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Coastguard Service

I take the point that my hon. Friend is making. I pay tribute to the family and personal experience of the coastguard and the sea that she has gained over many years. She understands the sea better than anyone else in this Chamber. From my emergency service background—the shadow Minister also has such a background—I know that such a situation occurs in the other emergency services. It is not a be-all and end-all. It is not a case of this being the only method of doing it. I am not saying that at all. Only the other day, I was in Shetland. The communications there go down regularly when we have to send volunteers out—whether it is the BT line, the broadband line or our own communication systems. That happens around the country. I am not saying that if a new system is brought in, it will take away any of that local knowledge. It will augment the current situation as we go forward. May I touch on what we have today? Many hon. Members and hon. Friends have said that we could leave the service roughly where it is, but we cannot. The coastguard service is telling me that it cannot—from the most junior person on the watch through to the volunteers and the Royal National Lifeboat Institution at the top. That organisation does not want to be dragged into the politics of the matter, and I can understand why. However, to use the modern slang, it is also saying to us, ““Is the service fit for purpose in the 21st century? No, it is not.”” It is interesting to read about the twinning system—an issue that I raised when I was in Bangor. The arguments that were put to me in Northern Ireland on resilience, the special circumstances and how they liaise with the Republic of Ireland—particularly with regard to helicopters—were very powerful. I thank the Republic and pay tribute to it. We get helicopters for free and we help them in other parts of the coast on other matters. Of course, there is the issue of what happens if communications go down. What happens if a station goes down? Will the Clyde back us up? There is no logic to the idea that all that local knowledge is transferred instantly to the Clyde—it cannot be. I accept that, as we look at different stations around the country, but the present twinning system does not work properly. If we look at where stations are around the country at the moment, they are not set up with a proper regional structure, as we would probably expect them to be. There are some stations that are very close, and some that are very far apart. The Humber station, which was mentioned by two hon. Members, covers 300 miles of moving sands. How on earth could it transfer in a twinning system? How does that work? Where is the resilience there? We need to look at that. We need to look, as I have said in previous debates, at a service which offers a basic starting salary of £13,500 per year. How would anybody survive on that in some parts of the country? The answer is with more than one job, just like when I was first in the fire services—I am not that sure that that is similar today with the firemen, though. We have to offer coastguards a salary that is suitable for the 21st century and give them the skills and training, so that they can have a career progression, too. It is very much dead man's shoes, looking at the age profile. There are very young people and people coming towards the end of their careers, but the middle section is very difficult indeed. The whole country relies on the coastguard, whether on holiday, in the shipping industry, in their community or where they work. Is this a done deal? No, it is not. Will we come out of the end of this process with a different set of conclusions and a different modernisation programme from when we started? I am sure that we will—I am convinced of it.