Orders of the Day — Pilotage Bill [Lords]

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 9:16 pm on 30 March 1987.

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Photo of Mr David Mudd Mr David Mudd , Falmouth and Camborne 9:16, 30 March 1987

The hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Wallace) rightly said that the Bill was remarkably complex. Some idea of its complexity will be gained from the fact that I found myself warming more to the reservations of the hon. Member for Wigan (Mr. Stott) than to the wider issues raised in the scenario painted by my hon. Friend the Minister.

My feeling about the Bill is that it does nothing to resolve three critical problems. First, it does not follow from the Bill that pilotage will become a safer occupation for pilots. Secondly, it does not follow that the new shape of pilotage will be any more cost-effective for the owners of the ships using the service. Thirdly, it does not follow that it makes sense to tack pilotage on as a further and ancillary service to the many other and often conflicting services provided by port authorities.

The question of the safety of pilot boats has already been touched on by my hon. Friend the Minister, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Dover (Mr. Rees) and the hon. Member for Wigan. There is little reassurance in what I have heard so far to take back to the pilots of Falmouth to contradict the reported views of certain local harbour commissioners regarding the all-important question of the suitability and safety of cutters.

One harbour commissioner has suggested that a pilot cutter and its crew are not necessary since pilots could as easily board vessels from a tug or a quay punt. Another commissioner has complained that the local pilot cutter is worth more than a third of a million pounds. The cutter in question underlines the fundamental anxiety of pilots for safety because the Falmouth pilot cutter, the L K Mitchell, is named after a local pilot who was killed only a few years ago, putting the safety of the cutter's crew ahead of his safety and his life. The cutter that admittedly has cost a third of a million pounds is the result of a century of evolution away from using tugs and quay punts. Indeed, the design of the vessel has been endorsed by the General Council of British Shipping and the sub-commissioners of pilotage as being the most cost-effective cutter for the port while still embracing economic, safety and environmental factors.

Since the L K Mitchell came into service, on occasion she has been the only vessel in the port of Falmouth able to put out on a deep-sea mission. She has repeatedly played her part in rescues and in the conveyance of sick and injured seamen. Therefore, to suggest that the pilots of the port of Falmouth should use quay punts or tugs horrifies those who risk their lives in the interests of others. On a personal note, it horrifies me, as my father was one of many Falmouth pilots who, in the course of their duties, were crushed between the cutter and the ship when adapted and modified quay punts were used as pilot cutters.

It has been suggested by my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Transport that the Bill will prove to be more cost-effective for the industry. Again, I suggest that in the case of Falmouth it may well turn out to be exactly the opposite.

I was amazed by the statistics showing one pilot somewhere doing one mission per week. We know that it is not the Humber—we have been told that. We have been told all the places that it is not—we have not been told where it is, but it certainly is not in Falmouth. At present, the six Falmouth pilots give three-pilot cover 24 hours a day, resulting in 84 hours duty availability per pilot per week. The boatmen operate to the same roster. A 24-hour VHF service, a telephone service, as well as secretarial and office services, are freely available to those who wish to avail themselves of them.