CORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE    

HOUSE OF COMMONS

REPRESENTATIONS

TAKEN BEFORE THE

BACKBENCH BUSINESS COMMITTEE

BACKBENCH DEBATES

TUESDAY 8 FEBRUARY 2011

SARAH NEWTON, BILL ESTERSON, DR SARAH WOLLASTON and MR ANGUS BRENDAN MacNEIL

USE OF THE TRANSCRIPT

Representations

Taken before the Backbench Business Committee

on Tuesday 8 February 2011

Members present:

Natascha Engel (Chair)

Mr Peter Bone

Philip Davies

Jane Ellison

John Hemming

Ian Mearns

Sarah Newton, Bill Esterson, Dr Sarah Wollaston and Mr Angus Brendan MacNeil made representations.

Q1 Chair: Briefly, you have made your submission, which is brilliant-thank you very much. The sitting is much more to focus your and our minds on what you are bidding for. At the moment, we do not have any definite allocation of time. We depend on the Government allocating us some time in the Chamber and in Westminster Hall. We have nothing in Westminster Hall until the middle to the end of March. We potentially have some time in the Chamber, but that all depends on what happens in the House of Lords with the AV Bill. Time can suddenly be taken away or suddenly given to us. Today, unusually, we’re asking people to tell us whether they could organise a debate very quickly, at short notice. With that in mind, could you tell us why your debate is topical and why it’s important?

Sarah Newton: We could absolutely do that. I was taken aback when I had a Westminster Hall debate on the subject last week, and that has prompted me to come and see you today. I was frankly overwhelmed by the interest that Members showed. The issue is unusual because it affects the whole UK. If you have read any of the reporting of that debate, all the political parties in Northern Ireland were united in opposition to the Government’s proposals. They said themselves that it was an historic occasion, and they all wanted to contribute. About 20 Members were present, and I allowed a lot of interventions in my speech.

There was an overwhelming desire to have more time to talk about the issues with the Maritime and Coastguard Agency’s proposals. The head of the Maritime and Coastguard Agency gave evidence to the Select Committee this morning because the proposals are subject to a public consultation, which ends on 25 March. Certainly, any opportunity-preferably in the Chamber, but, if necessary, in Westminster Hall-to debate the matter during the consultation period would be welcome.

The Minister underlined the point that the MCA was undertaking genuine consultation, and has indicated that if Members and coastguards come forward with alternative proposals, they will be taken on board. It would therefore be a valuable use of parliamentary time, and enable Members who represent coastal communities to express their views-although the issue affects the whole UK because we rely on shipping for all our commerce and energy.

Q2 Chair: This is showing my ignorance, but I listened to the Today programme this morning and there was an item about a consultation on search and rescue helicopters being stopped. Does that have-or could it have-any bearing on or relationship with what you’re doing?

Sarah Newton: No.

Bill Esterson: It’s completely separate. The Maritime and Coastguard Agency has 18 coastguard stations around the country that currently take information about issues round the coast and out at sea. They pass on their information to the search and rescue teams, so they aren’t separate-there is clearly a link between the two services-but this morning’s announcement has nothing to do with the Government’s consultation.

Just to back up what Sarah said, eight different parties were represented in the Westminster Hall debate. Not everybody managed to speak-I managed one minute before we had to go to the Front Benchers, and other people didn’t speak at all. There are some key issues that there wasn’t time to discuss. What’s important about the additional time that the debate would allow us is that it would feed into the consultation process, because we only scratched the surface of a lot of issues, and the Minister didn’t have a chance to deal with them.

Q3 Chair: It was a one and a half hour debate in Westminster Hall?

Sarah Newton: Yes. We are talking about the emergency service for the sea. It co-ordinates the helicopters, as it co-ordinates the lifeboats. There is a huge volunteer arm as well.

Q4 Chair: So you could include the search and rescue helicopters in that wider debate?

