Oral Answers to Questions

Lia Nici Excerpts

Thursday 14th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for raising the important issue of road safety. I notice that the statistics she set out are inconsistent with those set out by her hon. Friend, the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman). She recognises that our road safety record is not going backwards, as he suggested. When there is a fatality, road accidents are investigated by the relevant authorities, and that remains the position. We learn lessons from accidents, so that when we build new road infrastructure it has safety at its heart.

[Lia Nici (Great Grimsby) (Con)]

T8. Will my hon. Friend update the House on the progress of the potential return of the direct rail link from King’s Cross to Grimsby and Cleethorpes?

[Huw Merriman]

My hon. Friend follows my right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) and my hon. Friend the Member for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers) in raising that matter at Transport questions. They are without doubt the strongest lobbyists when it comes to train timetabling changes. She will have seen the test train that ran in June. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said at the last Transport questions that we hope to make an announcement shortly. It is something that we are working on.

Seafarers’ Wages Bill [Lords]

Lia Nici Excerpts

Tuesday 7th February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Holden]

I think the hon. Lady is incorrect on this point. We are talking about someone based overseas who visits a UK port once a week for a matter of hours and who may be operating in the territorial waters of another country for the overwhelming majority of their working time. This would be similar to someone employed under a British lorry driver’s licence going over to do deliveries in another country as well. There is this idea that we would suddenly change things for those few hours that people were perhaps at a UK port, but that would be inconsistent with our obligations and it raises real issues associated with our interactions with other port operators, particularly across the North sea, and with our friends and allies in Europe, who are looking at similar legislation. We have been working on that with our European partners. We are already in conversations with the French on this issue and on others. The UK is leading the way on legislation in this area of regular services, but we have to do it in such a way that it also fits with international maritime law. We also need to ensure that we are on the same page as our friends and partners across the continent.

[Lia Nici (Great Grimsby) (Con)]

To clarify something that my hon. Friend said earlier, is the point of the measure not to avoid a situation where, as we saw with P&O Ferries, a company is effectively making a choice whether to employ British people working in British waters on the acceptable living minimum wage, or to make wholesale redundancies so that it can bring in low-paid workers, and quite often low-paid foreign workers?

[Mr Holden]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. That is the crux of this legislation. We are trying to address the operators who regularly access UK ports on those short straits routes. What we are not trying to do is pass legislation for people who are perhaps in UK waters for a matter of hours a week, the benefit of which is relatively minimal anyway, because they are in international waters, or in the waters of a foreign country, for the majority of the time. The impact of that would be seen as relatively negligible.

Let me move on from that point. I think I have explained very clearly the UK Government’s position. The implications of the extension to once a week for port calls would place a huge burden, the effects and benefits of which are difficult to ascertain, and appear to be incredibly minimal.

Clearly, the Bill focuses on the short sea services, justifying the seafarers’ connection to the UK and therefore a UK equivalent level of pay protection. To reduce the frequency that services must call at UK ports before coming into scope of the Bill’s requirements to include weekly services would dilute the concentration of the Bill in protecting those seafarers. In any event, the time in our waters spent by seafarers who call only weekly would be so short that it would have very little effect, while hugely widening the scope of the Bill to container services, which may have very little connection to the UK.

New clause 2 would ensure that the Government produce a report on implementation and monitoring within six months of the Bill being passed. The same new clause was introduced in Committee and I am afraid that the Government’s position has not changed. Many of the areas that such a report would cover are out of scope of the narrow focus of the Bill. We have acted quickly and decisively with the Bill to prevent operators of regular services to the UK being able to replace seafarers with those being paid less than an equivalent of the national minimum wage. Furthermore, it would be impossible to measure due to any indirect impact. Six months from a Bill becoming law is far too soon for a report to be of any use. We would still be in the process of developing secondary legislation in order to bring the Bill into full force.

In Committee, we discussed each provision of the new clause in detail, and Baroness Vere also discussed the provisions of a similar amendment at length in the other place. The points that I made in Committee are unchanged, so I will not repeat them, but I will provide an update to the House on various aspects that the report would cover.

