Shipping: Safety

Lord Greenway Excerpts

Monday 27th March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

In light of representations that we ourselves have made, the noble Lord is right to raise the issue of languages, because many who travel may not be familiar with some languages. In that regard the IMO is looking to introduce specific measures to ensure that evacuation drills and emergency procedures reflect the languages of the people who are travelling.

[Lord Greenway (CB)]

My Lords, is the Minister aware that 19 ships capable of carrying more than 4,000 passengers are on order at the moment for delivery by 2020? The noble Lord on the Liberal Democrat Benches asked about crew. Is it not vital that crew training is given absolute priority in view of the problems that he mentioned with languages? In the “Costa Concordia” accident, I gather that the crew could not understand emergency instructions in the official language of the ship.

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

The noble Lord raises an important point. I partly addressed it in my previous answer, but he is of course right. When we look across modes of travel, we see that in aviation, for example, all evacuation and emergency procedures on a flight heading for a particular destination in a particular country are explained in a particular language. I suggest that there is a bigger challenge for cruise ships, which often stop at different destinations—but language and crew training related to it are nevertheless important.