European Communities (Definition of Treaties) (Maritime Labour Convention) Order 2009

I am grateful to the Minister for introducing the order and for the clear and comprehensive way in which he has explained its purpose. For the reasons explained by the Minister, the order is very desirable and I have no difficulty with it. It is to be hoped that the convention will be seen as the beginning of the end of unfair employment agreements for seafarers, and we look forward to the implementation of the MLC. However, the MLC is the fourth pillar of the international legal regime for the global shipping industry. The others are SOLAS, MARPOL and STCW, the Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping for Seafarers. I am extremely concerned, as are many others, about the effectiveness of STCW. At 00.20 hours on 21 July 2000, the container feeder vessel "Coastal Bay" ran aground in Church Bay, Anglesey. The reason why was that the chief officer was alone on the bridge and failed to make a planned alteration in course. This was because the chief officer had probably been asleep for about 20 minutes before the course change was required. This is not unusual. In June 2003, the coaster "Jambo" ran aground off the coast of Scotland. Again the cause was the chief officer falling asleep and failing to make a planned course change. In September 2004, the "Jackie Moon" ran aground in the Firth of Clyde. Guess what. The chief officer had fallen asleep. There are plenty more examples. It is also reasonable to expect that there have been many more near misses, close shaves and errors made for similar reasons. The interesting point in all these examples is that the safe manning requirements had been met but the workload of the officers was too great and they had not had enough sleep; they were suffering from fatigue. Noble Lords may be surprised to hear how few crew these ships are obliged to carry. For instance, the motor vessel "Coastal Bay" had a crew of just seven, comprising the master, chief officer, chief engineer, two able seamen, an ordinary seaman and a cook. The safe manning certificate for the vessel issued in March 1999 required only a minimum of three deck ratings in addition to the three officers. Therefore the cook was carried in excess of the requirements. There are regulations about hours of work, but the recent Nautilus survey exposed some serious problems. For instance, question 11 asks: "Are your records a genuine reflection of your hours?" Eighty three per cent of UK seafarers said, "Yes" but 16 per cent said "No". The reasons given for this by the respondents was fairly predictable. So far, we have been relatively lucky, although many ships have been lost. That, of course, imposes a cost on industry; but, sooner or later, one of these ships will run into something much more vulnerable when the officer on watch is asleep or, perhaps, incapacitated, as has happened in another incident. One only has to think of the consequences of a large merchantman running into the side of a passenger ferry or LNG tanker. I am not accusing the Minister or the department of failing in their duty. It is not easy to secure an increase in manning levels. Shipping is very sensitive to crewing costs, and it is essential to secure an international agreement. There is little point in increasing requirements for our own fleet only to see business lost to lower-cost foreign-flagged vessels. The MLC order that we are debating is the result of much hard work and difficult negotiations over five years, as the Minister explained. However, the simple fact is that this type of accident is entirely avoidable by slightly increased manning. It is not for me to get involved in the detail, but the Minister should do everything in his power to improve matters.