Tourism

Lord Christopher Excerpts

Thursday 27th January 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Christopher]

My Lords, first, I thank the noble Viscount and congratulate him on getting this debate on to the Order Paper. Unbeknown to him, it has provided me with an opportunity to raise the matter which was burning in my soul. He mentioned Cornwall, and Cornwall is part of it. I should also say that as it is a discrete matter, I thought it sensible to have a word with the noble Baroness, Lady Garden, yesterday to ensure that she, at least, was certainly not caught unawares on an apolitical matter.

It concerns the Isles of Scilly, which are a string of islands 37 miles by sea south-west of Penzance, five of which are inhabited. The population is around 2,000—it is probably on the low side rather than the higher—and tourism is the principal source of income. Almost all other sources have disappeared. The flowers have gone, either abroad or to Lincolnshire, and are a minimum part of their livelihood. The majority of the visitors go by sea. You can go by air and when I go, I usually try to do that, although you can be diverted to the ferry if it is too bad for planes to fly. However, the planes have to be small because the runway is short. There are also helicopters.

Two vessels ply between Penzance and Scilly, a passenger vessel and a freight vessel. They are owned by the Isles of Scilly Steamship Company, which was set up in 1920. Prior to that, since 1859, all transport to the islands was undertaken by the Ministry of Shipping, which must have disappeared at some time in the past. The passenger ferry is the custom-built “Scillonian III”, which will be 35 years old next year. The freighter, the “Gry Maritha”, is over 30 years old and takes 95 per cent of the freight. As with many islands around our coast, the only way of getting anything from nails to door knockers is by sea. That freight vessel was in fact a Norwegian freighter. I will come back to that issue after getting around to the matter of the “Scillonian”.

The “Scillonian” takes 90,000 passengers a year. It had a refit in 1999 but, despite that, it will not get a maritime coastguard certificate after 2012. In other words, it will go out of service. Since 2002—over eight years ago—there have been discussions and explorations of what to do about that risk of losing the passenger vessel. The conclusions have been twofold: that there should be a new, dual-purpose ferry ordered and built and that there would have to be some harbour improvements, both in Scilly and in Penzance. The market for a second-hand vessel has been thoroughly researched but nothing that is likely to be suitable has been found. The harbour improvements have now been agreed but why is there not a vessel somewhere around the world at a time when, on the whole, sea transport is being either limited or transferred to a very large vessel?

Essentially, there are two factors. The vessel has to have a draught of only three metres and it must be able to sit on the seabed, because the high tides literally leave little or no water in the harbour area. There have been consultations with the Department for Transport and with Cornwall Council, which led to revised plans that saved a good deal of money. For example, they changed the specification of the vessel, reducing its potential speed from 20 knots to 15, and they retendered. We are now left with a total cost, excluding the harbour works, of £62 million. Under the outcome of the discussions this is to be shared, with £10 million coming from Cornwall Council, £11.75 million from a European grant and £40.3 million from the Department for Transport. We expected an answer from the Department for Transport by the end of this month but it is clearly not going to come. I understand that it is not now likely to arrive before the end of February. I do not know the reasons for that. On 16 February, a finance meeting of Cornwall Council will take place. There is a very real risk that it will decide that, given present circumstances, it cannot come up with this money. If that happens, the vessel will not be ordered.

There is also a risk with the European grant which has gone on for so long. There is an end-date, of which I am not aware, but there is a risk that the money will go elsewhere. Many projects around the country are looking for money from Europe, so this service could end in 2012. If that happens, there will be a direct loss of 79 jobs on the ferry service itself. There are only 1,272 full-time jobs throughout these islands, 30 per cent of which are related to hotels and restaurants, so there is a total potential job loss of around 380. That is not the national figure of one in 12 which the noble Viscount mentioned but represents something like four in 12 of all the work opportunities on these islands. Seventy per cent of the 380 jobs are related to tourism. Therefore, we have a potential job loss approaching a third, plus, of course, marginal losses relating to tourist spending, which would substantially disappear. It would be a major tragedy if these islands were effectively lost to tourism.

I hope that the points I have raised will find support around the Chamber and that we can look to accelerate a positive decision on this matter. Delay is no longer a wise or safe option. I will seek to follow this up as the days go by.