RNLI Bicentenary

Debate between Thérèse Coffey and Anthony Mangnall

Tuesday 26th March 2024 Westminster Hall

[Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to speak in this debate under your chairmanship, Mrs Harris. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Anthony Mangnall) on securing it.

The RNLI has been an important institution in the United Kingdom since it was formed 200 years ago. The Suffolk association of lifeboats was formed in the same year, but it wisely handed over its assets and people to the RNLI in 1853. In 1824, boats were set up in Felixstowe, Bawdsey and Lowestoft, which is outside my constituency; a few years later, they were also set up in Thorpeness and Sizewell.

There is no doubt that the institution has been vital in saving lives, but it has also seen people losing their lives in saving others. The devastation that that can have in a community lives on for generations to come and is rightly recognised around the country. I pay huge tribute to all those who have served in the lifetime of stations around the country.

My constituency currently has two stations, in Southwold and Aldeburgh, and is served by the people of Harwich, just across the river in Essex. There is also a National Independent Lifeboat Association member in Felixstowe, which was set up more recently: just over 25 years ago. I know the dedication of the people, who are principally volunteers; they are on call and ready to move. The lifeguards who operate on some of our beaches have been integral in making sure that people are safe in the water. I also commend the RNLI guilds. Every branch and station has one: Aldeburgh’s was set up in 1962 and has been vital to the station’s ongoing operation.

I praised the operatives at Southwold station in 2013, because on 26 May 2013 a small group of the crew who were out on exercise gathered to deploy the single largest ever piece of peacetime recovery: 85 people, in just one event, where a swimming race had gone horribly wrong. Ben Lock and Lucy Clews were the lifeguards there who saw the issue straight away. The crew was mobilised by lifeguard supervisor Dan Tyler, and helmsmen Simon Callaghan, Paul Barker and Rob Kelvey came into action, later supported by Liam Fayle-Parr. It was absolutely astonishing. To date, I do not believe that there has been any other similar peacetime operation, although there may potentially be situations currently off the Sussex and Kent coast. It is right that we recognise the contribution of all these people in Hansard once more. Lives could have been lost.

I commend Simon Hazelgrove and the team today, who continue to operate the lifeboat station. I look forward to inviting them and the people from Aldeburgh to an event here in Parliament—hopefully in May, and if not, in June. At the Aldeburgh lifeboat station, it is slightly more complicated to launch a boat, because the town has a shingle beach, so the whole operation is even bigger. At the moment, they have a Mersey class boat. There is a significant operation, using a tractor and wooden poles to help the boat on and off; in many ways, it is a much bigger operation.

It is tremendous that a town the size of Aldeburgh can muster that sort of activity at pretty short notice. I am conscious that there has been some turbulence recently, but I want to celebrate the good things, including a service that was led by the Bishop of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich earlier this month to commemorate the 200-year anniversary.

Aldeburgh currently has an all-weather boat, the Freddie Cooper, which started operating in 1993, and an inshore boat, the Susan Scott, which has been operating since 2017. I want to turn to that for a sad moment, because a tale needs to be told of the recent leadership, which has been quite shabby. I am worried about aspects of the culture, and I am sad for the people of Aldeburgh, who themselves are sad about what has happened. We all know that change can be difficult, but one of the things the RNLI needs to understand as it looks ahead to the next 200 years is that it relies on the good will of the local communities, never mind the huge amount of work that goes into supporting it nationally. It needs to reflect on how it should do things differently when dealing with local communities, and I am not the only Member of Parliament affected in that respect.

One of the comments that really brought this issue to mind was made by somebody involved, who talked about an appalling betrayal of a community that has been nothing but supportive, as well as disgraceful management of the situation by RNLI headquarters, which raises concerns about the culture of the charity. By and large, the RNLI has been absolutely amazing, but it does need to learn from this sad situation.

Change was happening and a review was being undertaken. That meant that Aldeburgh would no longer have an all-weather lifeboat; instead, it would have a rigid inflatable craft, or RIB, as they are called. That was of concern to the local community, because it had been used to having an all-weather lifeboat. Unlike in Southwold, its boats had not been deployed as part of the Dunkirk operation, but they had been deployed during peacetime and wartime, and the crews recognised the local seas.

In terms of money, legacies had been left in the RNLI’s accounts to support it. It was indicated that these were restricted funds specifically to replace the all-weather lifeboat. The funds were in the RNLI’s accounts, and then all of a sudden the decision was made—with some internal consultation—that that would not happen. There was upset and uproar and, as a local Member of Parliament, I was asked to raise the issue with the RNLI. To my surprise, it refused to meet. I was somewhat shocked by that. As an elected representative, I am conscious that this issue has nothing to do with Government or with politics. Of course, the RNLI benefits from things such as tax relief in its fundraising, but that was not my reason for wanting to raise this issue. I wanted to do it because I am a member of the community, and the community felt shut out.

