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Marine Navigation Aids Bill [HL]

My Lords, I declare my interest as Minister for Shipping from 1985 to 1986 and from 1992 to 1994. I did not take part in the Second Reading debate last year because I thought that the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, was wasting the time of the House. At that time a major report into the lighthouse authorities was due and it would have been a much more efficacious use of the House’s time had he waited for the report to be published before putting his Bill before the House for Second Reading. I fear that this year the noble Lord is abusing the House. He has told us that he will substantially revise his Bill—and that he is entitled to do. The Bill comprises 14 clauses and one schedule. From what I managed to elicit from him a moment ago, only one of the clauses will remain, Clause 12, on the pensions funding, and he will introduce some other clauses. Those of us taking part in this debate have spent a lot of time doing preparation on the Bill as it is before us, but that time has been completely wasted. The noble Lord had the courtesy to write to my noble friend Lord Attlee on 14 January advising him what he was going to do. He did not write to me until 19 January, and I got the letter only this morning. I was very lucky to receive a copy of the letter that he sent to my noble friend Lord Attlee. Why did the noble Lord not write to those of us who are taking part in this debate at the same time as he wrote to my noble friend Lord Attlee, on 14 January? Why has he allowed us to waste our time in this fashion? I fear that this is an abuse of the House. Perhaps he should do the right thing, withdraw this Bill and bring forward for Second Reading a Bill that he actually intends to pursue through the House. I do not dispute that his proposed amendments will make the Bill a lot better, because there are amendments that I would wish to put forward anyway, but I feel that I have wasted a considerable amount of my time, as has everyone else taking part in the Bill, because the noble Lord has not had the courtesy of letting us know exactly what he is going to do. When the noble Lord spoke he repeated much of what he said last year, and of course he told only one-half of the story. He mentioned the increase in light dues. What he did not tell the House is that the light dues are the same in absolute terms as they were when I was Minister for Shipping in 1993, and that it is a 32 per cent reduction accounting for inflation. So, far from a massive increase, there actually has been a substantial reduction. He wants a 50 per cent reduction; well, he has got a 32 per cent reduction since I was Minister for Shipping. So the situation is not nearly as bad as the noble Lord has tried to portray to the House. What was wrong—and what I fear my honourable friend the Minister of Shipping is wrong to do—was to freeze the light dues. That is why there was such a substantial increase. There was no increase from when I was Minister for Shipping until the increases were made in the past couple of years, and the Minister for Shipping has said that he will not increase light dues for the next three years. I think that that is unfair on the shipping industry. It is far better to have gradual increases—or, one hopes, reductions—rather than having a period of a freeze. Labour Ministers were very wrong to do that, because it then catches up with you: you get a deficit and you suddenly have to have what appears to be a substantial increase. I do agree with the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, in congratulating my honourable friend the Minister for Shipping on getting an agreement with the Irish Lights. This is an old problem which I tried to deal with in 1985-86 and in the early 1990s, but that was not a sensible time to try to negotiate that sort of agreement with the Irish. It is very good that the Irish Lights cover the whole of Ireland—I think that it is the Irish rugby team, the Irish Lights and a third organisation which I cannot remember that cover the whole of Ireland. I agree that the partial subsidy that we gave towards the Commissioners of the Irish Lights will be phased out by 2015-16. The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, also said that there ought to be a continuing reduction in light dues. Of course he probably has read the Atkins report; and he probably knows that all the lighthouse authorities are currently working on a reduction and that, this year, all the running costs in real times will be decreased by at least 3 per cent. They have to meet, over a five-year period, an RPI-X formula, and they are well on their way to doing that. There is now a joint strategic board at non-executive director level which is a result of the Atkins report and I think that it is a sensible way forward. This board is for the first time looking at all the corporate plans for the three separate lighthouse authorities. It is interesting to recall that the Atkins report did not recommend that the three GLAs should be merged into one, but said they would operate much more efficiently as three individual bodies. That is certainly beginning to prove the point. The strategic board has a lot more to offer in the running of the lights. When something as new as that is introduced, of course it takes a bit of time to settle down. The Northern Lighthouse Board, Trinity House and the Commissioners of the Irish Lights are trying to get together. I think that there were some difficulties early last year but they seem to have worked their way out of the system and the board is now doing a very good job. I wish that I had been able to do something like that when I was the Minister for Shipping. With the work that has taken place with the lighthouse authorities since the Atkins report—the reductions in the light dues and the continuing RPI-X indices—the running costs are coming down. In fact, the running costs will be reduced over the next four years by more than 17 per cent. That is not quite the 25 per cent that some would have liked, but it is very good over four years. That is fairly comparable to the Department for Transport’s CSR outcome of 14 per cent. I hope that given perhaps a more balanced view of where we are with light dues, the noble Lord will not pursue this Bill. I would repeat only that, as far as I am concerned, he has behaved extremely badly towards the House and all of us who are taking part in this Second Reading debate.