Transport: Remote Island Communities in England — House of Lords, 2017-07-20
Topic: Transportation
Anthony Gueterbock (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I am very grateful to all noble Lords who have taken part in this debate. We have learned a great deal about the problems and issues around travel and transport mainly to and from the Isles of Scilly. However, it was good to hear the right reverend Prelate talk about the challenges of getting to Holy Island, and the joys and benefits of island communities, with or without cars, once you get there All noble Lords who spoke about the Isles of Scilly said that there is effectively a failure of the present market, given that the service is pretty awful and is getting worse, and expressed concerns about the future of the islands unless something is done about that. I am not going to go on for too long about individual contributions but it was interesting to hear the noble Lord, Lord Greenway, talk about the need for a replacement ship. For the last five years, we have heard that the steamship company was going to replace the "Scillonian III". Two or three years ago, that ship managed to sail for a whole summer without a valid safety certificate because nobody had picked that up. It was not discovered until November of that year, when it was too late to do anything. There is no evidence that that company has the finance, or possibly the ability, to buy and operate a new ship. It says that it has but it has been saying that for five years. Perhaps the "Scillonian" will limp on for another five years and we shall all enjoy going on it. However, there will probably be more constraints with regard to the number of passengers and it still will not operate in the winter It is interesting that the Minister’s response basically was that everything was all right and a commercial service is operating. However, we have to reflect on what would happen if that one ship, which is fairly unique, as the noble Lord, Lord Greenway, said, no longer operated. I hope that there are no accidents but it could just break down. I think that it has broken down a couple of times this year and there was no service. What would happen to the islanders in that case? The flights could take a few people and the new freight ship, if and when it is operational, could take a few more, but the island economy would be absolutely devastated, especially in the summer. There may be no definition of a lifeline service but perhaps we should think about what is reasonable in that regard The one thing that the Minister did not address was why Scotland is different. Commercial services operate to Islay, which I think the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, mentioned, but there is also a lifeline service. If the Scottish Government look after their islands in that way, why do not the English Government—as I call them—do likewise for the islands for which they have responsibility? We in Britain think that we are an island nation and it is all wonderful. However, it appears that the smaller islands can go hang, although, if they survive, that is quite nice. I hope that we never experience what happened to a little island off the west coast of Ireland, which was permanently evacuated by the Irish Government about 100 years ago as they could not provide a ferry service across a comparatively short stretch of water to give somebody who had just died a decent burial. We have to do better than this. We must all reflect on today’s debate, and I hope that the Minister will be prepared to have a meeting or two when we come back in the autumn to see how we can take this further.