Clause 1 - Safety directions
Marine Safety Bill
2:30 pm
Dr Brian Iddon (Bolton South East, Labour)
My Bill would empower the SOSREP to make the owners accept such a ship. The obvious thing to do would be to get as much oil as possible off the ship, were it an oil tanker, before it heavily polluted the harbour or the sea. I should refer at this point to the famous Prestige disaster, which is still ongoing. That ship got into trouble off the Spanish coast a few months ago and requested permission to enter a place of refuge. We cannot say with certainty, but if that ship had entered a place of refuge, the disaster that ultimately occurred would probably not have happened. That ship was not holed, but, to answer the hon. Gentleman, even if it had been it would have been sensible to bring it to a place of refuge rather than have the resulting disaster.