Greenock Coastguard Station

Mike Penning Excerpts

Wednesday 8th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Mike Penning)]

It is a pleasure to respond to the debate initiated by the hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Katy Clark). It is one of many debates on the subject in which we have engaged in the last few months, and that is right and proper, because the Government are making a very important decision.

May I take the first opportunity that I have had to pay tribute to David Cairns, whose Inverness constituency contains the Clyde maritime co-ordination centre? He was very active in the campaign as it is now, but long before these proposals were made he had engaged considerably with the Maritime and Coastguard Agency and had visited the station on many occasions, particularly when the Ministry of Defence indicated that it was likely to withdraw the lease and that, in this respect, we would be homeless in that part of the world. His attitude to his constituents was exemplary, as was the way in which he conducted himself during our debates. He will be sorely missed by the House, and whoever replaces him—I understand that the writ for the by-election was moved today—will have a very large pair of shoes to fill.

Although I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing the debate—and I also congratulate the hon. Members who are present for sticking around when they could have disappeared this afternoon—I should point out that the consultation process has ended, even though we extended it considerably, and all representations from all parts of the coastguard community as well as from the public and colleagues in this House will be carefully considered.

All the information will be looked at, as will all the concerns. Let us take the costings, for instance. It is difficult for a coastguard representative or member of the Public and Commercial Services Union to work out the modelling costs. That will be undertaken by the Department, and we will publish all the consultation documents on the website. There are a lot of them, and we will publish them online because we do not want to chop down too many trees. We will also reopen the consultation for a very short time to allow for the Transport Committee report to be taken into account when we draw our conclusions. Finally, the Secretary of State has announced that we will make our announcement before the summer recess.

We realise how emotive this subject is. I come from an emergency service background, so I know very well how emotive issues involving the emergency services in general are. I am enormously proud to be an ex-fireman, and it is a great honour and privilege to be the Minister responsible for Her Majesty’s Maritime and Coastguard Agency and everything to do with it. The MCA is world-renowned. If my hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth (Sarah Newton) was not being so nice, I am sure she would want to tell me about the fantastic international work done at Falmouth on behalf of the coastguard nationally in this country.

But we are talking about a co-ordination centre, and we are in the position we are in today because a set of station cuts and closures were made over a series of years. I do not think anybody in the Chamber or in the country would claim that the current structure has any logic at all. I have gone around the country visiting stations, and my chief executive, Sir Alan Massey, has been to every single coastguard station during this process, and we have had some robust discussions; I had such a discussion when I was up by Liverpool. Everybody knew that these sorts of changes were coming down the line, however. The previous Government had the current proposals on their desk, and they have been discussed with the PCS for almost two years; I have a record of the dates when those meetings took place, and I myself met and held discussions with PCS representatives before these announcements were made.

We knew in advance, therefore, that we needed a reconfiguration of the coastguard service, so that we have the resilience, training and communication systems that are required, as well as a pay structure that is fit for the 21st century. Anybody who has visited a coastguard station in this country will know that one of the first subjects the staff talk about is pay and career, because £13,500 a year as a basic salary in an emergency service is unacceptable. That is one of the reasons why we are looking at this reconfiguration and realignment of the way the service works. That is a fact; this topic was discussed with me because there was a dispute that I inherited when I first became the responsible Minister, and which had been going on for several years. It is unacceptable that such a dispute went on for such a long time.

We must also look at the geography—at where the co-ordination centres are located. We are talking specifically about the Clyde today. The Clyde station is twinned. The hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran might be aware that each of the coastguard stations, apart from the Western Isles and Shetland, is twinned with another station so that they have some resilience. The Clyde station is twinned with Bangor in Northern Ireland, so if the systems go down in the Clyde and the local knowledge—which I accept is there—disappears, Northern Ireland will look after that coastguard area. I have visited Bangor and put the following point to its staff: if local knowledge is so important—and I accept that it does have importance—why are there such huge geographical distances between twinned co-ordination centres? Interestingly, in other parts of the country twins are ridiculously close, such as Brixham and Falmouth. That makes it very difficult to have a national co-ordination facility, and we do not have it; there is no national resilience within the coastguard service in the UK today. We need to look at that.

The very first visit that I made—I know I am going to repeat myself, but some of these comments need repeating—was to Liverpool, on 13 January. A robust and free debate took place, and I do not think I held much back; nor did some of the coastguard representatives, who included volunteers as well as full-time staff. Interestingly, during that debate—the hon. Member for Sefton Central (Bill Esterson) was there—one of the senior members of uniformed staff said to me, “But Minister, we’ve been talking about nine co-ordination centres for years.” I said, “Please put that in writing—be part of the consultation.” I also went to Bangor, where a very detailed report was put in.

[Bill Esterson]

I remember the exchange about the nine co-ordination centres extremely well. It was an informal proposal put forward by members of staff there some years ago. It is important to put it on the record that they had suggested it to the agency at an earlier date.

[Mike Penning]

That is exactly the point I am trying to make: this has not come out of the blue. The coastguard representatives there, in front of the hon. Gentleman, me and everybody else assembled there, said that they had previously suggested having nine centres around the country. If the hon. Gentleman remembers, I said to them, “I’m talking about eight, you’re talking about nine. We’re not that far apart, are we?”

