Coastguard Service

Mike Penning Excerpts

Thursday 24th March 2011 Westminster Hall

[Bill Esterson]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her points because it reminds me that, of course, originally Liverpool was excluded from the consultation. That is something that staff at Liverpool noticed. They have great concerns that the late inclusion of Liverpool as one of the options shows the true intentions of the agency.

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

Just for clarification, Liverpool was not excluded from the consultation; it was just not one of the stations that was proposed for closure. No stations were excluded from the consultation, no matter where they are in the country.

[Bill Esterson]

I accept the Minister’s point. I was merely expressing a concern raised by staff. To return to the point made by the hon. Member for North Down (Lady Hermon), staff at Liverpool do not feel equipped to address issues around the coast of Northern Ireland, and I am sure that staff in Belfast would say the same about dealing with issues around Liverpool. There is a very good reason why we have the current network. A lot of staff do not think that the proposals have addressed how the current network will be replaced without compromising safety. That is at the heart of the concerns that are being raised by staff and those who rely on the service.

The proposals were drawn up by former front-line staff who, it is fair to say, do not have recent front-line experience. That is a particular concern. The lack of input from front-line staff during the early stages of the process has caused a lot of disquiet. I know that a consultation is under way but, when things are done in such a way, there is always concern that the consultation is the wrong way round. I shall not accuse the Minister of anything stronger than that at the moment. He will have time to explain the matter.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr MacNeil]

That statement shows unbelievable arrogance.

[Mike Penning]

rose—

[Bill Esterson]

I think that the Minister would like to intervene.

[Mike Penning]

If an accusation has been made against certain coastguard officers, will the hon. Gentleman indicate exactly who said that? Otherwise, will he withdraw that until he has the evidence to say who said it?

[Bill Esterson]

I have it in writing from a serving coastguard officer who has asked me not to give his name, so I am not going to give his name.

[Mrs Louise Ellman (Liverpool, Riverside) (Lab/Co-op)]

Would my hon. Friend give way?

[Mike Penning]

Who said it?

[Bill Esterson]

I am going to give way to my hon. Friend.

[Bill Esterson]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, because I think that that is important. Staff are making those allegations, and I know they have made them to other Members.

[Mike Penning]

May I reiterate that any member of staff has the right to give evidence not only to the Select Committee, but to the consultation? The point that I was trying to make is that the accusation is about a senior member of staff. I think that initially the hon. Gentleman said that the chief coastguard had said that, and then he said, “Another member of staff”. If they are going to make that sort of accusation against a senior member of staff—not the person who was making the accusation anonymously—then they must indicate who that was. Was it the chief coastguard, or not? That is the point the hon. Gentleman was trying to make. If it was not the chief coastguard, then he must retract that. We have to have evidence about who the person was who was alleged to have said that, otherwise it is unfair.

[Bill Esterson]

As I said earlier, my constituent has indicated that he is concerned that if I give his name, or the name of other members of staff, they will be victimised. They are very concerned about that. Perhaps that is something that the Minister can discuss with me a little later, but I am certainly not going to give names now.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lady Hermon]

The energetic MP for North Down rises—it was awfully nice of the hon. Gentleman to call me that. I am sure my good neighbour will acknowledge that this issue has united all the parties in Northern Ireland, including Sinn Fein, the Alliance party and the Social Democratic and Labour party. I am sure that he will agree that what makes Northern Ireland, with its one remaining coastguard, strategically different from the rest of the UK is the fact that it shares a land frontier with the Republic of Ireland. The co-operation between the Irish coastguard and the Northern Ireland coastguard is second to none—it is first-rate. I am sure that that point is not lost on the Minister and that he acknowledges it.

[Mike Penning]

indicated assent.

[Lady Hermon]

I thank the Minister for acknowledging that point.

[Jim Shannon]

I thank the hon. Lady for her contribution, which is very honest.

The hon. Lady and I, with the SDLP and the Alliance party, met some coastguard officials, and the meeting was excellent. I know that the Minister met the First Minister, Peter Robinson, and the Deputy First Minister, Martin McGuinness. We have come a long way in Northern Ireland. We crossed that divide a long time ago, and I want the Minister to know that we have moved on. It is great that we can have an issue that unites us all.