Subsections 2 (a) and (b) request the reporting of the impact of the Act on roster patterns, pay, pensions and future plans to legislate in these areas. We do not have plans to legislate more than is necessary, but that does not mean that we are not taking action on areas beyond the matter of minimum pay, which we all know is not the only aspect of seafarers’ welfare that requires attention. As part of the seafarers’ protection nine-point plan, we will launch a new seafarers charter to improve the long-term employment and welfare conditions of seafarers. It includes a wide range of employment protections that is currently covered in the Bill. The Government are committed to delivering a voluntary seafarers charter in the near future. They will act legislatively only where it is proven that it is appropriate to do so. The impact of the charter and the need to provide a legislative basis will be continuously reviewed, and it is not necessary or desirable to constrain ourselves to committing to any action on a strategy on these timescales. The charter will be published very soon. We are working closely with the French Government, who are also developing their own version of the seafarers charter. We are commissioning independent research into roster patterns to ensure that we have a strong evidence base to support policy on this subject. The French Government are also doing their own research, and we are liaising closely with them to share our learning and further build a robust evidence base in this important area.

On subsection 2(d), with regards to a strategy for monitoring the establishment of minimum wage corridors, the Government appreciate the interest in this area and we are working hard to seek agreement on how the UK and our near European neighbours can collaborate on the international stage to improve seafarer welfare. As part of that, we are exploring the creation of minimum wage-equivalent corridors.

I am pleased to say that the French Government deposited a Bill in their National Assembly on Wednesday 1 February. Their Bill aims to ensure that seafarers working on certain cross-channel ferry services between the UK and France will also benefit from pay protections while in specific parts of French territorial waters. We will continue to work together on our respective pieces of legislation to ensure that we maximise the benefit to seafarers. In addition to our work with France, we have begun our engagement with the Crown dependencies.

Seafarers' Wages Bill [ Lords ] (Second sitting)

Lia Nici Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 17th January 2023 Public Bill Committees

[Mr Holden]

Just before we finish, I want to say that it is a pleasure to have served under your chairmanship this afternoon, Ms Harris. We are both virgins on the Bill Committee Front Benches in our respective ways, under the supreme guidance of Mr Davies, which has been superb.

The new clause would create criminal offences for directors of companies operating a service to which the Bill applies where the service is operated inconsistently with an equivalence declaration or the operator has failed to comply with a request for a declaration. While I understand and share the anger against some of the bosses who, as my hon. Friend the Member for Dover mentioned, carry out such underhand employment practices, introducing such offences to the Bill would not improve its effectiveness. There is already a robust compliance mechanism that will provide a severe disincentive against operators that pay less than the national minimum wage equivalent.

[Lia Nici (Great Grimsby) (Con)]

This is the Seafarers’ Wages Bill, and I think we all agree, across the House, that further action and other Bills are needed. However, this Bill will be a disincentive to companies that think they can act improperly and take on cheap foreign labour rather than looking after staff on a proper minimum wage or more. That is exactly what the Bill is meant to do.

[Mr Holden]

My hon. Friend makes a very sensible point. The Bill is a big step in the right direction in delivering for seafarers and countering some of the issues we have seen.

It will already be a criminal offence for operators to operate a service inconsistent with a declaration, and we do not think it is necessary for directors to be held personally liable for that offence. It would not be appropriate for directors to be guilty of an offence of failing to provide a declaration, as there is no obligation for them to do so. While the intention is that surcharges will be a sufficient disincentive against operators failing to pay at least the national minimum wage equivalent, it is open to operators not to provide an equivalence declaration, in which case surcharges will be imposed.

The existing compliance mechanism of surcharges for failure to provide a declaration and the criminal offences for operating inconsistently with a declaration will have considerable financial and reputational implications for operators. I do not think anybody here today can say that P&O Ferries has not experienced a reputational impact—not only that, but a legislative impact—from its behaviour over the last few years. Personal liability for directors is therefore not necessary.