[Anthony Mangnall]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Dr Coffey]

I will not give way yet, no. Eventually, following correspondence back and forth, it was only because I knew one of the trustees that I was able to get a phone call with the then chief executive. They insisted that the call could take place only if it was private and the details were not shared. I was prepared to take the call under those conditions, because it turned out that the chief executive had already been to the station. I turned up the day after the chief executive’s visit. Not all the volunteers had been informed that the chief executive was visiting. It turns out that that was part of a tour, which was proudly advertised, with photographs and similar in other stations on the tour, including the one at Southwold, but there was radio silence when it came to Aldeburgh.

I kept my part of the bargain; I did record the phone call, because I do not have the best memory, but I too had assumed that the conversation would be private. I was therefore sad to learn just last week that the chief executive in fact recorded the call and played it to another Member of Parliament. I am not going to say who they are—I do not need to embarrass them or the chief executive—but I am telling the story because I am concerned about the culture. Indeed, the chair of the trustees offered to meet me at some point, but then seemed to withdraw the meeting—certainly, we have not been able to find a time to do it.

None of this has been received well in the local community. Not all the volunteers were informed. I attended a subsequent meeting with Aldeburgh Town Council, and a member of the local leadership later complained to the council that I had been there, although I am not sure why—perhaps because I was concerned about the culture there. However, I have chosen not to reveal to the community some of the things that were said at that meeting, because that would embarrass the RNLI, and I do not seek to do that. It would also really upset the volunteers who go out, or are on stand-by to go out, on that boat every day. However, at the same time, people are wondering where the money has gone, and we can see in the RNLI’s accounts that the cost of wages, salaries and similar was £83.3 million in 2020 but is now £102.3 million.

As I say, this is a sad moment for me, and I have gone to the Charity Commission and similar. I really wish the RNLI success in the next 200 years, but it will need the strong support of its communities, and sadly some of those volunteer crew have now stepped away. I wish them and all the stations around the country well, but let us make sure that the RNLI is strengthened, and way to do that going forward is transparency, rather than secrecy.

Water Quality: Sewage Discharge

Debate between Thérèse Coffey and Anthony Mangnall

Tuesday 25th April 2023 Commons Chamber

[Dr Coffey]

What can I say? When the right hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer) ran for the leadership of the Labour party, he suggested that there should be common ownership, which I would describe as nationalisation. We are seeing yet another flip-flop from the Labour party when its members realise that it is one thing to get into power and another thing actually being in it.

We need to continue with what we are trying to do to cut sewage discharges. We have heard about the target of 90% by 2030, and it is a headline-catching figure, but there has been no credible, costed plan in any previous media scrutiny or, indeed, today. That is why I suggest that the hon. Member for Oldham West and Royton is detached from reality and trying to pull a fast one with the public.

Our storm overflows discharge reduction plan outlines the largest infrastructure programme in water company history, and will deliver the toughest ever crackdown on sewage spills, transforming our Victorian sewerage infrastructure. The plan sets targets that will be underpinned by legally binding changes to company permits, designed to front-load action in particularly important areas such as bathing waters. To ensure that these ambitious targets are realised, I have also asked the water industry to produce a detailed action plan for every single storm overflow in England by June.

A critical element in the development of these targets and our plan was an assessment of technical deliverability and cost, which is why the Government published a full impact assessment and an additional report on the costs of eliminating discharges from storm overflows. If the shadow Secretary of State wants to deliver a 90% reduction by 2030, it would have been helpful for him to inform the House how he plans to practically deliver £56 billion worth of capital projects in the next seven years, let alone separate enough combined pipes to go almost two and a half times around the earth in those seven years, or indeed build the equivalent of 40,000 Olympic-size swimming pools of additional storage capacity. What will the Labour party’s proposals really mean for customers’ bills? Even the hon. Gentleman is not naive enough to think that there is a magic money tree to pay for this.

[Anthony Mangnall]

The Secretary of State has just mentioned the important issue of water companies producing plans. Can she reassure me, and all the people of the south-west and south Devon in particular, that those plans will have to be enforced, and that we will be keeping a very close eye on their implementation?

[Dr Coffey]

I can indeed give my hon. Friend that assurance. We will continue to ensure that the licence fees and the costs of permits cover inspections, and we will consider further what additional funding changes might be needed for that purpose.

Perhaps Labour intended to introduce a sewage tax or something similar, as proposed by the Liberal Democrats, although it would take such a tax some 500 years to fund the level of investment required. That is, dare I say, another classic Liberal Democrat policy—all soundbite but detached from reality. Meanwhile, we have an ambitious, credible and realistic plan.

As for mandatory sewage outlet monitoring, the Government are already doing that; 91% is already in place, and the rest will be completed by the end of the year. The Environment Agency will also ensure that water companies carry out monitoring in line with their permit conditions. The monitoring requirements introduced by the Government have been instrumental in enabling the regulators to undertake the largest criminal and civil investigations of sewage discharges in water company history, covering more than 2,200 treatment works. Through powers in our landmark Environment Act, we are also making it a legal requirement for the near real time data on discharges to be available to the public, and the consultation on those regulations is live now. We are going even further by placing a duty directly on water companies to monitor the water quality impact upstream and downstream of all their assets—not just storm overflows but wastewater treatment works as well.