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10.13 am
Mr. David Shaw (Dover): At present, my constituency of Dover is suffering because the roads have been cut off by snow. We heard on the news that 500 lorries and200 cars were unable to get out of Dover yesterday and that the A20 had to be cleared. There is a lesson to be learnt here. Not only should we thank the emergency and other services for the way in which they reacted yesterday, but my hon. Friend the Minister should re-examine the delays in dualling the A2 into Dover. It is vital that there should be access to Dover via both the A20 and the A2 as access is vital to our ferry industry.
I also thank the emergency services for their work in Deal on the flooding in the high street and around the seafront. It has been a terrible time for many of my constituents.
I do not agree with the hon. Member for Newport, West (Mr. Flynn). I even disagreed with his Latin quotation.I shall not quibble about the accuracy of his Latin, but he tried to make out that Julius Caesar was one of the first people safely to cross the English channel. A bronze age ship was recently discovered in Dover, which suggests that people were crossing the English channel safely and landing at Dover 4,000 years ago. We have a longer history of safe ships in Dover than the hon. Gentleman suggested.
There is a cavalier attitude among Labour Members with regard to ship and ferry safety. Our ships, and Dover's ferry industry, have a tremendous record on safety and carrying passengers. In the United Kingdom, there are 50 million passenger journeys by ship each year
and some 20 million of them are on Dover ferries. The safety record has been extraordinary when one considers the time period. Even with the tragic disaster of the Herald of Free Enterprise, we have managed to create an industry that, in terms of passenger travel, is one of the safest in the world. This year, with the new ferry company,Sea France, joining P and O and Stena Sealink, we shall have some 20 freight and passenger ships--as well as hovercraft and Hoverspeed--operating out of Dover.
The ships are constantly checked and monitored. I pay tribute to the Marine Safety Agency, which does an excellent job of checking those ferries and ships. Sometimes, the ferry operators are pre-warned because the checks are exhaustive, thorough and detailed, but ferry operators are often not warned about the safety inspectors' visits. The safety agency staff take a ferry crossing without telling anybody and check the safety procedures on board. That is a powerful incentive to get the safety procedures right.
Our ships in Dover are modern ships fitted with modern safety equipment. Safety is regarded as absolutely critical for our ferry industry. I believe that ro-ro ferries are very safe indeed.
The 1986 Herald of Free Enterprise disaster had a devastating effect on my constituents. Many of them lost family members. Many of them knew or were friendly with families who lost someone. The tragedy was devastating in my area. I am afraid, however, that the Herald of Free Enterprise disaster was not caused by design problems. There was one simple, basic reason why it went down--alcoholism among certain members of the crew.
It is a tragedy to re-explore the matter, but there is a lesson that we have to learn. There was a terrible human error. The doors were not closed and no one checked. The procedures on board ship were a disaster and alcoholism was rampant among the crew. The House may wonder how that state of affairs came about and why there was such a lack of discipline. In reality, the officers were not in control--extreme left-wing trade unionists were in control of the ship.
Mr. Flynn:
The hon. Gentleman has reduced the debate to a ludicrous level by suggesting that the disaster was political. Families of Herald of Free Enterprise victims gave moving evidence to the inquiry that the tragedy was not caused by human error. Although human error is responsible for 73 per cent. of accidents, the Herald of Free Enterprise disaster was caused by a combination of human error and the ship's design. There could have been drunken crews on other vessels, but they would not have capsized in 90 seconds.
Mr. Shaw:
The hon. Gentleman will believe what he wants to believe, even if it is totally untrue. Alcoholism caused the Herald of Free Enterprise to go down. People did not do their jobs because they were drunk. Before 1986, and in 1986, there was too much drinking by crews on board. P and O stopped that. Today, anyone found to have consumed alcohol while crewing a ferry is instantly dismissed. In 1986, extreme left-wing trade unionists would not allow the ships' officers to discipline crew members who drank alcohol on duty. Moderate trade
The situation today is totally different. Management has taken control of the ships and the officers are in charge. Proper procedures are enforced at every level. Warning lights monitor the closing of bow doors and other key areas. Closed circuit television constantly scans the car decks and bow doors. The crew and officers make frequent checks on safety procedures and on seals around the bow doors. No alcohol is drunk by officers or crew before going on board or when on board, because that is banned. Today, we have superb officers and crew on ships in Dover. They are well-trained, able people who take safety seriously.
There are no ferries in Dover of a design similar to the Estonia. The bow doors on that ship were open, which of course was dangerous. In addition, they were not properly checked and the fastenings were deficient. Dover ferries are totally different from the Estonia.
Mr. Flynn:
Is the hon. Gentleman seriously suggesting that the Estonia was sailing with her bow doors open in the Baltic that night in September? Did I hear the hon. Gentleman correctly? Is he saying that the bow doors were left open after the ship left Tallinn?
Mr. Shaw:
Either the fastenings were such that the bow doors were beginning to open, or the fastenings had failed and the bow doors opened as soon as the sea became rough. We know that the bow doors on the Estonia opened in a way that no Dover ferry bow doors can. It is impossible for a Dover ferry's bow doors to open in the way that the bow doors on the Estonia opened.
The hon. Member for Newport, West dismissed the SOLAS 90 test in a cavalier and irresponsible way. That test has been applied to a number of Dover ferries in model form in a tank. The models had a hole equivalent to 9 m put in their sides, from top to bottom, and the equivalent of 50 cm of water put in. The model Dover ferries did not sink in those circumstances. Water rolled out as much as it rolled in, and the tank model remained stable. New designs are being considered all the time, which might make further improvements possible. Higher decks, for example, will transform the current structures. Catamarans and other such vessels are being considered in Dover.
The constant improvements to safety are made possible by profits. Labour Members were knocking profits.
Mr. Shaw:
I believe that the hon. Gentleman did.
Mr. Mackinlay:
I did not. I said that I was a defender of fair competition. The hon. Gentleman seems to have overlooked the fact that we have in the channel tunnel a modern transportation system whose safety standards are not applied comparably by its competitors, the ferry operators. That seems to be unfair competition. I want
Mr. Shaw:
Ferry safety standards are at least equal to those of the channel tunnel. I shall not get into a depressing argument about whether more people are likely to be killed in a channel tunnel disaster than in a ferry disaster. Both facilities try desperately to make their services as safe as possible. I may knock the channel tunnel in terms of its quality of service and financing, which has been diabolical--there is no fair competition when £8 billion or more of debt is effectively written off and no interest is paid--but on the issue of safety I would not be prepared to attack the channel tunnel unless I had substantial evidence. In different ways, ferry and channel tunnel operators make every attempt to ensure that their facilities are as safe as possible.
Mr. Matthew Banks (Southport):
I know that my hon. Friend will be drawing his speech to a close in a few moments, because a number of other hon. Members want to contribute to this short debate. My hon. Friend is entirely right on at least one point. The hon. Member for Newport, West (Mr. Flynn) mentioned in his closing remarks--which I wrote down, because I was concerned about them--that ferry operators were paying minimum attention to safety, to maximise their profits. That was the broad thrust of the hon. Gentleman's argument. My hon. Friend was clearly right to draw attention to that nonsense.
Mr. Shaw:
I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. I assure him that I am paying regard to the time, but the House is not as full as it has sometimes been for such debates.
I attended the safety exercise in Dover and saw the Stena ship evacuated. Labour Members did not.
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