[Mike Penning]

I was due to meet the First Minister and the Deputy First Minister at my first engagement, but I had to delay it by a couple of weeks due to parliamentary business. I did not have the opportunity to meet them when I was in Bangor.

[Jim Shannon]

I thank the Minister for that intervention.

To move on slightly, there is also the issue of helicopter taskings in Northern Ireland, which includes the police and ambulance services. This is also a major issue in the Republic of Ireland, where helicopters for air-sea rescue are provided at no charge. The relationship that has been built between the Bangor station and its counterparts in the Republic would not be the same without those interpersonal dynamics. The Minister must agree that if we lost the help and support of the Republic, and the manner in which it is offered at present, that would most certainly result in loss of life. That is my concern.

We are encouraging people to holiday in Northern Ireland to take advantage of the most beautiful scenery the UK has to offer. I will take the opportunity to give a sales pitch for my area. We want people to enjoy the Fermanagh lakes and to make the most of all that the stunning Strangford lough and the north Down coast have to offer, yet we also face telling people that the reality is that if they get into trouble, the rescue will have to be co-ordinated on the mainland before anything is done on the ground. That is another concern that I must express today.

The consultation further proposes that either Liverpool or ourselves cover both regions with 50% fewer staff than Bangor employs now. I pay tribute to the coastguard staff. They do an excellent job, and we are very encouraged by what they do, but how could this be achieved without there being some shortfall in that area of the service? It could mean the extra five minutes between life and death. The matter involves not only the fact that Northern Ireland must have its own service provision, but how we ensure that we have the ability to save lives and to do that better.

I mean no disrespect, but if a distressed child had to ring an operator in Scotland to say that their dad had fallen out of their dinghy near the big rock on the Portaferry road, Newtownards, would the operator know where that was? No, they would not. I could take them there right now, but that is because I know the area. We have that local knowledge. Every Member who has spoken so far has mentioned local knowledge. Could an operator in Scotland give an accurate account of where to send the rescue service? They could not possibly do that because they do not have local knowledge. Ask someone in Bangor coastguard the same question and the answer would be immediate, and so would the response.

Bangor dealt with more than 700 incidents last year, and it is clear that on our seas we need a dedicated service that knows the area and knows best how to organise the rescue. At Bangor station in the past four years, the number of rescues is up, the number of people involved is up and the number of lives saved is up. Unfortunately—it is the nature of life—the number of those who have been injured or lost their lives is also up. This is about extra usage, but it is also about the response from the Bangor station.

People in Northern Ireland waters should not be put at risk by a budget. The wives of fishermen at sea need to have their minds put at ease. They depend on the coastguard system, which they have come to know and trust. It is a system that has saved hundreds of lives and must be retained. What is being offered is not the best, and Northern Ireland Members must keep pushing until the constituencies we represent get what they deserve—the very best coastguard service from a local station with local people and local knowledge. We are unique in Northern Ireland in that the coastguard also helps with mountain rescues, and that specialised service must also continue and be co-ordinated by those who have been doing the job for years and know the intricacies of the system, which saves lives.

There comes a time when we must focus on our own areas, and I would like to do so for a few seconds. As Members of Parliament, the hon. Member for North Down and I are fighting for the right things for all coastguard stations, but I must highlight the bonuses of the station that covers my area of Strangford. The majority of staff there are young and highly qualified. Numerous members of the Bangor station are trainers in different areas, and they provide training not only to the UK mainland, but to the Republic of Ireland. They are excellent staff, who would have to up sticks and relocate to the mainland if the proposals were accepted. Many of those with young families could not do that, and I must speak on their behalf as well.

As I have said on a number of occasions, I continuously fight against the “brain drain” from Northern Ireland—if I may use that terminology, which may not be entirely appropriate for this topic. Our students attend university on the mainland and end up living there or going where the jobs are. The difference here is that losing the high-quality staff we have in Bangor will have a detrimental effect on the coastguard as a whole.

