Deregulation Bill

Lord Prescott Excerpts

Wednesday 11th February 2015 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Prescott]

57B: Clause 41, leave out Clause 41

[Lord Prescott (Lab)]

My Lords, is it my impression that the Minister is not here to reply to his letter and my debate in Committee about the safety of passengers and seafarers on vessels? This is a clause about safety on ships and inquiries, and I will seek to show that the “Marchioness” disaster was due to the negligence of the Department of Transport in dealing with that sad loss of 51 people. I mean no insult to the noble Baroness who will be replying, but I hope that I can record my argument, even given the lateness of the hour. The Minister then might, when he wakes up, read what has been said today because presumably there will be another opportunity to look at it when the Bill comes back at Third Reading.

My objection is a strong one relating to safety—this is not about parking, cars or whatever else, it is about safety on our seas and, in particular, on that river outside, the River Thames. The current proposal suggests that any rehearing into the loss of a ship, which may have occurred years ago, will now be at the discretion of the Minister and not be a duty. We are replacing a department’s duty and obligation to hold a hearing into the loss of a ship with a discretion. Evidence shows that discretion is not the best way if you want to get the best out of an inquiry.

Other ships have been lost and taken a long time to be found, such as the “Derbyshire”, which I mentioned in Committee, the fishing trawler “Gaul” and the “Marchioness”. Each time, particularly with the “Marchioness”, the Government refused to have an inquiry. It was normal practice and, indeed, the duty at the time when the “Marchioness” went down to hold a public inquiry as to the causes. So that we are in no doubt about it, all I am saying has been confirmed by the Thames Safety Inquiry report by Lord Justice Clarke. I should know, because when I became the Secretary of State I appointed him to meet the demands of the relatives who died on the vessel in the Thames that there should be a proper public inquiry. He spells out the reason for a public inquiry in the report, referring in turn to the report into the “Herald of Free Enterprise”:

“In every formal investigation it is of great importance that members of the public should feel confident that a searching investigation has been held, that nothing has been swept under the carpet and that no punches have been pulled”.

That is precisely what happened with the inquiry set up by the Department of Transport, headed at that time by Mr Cecil Parkinson. The ship went down and the normal cry came out for an inquiry, as had happened in a number of other cases. However, the Government made the decision that there would not be a full public inquiry or examination of the facts. They chose to use the maritime investigation board, which is under an obligation in law to investigate immediately the loss of a ship and then to report and act. It does not examine the circumstances of the loss. The Government insisted that it should be this maritime body that investigated, and it was the only inquiry that they implemented. What I find difficult about that is that the Government’s argument at the time was, “Look, we have the maritime inquiry; we cannot have a public inquiry because that might interfere with any public prosecutions or criminal actions that may be undertaken”. However, that does not fit with what happened with “Piper Alpha” or with other ships that went down, where they immediately set up a public inquiry and made clear that that did not matter. It was the same with the King’s Cross fire—the same department, almost in the same period, said, “We are having the inquiry, and are not stopping it simply because of any criminal investigations”. So I then think, “Why is the department doing it in certain circumstances but not in this one?”. To be truthful, it was in the process of changing the regulations for inquiries, but the duty that was imposed on the department still existed when the “Marchioness” went down and 51 people died.

The first question must be: why did the department not use the powers that were there and the duty on it to investigate and hold a public inquiry? That was all people were asking for. The department refused, constantly. It refused for 10 years to have a public inquiry. That started right at the beginning, which I will come to in a few minutes. So I ordered an inquiry.

Ministers, including the noble Lord, Lord Gardiner, wrote to me after Committee—this is why I am particularly annoyed—protesting that I had said that they had hidden the truth about the loss of a vessel. That is a serious charge, so I invited them and the Secretary of State, who wrote to me as well, to read the Lord Justice Clarke report and come and discuss it here in the Lords when we debate these issues. I am a bit surprised that they did not turn up. I have a feeling—I do not know him too well—that he sat on that Bench for a few minutes and then presumably shot home to have a little sleep and not attend this debate. Perhaps he was not here, perhaps it was not him; it did look like him—another good-looking fella like the guy at the end there. The point is, he is not here for the debate. My accusation is a serious one and everything I say is backed up by Lord Justice Clarke’s safety inquiry. He started his inquiry wondering why there had not been an inquiry under the previous Administration. There is a chapter called, “Should a Public Inquiry Have Been Ordered?”, which gave me the quote I have just read. Another chapter asks, “Was This a Suitable Case for a Public Inquiry?”, and he said it certainly was: 51 people died; King’s Cross was less than that and they had a public inquiry. Lord Justice Clarke came to the conclusion that there should have been inquiry, there was good reason to have an inquiry, and the report contains a chapter called, “Why Was a Public Inquiry Not Held?”. That is the question.

