Wreck Removal Convention Bill

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Friday 13th May 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Berkeley]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, for introducing the Bill. My noble friend Lord Lea, who is no longer in his place, asked me whether it referred to maritime wrecks or Members of the House of Lords in a restructured Chamber. I hope I can put his mind at rest on that one.

I declare an interest as a harbour commissioner of the port of Fowey in Cornwall, and as president of the UK Maritime Pilots’ Association. I very much support the principles of the Bill. As the noble Baroness said in introducing it, we have got some really beautiful coastline in this country: more than 10,000 miles of it. The Bill will make a great difference to how wrecks are dealt with. We are also setting an excellent example to other states by implementing the international convention. I am pleased that the Government are urging other nations to ratify it; I believe it comes into force when there are 10 signatories. Perhaps the Minister, when he speaks, can tell us how many member states have ratified it and how discussions with them are going so that we can get some kind of a progress report.

My concern, as one or two previous speakers have said, lies with the burden that the Bill could impose on harbour and conservation authorities, the general lighthouse authorities and the General Lighthouse Fund; my noble and learned friend Lord Boyd particularly mentioned that. The noble Earl, Lord Attlee, will be aware of my interest in the GLAs and will be very pleased to hear that I am not going to talk about their finances today. The Chamber of Shipping’s view—again, mentioned by my noble and learned friend Lord Boyd—is that it is really unfair to have any liability placed on ships entering British ports because of the activities of a ship which may not be insured and may not even have called into a UK port. The shipping interests have got a point here.

My first problem concerns uninsured wrecks. The noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, talked about that. Yes, the Bill says that the Government will be checking on the insurance of all ships coming into UK ports and will assist in reclaiming the costs of any rescue/salvage from the insurers. My problem is that there is a small possibility that the insurance may not be sufficient or may not be in place at all. That could particularly occur if a ship was in the widened territorial waters we are talking about but was not calling into a UK port where the insurance might get checked. There is not a high likelihood of that, but there is still a consequential fear that the GLAs, harbour authorities or others might be saddled with a high cost. As the noble Baroness said in her introduction, the problem is that the Bill allows the Secretary of State to “instruct” these authorities. It is an instruction; they cannot say “no”, as I understand it. They could turn around and say, “We haven’t got the capability”, or something like that, but they will be given an instruction. I am sure that the present Secretary of State and his Ministers would never do that, but you never know what is going to happen in the future. We ought to consider how we deal with this. We could perhaps consider it in Committee. If a ship sinks which is not going into a UK port, and is therefore not contributing even by paying its light dues, then this whole procedure does not really comply with the principle that the polluter pays. It means that the responsible ship owners are paying for the actions of the irresponsible ones. How would the GLAs recover the costs from these overseas owners or the insurers if they refuse to pay? The Government have said that they will do this, so possibly the answer would be for the Government to indemnify the GLAs or the harbour authorities against such a loss. I am sure that the Minister will be able to comment on that when he responds.

My second point concerns whether the GLAs and harbour authorities necessarily have the capability to carry out some of this work. The GLAs certainly have the capability of marking wrecks; that is one their objectives. They can probably remove small wrecks but that is really a salvage operation and I do not regard the GLAs as salvage contractors. They could probably undertake salvage operations but why should they have to pay for them as well? Why should not the Government organise the salvage themselves?

Several noble Lords have given examples of wrecks. Sadly, there are many around the coast, but an interesting situation arose in 2008 when the Government asked Trinity House to act as a salvage company to remove the wreck of a First World War German U-boat which was on the bed of the English Channel. The Government agreed with the German Government that they would not ask the latter to undertake this operation. Trinity House did it—I believe, successfully—and it cost £1.5 million, I am told. Ships coming into UK ports had to fund that. A sum of £1.5 million is not a high proportion of the GLAs’ turnover, but the cost could have been a lot higher if a different type of wreck had been involved. The Government should organise these things themselves—that would be much the best way to tackle this—and the GLAs or the harbour authorities should be asked to offer support to the extent that they are capable of doing so.

