My Lords, the draft regulations before the House relate to the fire safety of all passenger ships on international voyages, a limited class of passenger ships on non-international voyages, all cargo and sailing ships of 500 gross tonnage and over, and UK pleasure vessels of 500 gross tonnage and above. It makes provision for different generations of ship, with the fire protection requirements differing slightly between the generations.
The statutory instrument will be made under safety powers conferred by the Merchant Shipping Act 1995. It is subject to the enhanced scrutiny procedures under the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018—and therefore there is an affirmative procedure today—because it revokes an instrument that was amended by Section 2(2) of the European Communities Act 1972. The instrument does not implement any EU obligations.
I acknowledge the amendment to the Motion relating to this instrument in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Scott of Needham Market, referencing the time taken to make these changes to the domestic statute book and other delays to international maritime secondary legislation. In its 33rd report of Session 2022-23, the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee—SLSC—noted that the
“DfT is gradually addressing its backlog of implementing international maritime legislation but these Regulations illustrate why we were so concerned that it was allowed to accumulate in the first place”.
I will address the amendment to the Motion and the SLSC’s remarks, but I turn first to the instrument under consideration today.
The draft regulations implement the most up-to-date requirements of chapter II-2 of the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea 1974, known as SOLAS, and bring UK domestic law up to date and in line with internationally agreed requirements. The draft regulations contain direct references to the vast majority of the requirements of SOLAS chapter II-2. These references are made ambulatory, so future updates to the provisions will be given direct effect in UK law when they enter into force internationally. This will assist the UK in keeping legislation up with international requirements.
The regulations will revoke and replace the Merchant Shipping (Fire Protection) Regulations 2003 and the Merchant Shipping (Fire Protection: Large Ships) Regulations 1998—the latter apply to ships constructed before 1 July 2002 and the former to ships constructed on or before that same date. The regulations will further improve the fire safety standards for ships and will enable the UK to enforce these requirements against UK ships wherever they may be in the world, and against non-UK ships when they are in UK waters. This provides a level playing field for the industry.
I turn to the content of the SI. Chapter II-2 of SOLAS contains provisions for structural fire protection, fire detection and fire extinction on ships. This includes the prevention of fire and explosion, suppression of fire, escape from fire, operational requirements, alternative design and arrangements, and other requirements specific to particular situations. Chapter II-2 is supplemented by the fire safety systems code and the fire testing procedures code. All are amended from time to time in the International Maritime Organization—IMO.
At the end insert “that this House regrets that the draft Regulations represent a 20-year delay in the implementation of vital international safety resolutions; and calls on His Majesty’s Government to take urgent action to address the backlog of international maritime legislation awaiting implementation.”
My Lords, I have tabled an amendment to the Motion—unusually, not because I disagree with the content of the statutory instrument but for precisely the opposite reason. This is a very important instrument concerning the most serious occurrence that can befall a vessel at sea—namely, a fire. Despite everything the Minister has said, I find it incomprehensible that it has taken the UK Government 20 years to bring these international regulations into domestic law. I am not attacking the Minister, who I know to be diligent and committed to the maritime sector, and nor am I attacking her team of civil servants. However, many Ministers and very many civil servants have been in place over the last 20 years since these regulations needed to be incorporated into domestic law.
As the Minister referred to, the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee’s report on this instrument describes the further 20 IMO regulations that have been agreed to apply to ships exceeding 500 gross tonnes. The Minister mentioned one regulation that was as recent as 2020—but that is still three years ago. The same report noted that the Maritime and Coastguard Agency said that UK ships were “mostly in compliance”. It then went on to say that the ships would have risked being unable to trade in other jurisdictions had they not been in compliance. In other words, the UK has been relying on other countries to enforce these regulations. I put it to the Minister that this is not only bad in itself but damaging to our reputation as a leading maritime nation.
