Lord Ashcombe (Con)

My Lords, we have heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, my noble friend Lord Moynihan and from other noble Lords regarding the situation facing Northern Ireland’s ferry services and the shenanigans that are certainly coming to light today. Having been raised in the Republic of Ireland, I well remember our reliance on maritime trade to keep the country supplied. I therefore appreciate the pressures described today and suspect those pressures have only intensified in the current era. I want to turn my attention to a rather smaller stretch of water, near my home in the New Forest; namely, the ferry routes to the Isle of Wight from Portsmouth, Southampton and Lymington. I have used all three of these depending on whether my journey takes me to the east of the island, to Cowes, or to the west. The distances involved may be only four to 12 miles, depending on the route, but what truly matters is that there is no alternative means of travelling to or from the island. The Government seem to have forgotten—or, dare I say, ignored—the Isle of Wight. As a result, the Isle of Wight will face immediate and disproportionate impacts from the proposed extension to the emissions trading system to domestic maritime vessels of 5,000 gross tonnes and above. The Government’s final-stage impact assessment argues: “Expanding the UK ETS to include domestic maritime emissions is critical for maintaining regulatory alignment with the EU ETS … Without coverage, UK operators could gain a competitive advantage over EU counterparts, creating market distortions and increasing the risk of carbon leakage”. There are no foreign vessels trading between the south coast of England and the Isle of Wight, nor between the mainland and the Scottish islands. It is therefore difficult to see how exempting UK domestic island services would in any way undermine the relationship with the EU. The Isle of Wight has a population of about 142,000—higher in summer as tourism swells the numbers. The island is wholly dependent on its ferries for passenger travel, as well as for the movement of freight, being fuel, food and essential goods, and exporting fresh produce. These services are part of the island’s critical national infrastructure.