On 9 March, I visited Bangor, in the Province, where a detailed presentation and submission was put to me suggesting having 10 centres around the country. As I have said before, three types of submission have been made in this lengthy consultation process. One suggests that we should leave things alone, and that everything is okay. Another says, “Leave us alone”, without making any real comment about anybody else. Then, there are the really detailed submissions, such as that from Falmouth, which I also visited. They say, “We know there needs to be change—standing still is not an option. We’ve said that since day one, when we started the consultation, but actually, we think the figure for the country as a whole should be about 10.” There have also been discussions about how many national co-ordination centres, or maritime operations centres, there should be. The suggestion arising from the consultation is two; others have suggested one. I do not think anybody is suggesting that there should be none—at least, not in the detailed submissions. There is no national co-ordination at the moment, and I think everybody accepts it is needed.

We are proud of our extended coastline, and we should perhaps look at how other countries are dealing with their co-ordination centres. I must stress that this issue is purely to do with co-ordination—the wonderful volunteers who carry out the rescues, and the RNLI and others, are not affected. In fact, we are going to enhance those services by providing them with more investment and more full-time staff. So, naturally, when I first looked at our proposal, I examined how other countries with an extended coastline structure their co-ordination centres. I looked at other English-speaking countries that might have replicated our approach, and Australia, for instance, has one centre. Spain, I believe, also has one; Norway has two; France has seven. It is not feasible for us to stand still and say that what we have today, in this ad hoc procedure, is suitable going forward.

The consultation was put out and there were discussions with the PCS. These proposals, in one shape or form, have been around for about four years. Evidence was given to the Select Committee, and a letter was published in The Guardian only the other day from the former chief executive of the MCA, saying that Ministers had fudged this issue for years and it had not been addressed. We are determined to bring the coastguard service and the MCA into the 21st century—to have a fully resilient service with a pay and career structure that is fit for the service and its dedicated staff.

[Sarah Newton (Truro and Falmouth) (Con)]

I am grateful to the hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Katy Clark) for securing this debate. I very much welcome, as I am sure coastguards all around the UK do, the fact that this was a genuine consultation exercise. You have repeatedly said that the current proposals are not a done deal and the Secretary of State underlined that only a few weeks ago. It would be of enormous help to coastguards in Falmouth and all around the UK if you could share with us what is going to happen once your response to the consultation is published—you promised this before the recess. Will alternative proposals be introduced? If so, will they be further consulted upon?

[Mr Speaker]

I cannot share anything and I cannot offer any response, but I have a feeling that the Minister might.

[Mike Penning]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I am sure that we understand exactly what my hon. Friend is trying to say to the House.

It is very important that we understand exactly what the Government’s position has been from day one. Of course I am going to be accused of doing U-turns, cartwheels and so on, but I said, and the Secretary of State said, that these proposals were not set in stone and that the consultation is a proper one. We said that we wanted everybody to be fully involved in the future of the coastguard service. I said from day one that what comes out the other end of this consultation process will not be what we go in with, but that we cannot end up with the status quo. The service has to modernise, it has to have proper resilience and it must be fit for the 21st century.

[Katy Clark]

I asked a number of questions about the criteria that were used. The Minister might not be able to give a response today, but will a response be given at the end of this process outlining the basis on which decisions are being made? It is not at all clear to those working in the coastguard service why particular stations have been chosen and others have not, so will the criteria be made publicly available?

[Mike Penning]

Of course. I was still responding to the intervention made by my hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth and when I have finished dealing with it, I will discuss the points that the hon. Lady has raised. In that intervention, I was asked specifically what will happen later in the process. We will announce our proposals once we have taken into consideration the Select Committee’s report. That means that I will have to reopen the consultation, but I stress that that will be just to allow that report to be taken into consideration. If I did not do so, I would be insulting the Select Committee and there is no way I intend to do that. The Government will announce their conclusions before the summer recess—as we have said all the way through, they are likely to be different—and then I will reopen the consultation. That is the right and proper way to proceed if we want to work with the public, with the service and with Members of this House. It is different from the way in which a lot of consultations have historically been carried out over the years, but I do not think this will be a one-off; I think that the Government will take this approach on a regular basis. I recall a consultation on my local general hospital in which 85% of respondents said they did not want the hospital to close, yet it was closed in any case. No consideration was given to people’s concerns. Does this approach mean that everybody is going to be happy? No, of course it does not. However, proper consultation will take place again once we put forward our proposals.

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

I apologise for arriving so late to the debate and I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. It would be very helpful if he gave a commitment at the start of that consultation to avoid compulsory redundancies at every stage in the process from there on in.