--- Later in debate ---

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

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth (Sarah Newton) for being so diligent in securing the debate and for the tone in which the debate has, in the main, been conducted. I, too, would have liked to have had the debate on the Floor of the House. I do not dispute that argument, and I think that the issue should have that sort of airing. The decision is beyond my pay grade, but I note that the deputy Chief Whip, my right hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael), is here to represent his constituents, even though he is not allowed to speak. If the issue could be brought back to the House, that would be right and proper.

This is a really important debate. I will sum up what others have said and my hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth will finish off the debate. I pay tribute to all coastguard staff—full-time, part-time and volunteers. More than 3,000 volunteers do it because they love their community and want to serve it, as do so many others throughout the country. I also pay tribute to the RNLI. It is an amazing organisation that looks after not only us in the United Kingdom, but the Republic of Ireland. That is really important. I also pay tribute to what are called private rescue boats, but which are really volunteers. There are hundreds of them. Some of the constituencies represented here today do not have any, and others have so many that it would be impossible to visit all of them in the time available during a Parliament. They are fantastic and are dedicated to, and love, their community.

Nine parties are represented in the debate. I am proud of that. I served in Northern Ireland for many years and never got the parties together, but I have managed to do it now—for a while. Many hon. Members have come to this Chamber on a one-line Whip, when they could have been in their constituencies. Instead, they are here doing what is right and proper, and what I would have been doing if I were a Back Bencher with a seat associated with the coastguard service.

I have listened to all the points made by colleagues, but the most important representations have come from the public and, in particular, from the coastguards themselves. I have heard some disturbing comments today. I do not want to dwell on the matter for too long, but if a member of my staff—they are my staff because I am the Minister responsible for shipping and the MCA works for me—has gone out and said, “Don’t worry about it; they are a bunch of whingers,” I do not want to know who they told; I want to know who said it because, believe me, I will come down on them like a tonne of bricks. Hon. Members who know me will know that that is the case.

It is important that employees of the coastguard feel confident that they can make submissions. Some have put submissions in anonymously and I understand that. However, they really do not need to do it anonymously. As I have gone around the country—I shall touch on some of the meetings I have had—people have been positive.

[Bill Esterson]

I am glad that the Minister has said that staff do not have to worry about what happens. I know that I am not the only hon. Member to have experienced this, but I have had more than one representation from a staff member who is very worried about the possibility of—and this is the word they use—recriminations if they take part in the process. I am glad that the Minister has made it clear that that will not be tolerated.

[Mike Penning]

As the hon. Gentleman knows, I have been to the coastguard station at Crosby and the people there did not hold back when they spoke to me. Everybody was in the room. The staff should feel confident that if they wish to do so, they can express their views robustly. By the way, as he may have noticed, I was robust back. That sort of confidence should be out there. The coastguard community is quite small and some people do not have that confidence. If they want to submit anonymous representations, that is understandable. Those representations will be dealt with in exactly the same way as those to which people have put their name.

I shall touch on some of the points raised by hon. Members. In the short time I have, it will not be possible to answer every individual point. However, my officials are here and, if necessary, we will write to hon. Members on individual points. I have a background as a member of the armed forces and, probably more significantly, as a member of the fire service for many years, so saving lives is in my blood. There is no way that this change to the way in which the coastguard operates is going to put lives at risk—far from it. To some extent, I inherited the plans from the previous Administration. Some hon. Members were at the briefing upstairs in, I think, Committee Room 9, when the chief coastguard and chief executive were present. When the chief coastguard was appointed over two years ago, he had the proposals on his desk. At that time, I was not a Minister and this coalition Government were not in place. The hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick), the shadow Minister, knows that the proposals were on his desk and the desks of others for four and a half years-plus.

As I have gone around the country, no one I have met who is in the know has said that there does not need to be dramatic changes to how the MRCC is run. When I was in Crosby, one very senior officer said to me, “Minister, we know it should be nine. We have been saying it should be nine stations for many years.” That was said in front of the hon. Member for Sefton Central (Bill Esterson). I asked for the submission that actually said that.

