---

Antarctic: Tourist Ships

I am very grateful to the noble Viscount for asking this Question for Short Debate. The nautical experience of the noble Lord, Lord Greenway, is unrivalled, and he has not disappointed us today. Before doing any research, I was quite relaxed about this subject, and I thought that I had a grasp of the issue. I assure noble Lords that I am no longer at all relaxed. This is a new topic for me, but I will be following it up in future months. The noble Viscount has done an excellent job in posing the Question, and I will not repeat all his work. While the environmental concerns must not be ignored—they are real concerns—I will confine my remarks to maritime safety. In January 1975, the motorship ““Lovat”” sank in a force 8 to 9 gale. The 13-man crew took to the life raft at 06.30 hours. By 07.45, they had been seen by a cross-channel ferry. By 08.00, they had the first helicopter support on scene, and by 08.30, only two hours later, 10 of the 13 crew members had died from hypothermia or drowning. That happened 29 kilometres south-west of Land’s End. The reason they died was, despite being commercial seamen, they had not been properly trained and they did not understand the need to conserve body heat, keep the covering of the life raft shut and keep bailing water out. All of that is very difficult to do in a storm. I am not convinced that passengers on cruise ships are anywhere near well enough trained to survive in similar circumstances, let alone far more difficult circumstances in the Southern Ocean or Antarctica. Of course in an evacuation the aim would be to have at least one crewman in each life raft, but would he be an officer or a senior rate? Leadership in a survival situation—which is what it would be—is absolutely vital. If a human is immersed in seawater at anywhere near freezing point, his survival time is measured in minutes. It is minutes in the water, and it is hours in the life raft, unless you have done everything absolutely correctly. Other noble Lords have correctly identified risks arising from the remoteness and the merciless environment. In one of those disasters in the Southern Ocean, you could easily have to wait 24 hours or more for a rescue ship to arrive. There is virtually no chance of a suitable rescue helicopter—there may be a small utility helicopter—being available, because it is far out of range, and the ships in the area would not be equipped to support the helicopters. It would be extremely difficult, slow and distressing to rescue hundreds, or maybe thousands, of passengers directly from the sea to a ship in the Southern Ocean. In a storm, it does not bear thinking about. A significant proportion of cruise passengers are senior citizens, because that is when people can afford to go on a cruise, or they may be other than fully able bodied. Can the Minister say whether it is legal for a cruise company offering an Antarctic cruise to discriminate on the grounds of disability? In his reply, the Minister will say that the ships are first class, the crew are specially trained, they have special equipment, they have an Antarctic pilot, and the increase in the number of ships in the area will speed up a rescue if the worst happens. To an extent, all of that is true; but undoubtedly there is an increased risk of this problem occurring. In his reply, the Minister will tell us that the situation is not out of control and that unreasonable risks are not being taken. He will tell us about the 102 operators in the International Association of Antarctica Tour Operators, which the noble Lord, Lord Greenway, covered so well in his speech. But not all operators have signed up and the ones who are not signed up will be the ones who are not operating to the highest possible standards. In any case, accidents are notoriously difficult completely to eliminate, no matter how big the ship is. Of course, the Minister will not point out that the IMO has some serious problems. Influence within the IMO lies with Panama, Liberia and the Bahamas, and their interests are not absolutely coincident with ours in this matter. It is well known that it is extremely difficult to get safety changes implemented. I am concerned that life-saving equipment may not be tested under realistic conditions. How is life-saving equipment—life rafts and lifebelts—being tested? Are we using professional divers in a swimming pool at UK ambient temperatures, rather than using lay people in a defined sea state and temperature? I have been briefed that one’s hands become as lumps of rubber and totally numb after only a few minutes when wet at near-zero or subzero temperatures. I am not qualified to state the probability of having to disembark a ship in the Atlantic or the Southern Ocean, but in my opinion the risk is increasing. Although the problem may be low risk, the impact of such an incident will be absolutely devastating. The international media will be there immediately. As we know, successful rescue could be extremely difficult and slow unless we are, as we have been, very lucky with the weather. It could take at least 24 hours to get a suitable rescue ship on the scene, so I hope that the Minister has a media plan for dealing with that, because the UK Government, despite all our capabilities nationally, will be powerless to do anything about it. What should the Minister do? His problem is that shipping is an international activity, with freedom of the seas an underlying principle. As other noble Lords have pointed out, regulation has to be on an international basis, but the mechanism at the IMO may be flawed. The Minister also knows that national regulation would simply make UK operators uneconomic—a point also made by noble Lords this afternoon. The underlying problem for transport Ministers is how the UN as a whole works. I think that that is slightly above their pay grade but also, I suspect, not a priority for the Prime Minister. My fear is that, one day, it suddenly will be the number one priority for the Prime Minister.