer or since. I understand that in the six-week hot spell we had last summer there were 36 deaths. Of course, many other children and young people have come close to losing their lives. Some have suffered serious injuries or been left traumatised by getting into trouble in the water. When we take all age groups into account, there are some 400 deaths a year, which is the equivalent of one every 20 hours.

The fact is that the vast majority of these individual tragedies can be avoided if people possess a basic understanding of how to look after themselves and know what to do in an emergency, whether it happens to them or others.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on bringing this subject to the House for consideration. In my constituency, unfortunately, we have had similar experiences, usually during warm spells of weather. Does she think that advertisements and warnings should be sent out through local press and local government to ensure that people are aware of the dangers in quarries, rivers and the sea? Those are the danger spots whenever the weather is warm.

[Mrs Hodgson]

I will come on to prevention shortly.

The Royal Life Saving Society was, opportunely, in Parliament today, hosted by the hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Nadhim Zahawi), who had hoped to attend the debate. It held a briefing session for MPs and peers on this very subject ahead of drowning prevention week, which begins on Monday 23 June and runs until 29 June. It conducted research last year that found that 68% of people said they would not know what to do if they saw someone drowning, or how to treat them even if they were able to recover them safely from the water. However, in spite of that self-awareness of lack of capability, 63% of those people said they would still jump in to try to save a family member who was drowning, and 37% said they would even do so to try to save a stranger.

Most victims of drowning are alone, but it is little wonder that the kind of selflessness and heroism that was displayed by Tonibeth can so often lead to an even deeper tragedy. In the hope of preventing such tragedies, the RLSS has made a number of demands in its “manifesto for water safety”, which I think require close consideration by the Minister and, indeed, other members of the Government.

The RLSS argues that schools should ensure that every child is taught the basic principles of water safety, and personal survival skills. That means that children should understand the risks involved in various water environments such as currents, loose banks and vegetation, and should know how best to enter and exit water, which includes what it is best for them to do if they fall in. It means that they should be able to orientate and contort their bodies in the water, especially if they are caught in a current and need to turn to face the direction in which it is taking them so that they avoid hurting themselves and do not miss opportunities to grab something. It means being familiar with the typical survival skills that would generally occur to us, such as treading water, making ourselves buoyant, and swimming in clothing. Swimming itself is, of course, a very important skill, but it is also important to be taught the techniques that make it possible to rescue other people safely, which include keeping their heads back and above water.

The current school curriculum mentions safety, but the target of being able to swim 25 metres by the end of primary school is the real priority for most schools. Being able to swim 25 metres would certainly help, but doing so in a warm, clear swimming pool with lifeguards at hand is completely different from having to swim 25 metres, or even 5 metres, in a cold lake or a river with a strong current and hidden hazards.

Postal Services Bill

Debate between Jim Shannon and Sharon Hodgson

Wednesday 27th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)]

Reform of the UK's postal services was in the manifesto of both the Conservative party and the Liberal Democrats, so it should come as no surprise to anyone in the Chamber that we are considering this Bill so early into the coalition's temporary tenure on the Government Benches. What will be a surprise to voters is that, rather than merely allowing for an injection of private investment, the Bill paves the way for a complete sell-off of that vital public service. That goes way beyond what the Liberal Democrats were elected on; they proposed selling 49% to private investors, which is too high for my personal tastes, but at least not a dominant stake.

I have had a look through the Tory manifesto, which is imaginatively named “Invitation to Join the Government of Britain”. I think that the public were led to believe that that was an invitation to them, but as it turned out it was just to a dozen or so Liberal Democrats. From glancing through that fascinating read, it appears that “the post” got lost in it. I see references to Ministers taking posts, to first past the post, and even to the “Post-Bureaucratic Age”, whatever that is. What I do not see is a commitment to postal services, or a pledge to allow the complete sell-off of Royal Mail. Indeed, the majority of voters for both branches of the current Conservative party on the Government Benches do not support the sell-off of Royal Mail. As both parties have already shown, however, pre-election promises and pledges are not worth the paper they are written on. Therefore, I am sure that their electorates will be getting used to being treated with contempt.

As the now Business Secretary once said about the last Labour Government's vital bail-out of the financial sector, this proposal looks like the Government are intending to privatise the profits of a public business and nationalise the losses. I know that many of his colleagues in the yellow branch of the Conservative Party agree with me on that. I am also concerned that once the Royal Mail is privatised it will be another institution that is deemed too big to fail. In the event of a potential investor running out of cash in what remains a fairly unstable worldwide economy, will the Government be forced to step back in and assume control of Royal Mail, thus soaking up a second tranche of liabilities? Of course, I am not saying that the Royal Mail should ever be allowed to fail, but the Government can guarantee that that never becomes an issue only by ensuring that a significant majority stake remains in public ownership.

On the separation of Royal Mail and the Post Office, there is no international precedent for separating a national main mail operator from its retail arm. Therefore, the Government are in effect taking a stab in the dark—the latest in what looks like a long line of gambles with the future of our country.

Clause 33 gives Ofcom the power to review the universal service obligation. In the event of complete privatisation, the large private company or consortium of companies would undoubtedly have a slick and well-funded lobbying operation, which they could deploy to press Ofcom to change the terms of the USO, potentially resulting in the loss of a delivery day.

[Jim Shannon]

Does the hon. Lady agree that our current six-day service, with the delivery tomorrow of first-class post that is posted today, might change under the new regime, meaning that on a cold, wet, windy day people in Kilmood, Cloughey or Buckna would not get their delivery?

[Mrs Hodgson]

I do agree. A lot of things that we now take for granted would be under threat, including that.

Several members of the new Government were fairly open prior to the election about their contempt for Ofcom. It is not for me to speculate as to why that might be, but it appeared to coincide with the acquisition by the Tories of a certain powerful new patron who shares that contempt. At any rate, the chances of No. 10 backing Ofcom on maintaining the six-day delivery week, or of even imploring Ofcom to maintain it, seem fairly slim. Can the Minister today give a guarantee to the House that Ofcom will not be leant on from any quarter—or, better still, will he undertake to remove the flexibility entirely at a later stage of the Bill’s proceedings?

I realise that many other Members wish to speak, so I will limit the length of my remarks. The majority of Members recognise that reform of postal services is needed to secure the long-term future of Royal Mail and to maintain the universal service obligation, but the Government have no mandate to introduce the Bill as currently drafted. Allowing the sell-off of Royal Mail is not wanted by my constituents and nor is it wanted by many Members on both sides of the House or the wider public. It is certainly not wanted by the employees, even with the promise of bunging them a few shares as a sweetener. The only people who do want it are the potential investors and their friends on the Treasury Bench. The interests of this narrow constituency do not justify the Government’s taking an ideological sledgehammer to a nut that does not necessarily need to be cracked.