In its most recent report, published earlier this week, the SLSC considered an SI relating to seafarers’ documents. Since 1958, the ILO’s Seafarers’ Identity Documents Convention has included fishermen in its definition of seafarers, but the UK has neglected to bring its regulations in line until now. This is not a theoretical matter—it caused great distress during the pandemic, when fishers were not treated as seafarers—so it is right that it should be corrected now. Again, for a seafaring nation, we have to ask why it was not dealt with sooner.
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It is fascinating that, in this country, we have spent pretty much the last decade debating sovereignty in its many forms. We have walked away from a 50 year-old alliance to achieve sovereignty, but what we see here is that, in this interconnected world order, many things transcend national boundaries. In that sense, true sovereignty is a myth; it is about the trade-off between the benefits and loss of sovereignty. In the case of shipping—and there are other cases, such as aviation—we give up the right to fully determine our own laws to ensure a safe and competitive shipping industry worldwide. After all that debate, we have a situation where, in the scheme of things, relatively small matters of law have not been brought into domestic legislation, and we have relied on other countries to do that for us.
I am very grateful for, and reassured by, the Minister’s comments on addressing the backlog and that it will be completed this year. However, on her point about resources—and I do understand the problem of resources—can she say that she is confident that she has the resources to continue to keep this up to date in the way she described? As difficult as it is for anyone to comment on retained EU law in this time of uncertainty, does she agree that there is a potential problem if a large number of retained EU laws relating to transport need to be dealt with by the end of the year, as the Bill originally proposed?
The global leadership to which this Government aspire is not just about talking big; it is about being a reliable international partner that respects laws and conventions to which it is a signatory. I beg to move.
My Lords, I support the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, and the points she made. I too emphasise that this is not a criticism of the present Minister, who I know is trying very hard to catch up with these regulations; the problem goes back many years before she was appointed.
Today, the issue of fires on ships is very topical, because, as noble Lords will have seen, the ferry “Pentalina” caught fire near Orkney at the weekend and was grounded. I do not think that we know what the cause was, but, luckily, nobody was hurt. It indicates the importance that must be attached to fire prevention on ships. Its sister ship, MV “Alfred”, managed to hit a rock off the Orkney islands last summer—luckily, in broad daylight. Again, nobody was hurt, but these accidents happen, for whatever reason.
It is interesting to reflect that, while the noble Baroness’s amendment mentions a 20-year delay, the issue of lifejackets and bulkheads in river steamers was raised last year, which was 33 years after the “Marchioness” accident, in which a lot of people died. I appreciate that the Government are trying to catch up, but we have to comply with international regulations, and I hope that this work carries on. I am sure that we will all be monitoring the progress that the Minister outlined when she introduced the regulations.
I have one or two questions on some of the issues that the Minister outlined and on things in the Explanatory Memorandum. As we found when we were talking about seafarers’ wages, it is quite difficult and complicated. We are talking here, if I read paragraph 6.1 of the Explanatory Memorandum correctly, about
“passenger ships engaged on international voyages”,
which I think means being registered in the UK, and
“a small class of passenger ships engaged on domestic voyages”.
My Lords, I think this is the first occasion we have had to welcome the Minister to her new post as Shipping Minister. My mind goes back nearly 40 years to when it was almost de rigueur for the Shipping Minister to reside in this House, so it is extremely welcome to have a Shipping Minister back with us again.
These draft resolutions are extremely important, as has been pointed out by the noble Baroness, Lady Scott. Fire, as she said, remains one of the major areas of disaster at sea. Ships, thank God, are not usually built of wood any more but they carry all sorts of noxious substances that burn like hell if they catch fire and there have been a number of notable examples recently even of car batteries catching fire and sinking ships.
I should say we are almost here again. Every time we have one of these regulations coming forward, we say the same thing: why has it taken so long for this to be incorporated into British law? The original fire protection regulations were in 2003 and almost immediately there was a change in 2004. As we have heard, there have been about 20 such changes since then. Why has it all suddenly come into one thing nearly 20 years later? It hints, dare I say it, at a certain amount of sloppiness in the department that these things have not been dealt with more promptly.
