New Clause 1 - Supplementary fund protocol: annual report on ratification
Merchant Shipping (Pollution) Bill [Lords]
10:45 am
Julian Brazier (Shadow Minister, Transport; Canterbury, Conservative)
I hope I made that point, but the Marshall Islands is not a signatory to the protocol we are discussing. The new clause asks that the Secretary of State publish, and lay annually before Parliament, a report on progress towards ratification of the supplementary fund protocol. So, although I do not wish to attack the Marshall Islands, I want to make it clear that there is concern among those on the Opposition Benches that there are free riders.
Let me go back to the exchange on Second Reading and the Minister’s letter. I made the point that there are free riders in the system, and the Minister intervened to say that it is a statutory requirement to have insurance. Subsequently, he made clear what I think we knew anyway, which is that there is, of course, no way to ensure that all vessels are insured when they cross our waters or come near to our coastline if, as is often the case, they are not visiting a British port.
That point is peripheral, however, because we are dealing with large spills that insurance cannot cover, and the point of the Bill is to cover them. For those purposes, countries on the white list of flags of convenience such as the Marshall Islands are just as much free riders as those that are less responsible.
There are 32 flag-of-convenience countries, one of which, Liberia, has 7.5 per cent. of the world’s fleet. More than half the ships lost in the last few years—by tonnage, nearly two thirds—came from flag-of-convenience states. Putting that in plain English, although flags of convenience may account for less than a quarter of the world’s shipping, they account for the bulk of the potential problems dealt with in the Bill, yet they are free-riding on the system. They pay nothing into it, yet they are supported by the rest.
As I said, the device of calling for an annual report simply enables us to put it on the record and draw the Committee’s attention to the fact that the problem exists. More could be done to put pressure on these ships. I do not suggest for a moment that Her Majesty’s Government can police it on their own, but through our respected and powerful membership of international bodies and through the EU we could surely do more to put pressure on the freeloaders. It is extraordinary that Malta, an EU member, has not signed the protocol; I do not know whether there are others.
In the last resort, surely it is not beyond the means of man for the EU to say that in a certain number of years, if a reasonable period of notice is given, we will stop accepting visits from ships from countries that do not sign the protocol. That might be a possible way of addressing the matter.