Sarah Newton: I don’t think we’d want to because the scope of the changes is so significant to the way in which we coastguard, that, even with three hours, including the search and rescue helicopters would distract from and dilute the real concerns about the service. People will refer to the helicopters, but I think that including them in the debate would be a big distraction. The coastguard service is UK wide.

Q5 John Hemming: A technical point is that the difference between the Chamber and Westminster Hall is essentially that, in the Chamber, you can table a motion, whereas in Westminster Hall, you can’t. Basically, the way we like to do it is to put things in the Chamber only when there has to be a motion, not because it’s supposed to be a better place. Our argument is that it’s all the House of Commons, and the main difference is that you can table a motion in the Chamber. Do you have a motion? If so, what is it?

Sarah Newton: No. Personally, I didn’t think we could have a motion because the proposals are subject to consultation, and I think that we have all been reassured that it is genuine consultation. It would be difficult to table a motion because we would not know the final proposals at that stage.

John Hemming: That’s an argument for putting it into Westminster Hall.

Chair: That isn’t quite right, because we had a debate on legal aid in the Chamber, so we put general debates in the Chamber that do not have a voteable motion attached. Having a voteable motion isn’t a rule, but the Chamber is the only place where we can have one-we can’t in Westminster Hall.

Sarah Newton: I’m sure we could come up with a suitable motion.

Dr Wollaston: Could we have a motion that the House has considered the points made in the debate?

Chair: To have the House take note? Yes.

Dr Wollaston: The issue unites seven parties, which has to be a first.

Q6 Jane Ellison: Picking up on Sarah’s point about the subject uniting parties, as a landlocked, central London MP, let me push a bit about the purpose of the debate. Will it just provide a longer opportunity for lots of MPs from different parties to stand up and say broadly the same thing, or will it generate, as you argue, a varied contribution to the consultation? Are there shades of opinion? Will different things be brought out?

Bill Esterson: Perhaps I can deal with that. We had quite an interesting discussion in Westminster Hall, but it was curtailed. For example, I represent the Liverpool coastguard station and, in the consultation, there’s a choice between Liverpool and Belfast. We had the opportunity for the matter to be discussed between the MPs representing Belfast and those of us on the mainland. Similar issues arise elsewhere, for example, two stations in Scotland are being considered against each other. There are opportunities in a longer debate to tease out some of the subjects that we did not get very far with in the one and a half hours that we had.

I don’t think there’s a voteable motion at this stage; a debate would feed into the consultation process. I am very open to where the debate is, but it would be desirable to have it sooner rather than later. If there’s an opportunity to bring it forward, that would be good. I daresay we could arrange it at fairly short notice.

Sarah Newton: I think we could do it tomorrow, there is so much interest in it. To go back to what Jane was saying, you’re right that, in introducing the debate, we must appeal to people who have landlocked constituencies because many people in the UK take holidays in the UK-"staycations." They will come down to Devon and Cornwall and visit other parts of the country. We are concerned about the impact on tourism because if people using our beaches and undertaking leisure water sports do not feel that they have proper protection, that will start to affect our tourist industry.

Dr Wollaston: A debate would also be an opportunity to challenge some of the points in the consultation document. For example, the point is made that there is no loss of local knowledge because coastguards from my constituency would be amalgamated with Falmouth, yet Falmouth is shrinking by half, which means that none of the coastguards from Brixham will have an opportunity to move to Falmouth. Therefore, all that local knowledge will be lost for that whole stretch of coast. It is important that we have a chance to challenge publicly some of the points that are being made.

Q7 Mr Bone: It’s an excellent presentation, but I want to make a couple of points following what Mr Hemming said. If it’s a three hour debate about a consultation and you really just want to influence it, that sounds to me entirely like a Westminster Hall debate. You had a one and a half hour debate in Westminster Hall, which was over-subscribed, and there was a feeling that you wanted to discuss the matter on the Floor of the House. We have the debate on prisoners voting, which came out of an over-subscribed one and a half hour debate in Westminster Hall. We put the subject into the Chamber, partly because we feel that there is more than three hours’ worth of debate in it, but also because a specific motion has been tabled. That is the only point I would make: if there is a motion, presumably there are two sides to it and people will argue backwards and forwards about it; if there’s a general debate, and everyone is more or less agreeing with each other, it’s not exactly for the Chamber.