I had a wonderful trip to Bangor in Northern Ireland. It was a trip down memory lane for me in many ways. There was a breath of fresh air at that and other meetings, and in some of the early submissions. I have not looked at them in detail because it is not right and proper for me to do so yet. However, if I am sat in a presentation, it is difficult not to listen to what is being said. The presentation at Bangor looked at having 10 stations—one headquarters, and of the remaining nine stations, about half would be full time and half part time.

There is an acceptance out there that the present 19 stations are an anomaly left over from previous closures. There were closures in the ’80s and in early 2000 and 2001. We are left where we are now. I understand fully the passion of every hon. Member and why communities are coming together and saying, “Don’t close my station. This is very important to us.” We have had more than 1,200 submissions to the consultation. They fall into three groups. One group of people are questioning my parent’s parenthood or my parenthood. Some of those submissions will have to be redacted before we publish, but we will publish every one that has been received.

Some submissions are based purely on individual stations—a bit like what we have heard in the debate. People are saying, “This is our station. We think it should stay and these are the reasons why.” That is fine. However, we have also had a number of submissions saying, “Let’s not just look at our station; let’s look at how we can have a national service.” That is what I heard in Crosby, in Bangor, in Milford Haven and what I know I am going to hear in Falmouth.

I have the honour of looking after the only national emergency service, and I am very proud of its history. However, it is the only national emergency service with no national resilience. There is more resilience in all the other emergency services than the one we are talking about today. That is not acceptable in the 21st century. This is not just about resilience in computers, which we are all a bit sceptical about. I share that scepticism on computers. I was shadow Minister for three and a half years. In the great city we are in now, the ambulance service control centre just across the river looks after 10 million people. People are transferred from a 999 call to that control centre. The operators have hardly asked the caller anything before they know where they are, within reason, and they are looking to see who they can dispatch. We do not have that sort of facility in the coastguard service. That is the sort of thing we need. It is a different sort of service because of the myriad methods of contacting the coastguard emergency service. However, we must have a better, more resilient service.

[Sheryll Murray]

Will the Minister accept that although the kayaker or the group of young people barbecuing on a beach who need help may be identified by a passer by, there is no means of being able to identify where they are electronically? That is my concern. His system relies not only on electronic ability at the coastguard station, but on—he has just given an example of this—being able to identify where somebody is with a 999 call. People using beaches and people kayaking might not have made the call; somebody else might have done so.

[Mike Penning]

I take the point that my hon. Friend is making. I pay tribute to the family and personal experience of the coastguard and the sea that she has gained over many years. She understands the sea better than anyone else in this Chamber. From my emergency service background—the shadow Minister also has such a background—I know that such a situation occurs in the other emergency services. It is not a be-all and end-all. It is not a case of this being the only method of doing it. I am not saying that at all. Only the other day, I was in Shetland. The communications there go down regularly when we have to send volunteers out—whether it is the BT line, the broadband line or our own communication systems. That happens around the country. I am not saying that if a new system is brought in, it will take away any of that local knowledge. It will augment the current situation as we go forward.

May I touch on what we have today? Many hon. Members and hon. Friends have said that we could leave the service roughly where it is, but we cannot. The coastguard service is telling me that it cannot—from the most junior person on the watch through to the volunteers and the Royal National Lifeboat Institution at the top. That organisation does not want to be dragged into the politics of the matter, and I can understand why. However, to use the modern slang, it is also saying to us, “Is the service fit for purpose in the 21st century? No, it is not.”

It is interesting to read about the twinning system—an issue that I raised when I was in Bangor. The arguments that were put to me in Northern Ireland on resilience, the special circumstances and how they liaise with the Republic of Ireland—particularly with regard to helicopters—were very powerful. I thank the Republic and pay tribute to it. We get helicopters for free and we help them in other parts of the coast on other matters. Of course, there is the issue of what happens if communications go down. What happens if a station goes down? Will the Clyde back us up? There is no logic to the idea that all that local knowledge is transferred instantly to the Clyde—it cannot be. I accept that, as we look at different stations around the country, but the present twinning system does not work properly. If we look at where stations are around the country at the moment, they are not set up with a proper regional structure, as we would probably expect them to be. There are some stations that are very close, and some that are very far apart. The Humber station, which was mentioned by two hon. Members, covers 300 miles of moving sands. How on earth could it transfer in a twinning system? How does that work? Where is the resilience there? We need to look at that.

