My Lords, I follow the same line as the noble Earl. In the previous debate, a noble Lord referred to the noble Lord, Lord Graham of Edmonton, as a “diamond” and “dogged”. Well, the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, is certainly dogged. If he is as good as his word and lets this Bill go through, I might even describe him as a diamond.
We have been talking semantics here about “deck officer”. “Deck officer” is a term that has been used for many years, as the noble Lord, Lord MacKenzie, said. Everybody at sea knows what a deck officer is.
My worry is about the future. I attended the City of London maritime dinner last night, where the lord mayor and the noble Lord, Lord Green, the Trade Minister, made excellent speeches about the great importance of our maritime business right across the board, from shipping to insurance to arbitration to lawyers, and in maintaining the City of London as the world centre for these operations.
On the issue of pilotage exemption certificates, a real problem is looming, certainly in the ferry industry. The demographic graph shows that a lot of the officers are within five years of retirement. Where are the younger officers going to come from? The Bill would enable young and upcoming officers to advance up the tree perhaps rather more quickly by gaining pilotage exemption certificates. It will not happen across the board. There will be a few here and a few there; it will not be widespread. They are our seed corn for manning our ships in future. More importantly, we hope that some of these people will in time become pilots, so it will benefit the pilotage business in the longer term. That is a very important point to make.
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