Merchant Shipping (Control and Management of Ships’ Ballast Water and Sediments) Order 2022

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Thursday 13th January 2022 Grand Committee

The key thing here is that we will end up with domestic law, once the set of regulations comes through, that absolutely meets our international obligations and reflects recent amendments to the convention. I have highlighted the importance of this Order in Council so that we can get on and ratify this convention and then get on and get through the regulations that implement this very important convention. I commend this draft order to the Committee, and I beg to move.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for introducing this fascinating draft order. It is interesting that the Government blame everything on things coming from the Far East, be they Chinese or Japanese knotweed or Japanese oysters. I expect that equal blame goes in the opposite direction.

This needs doing—I have no problem with ensuring that ballast water is sampled and tested—but I wonder whether the Minister can just help me. How is this sampling done? It is presumably done when the ship is in port, then sent away for analysis—that seems quite clear to me—but what happens if some of the samples are found to be non-compliant with whatever regulations we are coming up with? Will they nail a writ to the mast of the ship, the next time it comes in? Will they send our Navy out on to the high seas? How will these things actually be enforced?

It is wonderful having regulations. These have been coming for a long time. The IMO worked very fast to get them ready by 2017. It probably takes 10 years to do these things, and now we are taking another five. It is important to understand how these regulations will be enforced. They need to be enforced around the world. We can do only our bit, but we can set an example. I hope there is a way of doing it without us spending too much money on it.

[Lord Greenway (CB)]

My Lords, I too am grateful to the Minister for introducing this order. As she said, the convention dates from 2004 and was not ratified until September 2016 by 30 states, representing 35% of the world’s merchant tonnage. By the time it came into force a year after that, over 60 countries had ratified it, representing over 70% of the world’s shipping.

The Minister mentioned the delay in bringing forward this order. I am not certain that I entirely buy her explanation. It seems to me that when so many other countries, representing so much of the world’s shipping, have already ratified it, it does not do our reputation as a so-called maritime nation much good when we are seen to be dragging our feet over these conventions.

She also mentioned in passing the Chinese mitten crabs. When I went through the list, it read more like something out of a science-horror movie, since we also have round goby, North American comb jelly, zebra mussels, toxic algae and even cholera, which has been transported on micro-organisms such as plankton. There are some very nasty things going around, as the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, just said, and this convention was brought in for very good reasons.

There is one thing I would like to ask the Minister. What has been the position with our ships? This measure does not mean that an awful lot of ships, in the general sense of the word, would be affected because our Merchant Navy is a shadow of what it used to be. But what has happened to those ships to enable them to continue trading? Have they been, on their own accord, taking the actions necessary to comply with the convention in order to trade? If they were seen to be operating under the flag of a country that had not ratified, they would quickly be picked up by port state control around the world and forbidden to trade. I would be grateful if the Minister could shed some light on that.

--- Later in debate ---

On the number of countries that have signed up to the convention, there are currently 88 contracting states to the convention, which amounts to 91.2% of global tonnage. That is a good thing; it is clear that the UK needs to be on that list. That is why I commend the order.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

Before the noble Baroness sits down, could she write with a list of prosecutions that the MCA has done on these issues? She mentioned that, for non-compliance, the MCA would be the prosecuting authority. Has it done any yet?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

It would not have done anything against the convention, because, obviously, the convention is not implemented yet. So that would be a difficult list to compile at this stage. Perhaps I will send the noble Lord some nice information about the MCA and its enforcement, shall I? Excellent. We will do that. I beg to move.