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Coastguard Service

My hon. Friend makes a vital point. We have exactly the same issue around the coast of Liverpool, where many different locations are known by the same names. Local knowledge is crucial, as she says. It was crucial in the Morecambe bay tragedy, which was called into the Crosby coastguard station. The one life that was saved was saved because of the ability to respond quickly. Although many lives were lost, the coastguard was able to save one life because it was able to get there quickly. It is important to recognise the difficulty of transferring local knowledge to the two MOCs in Aberdeen and Southampton. Staff in Liverpool have told me that they will not relocate to either Aberdeen or Southampton, and I know that the same is true of many other stations. Moreover, however long the training might take—whether it takes months or several years—replacing the detailed local knowledge and hands-on experience is not the same as theoretical training. The inability to replicate that local knowledge which, for a lot of the staff, has been built up over many decades, is a big enough issue in itself to make the Government rethink their approach.