Shipping: Passenger Safety

Lord Davies of Oldham Excerpts

Wednesday 15th January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Kramer]

I can assure your Lordships that, from a UK perspective, this measure meets a very high standard of safety. Both the safety required of the boats themselves and the quality required of the life rafts have been very closely examined. I have learnt in this House that the word “benign” can be wrongly used, but I think that these are generally benign waters.

[Lord Davies of Oldham (Lab)]

My Lords, the Minister is still trying to convince the House that there is virtue in pitching British safety standards below the minimum of European safety standards. Why on earth should that be done unless it is just some doctrinaire response to Europe?

[Baroness Kramer]

Perhaps I may explain, because I think that there is some confusion here. The EU directive which would require an additional life raft is not intended for this kind of vessel; it is for steel vessels and for large-scale ferries, so it does not apply to most of these craft because typically they are fibreglass, and so on. We want to be sure that we are getting an appropriate exemption for future replacement of existing craft. As I said, the EU directive is not intended to deal with this kind of craft; they are expected to be handled through an exemption process.