Coastguard Service

Debate between Sarah Newton and Lord Campbell of Pittenweem

Thursday 24th March 2011 Westminster Hall

[Sarah Newton]

Actually, I will not, as so many people want to speak. Sorry, Angus.

The service underwent a major review in the 1990s under Focus for Change. It was heralded at the time as the most detailed and thorough review for decades of the structures, work loads and running of the coastguard service. The coastguard service has experienced continuous technical improvements to advance and upgrade all its information technology and communications systems since then, and such an upgrade is being rolled out even now.

Coastguard officers recognise that modernisation is part of the natural development of the type of work that they carry out and are not averse to change. Historically, coastguard officers have been deeply involved in developing and refining a multitude of systems and programmes, and it is probably fair to say that many of those programmes would not work as they do today without that input.

Much is made in the document of the requirement for national resilience. The MCA proposal cites a scenario whereby both stations in the current pairing might suffer a failure and there is no further back-up. Has that ever happened? The answer is no. The technicians to whom I have spoken cannot envisage a situation in which such an event could occur. The coastguard station in Falmouth suffered a catastrophic failure when it was hit by lightning and was out of service for a period. However, our flank station at Brixham took over services by diverting all telephone lines, and contingency plans were in place to ensure that all international obligations were diverted to international colleagues to enable a normal service to be maintained. It worked, and it was resilient.

The senior coastguard told me that Falmouth suffers from fragile connections. I met with the members of BT senior management who have managed the communication links for the Falmouth coastguard for the past eight years. They said that there was no problem at all and foresaw none in the future.

The document also refers to paired stations being overrun with an increase in work load. Again, there is no evidence to support that. It is agreed that some stations can get very busy at peak times, but no station has ever suffered a loss of service as a result of being overrun. It is reasonable to assume that, for a proposal involving such major change, an extensive trial would have been set up to mimic the maritime operation centre and to establish what work load was expected and how—or, more importantly, whether—it could be managed.

[Sir Menzies Campbell (North East Fife) (LD)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Sarah Newton]

I will carry on so that the right hon. and learned Gentleman can get in to speak later.

The MCA confirms that the only trial that took place was a table-top exercise at the training centre with a handful of invited staff who walked through the scenario and analysed incident data. I am afraid that that does not constitute a valid trial of such an important proposal. At the very least, a valid trial should shadow the work load of multiple coastguard centres on a busy July day, monitoring incidents and all other routine working, to determine accurately whether it can be done and, importantly, how many staff are needed.

The MCA has announced that when the proposal goes ahead, technical trials—this time involving operational coastguards—will be held to see how and whether it can be made to work. Such trials should be conducted before any proposal is announced, not after it has been approved.

Throughout the modernisation proposal document, much emphasis is placed on new or refreshed technology, but it has been confirmed that the technology referred to will be current technology, but refreshed. It is not clear what that means. Technology has a habit of promising much and failing to deliver—look at the debacle of the fire service proposals. Technology also has a habit of haemorrhaging money. The proposed savings from the plan will be wiped out quickly if the technological budget balloons.

The MCA refers to new technology that will allow coastguards to carry out surveillance and long-range monitoring of vessels at sea, helping to prevent maritime incidents from occurring or minimising the impact of such incidents. I agree that we can now monitor ships, flag up those showing a history of mechanical or structural deficiencies and involve the survey branch of the MCA in scrutinising them as they approach our shores. However, it is not correct to imply that such surveillance will prevent incidents around our shores. Ships are fitted with a vast array of navigational and sensory equipment, but they still manage to run aground and collide with each other, break down, catch fire, lose people overboard, injure their crew and sometimes even sink. That risk will remain.

A significant criticism of the proposals is the concern that vital local knowledge will be lost if all operations are centralised. The risk assessment on the proposals states that operational postures will require officers to harvest local knowledge. That is an acknowledgement that local knowledge will be required, but in the MOC it will have to cover a vast area, which will be extremely difficult to achieve.

Coastguard officers around the coast are required to know their area and are examined every two years to ensure that they do. That is laid down in their operational manuals. Each operations room views its area as being under its ownership and makes it its business to have thorough knowledge of it. To lose that knowledge would be a retrograde step and could increase risks.

The MCA proposal states that local knowledge will be provided by volunteers from the Coastguard Rescue Service, the Royal National Lifeboat Institution and the National Coastwatch Institution. Again, that is misleading. Those organisations can assist with local knowledge after an incident has commenced, but the vital time for local knowledge is when the call is received. That responsibility lies with the officer running the incident and it is needed immediately. Serving officers do that now, and do it well, because of the knowledge that they have built up over many years. They use technology to confirm as required, but it is only a tool, not the primary method of defining the location of an incident.

I welcome the proposals’ recognition of the importance of volunteers. When I first read the proposals, they made a compelling case. As a keen sailor and an MP representing a maritime constituency, I am very much aware of the volunteer Coastguard Rescue Service and the RNLI. I understand that if I were to get into difficulties sailing off the Isles of Scilly, it would be volunteers from the RNLI, or perhaps the Navy with helicopters from Culdrose, who would rescue me. I also know, however, that those volunteers come forward because they feel safe in the knowledge that the rescue missions in which they participate are co-ordinated by professional coastguards in the Falmouth coastguard station. The RNLI’s deafening silence on the proposals speaks volumes.

Only a few people sitting in RNLI headquarters, removed from the reality of rescues around our shores, are talking to the MCA. Those HQ staff might well be saying that they can take on more of the roles undertaken by the coastguards, but it is the volunteer coxswain and crew who risk their lives to rescue people at sea. Are their opinions being listened to? I do not think so.

The situation is similar in other organisations directly involved in our maritime environment, such as the Royal Yachting Association. I expect that it is the HQ staff who are talking to the MCA. They have not consulted with their members. Yacht clubs in my constituency that organise world-class yacht races and Olympic regattas are dismayed with the position that the RYA has taken on the proposals. I urge the Minister to ask both the RNLI and RYA headquarters staff to demonstrate that they have consulted all their members on the proposals, and to ask for copies of those consultations. Although I am not a betting person, I would wager that their responses do not support the MCA’s proposals.

During the debate, I hope that we can persuade the Minister that the best course of action is to accept that he was not given accurate information by the MCA team responsible for the proposals, which have developed over a number of years, and that he should cost and carefully consider reasonable alternative proposals that meet the criteria that he has set out. The safety of people at sea and the protection of our precious marine environment deserve no less.