Wreck Removal Convention Bill

Lord Greenway Excerpts

Friday 13th May 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Greenway]

My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell of Beeston, for the clear and concise way in which she introduced this small but important Bill. At the outset I must declare an interest as an unpaid Elder Brother of Trinity House.

I welcome the Bill, which incorporates the wreck-removal provisions from the draft Marine Navigation Bill, which has been waiting on the shelf in some dark and dusty government corner for a while, but which neither the previous Administration nor the present coalition have so far seen fit to bring forward. As the noble Baroness said, the Bill paves the way for the Government to ratify the Nairobi International Convention on the Removal of Wrecks, which was adopted by the International Maritime Organisation some four years ago. The convention will come into force, as the noble Lord has just said, one year after 10 states have signed up to it. My understanding is that so far just one state has signed up, though I may be wrong about that. However, within the first year at least six states signified that they agreed with it, as they are entitled to do.

The present situation regarding wreck removal within our territorial waters—the 12-mile limit—is covered by provisions in Sections 252 and 253 of the Merchant Shipping Act 1995 which empower Trinity House and the other two general lighthouse authorities to mark, raise, remove or destroy any vessel,

“sunk, stranded or abandoned in any fairway, or on the seashore or on or near any rock, shoal or bank”,

in England or Wales,

“or any of the adjacent seas or islands”,

where there is no harbour or conservancy authority with power to do so, if in the opinion of the general light house authority,

“the vessel is, or is likely to become, an obstruction or danger to navigation or to lifeboats engaged in lifeboat service”.

Factors affecting safety of navigation include the clearance depth over the site at lowest astronomical tide; the depth of water in the area; the type, size and construction of the vessel; traffic density and frequency; the proximity of shipping routes; the type of traffic; and the topography of the seabed. Decisions about wreck removal or dispersal are inextricably linked to the danger presented by the wreck in terms of these factors, about which Trinity House and the other general lighthouse authorities have significant knowledge and expertise.

The Bill empowers the Secretary of State to deal with wrecks in a greatly expanded area up to 200 miles from the UK’s territorial waters. This is most welcome because it clears up an area of uncertainty that previously existed regarding the interpretation of “adjacent seas and islands”. Many an expert legal opinion has been sought on this without any true result. The legal position is now made clear, and that is certainly to be welcomed. Until now, Trinity House, with the agreement of the Department for Transport, has marked wrecks within this expanded area when they have been a danger, but dispersal has not ordinarily been carried out if the wreck is a foreign-flagged vessel due to a number of legal difficulties, including obtaining flag-state consent.

I welcome the fact that the onus of locating, marking and removing wrecks is now placed firmly on the owner of the vessel. I also understand that a state may extend the convention to its territory and territorial sea and that the present Government have indicated their wish to do so. This is to be welcomed because it will clear up any possible confusion between the present arrangements and those obtained in the convention.

I also welcome the expanded definition of wreck. It includes:

“any part of a sunken or stranded ship, including any object that is or has been on board such a ship”,

and,

“any object that is lost at sea from a ship and that is stranded, sunken or adrift at sea”.

In the past, Trinity House has, where necessary, dealt with such objects, such as floating containers, mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, in the interests of safety of navigation, but hitherto has not been able to recover its costs.

Another welcome development is a draft memorandum of understanding between the Secretary of State and the general lighthouse authorities, setting out how they will exercise their respective roles and responsibilities under the convention and the Merchant Shipping Act. The general lighthouse authorities have been working for some time with the Secretary of State's representative. They know each other well; they know each other's capabilities. It is a great step forward to have that set down properly in a memorandum of understanding, which will certainly help to progress matters.

Several noble Lords, especially the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, expressed concern on behalf of ship owners that the convention could result in a greater call on the general lighthouse funds as a result of the cost of removing wrecks of uninsured vessels. At the moment, within the General Lighthouse Fund there is a contingency to deal with uninsured losses, so ship owners should be aware that there is already provision to cover such losses, although, as we have heard, with the new compulsory insurance provisions in the Bill, it is likely that calls on the General Lighthouse Fund should reduce over time.

The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, also mentioned passing ships that are not coming to UK ports. From 1 January next year, a new EU directive will require all ships weighing more than 300 gross tonnes belonging to member states or visiting EU ports to have insurance to cover the limits of their liability under the international Convention on Limitation of Liability for Maritime Claims 1976, as amended by the protocol of 1996. All the time, more measures are coming into force that are making it more difficult for ships sometimes referred to as rogue ships to operate on our high seas.

The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, also queried whether the Secretary of State or his representative should direct the general lighthouse authorities to deal with wrecks. My reading is that that has to be done for them to recover their costs. That is how it works under the convention. The general lighthouse authorities or harbour authorities are not party to the convention, so they have to be appointed by the Secretary of State or his representative.

Trinity House and the other general lighthouse authorities have a long history of dealing with wreck matters—about 150 years. They have great experience. The area that Trinity House is responsible for covers one of the busiest waterways in the world, the English Channel, where the waters are not very deep. Wrecks off the west coast of Scotland and Ireland tend to be in deeper water; if they sink, they go down a very long way. In some ways, Trinity House has more experience of dealing with such matters.

Several wrecks have been mentioned, but noble Lords may remember that back in December 2002 the Norwegian car carrier “Tricolour” collided with the container vessel “Kariba”, resulting in the Norwegian vessel sinking just as it was about to enter the north-south shipping lane through the English Channel. Two days later, the wreck was struck by another vessel, which was towed off; and two weeks after that, a tanker carrying 77,000 tonnes of gas oil also struck the wreck. As a result of that incident, the International Association of Marine Aids to Navigation and Lighthouse Authorities put in place a plan to provide emergency wreck buoys. Trinity House was very involved in their development. These are new buoys which can be taken out fairly quickly and have vertical red and yellow stripes. Trinity House also came up with a new form of lighting—an alternating blue and yellow flash which is highly visible and should go a long way towards alerting other ships of a wreck until such time has been found properly to survey it and mark it with normal, proper wreck buoys.

With regard to floating wreckage, such as containers or even timber, there were two incidents not so long ago in which large amounts of timber were washed off ships and floated up the English Channel, with most of it ending up on the beach. I believe that work is in hand to come up with some sort of floating wreck mark that would float up the Channel with any such mass of cargo. That would be a very sensible way of marking that sort of thing. However, to allay some of the concerns of the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, I can say that the general lighthouse authorities certainly know their limitations and there is no way that they could be made responsible—

[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.