Q8 Chair: When does the consultation end?

Sarah Newton: On 24 March. We haven’t had a chance to discuss this, but I think we could come up with a motion, which challenges some of the assumptions. We could say in it that we wanted the Government to reconsider some aspects of the tenets. Although we haven’t had a chance to discuss that, I think we could construct a motion, pretty much along the lines that Sarah suggested-that we want the Government to note X, Y and Z, and to challenge some of the underlying assumptions. We must stress that the coastguards themselves have put forward the proposals, so the position is slightly different, but ultimately the Minister will make the decision based on the feedback at the end of the process from the coastguards.

Q9 Mr Bone: One of the most successful motions that you can table in a Backbench Business debate is something whereby you challenge the Government, but they do not feel that they can whip against it, so you get a good debate. That is probably the best sort of motion.

Sarah Newton: I’m sure we’d have to work with you and perhaps get some guidance about a good set of words, but we could do that.

Q10 Mr Bone: I know that air sea rescue is a separate issue, but if we had a six hour debate, you could probably let people talk about that as well.

Sarah Newton: Then there’s also, in the coastguard service, the issue of the tugs and the fire service-a range of services relates to safety at sea. We could let people talk about them.

Mr MacNeil: We could have a motion that called on the Government to reject the proposals from the MCA on the ground that there hasn’t been an assessment of risk.

Q11 Chair: What’s the MCA?

Sarah Newton: The Maritime and Coastguard Agency. It devised the proposals. They were developed under the previous Government, and this Government’s carrying them forward. The work has been ongoing.

Mr MacNeil: It’s been a management desire for many years to cut and hack at the composition of the coastguard stations throughout the UK. The proposals will leave us with two full-time coastguard stations and one temporary one in daylight hours in Scotland, which are as yet undefined. They don’t know what they mean by daylight hours, particularly in Shetland or Stornoway, where daylight is very long in summer and very short in winter. There are holes all over the place, so we just need time to go at them hammer and tongs. That’s why we’re here.

Bill Esterson: Peter makes an interesting point about widening the debate because you could make it about the whole issue of safety at sea. I’m sure that we could come up with a motion that said that, in the context of getting safety right, we should set the principle that safety must come first in whatever proposals the Government devise.

Chair: Unusually, today, we have this weird situation whereby we may be given a whole day in the Chamber at very short notice. Normally, we are given days well in advance-

Mr Bone: Not well in advance.

Q12 Chair: Generally, we get an indication a couple of weeks in advance, but at the moment, because of the AV Bill in the House of Lords, we could be given a day, or have a day taken away at short notice. We’re looking at organising a debate very quickly.

Sarah Newton: We could do it tomorrow. The issue would be the motion. If you were to give us an hour of your time, I’m sure that, between us, we could construct the motion. Once we had that, we would have no problem. We are all well versed in these issues, and we waited weeks to get that debate in Westminster Hall. I’d therefore feel very comfortable about a debate at short notice.

Mr MacNeil: We could just call on the Government to reject the MCA proposals for a start, then flesh that out.

Sarah Newton: A little more finesse might achieve our aims.

Mr MacNeil: We would not be calling on the Government to change their minds, just to reject the MCA proposals.

Q13 Jane Ellison: Presumably you want to be minded of the fact that there is an ongoing consultation, so whatever you decide, a motion would have to reflect that.

Sarah Newton: Exactly.

Chair: Thank you very much. I feel far better informed about the subject than I did before, so thank you for coming in.

Bill Esterson: May I leave you the latest list of people who’ve indicated support?

Chair: That’s great. Thank you.