Draft Merchant Shipping (Safety Standards for Passenger Ships on Domestic Voyages) (Miscellaneous Amendments) Regulations 2022

Lucy Frazer Excerpts

Tuesday 25th October 2022 General Committees

[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Lucy Frazer)]

I beg to move,

That the Committee has considered the draft Merchant Shipping (Safety Standards for Passenger Ships on Domestic Voyages) (Miscellaneous Amendments) Regulations 2022.

It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Ms McVey. The purpose of these regulations is to raise the safety standards of older passenger ships such that they are consistent with the safety standards with which modern ships must comply. The regulations are made under sections 85 and 86 of the Merchant Shipping Act 1995. The draft regulations were laid before the house on 11 July.

The regulations are the last of several measures that Governments have introduced over a prolonged period following the Marchioness tragedy in 1989, when 51 lives were lost—a figure that could so easily have been higher. Since that disaster, we have seen published Lord Justice Clarke’s Thames safety inquiry into that incident, a marine accident investigation branch report on the same, and a more general, formal safety assessment study into domestic passenger ship safety. All of them have driven measures to improve safety. The recommendations covered a wide variety of situations, and although not seeking to address a carbon-copy Marchioness-type scenario, they have driven a number of safety improvements between then and now, culminating in the regulations before us today, which will give older ships a similar chance of survival as a newer ship in an incident.

Early safety developments following the Marchioness covered the categorisation of inland and inshore waters according to risk, the creation of a boatmaster’s licence, and qualifications and higher bridge visibility standards to make navigation safer. The Government have under- taken extensive—for maritime, almost unprecedented—engagement on the regulations. In addition to being developed within the main Government industry safety group, the Maritime and Coastguard Agency has conducted two public consultations and five interactive workshops on them with industry, and discussed them in other meetings with industry generally over several years. There has also been engagement in both Houses.

Although there is still a vocal minority associated with older vessel operators that have concerns about the regulations, I am grateful to the Port of London authority, which has been extremely supportive of the measures and considers them to be a vital step to minimise the risk of tragedy on the Thames. That engagement has been important, despite the inevitable additional delays that have arisen because of it. Every person, whether native or tourist, using passenger transport in the UK has a right to expect—and does expect—that whichever vehicle they choose to carry them meets consistent safety standards fit for the 21st century.

With these regulations, the Government have continued a proportionate approach by applying the more demanding aspects of the standards only to ships operating in the more hazardous waters. The regulations uplift the lifejacket carriage requirements and life raft capacity for ships operating in all but the safest waters. The assumption of passengers is that there are enough lifejackets for everyone onboard and enough space in life rafts for all, but that is currently not the case in many older vessels.

While these regulations cover a number of safety features, including fire protection measures, life-saving appliances and bilge pumping and warnings, one of the most important aspects of the standards for applicable ships is damage stability—perhaps more easily understood as survivability—which must be sufficient to keep the ship afloat long enough after a hull breach incident for passengers and crew to escape in an emergency, which might not be possible in a rapidly sinking vessel.

[Tracey Crouch (Chatham and Aylesford) (Con)]

Will my right hon. and learned Friend the Minister join me in congratulating and thanking the many volunteer crew in the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, for which Tower lifeboat station is one of the busiest of all the lifeboat stations around the country?

[Lucy Frazer]

I am very pleased and happy to join my hon. Friend in that tribute.

I was touching on the safety measures and how they apply in relation to older vessels. Some will argue that older vessels should not have to meet modern safety standards, because of historical interest, and some may say that this is an attack on Dunkirk “little ships”, although the overwhelming majority of them are unaffected. We in this House have a responsibility to ensure that all passenger transport meets modern safety standards. Older vessels that cannot be adapted to meet the updated standards will be limited to operating in safer waters. Some older ships, if holed below the waterline, can sink in seconds, not giving those onboard time to ascend to the upper deck, let alone put on lifejackets. In that type of situation, there is barely time to make a call to the emergency services, let alone wait for them to arrive. We must ensure that vessels stay afloat long enough that people are not cast into fast-flowing water or trapped inside a submerged vessel. Our society cannot afford another tragedy on the scale of the Marchioness disaster. The safety of passenger transport is paramount and we must not neglect our responsibilities.

I have highlighted the importance of these regulations to fulfil our duty as a Government to ensure that appropriate safety standards are in place for maritime passenger transport. I hope and believe that this issue transcends party politics. I commend the regulations to the Committee.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lucy Frazer]

I thank the Opposition speakers for their comments and for indicating that they will not oppose this obviously sensible measure. I will respond to the points that have been made.

The hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East mentioned the question of time for compliance and whether there would be an opportunity for everyone to comply in time. There is a two year phase-in period, which runs from the date that the regulations come into force. That gives operators the chance to implement the changes, which, as has been mentioned, have actually been in the public domain for a long time. These measures are not a surprise to the industry, and representatives of the industry have been involved in their development. A longer phase-in period was considered but was ruled out because it would give competitive advantage to operators who chose to use their vehicles without improvement to the end of that period, and then to scrap them. Operators who sought to comply would be disadvantaged.

The hon. Gentleman also asked about the consultation period more broadly and whether unions had been consulted. The hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North also asked about the consultation. The level of engagement from the MCA on this matter has been almost unprecedented. The Government developed the regulations in conjunction with industry representative groups. There have been two public consultations, instead of the normal one, and the MCA held five workshops over a period spanning five years, so, yes, unions have been consulted and there has been tremendous engagement with the industry group that represents crew, as well as many owner-operators.

The hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North also asked why this has taken so long. I assure him that this is not the first step that we have taken in those years. He will know that standards have been improved for different parts of the passenger vessel sector over a long period of time, with particular step changes in 1992 and 2010. We needed to consider a number of issues—hon. Members have mentioned some of them—but now we would like to bring these regulations into force.

Question put and agreed to.