Light Dues

I came to listen, Mr. Olner, but I have to indulge, I am afraid. I have had a great interest in marine safety ever since I was a young boy, when I wrote an essay on a sea rescue and won a prize from the Royal National Lifeboat Institution. Some hon. Members might remember that I put through the Marine Safety Act 2003, which plugged two loopholes in previous legislation that was attributable to the late Lord Donaldson. We must remember that there have been at least three major shipping disasters—the Torrey Canyon and the Sea Empress, to name just two—and that Lord Donaldson wrote two magnificent reports which resulted, first, in four emergency towing vehicles being put around the British coast to rescue ships in trouble, and, later, more legislation. Today, Britain has some of the best legislation in the world on marine safety. Having said that, the main problem that we face is wider than just light dues; it is about competition in the shipping industry, which, obviously, is an international industry. Responsible shipowners, who are probably the ones who are making the most noise about light dues, are in competition with shipping firms at the other end of the spectrum who invest very little in the training of their crews, including the senior officers, from the captain downwards, who are in control of their ships. They spend very little on maintenance of what are well nigh rust buckets sailing the seven seas, and the salaries and wages of the crews do not bear thinking about. That is the problem in the shipping industry. When we talk about investing £90 million in maintaining buoys, lighthouses and the rest of the marine safety features that dot our coastline—20,000 miles of it—we are talking about a small percentage of total shipping costs. I believe that it is international competition that is making our shipowners shout about the light dues. Piracy must also be increasing shipping costs for some of our main shipowners who travel down the east coast of Africa. We must praise Trinity House. Very little has been said about it, but it collects 87 per cent. of the revenue. It was mentioned that it has reduced its costs by 50 per cent. in the past 10 years alone, yet there has been no increase in light dues since 1993. Let us give credit where it is due. How has Trinity House managed that? As the hon. Member for Canterbury (Mr. Brazier) said, lighthouses have been automated, but they still have to be regularly serviced by helicopters to ensure that the lights are always working, particularly in the most dangerous outlying situations. We are talking about the British isles plus the coastline of the Irish Republic—20,000 miles of some of the most dangerous coastline in the world. Shipping coming into Liverpool has to negotiate Ireland. Surely that is part of the reason why we subsidise the Commissioners of Irish Lights. When we talk about the CIL, we are talking about the whole of Ireland. Obviously, we have to subsidise the part of Ireland that the British Government are responsible for, but shipping coming into Liverpool, Cardiff and other ports, including some of the smaller ports, has to negotiate Ireland. If Ireland were not properly lit and buoys were not properly placed in the sea around the Irish coast, it would be far more dangerous for shipping to come into ports such as Liverpool. Therefore, I cannot get as anxious as some hon. Members are about subsidising the CIL. How have Trinity House and the other general lighthouse authorities managed to achieve such a massive reduction in their expenditure? Apart from automation, which includes solarisation—I am always amazed by the many solar panels that are on top of buoys and attached to other marine safety features—they have made many redundancies, not just of lighthouse keepers but across the estate. They have massively rationalised their operations during the past 10 years, and they have sold land and property in their ownership and are still doing so, one of the most recent sales being at Great Yarmouth. However, there is a warning for all three of the GLAs in this country. One shipping company made the point that it now relies more on global positioning systems. It said that it can almost bring a ship into a British port or any port in the world relying entirely on the one satellite that provides GPS. The ship almost drives itself if it is attached to GPS. Those are very expensive navigation instruments, of course, and they have to be paid for, but what would happen if that one satellite were to go down? We would again be reliant on traditional and well-tried methods of lighting our coastline.