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Greenock Coastguard Station

My hon. Friend is obviously correct that, often, not just one individual working in a household will be affected. Relationships will be complicated, and frankly, many people will simply not be in a position to move. Indeed, I suspect that that will probably more often be the case at coastguard stations with experienced long-term staff. We also need to be aware that coastguards are already on very low incomes. The Minister will be aware that Inverclyde and North Ayrshire are areas of high unemployment and deprivation. Have the economic impacts of the proposals been considered, in particular on Clyde and the wider community? The decision to close Clyde, but keep open the other large coastguard station in Scotland at Aberdeen, seems to be based on current leasing arrangements rather than on operational reasons—or, indeed, on the ongoing running costs of each station. The lease for the Clyde station comes to an end in 2012, with the Aberdeen lease coming to an end in 2020. It has been put to me repeatedly that this seems to have been a major consideration in the proposal to close Clyde. Will the Minister confirm whether that was a factor in coming forward with the proposals, and if it was, will he say how large a factor it was? Has any work been done on the comparative costs of the various options of keeping one coastguard station open as opposed to another?