Merchant Shipping (Safety Standards for Passenger Ships on Domestic Voyages) (Miscellaneous Amendments) Regulations 2022 Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateLord Berkeley
Main Page: Lord Berkeley (Labour - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Berkeley's debates with the Department for Transport
(1 year, 9 months ago)
Lords ChamberAt the end insert “but that this House regrets the delay of up to 20 years in the introduction by His Majesty’s Government of these Regulations, which affect just over 600 vessels requiring safety related changes to fire protection equipment, life raft and lifejacket requirements.”
My Lords, I thank the Minister for a very comprehensive and, I thought, excellent explanation of why these regulations are necessary. She has given some very good reasons for them. My concern tonight is, first of all, to express concern at the delay—it is over 30 years now since the “Marchioness” accident—and to explore a little bit further what changes are covered by these regulations and where they apply. I note that, even at this late stage, the sister ship of the “Marchioness” is still sailing around, I believe, without some of the protection that the Minister has outlined and which I shall come to. I was pleased to hear her emphasise the need that the first stage must be to protect human life and to ensure that there is nothing in these lovely historical old ships that will excuse the provision of proper life-saving equipment and other things. I also congratulate the Minister on the documentation that has come with this SI, which is very impressive and detailed. I am also pleased that there has been a lot of quite good consultation—I have met some of the people who have been involved in some of it, and I think that it is really good that we have got to this stage.
As the Minister said, this standard covers life rafts, lifejackets, lifejacket lights, the fitting of fire detection and extinguishing equipment, bilge-pumping arrangements, bilge alarms for alerting of water ingress, and vessel stability. I find it extraordinary that this has not been a requirement for ships for many years. I am very pleased, of course, that it is in today, but the idea that you did not have to have enough life-raft capacity for all passengers on board is quite extraordinary. Whether we are talking about the upper River Thames, the tidal Thames or, in the other extreme, out to the Solent or something, the expectation from passengers must be that there is proper equipment and everything aboard. I think it is very good that the things we do not see in a ship, like fire detection, machinery failures, and bilge pumping—we discussed bilge pumps a few years ago in your Lordships’ House—are all here.
I want to ask the Minister a few questions about this damage stability issue. It is clearly important. In simple terms, in the event of a collision, will the boat fill up and sink? What is the risk of the collision happening, and what is the risk of it sinking or being damaged after the collision? I think that this is mainly to do with ships covered in these regulations in class C. I was also interested in her statement about the number of ships involved. Paragraph 7.7 of the Explanatory Memorandum talks about “mitigating factors” for some ships which the MCA and Ministers will allow to continue to operate, because they have presumably taken the risk assessment which says that their existing design is satisfactory under the new regulations. The figure quoted is 120 vessels. It would be good to know the sort of areas where these vessels operate, whether they operate at day or night, and how big they are, et cetera.
But I think what is probably even more important is how many vessels are not covered by the mitigating factors, and who will have to actually go through the process of compliance, which may involve quite a few internal works, a lot of dry-docking and things like that. In certain circumstances, as is alluded to in the Explanatory Memorandum, it may be uneconomic for these vessels to continue the way they are.
My Lords, I am very grateful to the Minister for her response. She has given me a lot of confidence that in her new role, on which I congratulate her, she will be robust in ensuring that there is no backsliding on these new regulations. As she has alluded to, collision is of course one of the greatest risks, and it happens on the Thames and on other major rivers, but there are probably more passenger services on the Thames than on many others.
I hope I understood her correctly in saying that the let-out that it was too expensive to make changes, for example, would not be acceptable. I am afraid I got the impression that the commercial side would have to give way to safety whenever there was a debate as to which was more important. I think she also said that whatever changes are possible for the 120 or so, everybody would still be required to comply with the new rules on lifejackets, bilge and life rafts, and all the other rules that apply across the board.
I look forward to the Minister writing to us about anything else that she has not covered, and I congratulate her again. I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.