I want to leave one thought in the minds of hon. Members on both sides of the Committee. The Insolvency Service is currently undertaking a civil investigation, which, among other things, will assess various individuals’ fitness to be directors.

Road Traffic Collisions Involving Cats

Lia Nici Excerpts

Monday 9th January 2023 Westminster Hall

[Lia Nici (Great Grimsby) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to speak under your chairpersonship, Ms Harris.

Cats get a bad rap. They are working animals. The reason that cats are in this country and widespread around the world is because they had, and still have, a job to do in many different guises, which, as my hon. Friend the Member for South East Cornwall (Mrs Murray) said, is to keep vermin down. But they constantly get a bad rap. I am loyally owned by two rescue cats, and my family have constantly had cats throughout our lives. As a child growing up, my cats were my constant companions, and it was devastating when a cat ended up being knocked over and left for dead.

Sadly, while I was walking around my constituency with a friend this autumn, we came across a cat in a very bad state on a pavement. The cat was still alive, so I suggested that my friend went to get her car, and I did what the car owner who hit the cat should have done: I randomly knocked on doors to see who would answer. It is quite a nerve-wracking thing to do—how do you tell somebody you have never met before that they may have a very poorly pet in front of them?—but as a good neighbour and somebody who knows what it is like to lose a pet, I hope that somebody would do that for me.

I knocked on doors and managed to find the owner, and I said, “If you’ve got a black and white cat, he is still alive, but sadly I think he has been hit by a car.” Quite a few people owned black and white cats, but when I took the owner to see him, it was their family pet Stevie. Stevie was in a really bad way. I took my jacket off and cradled him with my constituent Helen Bampton, and we were able to take him to the Blue Cross. The Blue Cross was absolutely fantastic but, sadly for Helen and her family and for Stevie, his injuries were too terrible for him to survive. Sadly, he had to be put to sleep

It is really sad that, but for the insertion of just one more animal into the legislation, we are not making sure that cats are protected, although we know that that is not a panacea. Thanks to organisations such as Cats Protection, there are very few stray cats in this country; most have an owner and a family. Anyone can be involved in an accident involving a cat or another animal—it can happen suddenly because cats can move very quickly, especially if their owner is calling them and they are trying to get home—but we want people to realise that that cat is usually a pet. The police have told me that if a cat were stolen, they would treat the case as theft. I do not understand why cats are viewed as possessions important enough for the police to investigate if stolen, but are not considered important enough for it to be a legal requirement for drivers to report a collision involving one.

[Andy Slaughter]

The hon. Member is making a good point. National Highways requires its contractors, where possible, to identify cats in such situations. That seems entirely anomalous. As far as the Government are concerned, if they require reporting in relation to collisions on major trunk roads and motorways, why do they not require it generally?

[Lia Nici]

The hon. Gentleman is quite correct. There is another anomaly. Rule 286 of the highway code advises that drivers need to report any accident involving an animal to the police and, if possible, to make inquiries to ascertain the owner of domestic animals such as cats to advise them of the situation. I do not quite understand why that is already advised in the highway code but we have no legal protections for owners and their cats. I would like the Minister to go back to his Department and really ask that question.

As hon. Members have said, there are more than 12 million cats in this country, which means that about 28% of homes own a cat or cats. This issue is important to people, especially to those who have experienced the loss of their cat—either never knowing or, sadly, knowing that somebody has hit their pet and deemed it not important enough to take care of the situation. Even if it is not currently a legal requirement to report such an incident to the police, people should at least be neighbourly, have some community heart, knock on a door and find out who the owner is, and provide them with some consolation. That is just the right thing to do, as everybody knows these things are rarely done on purpose. Will the Minister consider the fact that the highway code already advises such reporting for road users anyway?

Taxis and Private Hire Vehicles (Safeguarding and Road Safety) Bill

Lia Nici Excerpts

3rd reading
Friday 21st January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Paul Holmes]

I absolutely agree. In my background and in my hon. Friend’s, the teams worked tirelessly to ensure that we have not only roadworthy vehicles, but safe drivers. In addition to her comments, we should also put on record our thanks to the thousands of taxi drivers—my constituents and constituents across the whole UK—who play by the rules, keep their cars up to scratch and provide a service to people in this country. We really do value their lifestyle and the work that they do, and we thank them.