At the heart of this debate is the argument of discretion. The department exercised discretion—in this case without carrying out the duty; it was to change some months later but it did not do the inquiry—so Lord Justice Clarke looked at the reasons given by the department. All the evidence was given and he looked at the papers. He was told by the legal department that you could not have an inquiry. That is exactly what the civil servants said to me when I came in in 1997, and it is referred to in this report. I held the inquiry. I did not take the advice of the department. I made a decision. I said it was the duty to do this. What happened then? He said that the department took the view that the criminal inquiry prevented it from having an inquiry. Lord Justice Clarke said that it did not. He examined it all in detail and said that it did not make any difference. There was a duty on the department to have an inquiry. It had been done before.

That is critical because the clause that I am seeking to remove is about not every vessel but those vessels that are found a number of years later, such as the “Derbyshire” and the “Gaul”. The amendment says if you apply to have a hearing into the circumstances—which we did for the “Derbyshire” and the “Gaul” but not for the “Marchioness”—you have to have the inquiry. But here the department chose not to recognise its obligation and duty. The amendment says I am changing the duty for a second hearing on the loss of a vessel to discretion.

I have to say to myself: does that make it better or worse? Does it make it easier, as deregulation is claimed to do, or does it mean you save money in case somebody else calls for an inquiry—as the families could—and the Secretary of State can say, “It’s my discretion, I will not do it”? But if you look at the circumstances of a loss, it is not only the safety, it is about the relatives who are left grieving and want to know what happened. The reality was, as Lord Justice Clarke showed, that compared to the maritime investigation, which took two years to be published when it should have been done immediately and made few recommendations, this inquiry looked at all the same circumstances and made 70 recommendations to improve safety on the River Thames. It said that the excuse of criminal law intervention was totally wrong and indeed had not been observed by the department before.

The coroner’s laws were reformed. It was discovered in the case of the “Marchioness” that the coroner had ordered that the hands and feet be cut off and therefore would not show the people the bodies. When the relatives said, “Can we see the bodies?”, he would not let them see them because he felt they would be upset. Well, I suppose they would be upset, but all those laws were changed by the Lord Justice and many others.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord McAvoy (Lab)]

Will the Minister perhaps answer the point that we have repeatedly heard arguments tonight from Tory Peers which were quite clearly used in Committee for any length of time? They may not have taken as long as my noble friend has, so far, but collectively they have kept the whole thing going on their own particular interests.

[Lord Prescott]

I certainly agree with that. I have sat here all night and I now know more about parking, and God knows what. I am talking about the lives of people and the safety of our ships. I have to remind the Minister that we are an island nation. I would not have had to repeat what the Minister knows but the only reason that I have taken longer is that I think a noble Lord here in the House said that I should perhaps explain to the House what it was, because he was not there at the time. I have taken that choice and I have ended. I take the point, and I am sorry if I have caused any kind of problems with time, but quite frankly it is an important issue. I hope that the Minister will have the courage to turn up at the next stage in the House. He has that responsibility and he should face up to it.

[Lord Greenway (CB)]

My Lords, I declined to follow the noble Lord, Lord Prescott, down this route at Second Reading because I wanted to talk about other things and, unfortunately, when it was his turn to speak on this clause in Committee, I was chairing the All-Party Parliamentary Maritime and Ports Group upstairs. This is the first time that I have had a chance to speak on this subject and it looks as though I am third time unlucky, because I have been beaten by the clock as well, so I will be very brief.

The noble Lord, Lord Prescott, who did great things for British shipping in bringing in the tonnage tax when he was Secretary of State, speaks with enormous passion on this subject as a former seafarer. I, like him, share this passion for the sea and ships, which I have had all my life. However, in this instance my passion has been tempered by rational thought. We are looking here at something comparatively simple. This duty that is to be removed is the duty to reopen a maritime inquiry where new and important evidence has been discovered. In the case of the “Derbyshire”, which the noble Lord mentioned, there is no question at all that a Secretary of State would reopen an inquiry. However, there are occasions where it may not be such a good idea. After all, let us not forget that such inquiries cost £6 million to £8 million. They tie up busy people such as lawyers and maritime experts for quite a considerable time. In the fiscal circumstances in which the country still finds itself, if we can save any money then we should look at that quite seriously.

