Merchant Shipping (Recognised Organisations) (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019

Considered in Grand Committee

Moved by

That the Grand Committee do consider the Merchant Shipping (Recognised Organisations) (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019.

My Lords, the draft regulations that we are considering will be made under powers in the European Union (Withdrawal) Act and are needed if we leave the EU in March without a deal.

Recognised organisations, or ROs, play an important role in ensuring that ships are built and maintained to operate in compliance with standards on safety and the prevention of marine pollution. They carry out these functions on behalf of maritime nations. In the UK, the Maritime and Coastguard Agency delegates about 85% of its survey work to ROs.

Globally, the International Maritime Organization develops rules on ROs. The IMO’s Recognized Organizations Code entered into force in 2015. The code contains criteria against which ROs are approved, authorised and assessed, and gives guidance on how flag states should monitor ROs.

The EU has adopted legislation to harmonise the way in which member states implement those IMO requirements. Under EU legislation, member states may delegate the inspection and survey of ships to EU-recognised ship inspection and survey organisations, or EU ROs, by authorising them to act on their behalf. At present there are 12 EU ROs. Six of them have been authorised to act on behalf of the UK. The Maritime and Coastguard Agency intends that these six ROs would remain authorised by the UK and be recognised as UK ROs following our exit from the EU.

The MCA regularly meets UK-authorised ROs and has kept them informed of these proposals. They have raised no objection and understand why the changes are needed to ensure that the UK continues to have a functioning statue book for the approval of ROs.

EU Regulation 391/2009 and related legislation established a system for approving ROs; criteria for assessing RO performance, which is based on IMO criteria; monitoring measures and remedial measures if ROs are underperforming, including fees and penalties and, finally, the removal of RO status.

My Lords, these regulations involve ship inspections. The four sets of regulations this afternoon will lead me to repeat myself on a couple of occasions because the same themes come through in each one. All of them have safety issues at their core. The current EU-based system will be replaced with a UK-only system. As I understand it, it will continue to work within a system of international standards and the new legislation will retain existing criteria for the recognition, authorisation and monitoring of ROs: so far, so good. But ships move about and currently we have obligations to report to the EU to share information. How will this sharing happen effectively in future? Most of our ships will be sailing through EU waters at some point in their journey and many of the ships that visit our shores are EU ships. We need to know how that information is going to be shared in the future because of the safety implications.

The inspection of ships, both UK and foreign ones, is a key issue for the safety of ports. Therefore, I was quite surprised to read that there has been no formal consultation. Reasons were given on each of these SIs why there was no formal consultation. If you take the SIs together they are a pretty significant bundle of legislation and would be worth consultation in the round, if not as individual pieces of legislation.

It states in the Explanatory Memorandum that the Secretary of State will be given power to make subordinate legislation. Can the Minister clarify whether this will be an affirmative or a negative procedure?

Finally, the list of ROs we have been provided with makes for interesting reading. I do not in any way pretend to be an expert in these issues. Can the Minister enlighten me as to how this list is drawn up? How is this rather disparate list of organisations there and how do we change it? What are the criteria for changing it if we want to? I would be grateful for some information on that.

I thank the Minister for presenting this instrument. I have no great problem with it but I lack a little bit of understanding. The first thing I would like to be clear on is whether this is a no-deal instrument, that is, something that needs to be processed quickly because it is necessary if we fall out of the EU without a deal—which in my view and that of my party would be the least satisfactory outcome. I can see that the instrument does its work in the event of a no deal; I am not so clear about what happens to it if there is a deal. Will it be repealed or will it be paused? Will it continue to exist? The Minister may find it efficient to answer that question referring to all four statutory instruments if it is the same answer.

I have subjected the Explanatory Memorandum as best I can to the generic test of whether it includes any necessary policy change. I could not find any areas of such change, but, as a result of studying the statutory instrument, I realised that I did not understand the role of the IMO. Can the Minister develop a little further what the role of the IMO is with respect to us and the EU now and what it will be after exit day? In particular, where does the IMO create regulations which are mandatory for the United Kingdom?

I thank noble Lords for their consideration of these regulations. As I said, they will ensure continuity for ROs and the shipping companies which rely on their services and make no changes to the way in which ROs operate or to their relationship with the MCA.

The noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, raised safety, which is of course a priority. We are currently a member of the European Maritime Safety Agency. We want to continue our close working with the EMSA after we leave the EU. The political declaration recognised that the EMSA and the MCA should continue to share data in a future relationship. In the event of no deal, we still hope to continue that relationship, but it will be subject to negotiations. Where the MCA may need to cover a role currently played by the EMSA, it has contingency plans for doing so.

No formal consultation on this statutory instrument was done, as the noble Baroness pointed out. The MCA has a close working relationship with the ROs. It authorises them, meets them regularly and has discussed with them the content of the instrument. As I said, they recognise that the aim of the regulations is to maintain the status quo as far as possible. The regulations will have no impact on the working of ports. We have had no specific discussion with ports on the regulations, but obviously we do that as part of our wider work on EU exit.

On the Secretary of State’s powers, secondary legislation that amends the criteria that ROs must meet to continue to enjoy recognition, the system of fines and periodic penalty payments or any withdrawal of recognition is subject to the affirmative procedure. Secondary legislation on interpreting the criteria for assessing RO performance and the effectiveness of their rules or amending the criteria for use of port state control inspection data for assessing unacceptable levels of performance by ROs is subject to the negative resolution procedure.

On how we approve ROs, the list is slightly disparate, as the noble Baroness pointed out—I had not seen it myself before getting to know these regulations. There is an EU list and, from it, the UK recognises six ROs. The MCA enters a formal agreement with each RO acting on behalf of the UK and assesses those ROs periodically. It is a long-standing list, but it is possible to change it and if people wish to apply, we will certainly consider that.

Motion agreed.