My Lords, having noticed that my noble friend Lord Prescott is in his place I shall make my speech shorter than it would otherwise have been, since his expertise in respect of this issue both as a Minister and of course in his previous life is far greater than anything that I can contribute. At Second Reading on 7 July, I mentioned that the Joint Committee that I had the privilege of chairing and that looked at the draft Bill a year ago did not take any evidence on the clause relating to marine accident investigations, so there is no comment in the Joint Committee’s report about the issue. I also said on Second Reading at col. 30 that I thought that we should take a look at it more closely as it goes through this House. I said that in relation to two or three other issues as well. We had hundreds of submissions on a Bill that had 65 clauses at that time—this Bill has 91—so we could not do everything in the time allowed. There were one or two issues on which I thought Parliament should spend some time because it had not done so and it is important that the legislation is scrutinised.
I have gone back to look. Although the Joint Committee did not take any evidence on marine accidents, so far as I can check from the full list on the web it did receive three items of written evidence. One was from the UK Chamber of Shipping. I freely admit that, because the Joint Committee did not go into this in detail, this is the first time that I have read what the
UK Chamber of Shipping wrote and I have not done lots of research on this. The UK Chamber of Shipping supported the logic of the change proposed. It pointed out that these changes were outlined in Marine Guidance Note 458 issued in 2012 and no concerns had been raised. There were a lot of red tape challenge issues relating to marine matters that I am not going to go into in great detail. The reference for the UK Chamber of Shipping written evidence is DDB0206. It is on the website.
Nautilus International also sent in written evidence, reference DDB0266, relating to what was then Clause 25 in the draft Bill. I am not going to go into great detail about this. Nautilus International is the union for maritime professionals. It certainly raised matters that ought to be considered. I do not think that it was wholly in support of the amendment as it was drafted. It,
“respectfully pointed out that in the case of the loss of the MV “Derbyshire”, that the technological advancement had been such that it was possible to locate the wreck and to ascertain more accurately its true loss and”—
I have no doubt that my noble friend will raise this—
“so as to bring about changes in the rules of construction that subsequently could save unnecessary burden and expenditure upon the industry”.
Therefore it is an important issue for relatives. It also said,
“it would seem pointless in removing this flexibility from the Secretary of State”—
about a second inquiry—
“that could be extremely beneficial in both allaying public anxiety following a marine incident and addressing the concerns of those directly or indirectly involved”.
The third piece of written evidence, reference DDB0294, was from RMT. It made clear that it strongly opposed the proposal in what was Clause 25. I am not going to go into detail about that because I am going to use part of the RMT brief now.
There were those three bits of evidence and it is important to put this on the record. The evidence was provided, the Joint Committee did not seek any further particulars, and we did not go into any detail regarding the Bill. The matter was raised during the passage of the Bill, which I am pleased about. It was raised while the Bill went through the House of Commons. Last week I apologised straightaway because I had been grossly misinformed about an issue we dealt with last week that I said had not been dealt with in the Commons, but it had been. In this case, the issue certainly was dealt with in the Commons. That is quite important. The issue was dealt with at Second Reading on 3 February and then in Committee on 11 March.
I want to make a couple of general points because the answer from the Government on 11 March from the Solicitor-General appeared to hinge on two key arguments. First, that it would remain mandatory to reopen the formal investigation if there are grounds to suspect a miscarriage of justice. Secondly, removing the duty to reopen will,
“facilitate the more efficient administration of reopened formal inquiries without compromising marine safety”.—[Official Report, Commons Deregulation Bill Committee; 11/3/14; col. 306.]
The RMT’s latest briefing turned up on the internet. I am privileged to have seen this amendment, which I thought it was worth raising. I have now come to the conclusion that the clause should not remain in the Bill, but if it does it should be amended. The RMT’s point about the miscarriage of justice is that:
“The Secretary of State’s power in the 1995 Act (269(1)(b)) … to re-open an accident investigation if he/she suspects that a miscarriage of justice may have occurred is retained but we remain concerned that this places the bar too high in such instances and will further deter trade unions, NGOs and others from conducting the sort of campaign that led to the re-opening of the MV Derbyshire investigation and eventually secured justice for the families of those who died at sea working on a UK flagged vessel. We are clear that a duty to reopen an investigation in the circumstances set out here is far safer than the power to re-open on the grounds of a miscarriage of justice”.
So takes issue with the central plank of the Government’s argument that they have got it right in the Bill.
The second point the Minister made related to the administration of marine accident inquiries. The RMT now says, having considered all these issues, that:
“This line of argument is consistent with that made by the Chamber of Shipping in support of abolishing the Duty. The argument goes that removing the Duty is just a bit of ‘tidying’ to bring the Merchant Shipping Act into line with recently revised guidance … on marine accidents and investigations. RMT continues to reject this line of argument for the following reasons, none of which were satisfactorily answered by the Minister … in Committee”.
I am giving the Minister plenty of warning now about the answers we want today.
As the Government acknowledged in Committee in the Commons, the Marine Accident Investigation Branch is not an enforcement or prosecuting body. Its role is restricted to establishing the causes and circumstances of an accident in the aftermath partly to prevent future accidents. The duty to reopen investigations under the 1995 Act therefore remains an important statutory safeguard over the longer term if the initial accident investigation board investigation is found to be lacking.
Secondly, the duty in the 1995 Act is not regulatory goldplating. Paragraph 6 of the Marine Guidance Note 458 states:
“The Regulations … set out requirements for reporting accidents and serious injuries. They do not require the requirements of formal investigations or other public inquiries”.
Therefore, the duty in the 1995 Act is untouched by recent changes through regulations, and needs to be retained in the event of marine accidents involving UK-flagged vessels, particularly in the deep-sea sector.
5.30 pm
The third point to which they objected was that, as they said:
“Abolishing the Duty is a threat to seafarer safety. Re-opening an investigation is rare but occasionally necessary and should not be down to the whim of an individual Secretary of State. On the occasions that such an investigation has been opened it has led to significant improvements in safety, ranging from the structural design of vessels to the survivability of serious weather-related incidents at sea”.
I was going to go into the details of what actually happened as a result of some of these investigations, including more than 20 different recommendations being made about the safety and design of vessels, all of which were accepted.
Therefore, this is not a little bit of tidying up. I can understand how he got done with the Red Tape Challenge. I cannot keep criticising it all the while, it is just that I know of one particular incident relating to the Red Tape Challenge which arose from nothing more than the anecdotal views of a couple of environmental health officers on food safety, which all of a sudden became a great cause celebre. Well, it was nothing of the kind. There was no evidence.
There is no formal consultation on this, by the way. That is the other issue. That is noted in the back of the Joint Committee’s report: there is informal consultation and a reference to the Red Tape Challenge, which is a bit suspect. The amendment is the second-best amendment, but certainly covers the point, maintaining a secondary investigation funded by trade unions and other organisations representing families of victims of the accident.
The Government have got to have a much better case than they have made so far in the Commons for dealing with this. It would be much better if it were dealt with in the tranquillity of Grand Committee, in an orderly fashion. I presume that they have had time to think about this. It was raised in the Commons, so it is not a surprise that it is being raised in the Lords. I flagged up at Second Reading that I thought that the House should look at it. I am hoping that the Minister has got some considered views from, I presume, the Department for Transport and others. I beg to move.