This Bill is good for reassuring millions of users of the taxi trade, particularly people travelling late at night, of their safety. As my hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border (Dr Hudson) said, whereas years ago taxis were predominantly focused on close geographical areas, they are now travelling much further around the country and are being used a lot more. That is why it is so important that licensing authorities across the whole country know where drivers have come from and whether they have not necessarily played by the rules in the past.

It is unfortunate that the most important provision in the Bill, as my hon. Friend the Member for Darlington said, is that it protects people. It protects people who are vulnerable, including young people, but in particular women who may actually be using a taxi for the safe trip home, instead of using public transport; unfortunately, in recent times we have seen the absolute reason why this Bill should pass, which is that it will provide women with that reassurance in getting home.

There is a key problem. It is bizarre that in 2022, we still have an antiquated and outdated system. My hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border said that this licensing regime has been going on for many years. It is bizarre that we have a system that has not got a single, uniform, one-stop code or database to be able to ensure the safety not only of vehicles, which are travelling further, but the people who drive them, who have people in their cars. I use taxis from here at the end of late-night sittings, and sometimes, when I am travelling, when I get back to my constituency, and it is rare to see the same driver twice. The many millions of people who use taxis in this country probably do not see the same driver twice. Given the nature of being in a taxi—with a stranger—it is bizarre that we do not have people being properly checked.

[Lia Nici (Great Grimsby) (Con)]

I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Darlington (Peter Gibson) for bringing this Bill to the House. My hon. Friend the Member for Eastleigh (Paul Holmes) has experience of serving on a licensing authority; in the process of licensing taxi drivers and their vehicles, are criminal records and other issues that are not linked to taxis part of the decision-making process?

[Paul Holmes]

Yes, they are. Licensing authorities can ask for such information but my hon. Friend the Member for Darlington is trying to mitigate the fact that that process does not show whether drivers have had not necessarily criminal convictions but suspensions or revocations because they have not kept their vehicle up to scratch or have committed some sort of misdemeanour. There is provision for that in the existing licensing regime but it does not go far enough, which is why the Bill needs to become law.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Darlington has outlined, the problem is widespread. Local authorities are not required to share information and people whose licences have been suspended, refused or revoked can carry on working elsewhere. My hon. Friend has absolutely the balance right in respect of the need to protect the information of drivers who play by the rules and those who may have had a mishap, because his Bill allows that information to be shared only on a case-by-case basis. That will reassure the decent, honourable taxi drivers out there who play by the rules that this is a safety mechanism, not an attacking mechanism. That is vital.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nickie Aiken (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)]

Like every other Member who has spoken, I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Darlington (Peter Gibson) for embarking on this mission to reform the licensing laws governing taxis and private hire vehicles. Given what he has said this morning and what I have read in the Bill, I cannot understand why we have not done this before. I agree that private Members’ Bills can play a vital part in improving legislation, and I thank my hon. Friend for his diligence and his excellent work on this issue.

I have read the Bill in detail, and I am incredulous that one type of vehicle, which is seen particularly in our capital—the pedicab—is exempt from its provisions because of an anomaly in the law. As many Members know, for the last two years I have been trying to get my Pedicabs (London) Bill through the House; I am continuing to do so, and I hope that it will be read again this afternoon.

[Lia Nici]

It seems to me from what my hon. Friend has been saying that the only difference relates to whether or not a vehicle has an engine. What position are passengers in should a pedicab owner have an accident and they are injured? Must they have insurance?

