Investigating the Oceans

Welcome to the Chair, Lady Winterton. This is the first occasion on which I have had the opportunity to serve under your chairmanship in Westminster Hall and I look forward to many similar occasions in future. I congratulate the Committee on an excellent piece of work in a field that is much under-observed and under-debated. I do not know the constituency boundaries of every hon. Member present, but I suspect that I may be the only one here who represents any ocean. I am fairly confident that I can lay claim to representing more ocean than anyone else in the House. That may be why the fickle finger of Whips Office fate turned towards me when a member of the Front-Bench team was sought to take part in the debate. Whatever the reason, I am delighted to be present for this excellent debate, although it is unfortunate that a wider range of right hon. and hon. Members has not been able to attend it. My hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Mr. Willis) introduced the debate by speaking about the global importance of the oceans. That is certainly understood in the island communities that I represent, which, historically, have been seagoing communities, because of continuing involvement in the fishing industry and in the merchant navy and Royal Navy, and because of more historic industries such as whaling. That was part of our past and it took people from Orkney and Shetland around the world as seagoing people. My hon. Friend referred to the ocean as a possible source of power in the future and listed several different areas examined previously by his Committee with relevance to that. He neglected to mention the report of, I think, 2000, in which the Committee identified, quite correctly, the need for a single institute or body to drive on the development of renewable energy generation from wave and tidal power. I mention that in particular because, thanks to a fairly long and tortuous process, that report, having created the idea, led to the creation of the European Marine Energy Centre based in Stromness in Orkney. I do not know whether the Committee is aware of what impact has been caused, but EMEC is a significant development facility for marine energy. It concentrates particularly on tidal and wave power, and acts effectively as a benchmarking institution, so that by regular examination and benchmarking a foundation can be created for commercial exploitation of wave and tidal power devices. If the Committee is minded to revisit the issue, its members would be very welcome in Orkney. I do not know whether it is fully understood even there to what extent the Committee was responsible for the creation of that very important resource. Members may be aware that the world's first commercial wave power station, using the Pelamis device—the so-called sea snake—is to be established in Portugal. That was one of the first devices certified at the EMEC facility, and this is a case in which the initial discussions of the Committee had significant effect on the development of the renewable energy sector. My hon. Friend also gave a formidable list of institutions, from as far apart as Lisbon and various parts of the United States, to which the Committee went to obtain evidence. I commend the members of the Committee for their dedication and application, which are evident from the quality of their report. They clearly have not spared themselves in their research. The essential recurring theme of the report is the inability to co-ordinate Government actions in relation to the marine environment in general and marine science in particular. My hon. Friend laid out the history of the IACMST and the MSCC as a successor body. It has often appeared to me that there is no true ownership within Government of anything relating to maritime matters or to do with the sea generally, and that no one is prepared to take overall responsibility. The Minister has particular responsibilities as Minister for marine and fisheries matters—I often deal with him in connection with fisheries—and is assiduous in carrying them out. Others, doubtless in the Departments for Transport, for Environment and Rural Affairs, and of Energy and Climate Change, have their role to play as well, but there is not the ministerial champion for marine science that my hon. Friend spoke about. That not only affects our ability to approach the subject properly; for reasons that I shall come to, it risks diminishing the strategic interest that the United Kingdom could derive from a proper, coherent approach. It is a matter of concern that the MSCC has still met only twice and that there is no coherent strategy in sight, although that was to be produced as a matter of urgency. The MSCC seems to be inadequate in its composition, and the lack of independent voices within it should be of particular concern. I see wider resonances in our approach to matters relating to the sea. I have taken an interest in matters relating to oil pollution since I was first elected; we have had debates in this Chamber about them. I look at organisations such as the International Oil Pollution Compensation Funds, which is basically a fund that was set up by oil and shipping companies in recognition of the fact that somewhere in the world at some time there would be a major oil spill that would have to be cleaned up. The companies pay whatever they think necessary into the fund. People in my constituency were certainly grateful for the existence of the IOPC Funds when the Braer ran aground, but we would much rather oil and shipping companies shipped oil around the world in reliable, good-quality vessels, thereby avoiding spill incidents. A more recent example is the Prestige, which was damaged off the north-west coast of Spain. That spill is an absolute blight on those coastal communities. In fact, it was the second time that that stretch of coast had been hit. The IOPC Funds will doubtless meet the cost of cleaning up the oil, but there is a psychological cost to a community that has been hit in such a way, and no compensation will ever repair that damage. My hon. Friend asked several highly pertinent questions about the marine science strategy, and I hope that the Minister is in a position to answer them today. If not, a limited number of us are here today, and I believe that we would all appreciate a detailed answer in writing at a later stage. The hon. Member for Bolton, South-East (Dr. Iddon) correctly drew our attention to the interaction of the oceans and climate change in general. That is something about which we know only the tip of the iceberg, to use a highly inappropriate metaphor. It is very much a developing field. From my interest in fishing over the years, I know that there have been significant changes to different fish stocks as a result of the cooling of the seas. There are different issues in respect of cod stocks in the North sea, for example. It was believed that much of the decline might be the result of cooling waters, because cod are known to be particularly affected by water temperature. Part of the problem with marine science is that much of it is inexact. A more coherent and, dare I say it, occasionally better-funded approach would allow more informed and vigorous debate than has been apparent so far. There are knock-on effects in the ecosystem. Every year, I visit the more-difficult-to-reach parts of my constituency. I remember a couple of years ago being shown on Foula in Shetland the sea bird cliffs, which as recently as my first election were full of sea birds, but they were virtually empty. The reason for that is that the sea bird colonies have had several poor breeding seasons, and the reason for that has been the almost total disappearance of the sand eel population. That is something that you, Lady Winterton, have expressed your views on, as have I. It is the kind of thing that would not be allowed to happen if there were a coherent approach to the co-ordination of marine science. That thought leads me to the second point made by the hon. Member for Bolton, South-East about co-ordination between marine science and other marine interests. He said that we had to be clear about whether we wanted the co-ordination of marine science, which is clearly important, or something more overarching. As someone who was born in an island community and represents island communities, and has interacted with marine scientists in different ways over the years, my preference is for a more overarching approach. I am inherently suspicious of anything that seeks to divorce science from other things, put it in a box and pretend that it is somehow capable of separation from other aspects of everyday life. In fact, scientists themselves would benefit from the great deal of information and data that are held by other marine users. The hon. Gentleman spoke about the need for co-ordination of marine science in the Arctic, and the Scottish Association for Marine Science and the world-famous laboratory at Dunstaffnage, near Oban. This is an area of increasing interest and, occasionally, of tension in dealings between Russia and Norway. For that reason, there is a strategic interest for the UK as a whole in getting its act together on marine science. If we are to be part of the discussion—because of our geography, we clearly need to be part of it—we must get our act together and bring together a coherent body of science so that we can make a meaningful contribution to the debate.