Merchant Shipping (Marine Equipment) (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 — House of Lords, 2019-02-20
Topic: Mixed Topics
Andrew Adonis (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I am very grateful to the Minister for her rapid-fire introduction. I hope she will not mind me saying that the only thing that she said which I welcome is that there will be a plain English marine information note. She said that this would be for foreign ship owners, but may I suggest that she also circulates it to Members of your Lordships’ House, because we might find the plain English version a great deal more comprehensible than these regulations No one can doubt the importance of the issues that we are talking about, even at this late hour—although the noble Lord, Lord Grade, may think it superfluous for us to pay any attention to them at all because it is keeping him from his dinner. We are talking about life-saving appliances, firefighting equipment, navigation equipment, pollution prevention and reduction equipment and so on—literally life and death equipment in respect of ships and the operation of a safe marine industry. So it is important that we get this right, and the noble Baroness and her department are doing their level best to do so I have a question and a comment. The noble Baroness may have answered the question, but I need to be clear that I fully understand it so that people reading the account of our debate fully understand it. The big question is what is meant by "choice" in paragraph 7.2 of the Explanatory Memorandum, which says: "Under these Regulations, UK ships will have the choice of two types of approved marine equipment: (i) equipment which has EU approval … or (ii) equipment which has been approved under the UK system which these Regulations establish" When I read that, it worried me, because the choice might mean that you have a confused situation where operators could potentially opt for the less demanding standards in respect of this equipment, as our standards diverge over time. That is not a situation, I think, that the House would welcome—let alone our EU partners, who might then raise some serious questions about trade between our countries I need to explain what I think is the situation for the Minister to tell me whether I am correct. There is not in fact a choice. The actual situation is that ship owners that are operating on exit day and that have EU equipment can simply continue operating with EU equipment without any end date. But what is the situation for new ships—or is it new equipment on ships? I am already reaching an issue that it is important to clarify. Is it new equipment that can meet UK standards rather than EU standards, or is it just new ships? I would welcome a clarification of what the actual regime is. If I have got it correct, the issue is not that they have a choice but that equipment and/or ships procured after exit day can observe new UK standards, insofar as they diverge from EU standards—one would hope that they do not diverge, or we could get a gaming situation in respect of different standards Simply in seeking to explain this to the House, I have already noticed one issue: namely, can ships that are in operation on exit day which have existing EU-approved equipment replace that equipment to the previous EU standard, or will they be required to have equipment of the new UK standard? Or does the new UK standard requirement apply only to completely new ships? I am not a shipping industry expert, but I imagine that a lot of this safety equipment goes together and that mixing and matching to different standards would not be a good thing. I would be grateful if the noble Baroness would confirm that the actual situation is that there is not actually a choice but that it is a question of dates I shall make a point that I make all the time—it does not become a less significant point just because this is about the 100th time I have made it—that, given the issues at stake here, there should clearly have been consultation with the industry. There has not been consultation, but we get a new formulation for the lack of consultation in each of the regulations. Sometimes it is "focused stakeholder engagement" and sometimes it is "trusted stakeholders". In the Explanatory Memorandum of this one we are simply told, at paragraph 10.1: "The marine equipment industry has been informed of the Department’s intention" That is all it says, and then it says that thereafter there has been "informal engagement". There is not even a pretence of consultation in this regulation. The industry has simply been informed As for safety standards, of course it is the job of the Government and Parliament to set those safety standards. My concern is that they will not be in any way diminished and that there is nothing in these regulations—and in particular the prospect of UK regulations diverging from existing EU regulations—that could lead anyone to expect that they will be diminished over time.