[Nickie Aiken]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising the issue of insurance. She may be shocked and possibly appalled to learn that, as it stands, pedicabs in London have no licensing regime. Therefore, there is no onus on them to have any insurance. Currently, passengers getting into a pedicab have no understanding of the risk they are putting themselves at. There is no legislation that calls on pedicabs in London to have any insurance, and drivers are not checked. Operations conducted in recent weeks by Westminster City Council and the Metropolitan police found drivers who are wanted for sexual offences. Their vehicles have no form of MOT—there is no onus on the driver to have an MOT or any checks on their vehicle. That is why I have been campaigning, since I arrived in this place, to ensure we have a proper licensing regime that mirrors what my hon. Friend the Member for Darlington is trying to do with his Bill.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mike Wood]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. Perhaps it might have been more delicate to suggest that our right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) was not the grandfather of the Bill, but more a favourite uncle. That is how most of us think of our right hon. Friend, who I know wishes he could be here.

The need for the Bill is clear to anyone who gives the most cursory thought to the issue. The taxi licensing regime, as has been said, goes back to a time when taxis and private hire vehicles operated locally and were very unlikely to move outside of their area. That is not the world we are in now. We are now in an age of app-based travel. In the 21st century, with Uber, Gett, Kapten and who knows how many others that I am not quite hip enough to yet be familiar with, it really is impossible to know where a taxi might have originated from. Of course, there are exceptions—in Dudley, there are a number of local operators, including one operated by one of my local councillors, which run extremely successfully on a local basis with local drivers and local registrations and are competing with the big ride-hailing apps—but we do need to look at the wider regulatory framework.

Other hon. Members have spoken about their time on local authority licensing authorities. During my time as a member of Dudley Council, through a mixture of pleading and constraints on availability, I very successfully avoided being on the licensing committee, but I know that those who serve on such authorities around the country have the extremely difficult responsibility of making sure that passengers are safe and that responsible operators can run their business and make their living in a fair, reasonable and safe way.

The first priority has to be passenger safety: anyone who gets into a taxi or a private hire car has to know that they are safe. In almost all cases they are, but a very small number of very high-profile cases, such as the horrific crimes carried out by John Worboys, have had a horrible impact on people’s lives. Wherever a vehicle or a driver is licensed, authorities have to do everything they can to ensure that the risk is kept to the absolute minimum.

On Second Reading, in an intervention on my hon. Friend the Member for Darlington, I said that, since the liberalisation of licensing, some local authorities have been responsible for a huge proportion of the licences issued in any region. In the Black Country, City of Wolverhampton Council issues approximately 15,000 licences per year. At least one was for a driver from as far away as Perth—I shudder to think what the fare would have been on the round trip for that taxi, which is presumably still operating in Perth with a licence issued in Wolverhampton. That is why it is so important that, once my hon. Friend’s Bill is on the statute book, the devolved Administrations make sure that the flow of information that the Bill provides for is reciprocated: so that Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish licensing authorities can see clearly any concerns or offences recorded by an English authority, while those who make decisions in places such as the City of Wolverhampton can see whether any reasons to decline a licence have been recorded, whether in Perth, in Swansea or in Derry.

The Bill builds on an existing register, which local authorities have effectively put in place themselves, and provides the option for the Minister to make it the relevant register. The NR3—the national register of taxi and private hire licence revocations and refusals—was created three years ago by the Local Government Association and is managed by the National Anti Fraud Network; it is an excellent example of how local government can innovate and introduce solutions. Those solutions are working well. It is now time for us to legislate for a comprehensive system across the country and support the local authorities that already submit data on a voluntary basis by making that approach the rule, instead of the somewhat patchy system that is now in place.

Putting a statutory obligation on local licensing authorities to record refusals, revocations and suspensions will improve safety for passengers. It will allow local enforcement teams to report instances of wrongdoing, and ensuring that the report is dealt with will help to keep all our constituents safer when they get into a taxi or a private hire vehicle. It will also ensure that licensing bodies in local authorities are in possession of all the relevant facts before they issue a licence, as they will be aware of previous refusals and suspensions.

