Port of Southampton

Jim Fitzpatrick Excerpts

Wednesday 18th January 2012 Westminster Hall

[Jim Fitzpatrick (Poplar and Limehouse) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair this morning, Mr Gray. I am delighted to be here for the debate, and congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr Denham) on securing it, ably supported by my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Test (Dr Whitehead) and colleagues on the other side of the House. Both my right hon. Friend and my hon. Friend are former distinguished Ministers—indeed my right hon. Friend was a Secretary of State—and they both have considerable experience in the matters under debate. The speeches of the hon. Members for Isle of Wight (Mr Turner), for Gosport (Caroline Dinenage), for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes) and for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) supported the case being put to the Minister, and the only dissenting voice—and even then, only slightly dissenting—was that of the hon. Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey), who used a football analogy to outline her slight difficulty. As a West Ham supporter, in a debate on Southampton, I was not sure how I would get into the debate the fact that those teams are joint top of the championship, but the hon. Lady has provided me with the opportunity.

The role of a shadow Minister is sometimes puzzling, especially for someone who has been a Minister—not making the decisions and not having the intensity of programme or the diary pressures that the Minister experiences. As Her Majesty’s Opposition, our job is to challenge, which does not, of course, always mean opposing, especially when some of the things that the Government will eventually decide to do were left to them by us. I know that the Minister will refer to that fact in due course. I think that he was ably assisted by my right hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen, who put me somewhat in the frame for this situation. In debates such as this, the local knowledge of my right hon. Friend and other colleagues is so comprehensive that there is little for me to add. I will therefore be brief, and I am sure that the Minister will use the time to respond to specific points that have been raised in this important debate.

I am sure that we will all agree on one point: shipping and the ports industry are great assets to our country, doing sterling work efficiently, well and almost invisibly. It is only when there is a tragedy, such as the one this week in Italy, that shipping ever makes the national headlines. However, we know how important shipping is to the UK economy in all its aspects, and many hon. Members have made the case for that view this morning.

I should be grateful if the Minister reassured us about the general working of the MMO overall, about issues of implementation, and, in passing, about the impact on other ports besides Southampton—especially London. However, we are here to deal with specific questions raised by right hon. and hon. Members during the debate. My right hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen raised with us serious questions about the procedures adopted by the MMO—the errors, failures and delays, compounded by legal challenges from commercial competitors. My hon. Friend the Member for St Helens North (Mr Watts) raised the broader question of the planning process for major developments, and in passing I would say that it was a mistake by the Government that the coalition decided to abolish the Infrastructure Planning Commission, which was specifically designed to deal with the problems of unnecessary delays to national infrastructure projects.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen outlined in some detail why time is so critical in the present instance, and what he said was reinforced by hon. Members across the Chamber. Time will tell whether it will be possible for private sector finance to be invested, as many hon. Members discussed. We have heard that the issue is about ABP versus Hutchison and Southampton versus Felixtowe; we have also heard that it is about Southampton versus Liverpool. My right hon. Friend said that Southampton wants a level playing field on the cruise terminal question, and the Opposition support that view. I know from my hon. Friends that Liverpool is offering to pay back grant that it received. We welcome that. That issue is secondary to today’s debate, but none the less it is with the Minister and perhaps he will tell us when and how it will be resolved.

As an aside, I will mention that, like many other colleagues, I have used the port of Southampton on several occasions. Most recently I was on the Cunard liner the Queen Mary 2, coming back from New York, and I will be sailing with Fred Olson from Southampton to Liverpool and Belfast on a Titanic mini-cruise in April.

As has been mentioned, the conclusion of the important ports policy statement debate will be tomorrow, in the Chamber. The Minister is held in high regard by the shipping industry and he knows that the Government need to get behind British shipping rather than in its way, and to try to remove obstacles placed in its way by others. I know that he wants to be helpful, so I look forward to his response, in the hope that he will offer clear reassurance to hon. Members and to the port of Southampton, about bringing the issue of timing and the MMO to a speedy conclusion.