Our standing is still, thank goodness, very high in the International Maritime Organization but things like this cannot help in due course. I know we do not have the merchant fleet we had many years ago but we are still an important player in the maritime scene and I think we should be acting more promptly to agree new regulations.
The “ambulatory reference” provision is most welcome because I hope it will put an end to all this complaining about delay because when new regulations come out of the International Maritime Organization it will be automatic in future.
I certainly have a lot of sympathy with the noble Baroness, Lady Scott. The performance of this country has not been up to scratch in these maritime matters, but I welcome the fact that everything should be sorted out by the end of this year.
My Lords, I start by thanking my noble friend for tabling her amendment and giving us the opportunity to raise these important issues. I also thank the Minister and acknowledge her efforts to tackle this backlog which is of such concern to us all. I want to mention here the role of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, of which I recently became a member. I have often referred to its excellent work in making sure that our attention is drawn to these important lapses.
As others have said, this SI relates to a total of about 20 IMO resolutions which successive UK Governments have so far ignored. Some of these, as has been pointed out, date back 20 years. The Minister referred to resources and I think that reveals to us how hopelessly beyond the Government’s capacity are their plans for the future revocation of EU law. If they cannot manage 20 year-old IMO regulations on fire, they are not going to manage several hundred transport-related pieces of legislation.
All of this relates, of course, to fire protection and, as has been pointed out, fire is one of the greatest dangers faced by mariners and their passengers. It is important to remember that these regulations relate to passenger vessels. That means that there will be people on board who are not professionals, not trained in how to respond if a fire breaks out, and not familiar with how things work or the layout of the ship; in other words, there are lots of people on board—the passengers—who are an additional risk, so it is not just mariners and their status we should be concerned about.
Some of these 20 regulations are about fire detection—the design of extinguishers and storage arrangements. As the Minister said, they are very technical. But some of them are about the basic design and construction materials of the ships concerned. So we could be talking about a maritime version of the Grenfell situation, where dangerous materials have been used. I have no reason to believe that that is the case, but I have no evidence, and neither do any of the rest of us, about whether there is a problem, because it has not been the subject of regulation.
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I was surprised that the Explanatory Memorandum, in the section on impact, in paragraph 12.3, said:
“Routine surveys … have established that the ships … are … mostly in compliance with the updated Convention requirements”.
If they are not in compliance, of course, they cannot trade internationally. But the phrase “mostly in compliance” is not very reassuring.
I have another question for the Minister. Paragraph 6.2 of the Explanatory Memorandum makes it clear that these regulations do not apply to
“government ships and naval ships”.
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A number of amendments have been agreed in the IMO and have come into force internationally since UK law was last updated in 2003. Amendments contained in 20 resolutions have been agreed at the IMO over the years since 2003, with the most recent changes being made in 2020. Those amendments further improve the safety standards of fire protection but have not yet been implemented into UK law. The UK supported the amendments during IMO discussions and, as a party to SOLAS, now has an obligation to implement these further updates. Amendments include, but are not limited to, new requirements for cabin balconies, tanker gas measurement equipment, fire test protocols for materials placed on ships and requirements related to vehicle spaces—they can be quite technical. Details of all 20 amendments are set out in the Explanatory Memorandum to this instrument in the normal way.
I turn to the amendment to the Motion in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Scott of Needham Market, and the recent remarks by the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee to which I previously alluded. Keeping pace with the frequent amendments to international maritime conventions is challenging and requires frequent updating of the implementing legislation to keep up to date. The Department for Transport has an extensive secondary legislation programme but limited policy, analytical and legal resources with which to carry out that task. That has required some prioritisation, particularly over recent years, and a backlog relating to implementation of international obligations has been allowed to develop. I am not content with the situation, nor was my predecessor; in fact, it was my predecessor who put in place an action plan to address it.
