Marine Navigation Aids Bill [HL]

Lord MacKenzie of Culkein Excerpts

Friday 21st January 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord MacKenzie of Culkein]

My Lords, my noble friend Lord Berkeley should be congratulated on his persistence in introducing this Bill again. It gives us a further opportunity to look at the important matter of the safety of seafarers and the maritime environment. We can, as has already been done, note the progress made since we last debated this matter on 5 February last year.

It is a pity that we could not have had this debate in a few days’ time, because we could then have marked a very important anniversary in aids to navigation: the lighting of the Bell Rock lighthouse, the oldest sea-washed lighthouse still in commission anywhere in the world. Now, like all UK lighthouses, it is automated, but tonight, as on every other night apart from some nights in both world wars, it will give one white flash every five seconds. It will have done so for 200 years on 1 February.

I have a long interest in shipping and aids to navigation. I was born and brought up in the lighthouse service. I was for a few years a fourth-generation lighthouse keeper. Before joining the service, my dad was a merchant navy officer. I have a stepson who is a senior engineering officer and a cousin who is a deck officer in the Royal Fleet Auxiliary. I can say to my noble friend Lord Berkeley that I know a little bit about Australian lighthouses as well. My brother was a serving light keeper for the Northern Lighthouse Board and then, for most of the rest of his career, a lighthouse keeper in Australia. From what I gather from him, there is little or no comparison between looking after Orkney, Shetland, the Western Isles and the Pentland Firth and looking after Australia, except perhaps for the Bass Strait. You can go along almost the whole coast of the south of Australia and see not a single light anywhere.

My noble friend’s Bill seeks to abolish the three GLAs and replace them with a new commission and a regulator. The role of the Secretary of State will be replaced in relation to his responsibilities for the lighthouse authorities and the General Lighthouse Fund. It also seeks to cast adrift the Republic of Ireland, which has always been an inherent part of the present tripartite GLA structure.

There is no doubt that shipping companies complain about light dues. They did it when I was a light keeper all those years ago; they have complained about the size of light dues for most of the history of the general lighthouse authorities. They would prefer Governments to abandon the principle of user pays and for the taxpayer to pick up the bill. As has already been said, that would not be terribly popular, particularly among parties opposite. I do not think that it would be popular with anyone else either, except for the shipping companies.

Shipping is a tough business—I understand that—and one which is of great importance to this country. Clearly, ship owners and charterers have to have a close eye on their financial bottom line. However, as has already been well said in the House, they have enjoyed a long holiday from increases, which has included substantial reductions in light dues. For people who enjoy holidays, there is always a day of reckoning, as I, as a pension fund trustee, know to my cost, having not persuaded employers to keep on paying in the good times so that we might have avoided the sudden problems that crop up.

If memory serves me correctly, there was not an increase in light dues for some 15 or 16 years, until 2008 or 2009, with dues being about one-third lower in real terms than in 1993. Of course, that has led to a deficit in the General Lighthouse Fund and to the consequent and recent increases about which there has been so much complaint. However, as we have also heard, there is to be no further increases in light dues for the next three or four years, which should bring some stability.

No doubt ship owners will continue to have issues, and not just about light dues. I know that they have issues about other charges such as port costs, ship dues, mooring costs, conservancy costs and pilotage—you name it and ship owners will have something to say about it; for example, discharging and loading costs, including craneage. In reality, light dues are a relatively small part of the whole in terms of inward and outward trade to and from this country.

My noble friend seeks to deal also in his Bill with the so-called subsidy of the Commissioners of the Irish Lights. That has, I agree, been a running sore for a very long time and is happily on the way to being resolved. We now know that it has been decided that the funding of the Republic of Ireland aspect of the CIL will cease by 2016 at the latest. That work has been going on for many years and I agree that the Shipping Minister should be commended on the agreement which has been reached. It is good to see that the British Chamber of Shipping has welcomed the agreement. It will be interesting to see in the fullness of time whether the campaign to end the Irish subsidy will lead to an increase in trade into the UK, which the shipping industry has promised.

The new intergovernmental agreement destroys any further argument about the disbanding of the Commissioners of the Irish Lights as presently constituted. The CIL has always been a cross-border body and responsible for Northern Ireland coasts as well as those of the Republic. I am pleased that the Shipping Minister confirmed this week that the existing structure of the three lighthouse authorities is to be maintained. That is sound common sense.