I will not go into the safety aspect because safety is in some ways an entirely different matter. Thankfully, the need to reopen these inquiries has happened on only three or four occasions. The need has got less since the Marine Accident Investigation Branch was set up in 1989. It has reduced the need for these inquiries. The whole system of looking into maritime affairs has been changing quite rapidly over the last 20 or 30 years. We have a different system in place and, in my opinion, I feel very happy that Clause 41 should remain part of the Bill.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I start by thanking the noble Lord, Lord Prescott, for his enormous patience here this evening. He had to listen to several debates on parking before we came to his issue. I think that the Minister who should have responded to him might have been a woman—

[Lord Prescott]

It was not.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

It was not—okay, I stand corrected. I hope he will not be too disappointed by my response.

The purpose of this clause is very straightforward. It is to give the Secretary of State discretion in whether to reopen a formal investigation into a marine accident when new and important evidence that was not available at the time of the original investigation becomes known. Given the wide-ranging discussion that we have had, perhaps it is worth setting the clause in its broader context to dispel any fears that it will adversely affect maritime safety. That is obviously the prime concern of the noble Lord, Lord Prescott, as he said at the beginning of his speech.

Prior to 1989, if there was a marine accident, the Secretary of State could choose to order a preliminary inquiry and, whether or not a preliminary inquiry was held, to order a formal investigation. The latter was a kind of public inquiry, and as well as seeking to identify why an accident had occurred and how to improve safety at sea, it could also apportion liability and blame, and impose penalties on those at fault. Whereas the Secretary of State had the discretion to decide whether to order a formal investigation, he was obliged to reopen a formal investigation if either of the following was the case: if new and important evidence that was not available at the time of the original investigation became known; or if there appeared to be grounds to suspect a miscarriage of justice.

These arrangements had been in place under the Merchant Shipping Act 1894 and were largely re-enacted in the Merchant Shipping Act 1995. However, by the time of the 1995 Act, the normal arrangements for investigating marine accidents had changed considerably. In July 1989, the Marine Accident Investigation Branch was established. The Marine Accident Investigation Branch is functionally independent of the Department for Transport. This removes the conflict of interest identified in the “Herald of Free Enterprise” formal investigation, which was that the department had been both the regulator and investigator for the maritime industry.

All marine accidents must be reported to the Marine Accident Investigation Branch and although it must investigate the most serious of these, the chief inspector has the discretion to investigate others too. Virtually all shipping accidents investigated since 1989 have had only a Marine Accident Investigation Branch safety investigation. The entirely separate formal investigation process remains available should it be deemed necessary. Since 1989, it has been used only twice, once being the formal investigation into the “Marchioness” disaster, called by the noble Lord, Lord Prescott, in February 2000, as he has told us. Because of the near-universal reliance on the highly regarded Marine Accident Investigation Branch investigation process, when the need to reopen a formal investigation has arisen, the accidents concerned have been increasingly historic.

Three reopened formal investigations have been called since 1997. The first concerned the “Derbyshire”. Twenty years had elapsed since the loss of the ship when its report was published. In the most recent case, that of the “Trident”, 35 years had passed. As there have been so few formal investigations in recent years, any reopened now would be about an accident that occurred at least a quarter of a century ago. In fact, the likelihood is that that any new and important evidence that might be found today would relate to an accident of 50 years ago or more.

Over that time, the design of ships and their equipment, and industry crewing and operating practices, are likely to have changed significantly. The chances of there being any relevant lessons to learn for the benefit of today’s seafarer would be much reduced. Again, considering the reopened formal investigations since 1997, the “Derbyshire” report made 24 safety recommendations and the “Trident” just one. Given the changes that have taken place in how we investigate marine accidents, the duty to reopen a formal investigation when new and important evidence is found is simply much less relevant to maritime safety than it was when it was on the statute book in 1894. For the vast majority of accidents, the exemplary work of the Marine Accident Investigation Branch—identifying the causes of accidents and issuing recommendations without fear or favour—ensures the future safety of mariners and the protection of the marine environment.

Clause 41 has absolutely no bearing on these Marine Accident Investigation Branch safety investigations or whether their findings should be reviewed if new evidence is found. For exceptional cases, where a thorough public airing and examination of the facts is needed, it is right that the public inquiry-style process provided by formal investigations and reopened formal investigations remains available for Secretaries of State to use. It will remain available under Clause 41. Indeed, I reiterate the position of Her Majesty’s Government that if similar circumstances as applied in the case of the “Derbyshire” arose again, we would strongly expect to reopen the investigation. Clause 41 simply enables the Secretary of State to take a considered view on the likely benefits of reopening a formal investigation in circumstances where new evidence comes to light, just as she has discretion in whether to open a formal investigation in the first place. On that note, I urge the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Prescott]

Given the circumstances I have explained, I will go through the practice of withdrawing the amendment at the moment. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 57B withdrawn.