[Mike Penning]

I hope that there would not be compulsory redundancies, but I cannot give that commitment and I am not going to stand at this Dispatch Box and mislead people. The PCS has known that all the way through. It is important to understand that there will be job losses if we reduce the number of co-ordination centres, although I hope that such job losses will not be compulsory. I have gone through redundancy, despite my union fighting to help me, so I understand where people are coming from. However, if I am going to increase salaries, training and career prospects, I have to find that money from somewhere and that money will come from the savings we are finding. There are quite significant costs up front, particularly for the resilience we want to put into the system. The Treasury has been generous and I have money, but I cannot carry that forward—I must make savings. To be fair, the union—

[Dr Whiteford]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mike Penning]

I want to clarify the point that the hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran mentioned in her intervention, because if I am not careful I will not finish one intervention before I take another. I know we have a few hours, but everybody will understand if we do not speak for the whole time.

It is really important that we do not get bogged down by the fact about the Select Committee because, as anyone who has been a Minister knows, a civil servant cannot go before a Select Committee and criticise Government policy. That is not the protocol; it is not what happens. The job of a civil servant, if they go before a Select Committee, is to support Government policy. That is why civil servants at the grade of those we are talking about do not go before Select Committees. I took advice from the Cabinet Office and I ensured that we were in absolutely the right position. I bent over backwards to ensure that the Select Committee could go to any station it wished and talk to any member of staff, but I could not have uniformed staff criticising Government policy. They are fully entitled to fight through their union representatives for what they think is right, but a Select Committee is not the right and proper place to do that. Anybody who has served as a Minister knows that. We can go back through Westland if we want, and see those differences.

[Dr Whiteford]

I agree with the Minister that it is very important that we have a coastguard service that is fit for the 21st century, but I would put it to him that all the other emergency services in Scotland are devolved and one way to protect smaller stations, such as Inverclyde, might be to amend the Scotland Bill to devolve the operation of the coastguard agency in Scotland. That would mean that the services could properly address our vast coastline, in line with people’s expectations in Scotland.

[Mike Penning]

I do not want to disappoint the hon. Lady, but the Scottish National party has absolutely no chance of my breaking up a national emergency service such as this one. That will not happen. If we go down the avenue of saying that we can break up the service and that it can be operated in a completely independent little station, we will move completely away from the needs of the service. The service needs national resilience. If we do not have that, we are not offering the service that our constituents—including the hon. Lady’s constituents—deserve. It cannot happen.

When I visited the Western Isles, I saw that when the power goes down—I understand that it does so on a fairly regular basis—volunteers go up to the wireless towers on the hills and operate them manually. That is the situation we are in in the 21st century. There was a lightning strike at Falmouth and they luckily managed to keep going, but there is no proper resilience to lock in the service. In our part of the world, the police love the VHF system we operate because they operate on Airwave and although we use some of it we have a very good radio system. However, what we need is networking.

I am sure that the hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran is aware that at Clyde we have a hub that comes into the existing building, but we cannot stay in that building. That is one reason for the decision. We have talked about costs, and of course costs are involved—there is no illusion about the fact that costs are involved and there would be significant costs if we had another station in Clyde that was not in that building. Even if we stayed in that building, there would be considerable costs, and we cannot do so, as the Ministry of Defence has decided that it wants to be gone from that building in Clyde by 2013. We will have to move from that building. There are significant costs that we will publish and put out there, but I am in the middle of the consultation and I will not jeopardise that. Judicial review or something similar could be pushed against me if I broke into the consultation in the middle of it. I am trying to be as open as possible.

[Bill Esterson]

I assume that the Minister has finished with the previous interventions. Let me make a few points about learning lessons regarding future consultations and advice. First, there is grave concern among coastguard officers that at one point he advised them that they could give evidence in public to the Select Committee.

[Mike Penning]

No, I did not.

[Bill Esterson]

Well, he will get his chance in a moment to answer my points, but that has categorically been stated by a number of coastguard officers. I think there is a lesson to learn there about the advice given by Ministers.

The other point is that we should listen to front-line staff when drawing up proposals on such important issues as these emergency services and we should include their ideas. The Minister mentioned what happened at Crosby when he visited: the ideas of those staff were not put into the consultation document and were not part of the proposal, and that is of concern to staff there.

[Mr Speaker]

We are extremely grateful to the hon. Gentleman. The Minister is winding up the debate on the future of Greenock coastguard station.

[Mike Penning]

May I just place it on the record that I openly said at Crosby and as I went around the country that I wanted coastguards and the public to engage? I am quite careful about my words, even though I regularly speak without notes, as I am doing now, and I did not say that those staff could give evidence to the Select Committee in oral session, but I did say that they could submit written evidence. I also said that to the Chair of the Select Committee when I went before it last week in what was also an interesting session.

I have just been informed, a few moments ago, that there will be another Adjournment debate on this issue—on a slightly different subject very close to this one—for an hour and a half next Tuesday morning. It is key to this issue that we make sure that things are done correctly and I am willing to take into consideration all the submissions, but keeping the status quo is not an option. Nearly every detailed submission has accepted that and it was accepted by the previous Administration before I became the responsible Minister. I have been very impressed by the time and effort that many of the stations have taken not just to say, “Look after me, guv,” or “Protect me,” but to suggest what the service needs to look at and look like in the 21st century, and I pay tribute to everyone who has submitted evidence to the consultation. It will reopen just to allow the Select Committee report to be considered, and the Government will make an oral statement to the House before the summer recess on the future of the MCA.

Question put and agreed to.