My Lords, I thank the Minister for her very clear introduction. I have no criticism of the regulations themselves, but I want to concentrate on the backlog of maritime legislation within the department and its impact on the sector. I am very grateful to the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee. It has repeatedly drawn attention to this problem, which has existed since 2016. Since then there have been five separate updates to MARPOL, to which the Minister referred. I believe the department still needs to implement over 40 changes to maritime legislation. These regulations, although very welcome, are very late as well.
The Department for Transport says that it has not prioritised this raft of legislation because operators tend to comply with IMO regulatory requirements as ships cross international boundaries all the time. That statement is contradicted by the Government’s own Explanatory Memorandum, which states that the ability of inspectors to sanction non-compliant ships will be very limited until these regulations come into force.
My real concern is the vagueness of all this, so can the Minister provide us with a lot more detail? First, on the simple numbers, the SLSC was told that, of the 40-plus backlog, 10 have now been made, 10—including this one—are in the final stages, and another eight are in the very final stages of preparation and anticipated to be introduced in the 2022-23 Session. The remainder are at an earlier stage of development and are anticipated to be complete by the end of 2023. This is far too slow and could mean that some legislation has been delayed for seven years.
Can the Minister explain exactly how many pieces of legislation are in that final slow lane and why they have been placed there? I realise it is far too much to ask for this to be done here, but could she write to us with a list of all the pieces of legislation in this backlog and say which pieces are in which category? The original DfT target to deal with this backlog was 2020, so why has it lapsed so badly?
I realise that the pandemic has affected everything, but in itself that is not a sufficient excuse, because the pandemic goes back only some 18 months and this backlog goes back to 2016. It must be seen in the
context of other delays in DfT legislation. We are in a position where we need more legislation on EVs, driverless cars and other key areas of transport development. A major question must be why the department does not devote more resource to keeping up with modern transport developments. I agree with the committee, which labels the number of delayed pieces of legislation “highly disturbing”.
This is not just a numbers game. Let us look at the implication of these pieces of legislation. Many of them, like this one, have environmental implications. This one concerns sulphur oxide and nitrogen oxide and is about reducing air pollution; it is another example of a Government who talk tough on pollution but fail to deliver on the crucial detail. We must remember that this is about the health and working conditions of sailors as well as the overall state of our planet. Working conditions for many in the maritime sector are often very poor. Many are subject to exploitation and they are certainly often overlooked. We owe it to them to ensure that the UK upholds the highest standards.
This is London International Shipping Week, and I note that the industry has committed itself this week to zero carbon by 2050. It certainly needs the Government to do a great deal more to support it in achieving that. So although these regulations are welcome as far as they go, I would like to see much more from the Government to demonstrate that they are serious about tackling emissions from ships because of the impact on ships’ crews, cruise passengers and dockyard workers, as well as on our planet.