Clause 2 - Fire authorities: power to charge
Marine Safety Bill
3:15 pm
Mr Gwyn Prosser (Dover, Labour)
Having spent some 30 years sailing, operating or maintaining ships, I am pleased to give this important clause my unreserved support. I have also had the privilege of representing the chief engineers and merchant navy officers of the National Union of Marine, Aviation and Shipping Transport Officers. Nearly all my career I have campaigned for safer work practices at sea. Although lots of changes have been made in recent years, we have clearly got a long way to go, as was evidenced in the excellent speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, South-East when he catalogued the whole series of marine casualties that we still endure year in, year out.
Clause 2 closes an important loophole, which will ensure that fire services can continue to provide expert assistance to ships on fire without being financially penalised for their life-saving services. During my seagoing career, be it sailing the seven seas or crossing the channel, I have had my share of groundings, floodings and fires. Of all fires, by far the most terrifying is a fire on a ship, because people do not have the luxury of being able to leave through the front door and closing it behind them. Often, people cannot dial 999. Machinery fires and fires in engine rooms, when people are surrounded by fuel oil bunkers and flames licking into the air, are very worrying indeed.
All seafarers, certainly all British seafarers, are trained, retrained and trained again in the most up-to-date modern means of fighting fires, but, when people are in that sort of predicament, there is no substitute for having the back-up of full-time experts on hand with their extra equipment.
My constituency of Dover in the county of Kent is surrounded by the sea on three sides and overlooks one of the busiest seaways in the world, so it is fortuitous that the Kent fire brigade supplies an excellent service, not just for our cross-channel ferries but for any vessel, anywhere around the coast.
Mr. Randall rose—