However, it should be noted that the lack of domestic statutory underpinning did not prevent enforcement, and there are powers in the Merchant Shipping Act 1995 that allow for prosecutions to be brought. For example, Section 100 places a duty on the ship owner to take all reasonable steps to make sure that a ship is operated in a safe manner; failure to do so is an offence. Section 98 of the Act allows for prosecution where a ship is found to be dangerously unsafe. However, making these draft regulations is necessary to bring the changes to SOLAS into UK law, and doing so provides the clarity and certainty that the industry requires, particularly in relation to specific offences and penalties.
I reassure your Lordships’ House that the Government are committed to clearing the maritime backlog. Good progress has been made on clearing the international backlog, which was identified in October 2021 by Robert Courts MP, the then Minister for Maritime, as comprising 13 instruments. Four of the 13 instruments currently remain to be made, with the instrument before your Lordships’ House today being one of them. The remaining three instruments will be consulted on in the coming months for the purpose of making them this year, ensuring that the international maritime backlog will be cleared before the end of 2023.
My department is also planning ahead for the implementation of future amendments to international maritime conventions, including for amendments that are still at the negotiating stage in the IMO and the International Labour Organization, the ILO. However, the House should note that there is often a fairly limited period between the adoption of the final, agreed text and the international in-force date. This is the case with both the IMO and the ILO. Therefore, in some cases, a short delay in implementation, owing to the parliamentary procedures in the UK, is inevitable. However, the objective remains that such a delay will be an exception rather than the rule, and that any delay will be as short as possible.
Approval of these regulations is crucial to ensuring that the UK meets its international obligations. The UK has already agreed to the amendments in the IMO. The Government are taking action to clear the maritime backlog and are on target to clear the international backlog by the end of the year. I beg to move.
Amendment to the Motion
In October 2021, the then Minister Robert Courts was questioned by the Select Committee about the backlog. The following January, the committee commented on the inadequate information provided to it on a number of SIs. It is a different issue, but it is troubling nevertheless. The International Relations and Defence Committee of our House, in its March 2022 report on the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, said:
“It remains unclear why the UK Government has not signed the 1986 Convention on Conditions for Registration of Ships, and we regret that this has not happened”.
It feels to me that this is systemic; a pattern is emerging.
I suppose that includes the ships I have been talking about in the Orkneys. Does it include the ferries to and from the Isle of Wight? Where is the cut-off? It probably includes the “Scillonian III” going to the Isles of Scilly. I have no problem with this; I would just like to know what it applies to and what it does not. If you get a foreign-registered ship operating within the UK, I trust that the regulations still apply to it. It is terribly important that they do, of course.
I was interested to see in paragraph 6.2 the exceptions to the small ships regulations are that
“government ships and naval ships are not within scope of that instrument”.
Does that mean that it does not matter if naval ships catch fire or is there some other reason for not including them? Is there some alternative regulation? Naval ships, like any other ships, have had the habit of catching fire in the past and, clearly, preserving not only the lives of the seafarers but the government asset is pretty important.
I believe there is a sort of boundary between the 500-tonne ships included here and earlier regulations for smaller ships. I think the Minister has mentioned this before, but it would be nice to have some clarity on that.
My final point is on paragraph 7.2 of the Explanatory Memorandum. In her introduction, the Minister mentioned
“fire protection, prevention of fire and explosion, detection and suppression of fire, escape from fire, operational requirements, alternative design and arrangements and other requirements”.
That is a pretty wide-ranging definition. Presumably when the MCA gets round to the detail of this everybody will know what it is talking about but it is not very clear from this. It clearly has the right intention of reducing the risk and the scope of fire.
I suppose the issue that came up in the Explanatory Memorandum, which again the Minister referred to, is the fact that there are 19 different changes under paragraph 7. This indicates that the MCA is keeping up with different changes. That is very good but perhaps she could also explain what “ambulatory” means in relation to fire on ships. I look forward to her responses and again I congratulate her on bringing this forward because it is very difficult, very complicated and going to do good when it becomes legislation. I have posed a few questions and I look forward to her responses.