A further issue arises in this regard; namely, what is the definition of a wreck? The definition in the convention is that it is,

“any object that is lost at sea from a ship”.

I suspect that the drafters of that definition meant to refer to containers, which regularly fall off ships. People run into them occasionally and it does not do them a lot of good. Noble Lords will remember the MSC “Napoli”, which foundered on a beach in Devon a few years ago. A lot of containers were washed ashore, including some with new BMW motor bikes inside, which soon “walked”. However, in 1992—nearly 20 years ago—something like 29,000 yellow rubber duck bath toys were lost overboard in the Pacific Ocean. These ended up around the Pacific. I do not think that they were a hazard to shipping or to anyone else but they illustrate the fact that this definition of “wreck” might need to be tightened up. However, I am sure that none of the GLAs or harbour authorities would want to get involved in that.

The Government’s response to the House of Commons Transport Select Committee's report on the draft Marine Navigation Bill 2008 stated that,

“the Government does not envisage that the new power in relation to the General Lighthouse Authorities would lead to their being directed to do things for which they have no … experience”.

That is a good statement but it would be very nice if the Minister could confirm that or go a little further and say that they would not be asked to do things for which they do not have the funds or the capability. Incidentally, I am very grateful to the Minister and to the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, for arranging a meeting recently at which we discussed some of these matters. I understand that a memorandum of understanding may be being drafted by the GLAs and the Government before the convention comes into force to set out some of these issues in more detail. I hope that the Minister will tell us where the Government have got to with this. Can a draft be placed in the Library? I have concentrated my remarks on the GLAs but the harbour authorities deserve equal treatment as regards MoUs as some of them have very small budgets. They probably have less capability in this regard but may still be instructed by the Government to undertake these operations. That could result in their going bust, which I am sure is not what the Government intend. However, it could happen under the Bill.

To conclude, I think we are all striving for the same result. It is generally a good Bill and we want to ensure that our seas are safe and clean. We want responsible ship owners to behave and to be properly insured. However, we have to get the detail right. We can talk about whether the Bill needs amendment in Committee. In addition to support from the Chamber of Shipping, I have received support from the British Ports Association, which represents most of the ports around the country, except for one or two big ones, and the British Tug Owners Association, which might benefit from doing a spot of salvage. I very much look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say and to more detailed discussion at the next stage.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Berkeley]

I thank the noble Lord for giving way. I said that I thought that the GLAs were very competent to do that, and they have long experience of doing so. My concern is that they may end up having to fund the salvage.

[Lord Greenway]

I was just coming to the fact that they are well used to marking wrecks, although, when it comes to the salvage or removal of wrecks, such incidents are very few and far between. Over the past 10 or 12 years the GLAs have been involved in dealing with perhaps a couple of small fishing boats. Therefore, there is no way that the general lighthouse authorities would be involved in something like the MSC “Napoli”. The removal of larger ships is totally beyond their powers, and negotiations between them and SOSREP would very quickly sort out the best way of dealing with a wreck and deciding who should do the work.

I conclude by summing up where the Bill takes us. As I said, it introduces measures that Trinity House very much welcomes. It empowers the GLAs to locate, mark and remove wrecks which are a danger to navigation beyond the territorial sea, clarifying an area of legislation where there has been uncertainty. It makes registered owners responsible for reporting wrecks or for loss of cargo and for the costs of locating, marking and removing wrecks. It requires registered owners of all vessels over 300 gross tonnes to maintain insurance to cover their liability under the convention. It provides for any claim for costs arising under the convention to be brought directly against the insurer or other person providing financial security for the registered owner’s liability, therefore reducing the risk of non-recovery and, in so doing, also reducing the exposure of the General Lighthouse Fund to the cost of dealing with wrecks.

I very much welcome this small but nevertheless important measure. I wish it a speedy passage and look forward to what I hope will be ratification of the convention in the not-too-distant future.