Contribution
My Lords, I welcome the Minister to his place and express my admiration that he has made his maiden speech in proposing such an important debate.
We know that the areas outside territorial limits, which we know as the high seas, belong to us all. Nobody would sensibly talk against the sensible proposals to protect the deep blue lungs of the world and the natural fauna and flora that live there. I have sailed across the Atlantic on a tall ship. I have sailed a Topper dinghy in the Sargasso Sea, which my noble friend Lady Coffey mentioned. Probably few noble Lords have been as close to the briny as I have. Last week, I was highlighting deep-sea shipping in Trinidad, bringing 50,000-tonne deadweight tankers via ocean trade to the United Kingdom. Those are my bona fides.
I will focus on two themes. First, the deep ocean supports shipping, fibre-optics, pipelines and the connectors that sustain a global economy. This cannot be just about the turtles, important as they are. Secondly, among all the mutual back-slapping and self-congratulation in this Room, there is a proverbial elephant—or blue whale. I refer to the risks of the uninsured dark fleet, the Wild West which operates outside the conventions and rules of the sea. By omitting to mention these two items, the Bill is deficient. This Second Reading provides an opportunity for the Government to repair that defect.
The natural environment must be shared with the commercial environment, which is the medium across which ships pass between countries in pursuit of the global trade which brings 90% of goods to our nation. I am disappointed that the Bill does not realise the reality that London is the place where global shipping meets, trades and agrees rules and contracts. That is a missed opportunity and ignores the global expertise on our doorstep. I depart from my noble friend Lady Coffey in saying that the Bill should be amended; it should. I am concerned that Part 3 and Clause 11 in particular allow the Secretary of State to make proposals for the inclusion of certain areas and Clause 12 provides for enforcement, but neither in this part nor in the Bill more widely are the economy or London stakeholders mentioned or referred to.
I have read the treaty. It makes passing reference to the IMO, but I would have expected the Bill documentation to have made reference not just to the IMO, which is based in London, but also to Lloyd’s—marine insurers, the publishers of Lloyd’s List—based in London; the global P&I clubs, the regulatory syndicates, which are hosted in Leadenhall Street, in London; Clarksons and Braemar, the world’s leading shipbrokers, just around the corner in Trafalgar Square, in London; and the Baltic Exchange, in London. I have not even mentioned the whole panoply of other professionals, including specialist shipping lawyers such as Clyde & Co. In essence, we do not own ships any more, but the ships play by London’s rules. But you would never guess it from the Bill. We should rectify that deficiency.
Where are the statutory tests that will require the Secretary of State, in pursuance of the powers, to consider the important balance between the economy, shipping, our interests and our regulatory interest based in London? Failure to reach the appropriate balance could end up with the equivalent of another £100 million bat bridge or another useless £700 million fish disco. That is the jeopardy we face.
I said that the shipping world plays by London’s rules. For the most part, it does, but we are missing the reference to the “dark fleet”: a network of ships, often poorly maintained, transporting illicit cargoes, with obscured ownership, a lack of insurance, deceptive tactics, going dark, flag hopping, and bilge cleaning at sea—and full of hostile actors. We had a debate last week on that narrow point. I am mentioning it because the dark fleet poses significant risks of damaging not only maritime safety but the environment that the Bill seeks to remedy. Silence on our approach to the dark fleet and other hostile actors diminishes the effectiveness of the Bill.
I know it is the Minister’s maiden outing, but he has a huge amount of experience, having been a Member of Parliament in the other place for Southampton. I therefore respectfully ask him: how can we spend precious parliamentary time on only half the benefit, without considering those modern pirates of the high seas? If we are sincere about protecting our fragile ecosystems, we need to ensure that all ships, not just ships of compliant nations, recognise the objectives of the Bill. Once we slap each other on the back, we need to recognise that London—and, in its wider sense, the economy—is balanced between these well-meaning and important biodiversity objectives. But, without a strong economy, we will not be able to protect the environment in the way we want to, in a world that is full of bad actors.