This is an absolutely crucial safety mechanism; it will ensure that data sharing is commonplace. By sharing the data, all authorities will be in possession of all the facts. That must be the right way to handle the licensing and approval of those who have the responsibility of transporting people about and in whom passengers put their trust daily. Passengers must know every time they get into those vehicles that they are safe. That is important not only because they must of course be safe, but because there must be confidence in the system of taxis and private hire vehicles if the industry, on which so many people’s livelihoods rely, is to thrive and be sustainable.

[Lia Nici]

Does my hon. Friend agree that it is not only the people who are actually in the taxis who need to feel safe, but parents and carers? Quite often, taxis are used for people who have learning disabilities or difficulties, people having treatment in hospital, or children being ferried from home to school.

[Mike Wood]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. As a father, I would like to believe that I can make sure that my teenage daughter never leaves the house other than to go to school or to other authorised activities, but I know that in a very short time she will be travelling independently with friends and, despite her current aversion to the idea of anything alcoholic, it is just possible that as she gets older, she will decide that the nightlife of Dudley, the Black Country and the wider west midlands has a little bit too much to resist.

Any of us would want to know that family and friends who need to take taxis home are absolutely safe. The Bill introduced by hon. Friend the Member for Darlington is an important measure in helping to deliver that, and that is why I look forward to supporting it.

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[Lia Nici (Great Grimsby) (Con)]

I apologise to hon. Members, because I have only just bobbed to catch your eye, Mr Deputy Speaker, and I know that some Members have been bobbing for some time.

I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Darlington (Peter Gibson) for the huge amount of work that he has done on this Bill. His office is next door to mine, so I know how much time he has spent beavering away on this. The Bill is vital for the safety of people using taxis. As my hon. Friend has said, the majority of taxi drivers are excellent citizens who do a fantastic job and provide a hugely valuable service to their communities, but we know that a very small number of bad eggs use that mobility to get up to things that we do not want people to get up to. It concerns me that people can register in the west midlands but then provide services a very long way away. There may be legitimate reasons for that, but it does pose some questions.

Taxi drivers are absolutely vital for our communities. In constituencies such as mine, for example, those who do not have a car might decide to spend a little money once a week to get to the supermarket, so that they do not have to carry lots of shopping bags back home on the bus. A few years ago I required treatment for an eye condition, which meant that for several months I was unable to drive and so had to rely on taxis in order to continue working—the buses did not necessarily run at the times expected for my managerial job, so I needed taxi drivers to get me where I needed to be while I could not see properly.

Quite often the people using taxis are in a vulnerable position. They might be going to hospital for treatment, or sending their children off to a special school, or their children might need to travel to different places for lessons and things like that. It is therefore vital that this legislation closes the loophole that a very small minority of taxi drivers may seek to exploit, and we know that some of them do.

As a woman, I do not like to be called vulnerable. I feel that in a scrap I can give as good as I get—you can take the girl out of Grimsby, but you can’t take Grimsby out of the girl. However, when groups of friends go out, they are always mindful that someone will be the last person to be dropped off and they will be on their own in the taxi. We forget that taxi drivers know where we live and, although we know we can trust the majority of them, people may have been on a night out, drinking alcohol. There have been terrible stories in my region, which I will not go into in detail, where people have had drinks spiked and they have been in a bad state, and friends have put them in a taxi assuming they will get home safely. On rare occasions, that has not been the case.

I thank our taxi companies. I urge people listening to the debate not just to use modern apps. Like some colleagues, I do not like using apps for such things. When I need a taxi, wherever I am in the country, I go to well known, established firms that have websites and telephone numbers, and I can talk to a person at the end of the phone line. They have the technology to know a caller’s mobile phone number and tell them the type of car they will be picked up in, the registration number and who the driver is, which gives some safety. That is something people need to think about.

We all have taxi firms in our constituencies that have served our communities for a long time, and I thank them from the bottom of my heart because they provide an excellent service. This private Member’s Bill is important and I wholeheartedly support it.

National Lost Trawlermen’s Memorial Day

Lia Nici Excerpts

Monday 13th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Karl Turner]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman; the fact that he speaks as he does adds incredibly strong support to the argument. I think I am right in saying, having spoken briefly with the Minister prior to the debate, that to some extent we are pushing at an open door.