We need to look, as I have said in previous debates, at a service which offers a basic starting salary of £13,500 per year. How would anybody survive on that in some parts of the country? The answer is with more than one job, just like when I was first in the fire services—I am sure that the situation is not dissimilar for firemen today. We have to offer coastguards a salary that is suitable for the 21st century and give them the skills and training, so that they can have a career progression, too. It is very much dead man’s shoes, looking at the age profile. There are very young people and people coming towards the end of their careers, but the middle section is very difficult indeed.

The whole country relies on the coastguard, whether on holiday, in the shipping industry, in their community or where they work. Is this a done deal? No, it is not. Will we come out of the end of this process with a different set of conclusions and a different modernisation programme from when we started? I am sure that we will—I am convinced of it.

[Mr Russell Brown]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mike Penning]

I am not going to give way, because I am really restricted on time. I apologise. I am not summing up—I have to hand over to my hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth.

Is this just about money? Yes, there are savings required, but if this was just about money, it would not be £4.8 million a year. As hon. Members have said, it is a tiny amount of money. Will there be savings throughout the MCA? Yes, at the top and at the bottom. In my own Department, every single member of staff has had to reapply for their own job. That is the sort of situation that we are working under. Did I come into politics to do that? No, of course I did not, but we have to be realistic about the money and the income that we have to work with.

I welcome the Transport Committee’s commitment to its own report. I welcome the fact that the Chair of that Committee, the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs Ellman), has sat through the debate and been part of the debate. I say to her that I will not, under any circumstances—and neither will the Secretary of State—come to any conclusions until her Committee has reported. I promise and I make that commitment. If I can—it is difficult, because bureaucracy is involved—I will try and release to the Committee as much data that I have received, and which has been submitted to us, as I can, particularly the detailed submissions about reconfiguration. I will not release the submissions that are nasty about me, of course. If I can release that data I will do so. If I cannot do that, I might write back to those people who have made submissions and suggest that they send them to the Transport Committee. It is imperative that the Committee see that some of the submissions from the coastguard do not say, “We all should stay open; everything is perfectly fine”. They actually say, as I have alluded to, nine stations or 10 stations. There are others that say there should be more or less.

I think that this is the start of something new in government. Consultation had to start somewhere. I inherited a situation; we started somewhere. We listen. We come out with a service that is fit for purpose in the 21st century. Not everybody is going to be happy, because I have got 19 stations and there is a proposal for 10 closures or nine closures. Clearly, not everybody will be happy. There is, however, a sense in the coastguard service, without any doubt if people are really honest, that we have to move on from where we are now. We have to get away from the disputes that have been going on for so many years, which are divisive, and have a service that has the resilience, the modernisation and the service to the front line, which is being left untouched and will be enhanced.

Finally, channel 16, under international regulations, will be monitored in the stations. That will not be on headphones, but over loudspeakers. I apologise to my hon. Friend the Member for South Dorset (Richard Drax). I should have come back to him on that. On that note—I am sad that I have to cut my comments short, due to procedure—I will hand over to my hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth. This is a proper consultation. No deal is done. I have visited many stations and have one more to go. I cannot visit all 19—that is not possible. If hon. Members look at the political make-up of the stations that I have visited, that has nothing to do with party politics—it is to do with my job.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sarah Newton]

I will pass that question straight on to the Minister to answer.

[Mike Penning]

I will publish all the information we have.

[Sarah Newton]

Like everyone else, I am reassured by what the Minister has said: saving lives is in his blood; he will now make all the information available to the Transport Committee; no decisions will be made until the Transport Committee has published its findings; and there will be plenty of opportunities between now and then for further representations by coastguards, without fear. That was a very important point. Coastguards are frightened, and I think that there are volunteers in the RNLI and other organisations who are frightened to come forward. They can do so with the absolute guarantee that they have been given by the Minister today.