Superfast Broadband: Rural Communities

Debate between Sheryll Murray and Angus Brendan MacNeil

Tuesday 21st February 2017 Westminster Hall

[Mr Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)]

rose—

[Mrs Murray]

rose—

Coastguard Service

Debate between Sheryll Murray and Angus Brendan MacNeil

Tuesday 14th June 2011 Westminster Hall

[Sheryll Murray]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend. I was coming on to the number of incidents. As far as technology goes, it was only last Wednesday that the London ambulance service system failed, and it was recording emergency calls with pen and paper.

The incidents involving MV Willy and MV Kodima both happened off the coast of my own county division, when I sat on Cornwall county council. I witnessed at first hand the superb co-ordination provided by the Brixham marine rescue co-ordination centre, with the marine emergency rescue organisations and the Cornwall fire service and its emergency planning department. I doubt that the Minister has experienced that unique way of working within a coastal fire and rescue service, but I appreciate that he has absolute expertise as far as an inland fire and rescue service is concerned.

I would like to highlight in more detail three incidents in which Brixham MRCC has been involved in co-ordination with other emergency services. The first occurred just before midnight—that is, outside daylight hours—on 13 January 2008 and involved the Torbay and Salcombe RNLI lifeboats, coastguard rescue helicopter India Juliet, HMS Cumberland and several merchant vessels. They proceeded to merchant vessel Ice Prince, with 20 persons on board, 27 miles south-east of Start point after its cargo shifted in heavy weather and it began to list to port. The vessel was abandoned by 12 crewmen, one with a suspected broken leg, and they were airlifted to Portland by helicopter. The remaining eight were rescued by Torbay lifeboat and conveyed to Brixham. A French tug attended the scene, and damage was assessed in daylight.

The second incident occurred on 11 October at 8.38 am and involved a missing person. Brixham took broadcast action and tasked the warship Westminster and coastguard helicopter R106 to assist the French coastguard at Cross Corsen in a mid-channel search for an 80-year-old male reported missing from passenger vessel Balmoral.

Finally, on 10 February this year at 6.43 pm—again, outside daylight hours—Brixham coastguard received a mayday distress call from fishing vessel Amber J reporting that fishing vessel Admiral Blake had collided with MV Boxford approximately 30 miles south of Start point. The Amber J reported that two crewmen from the Admiral Blake had entered the water and only one had been recovered. Salcombe RNLI’s all-weather lifeboat, coastguard rescue helicopter 106 from Portland and Royal Navy helicopter 193 were tasked to search for the missing crewman. After a mayday relay, numerous vessels assisted in the search, along with a rapid rescue craft from the Boxford. After a brief search, the missing crewman was located by the Boxford’s rapid rescue craft, winched aboard the coastguard rescue helicopter and taken to hospital. Rescue helicopter 193 stood by while the Salcombe lifeboat assessed the damage to the Admiral Blake. After the damage was assessed and controlled, the Admiral Blake was towed back to Plymouth, where the Plymouth lifeboat met the vessel and took her into port. That shows essential local partnership working among our local coastguard stations at the moment.

Complicated incidents at Brixham have increased year on year since 1998, when 767 incidents were recorded. In 2002, there were 903 incidents, in 2003 there were 1,025, in 2009 there were 1,324 and last year there were 1,355. Of greater concern is the fact that this year, there have already been 546 incidents, an increase of 90 from the same period last year. I acknowledge that, taken at face value, the number of incidents at Falmouth appears higher, at 971. However, that can be broken down into 233 incidents similar to those that I have just described and another 738 that occurred under the international global maritime distress safety system. Some of those incidents might have been search and rescue, but others would have been passed to the relevant MRC centre to deal with.

I am afraid that I must take issue with the Minister’s comments about Falmouth’s international role during a debate on 2 February this year. He said:

“Falmouth is internationally renowned for its international rescue capabilities. If we have a problem in Falmouth, where does that get picked up? Nowhere.”—[Official Report, 2 February 2011; Vol. 522, c. 320WH.]

He is clearly unaware that Brixham takes over GMDSS when Falmouth suffers an outage, and has taken over the system every Thursday for the past 12 months. Perhaps he will take the opportunity when he speaks to correct the statement that he made in February. It would also be interesting to hear from him whether there have been any incidents in which both stations in a pair have gone down at the same time.

As I am sure the Minister knows, Falmouth was allocated GMDSS due to its proximity to Goonhilly Downs satellite earth station, which has closed. Many incidents are subsequently passed on to other coastal co-ordination stations, and it is unfair of him to include them in the number of incidents dealt with by Falmouth alone.

I am disappointed that the Minister chose to describe Brixham and Falmouth as “ridiculously close” during the Adjournment debate last week. In fact, Brixham and Portland, Milford and Swansea, Thames and Yarmouth, Portland and Solent, and Forth and Aberdeen have fewer road miles between them, and if we measure as the crow flies, we can also include Holyhead and Liverpool on the list. Does he consider those stations to be ridiculously close?

Brixham MRCC is bought and paid for. We now need to cover only the station’s running costs. It contains an operations co-ordination room, an emergency planning room, a coastal safety manager’s office, a sector manager’s office, coastguard rescue equipment for the Berry Head rescue team, a coastguard rescue emergency vehicle, a marine surveyor’s office, a coastguard training office for the region and an aerial site, and it still has space to expand. Brixham has been approached to lease a whole floor to another emergency service for its offices and operation area. If the property is sold, new premises will need to be found and bought for all of the above.

[Mr MacNeil]

The hon. Lady is making a fantastic speech. It underlines the fact that the more we find out about the Maritime and Coastguard Agency’s plans and the more detail emerges, the more concerned I become, as I am sure do other hon. Members, about what the MCA was thinking when it first took its plans to the Minister. I am sure that he would not have started the process if he had known the sort of detail that the hon. Lady has described.

[Sheryll Murray]

I am absolutely certain that my hon. Friend the Minister has the best intentions, and that he does not intend to make savage cuts to the best rescue service in the world.

Brixham is the busiest fishing port in England. It has the third highest number of leisure vessels registered on CG66, the voluntary safety identification scheme, at 2,200, and that number is increasing daily. It has a search and rescue area and is a popular holiday destination. Brixham has unique expertise in UK search and rescue. Due to its position along the busiest shipping lanes in the world, it has gained unique search and rescue expertise from incidents such as those that I have listed.

I end with a message that I hope the Minister will accept in the spirit in which it is given. He says that we will not end up with the proposal outlined in his consultation document, and I welcome those words. However, he must accept that by issuing a five-year-old proposal that takes massive cuts as a starting point, he has effectively moved the starting line as well as the goalposts. Coastguards all around the coast have told me that their response would have been different if they had not been working with a proposal to cut MRCC numbers and hours so drastically. That is why it is essential that we start with a blank sheet of paper.

No one knows better than I how dangerous the sea is and how important it is to co-ordinate all rescue services locally when an incident occurs at sea. The proposals remind me of 1994, when two fishermen lost their lives off the Cornish coast, below a recently closed coastguard post, and local people decided to open and restore the visual watch. That could not happen once we lose our marine rescue co-ordination centres around the coast, because they are professional. I make a plea to the Minister to think again about the closures. He has used examples of other nations operating with fewer stations, but has failed to mention that in those countries the coastguards operate in different ways, with different responsibilities. Yes, modernise, and yes, have better equipment, but please do not destroy the best coastguard service in the world.