Fishing in Hull and the rest of the UK was not only deadly during peacetime. Trawlermen were on the frontline of both world wars, not only braving enemy action to keep those at home supplied with vital food when rationing tightened belts, but playing an active role in minesweeping, U-boat detection and saving lives at sea. At the height of the first world war, fishing trawlers on active service were lost at the rate of one every other week, with an average of half of all crew lost in every single incident. The contribution of fishing communities to the wider conflict has been woefully under-recognised, in my respectful view, and that must be addressed.

[Lia Nici (Great Grimsby) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on bringing this debate forward. As we both know, Grimsby and Hull have had a healthy competition over the years, because Grimsby is well-known as the world’s premier fishing port. On the point about the first and second world wars, however, does he agree that our minesweeping, our anti-submarine work, our convoy work and our armed trawling work has not been very well publicised, and that the 66,000 men around the UK who joined the Royal Naval Patrol Service helped to save the UK and to keep it fed, since fish was the only food that was not rationed at the time?

[Karl Turner]

I am very grateful to the hon. Lady, who makes the point better than me, I suspect, and very passionately; I spotted the Minister listening intently while she spoke.

While fishermen are among those commemorated on the Tower Hill memorial in London, their relative absence from the wider story of this country’s war effort should be further evidence of the need for a National Lost Trawlermen’s Memorial Day. We mark Lost Trawlermen’s Day in Hull on the last Sunday in January, deliberately and for a significant reason: with high winds and stormy seas, it was always a perilous time for Hull’s fishing fleet, with many losses occurring at that time of year.

However, January 1968 marked one of the darkest periods in our city’s history, the triple trawler tragedy, when the St Romanus, the Kingston Peridot and the Ross Cleveland all sank within weeks of each other, with the loss of 58 lives. Only one man survived. The devastating blow dealt to Hull’s tight-knit fishing community was a call to arms, and the headscarf revolutionaries, led by Lillian “Big Lil” Bilocca, achieved more for safety at sea in a few days than others had achieved in many decades. Dr Brian Lavery paid tribute to her in his book.

--- Later in debate ---

[Karl Turner]

I am grateful once more to the hon. Lady. She reminds me of how merchant seamen always remark of the bravery of fishermen. I think merchant ships used to be referred to as big boats, and seamen went out on big boats that had some protection, so they were safer, even all those years ago. Fishermen often went out on tiny vessels in perilous conditions, risking their lives on every occasion—no matter the weather—to put food on the table.

It is very much a team effort to mark the contribution of the fishing industry—not just to our city—and to commemorate those who lost their lives, and I am pleased to see that it has cross-party support in the Chamber. I pay tribute in particular to the founders and organisers of Lost Trawlermen’s Day, the St Andrews Dock Heritage Park Action Group—also known as STAND—in Hull, as well as my constituent Ian Bowes and his fellow tour guides on the Arctic Corsair, who are keeping the history alive for younger generations. I also pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Emma Hardy), who is just as passionate about the subject as I am. She would have been incredibly keen to be involved in the debate, but unfortunately she could not be here. Most of all, credit must go to all the family and loved ones of trawlermen lost at sea, who have worked tirelessly to ensure that they were not forgotten.

Hull’s history as a city built around the fishing industry and off the backs of hard-working fishermen is mirrored in many towns and cities across the country. Fishing is an essential part of our identity as an island nation. For all the difficult arguments around national identity, I think that fish and chips is high on the list of those on all sides of the political divide.

The building of the railways in the mid-19th century at a stroke expanded the potential market for fresh fish, creating a direct route to supply the growing industrial working classes with affordable protein. Somewhere along the way, some bright soul paired the fried white fish with chips. It was a fabulous idea, for which I am sure Members across the House are entirely thankful. I am—although I am not sure that my waistline is very pleased. I am afraid to tell you, Madam Deputy Speaker, that it is something that I enjoy quite regularly.