What has changed since we discussed this matter last year? I suggest that there are two big issues. The first has been discussed already: the Atkins review, which was published in March and has brought forward a whole host of recommendations, many of which are already in train. The most important of them are: the establishment of the Joint Strategic Board to drive far greater co-ordination between the GLAs; the recommendation to centralise monitoring and to look at the rationalising, as my noble and learned friend Lord Boyd, said, of the number of buoy depots, of which there are presently four—Trinity House has two, at Harwich and Swansea; the Northern Lighthouse Board has one at Oban; and the Irish Lights has one at Dun Laoghaire; to reduce running costs in real terms using the RPI minus X formula; and to look at the GLF funding of costs incurred by the Commissioners of Irish Lights.

The Atkins report did not recommend any amalgamation or change in the present structure. As I said on 5 February last year, the review found that financial costs would outweigh any benefits of a merger of the lighthouse authorities. It also stated that the operation was too small to justify a separate office of regulation.

The Joint Strategic Board has been set up. It is relatively early days but it now appears to be working well and includes, for the first time, the close questioning and examination of each other’s corporate plans. It would seem, therefore, that the Joint Strategic Board can do much or all of the job that my noble friend envisaged for his Office of Marine Navigation Aids Regulation.

The three monitoring centres will be centralised for out-of-hours working and at weekends. This has been found to be a better alternative to complete centralisation. As my noble and learned friend Lord Boyd said, the buoy depot issue is under close examination to see what further savings can be made. The three GLAs have worked out what their X is in the RPI minus X formula which will lead to reductions in running costs in real and absolute terms over the next four or five years.

The noble Earl, Lord Caithness, said that the Shipping Minister sought a reduction of 17 per cent—I thought it was 25 per cent—over the next three or four years. If that cannot be done, the GLAs will have to tell the Minister why it cannot be done. That will concentrate minds at all three headquarters. So the GLAs are not being spared the scrutiny of this Government despite the fact that the savings will not accrue to the public purse.

I have no doubt that these savings can and will be made through further developments in technology, such as e-Loran and the potential of the Galileo system to name but two. The GLAs will move forward, review and desperately try to be more efficient, but that must be done in a way which must not compromise the safety of the mariner or the marine environment. It is always wise to recognise that there is a tension between safety and costs, which is why, of course, we have the international SOLAS conventions, and it is our obligation as a state to adhere to these.

There is a view among many ship owners that costs can be reduced by the decommissioning of more and more lighthouses because of the use of global navigation satellite systems, electronic charts, AIS and so on. I agree that the continued development of e-navigation represents much of the way forward, but if you talk to the masters of the ships rather than the owners, they will tell you that for the foreseeable future there have to be lighthouses as a back-up, as a secondary system, as a failsafe. Reduced manning on ships in recent times has led to very poor watch-keeping practices on far too many vessels. There is too much reliance on GPS. There is no such thing as a completely safe radio-based navigation system. For example, GPS can be interfered with and readily jammed—cheap jammers can be obtained which can readily jam GPS signals and make them unavailable for many kilometres; and, beyond a 30 kilometre range, can interfere with a signal with potentially disastrous results—and so it is necessary to keep the secondary system of lighthouses, certainly for the foreseeable future.

GLAs do not exist in a vacuum; they work with shipping interests. There is a continual review by all three GLAs as to what lights may be decommissioned or have their ranges reduced. In some cases even today, new hazards are being lit. That process has continued since we last debated the Bill at Second Reading last year, with a further number of lighthouses being decommissioned, including one not terribly far from the territory of the noble Earl, Lord Caithness. Clythness lighthouse was decommissioned a few months ago. Costs are continually being reduced through more reliable technology, less maintenance and fewer visits by ships and helicopter. Other stations are now subject to review, many where, only a few years ago, it would have been unthinkable for that part of the coast to be unlit. I hope the Minister will acknowledge that there is no useful purpose in a merger of GLAs and a new regulator, which will not and cannot produce anything more than is already being done in the existing structures.

I hope the Minister will also acknowledge that, as a result of the Atkins review, there has been considerable progress in terms of more co-ordination, closer working, achievable savings being made and a positive response from the GLAs to the Government’s requirement to shadow the CSR and the working of the RPI minus X formula. These, together with the road map to resolve the Republic of Ireland subsidy issue, go much, if not all, of the way to meeting the concerns and outstanding issues raised by my noble friend Lord Berkeley.

I hope that my noble friend will recognise this and not seek to take the matter further. A more useful way forward would be to concentrate our energies and try to persuade the Government to bring forward the draft Marine Navigation Bill. It has received pre-legislative scrutiny and has been considered by the Transport Select Committee in another place. That draft Bill has been gathering dust ever since, with neither the previous Government nor the present coalition Government seeming to find time for a Bill that is non-contentious but very useful legislation. I hope the Minister will say something about the possibility of it being brought forward in the near future.

I again thank my noble friend for giving the House the opportunity to discuss this important matter. It may be esoteric to some, but it is of significant importance to all who use our seas for business or pleasure.