The House is grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Jackie Doyle-Price) for sharing her expertise on the important work done by the police linked to harbours. We all agree that my hon. Friend the Member for South East Cornwall (Sheryll Murray) is doing a service to the nation and to those who use our harbours and ports. I will not repeat what we have heard about her expertise and involvement, but I pay tribute to her. I also welcome the hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick), who we have heard was at the memorial service for our former colleague Malcolm Wicks, who was the kind of person who gave politics and political service a good name.
I have no intention of delaying the Bill and want to see it on the statute book. There has clearly been bipartisan agreement about it for some time. Its purposes are necessary and the changes are sensible. I do not think that there is a serous objection to anything in particular, other than the need to sort out what was not clear to the constituent of the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Andrew Miller), which is that clause 2(1) is an amendment to an Act that is very clear about the person who holds a pilot certificate or is recognised as a competent pilot for one or more vessels. That is a strong and necessary provision that is being continued. I pay tribute to the hon. Gentleman for raising the point about clause 5, which I will like to speak about shortly.
My maritime experience was gained when I worked my passage back from Brisbane to Liverpool, working 16 hours a day on a 7,000-tonne freighter. Given some of our experiences while crossing the Australian bight, I have a respect for those who go to sea in all weathers, especially on long journeys, and the fishermen who put up with whatever the weather throws at them. At some stage I might write half a chapter for my unread and unwritten autobiography about what can happen when 82 people are on a vessel for seven weeks. Nowadays there would be about 17 people, so half the things that happened would not happen now.
I also think that it is about time we got back to recognising—this is a brief diversion—some of our great maritime stories. I think that the works of Joseph Conrad should be brought back and given the same importance as the present Man Booker nominees, as should those of Somerset Maugham and Erskine Childers, who wrote “The Riddle of the Sands”, which, although written as a warning about possible threats of war, is I think one of the most evocative books ever written about the sea and about sailing, and certainly the most evocative I have read.
I welcome my hon. Friend the Minister to his responsibilities and congratulate him on how he has already approached these issues in being willing to
intervene in the debate and to say that he will happily meet those with concerns about particular parts of the Bill. That will make a difference.
I am a life member of the Royal Yachting Association, partly to avoid its spotting how bad a sailor I am and saying that it will not renew my membership unless I take another course. The RYA knows perfectly well that when there is an issue that I think it has not got right, I will pursue it, as I did at the last annual general meeting; I pay tribute to how it has responded since.
We have to look at the reasons for its concerns. Nobody expects that the navigation or harbour authorities are going to do anything silly or daft. They carry out their responsibilities in providing navigation aids and controlling safety in and around their harbours in a way that is much appreciated, whether by leisure sailors, commercial traffic or the fishing industry. When I was agriculture Minister in the Northern Ireland Office, one of the happiest times I had was going out fishing from Kilkeel at midnight on one of those very calm nights when the water reflected the moon. Those who smoked had a fag and then pulled in their nets, and about 4 tonnes of fish were landed. It was one of those magical evenings where one can understand the allure of the sea.
My Friend the Minister may say, as no doubt his predecessor will have said before the change of Government, that if an authority is going to do something that is clearly irrational there is the opportunity for a judicial review. Whenever a port authority needs to make an emergency provision, no one is going to argue with its doing so—safety comes first, and there is usually a reason for it.
The issues that come up for consultation are those which will have permanent effect or might create a new criminal offence. There may be a judicial review if the authority, either by its own choice or because it is following a pattern created by other port and harbour authorities, is ignoring the legitimate interests of other people.