[Lia Nici]

I will spare some of the hon. Member’s blushes—we all like fish and chips a little bit too much. On a serious note, does he agree that we should also remember that, as Lloyd’s Register Foundation estimates, about 24,000 fishermen die around the world each year catching fish for all of us to eat?

[Karl Turner]

That is an excellent point, and I have to confess that it is a point I had not intended to remark upon in my notes.

I believe the moment is long overdue for formal nationwide recognition of the contribution of trawlermen to our shared national story, and I urge the Government to take Hull’s lead and officially recognise the last Sunday in January, if at all possible, as the UK’s Lost Trawlermen’s Day.

I should make it clear, because I think it is an extremely important point, that the reference to trawlermen in the title of this debate is drawn directly from its use in Hull’s Lost Trawlermen’s Day. It is not in any way intended to exclude those who have lost their lives at sea fishing by means other than trawl—other methods are dominant in many regional industries—or, indeed, to exclude women at sea. I am happy for any national day to have a different title reflecting these very important facts. It is the principle of remembrance for those who risked, and frequently lost, their lives to put the national dish on the table that I am advocating tonight.

Although I am happy to be corrected, my understanding is that, in the absence of a formal mechanism by which the day would be instituted, the Minister could commit the Government today, from the Dispatch Box, to recognising Lost Trawlermen’s Day as a national day of remembrance, and I hope that he will. If the Government truly want to recognise the contribution of fishing communities to our national life, especially the sacrifice of those who never came back, they could perhaps commit some money as well.

We could establish a formal ceremony on the last Sunday in January with the Government’s backing. Exactly what form this should take is not for me or indeed for the Minister to decide, but I would respectfully suggest a public consultation to enable organisations working with current and ex-fishermen and families who have lost loved ones to have their say on this important issue. However, if the Government are willing to put some effort in and give fishing communities the respect they deserve, recognising the historic role they have played, they could do no worse than follow Hull’s lead.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lia Nici (Great Grimsby) (Con)]

I would like to add my condolences to everybody who has lost a loved one in the job that they were doing. In Grimsby, in the just under 100 years in which this has been recorded, we have lost more than 7,000 fishermen. I thank Doreen Tyson who did all the work as a researcher and supplied it to the Fishing Heritage Centre in Grimsby and to the Fishermen’s Mission. I suggest to the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull East (Karl Turner) that something that Winston Churchill said after the second world war will resonate for all time. He said:

“The work you do is hard and dangerous. You rarely get, and never seek, publicity. Your only concern is to do your job, and you have done it nobly.”

Taxis and Private Hire Vehicles (Safeguarding and Road Safety) Bill

Lia Nici Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 10th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Lia Nici (Great Grimsby) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Darlington (Peter Gibson) for bringing forward this incredibly important Bill. As quite a few colleagues have said, when we use taxis generally, the taxi driver, as a professional person, is potentially in a position of power. We get into their car. Quite often, they pick us up from our homes, our work or places that we are visiting. We need to make sure that those professional taxi drivers are protected from that very small minority who may not be acting professionally. We need to remember that taxi drivers are vital in our communities and in our workplaces, and also vital for our visitor economy. Quite often, they are the first person somebody will meet if they are leaving a train station or a bus station or when they are going to visit somewhere.

Taxi drivers are a mine of information. With my background in education and as someone who was young once, I know that we might use taxis when we are not in our best frame of mind—if I can put it like that. We might have been to various hostelries as young people and it is then that we put our trust in taxi drivers. As students, young women will pile into a taxi together and there will always be one friend left at the end of that taxi journey. They need to feel confident that the taxi driver has at heart not only their best interests, but their safety. It is not only the safety of the vehicles and the safety of the driving that is important, but the safeguarding of the individual as well.

I have had reasons to use taxis in recent years. I was not visiting hostelries, because those days are over, but receiving treatment for an eye condition. When people need a taxi driver to take them to hospital or to pick them up after treatment, they are in a very vulnerable situation. They might not be steady on their feet or able to see, or, as has been pointed out, they might not have the best mobility. This is a vital piece of legislation and I wholeheartedly support it.