General Lighthouse Authorities (Beacons: Automatic Identification System) Order 2006

My Lords, I also support the order, and declare a non-pecuniary interest as a Younger Brother of Trinity House. The order designates AIS as a beacon under the terms of the Merchant Shipping Act. As the Minister has explained, this will allow the general lighthouse authorities to fit beacons to aids to navigation that will transmit data on the sea state—we have just from the noble Lord, Lord Glentoran, about that—as well as tidal data and the position of the aid, which will benefit ships’ safety. This was foreseen when the AIS first came into operation at the beginning of last year, primarily as a means of communicating a ship’s name, position and next port to shore stations and indeed to other ships. The general lighthouse authorities—Trinity House, the Northern Lighthouse Board and the Commissioners for Irish Lights—have worked diligently over the past 13 years to introduce new nav-aid technology, which has in effect reduced the cost to the shipping industry, which pays through light dues, by some 40 per cent. The order will allow this trend to continue. We are moving towards an integrated bridge system on ships that will combine radar, electronic charts and the AIS, but, for the time being, as the Minister has said, we still need traditional aids to navigation. Certainly some of the newer technology relies on the GPS, which is subject to the whims of the US military. I welcome the order, and I wish it a fair wind.