Greenock Coastguard Station

Mark Lazarowicz Excerpts

Wednesday 8th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Katy Clark]

The constituents of mine who work at Greenock and other members of staff—I have spoken to them on several occasions over the years—were not involved in any way with the proposals, and that is one of the concerns that has been expressed up and down the country. The proposals do not seem to be based on the experiences of those who have been actively involved in providing the service.

If the proposed closure of the Clyde and Forth coastguard stations goes ahead, it will leave the central belt of Scotland without a coastguard station. Indeed, if the proposals go ahead as originally announced in December last year, there will be no coastguard stations south of Aberdeen or north of Bridlington in Yorkshire. My constituents are concerned that it is far from clear what criteria were used to develop these proposals, so it is not clear why Clyde has been proposed as one of the stations that will close. That is also far from clear to my constituents who rely on the service provided by Clyde coastguard station. I hope that in the reply to this debate we will get more information on that point, so that we can try to rebut some of the arguments.

[Mark Lazarowicz (Edinburgh North and Leith) (Lab/Co-op)]

I, too, congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. Does she agree that one of the characteristics of this debate in so far as it affects Greenock—and the constituents of mine who sometimes work out of the Clyde station and other coastguard stations—is that strong and reasoned arguments have been made against closure, but similar arguments have not been made by those who propose closure? That is why it is important that the whole process should be rethought.

[Katy Clark]

I agree with my hon. Friend, and I commend the work that he has undertaken in relation to the Forth coastguard station. In this debate I will be asking a number of questions specifically about why Clyde has been proposed for closure, but hon. Members on both sides of the House have questions about many of the other coastguard stations. As I look around the Chamber, I see the familiar faces of hon. Members who have been campaigning on behalf of their constituents and the coastguard stations on which they rely. I hope that answers will be forthcoming from the Minister. This debate concerns the Greenock site, and he might be unable to reply today to some of my points. If not, I would hope to get written responses later.

Clyde coastguard station is the busiest station in Scotland and, depending on how the figures are read, it is also one of the busiest in the United Kingdom. My figures have been provided by those who work at Clyde coastguard station. They have used their knowledge to provide those figures, although one of the problems is that it has not been easy to get much of the information. According to the figures I have been given, Clyde coastguard station seems to be the top coastguard station in Britain for urgency calls; second behind Falmouth for distress calls; third for search and rescue hours; and fifth for incident numbers in the United Kingdom. Whichever way we look at it, it seems to be one of the busier stations in the United Kingdom.

The station has the largest coastline to look after, because of the number of islands and the length of the sea lochs in the area for which it has responsibility. The station has 41 coastguard rescue teams under its control, and has more ferry routes—28, including four in my constituency—than any other district coastguard station. In many ways, the seas for which it is responsible are getting busier, despite a significant reduction in the number of fishing vessels owing to the seas in the part of the world in which I live having been fished out. There are more fish farm support vessels, and there will be an increasing number of vessels for offshore renewable projects as well as a considerable number of cruise vessels, Navy vessels, submarines, including nuclear submarines, and a significant increase in the number of small leisure craft.

We have heard a lot about local knowledge in the debate about the future of the coastguard service. I believe that Clyde, as one of the largest stations, must have developed a significant amount of local knowledge about the huge terrain for which it provides a service. I cannot see any sense in closing such a large station and losing staff with so much local knowledge, and having other stations take on the work. The economic reality is that Greenock staff are unlikely to be able to transfer from low-cost areas such as Inverclyde or north Ayrshire to high-cost areas such as Aberdeen and the south of England, which have comparatively expensive house prices. When stations such as Greenock close—if that is allowed to happen—such knowledge is lost. It will not move with them.

As I said, many aspects of this matter do not seem to have been given proper consideration. In particular, as far as we can tell, the costs involved in the different coastguard stations do not seem to have been given detailed consideration. The relevant figures, however, many of which are quoted in the response of the operational staff to which I referred the Minister, suggest that Clyde is a cheaper station, because it is situated in a low-cost area with cheaper property prices. The figures also show that there is a large number of applicants whenever posts are advertised there, because it is an area with high unemployment and few quality available jobs. Furthermore, when people get those jobs, they tend to stay, so the retention rate is far higher than in other stations. As I say, detailed work has been done on that—work to which I refer the Minister. However, I would also ask him to say whether that issue was taken into account before December, when the proposals were made.

[Katy Clark]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. The terms of the civil service relocation package do not necessarily make relocation an attractive option, particularly for those living in areas where accommodation is comparatively cheap and for whom the available options are probably not attractive.

[Mark Lazarowicz]

Given the age profile, will not many of those working in such stations have done so for many years and often have family commitments and other connections? They cannot simply uproot and move 200, 300, 400 or 500 miles away. They will not go, and that expertise will be lost and they will be unemployed.

[Katy Clark]

My hon. Friend is obviously correct that, often, not just one individual working in a household will be affected. Relationships will be complicated, and frankly, many people will simply not be in a position to move. Indeed, I suspect that that will probably more often be the case at coastguard stations with experienced long-term staff. We also need to be aware that coastguards are already on very low incomes.

The Minister will be aware that Inverclyde and North Ayrshire are areas of high unemployment and deprivation. Have the economic impacts of the proposals been considered, in particular on Clyde and the wider community? The decision to close Clyde, but keep open the other large coastguard station in Scotland at Aberdeen, seems to be based on current leasing arrangements rather than on operational reasons—or, indeed, on the ongoing running costs of each station. The lease for the Clyde station comes to an end in 2012, with the Aberdeen lease coming to an end in 2020. It has been put to me repeatedly that this seems to have been a major consideration in the proposal to close Clyde. Will the Minister confirm whether that was a factor in coming forward with the proposals, and if it was, will he say how large a factor it was? Has any work been done on the comparative costs of the various options of keeping one coastguard station open as opposed to another?

[Mark Lazarowicz]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way, and I assure her that this is my last intervention. On the question of having one or two coastguard stations, just to make it clear, I am sure that she does not mean to suggest that we want the Aberdeen station to close instead Greenock. The whole point is that we do not want the entire coastline of Scotland and parts of the north of England to be served by just one station, which is clearly not a practical solution.

[Katy Clark]

I agree with my hon. Friend. I am trying to get the Minister to provide more detail on the reasoning behind the proposals. I am strongly of the view that we need a geographical spread of coastguard stations and that we need more than one in Scotland. I have not necessarily looked at the detail of every coastguard station, but I suspect that some hon. Members in the Chamber have.