Local Government and Transport Committee,

Meeting date: Tuesday, May 9, 2006

Official Report 262KB pdf

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Maritime Passenger Rights (European Consultation)

Agenda item 4 relates to a European Commission consultation document on strengthening the protection of the rights of passengers travelling by sea or inland waterway in the European Union. The matter was brought to our attention by the European and External Relations Committee. Members have before them a range of documents, including a letter from me to the Minister for Transport and Telecommunications. That did not elicit an awful lot of information, because the United Kingdom submission will be made by the UK Government, and the Scottish Executive does not divulge the detail of its discussions with the UK Government on such issues.

We invited submissions from a range of organisations and we have received three—from the Disability Rights Commission, the Mobility and Access Committee for Scotland and the chair of the Clyde shipping services advisory committee. The consultation is open until the end of May.

The committee has a number of options. We could make a submission, drawing attention to the submissions that we have received and asking the European Commission to take them into account. We have still got time to express our views in addition to those that are expressed in the submissions that have been made to us. In other words, we could make a submission on our own behalf. I invite members' views on which avenue they wish to go down.

If we made our own submission, would that require us to return to the matter at another meeting? That might push us for time. Do we have to discuss the matter and make any recommendations here and now?

I am looking for guidance from Martin Verity on this, but I think that we have time to return to the matter at another committee meeting. At our meeting on 23 May, we could have a brief debate during which members could put forward their ideas if they wished to do so.

Perhaps members could give the issue some thought and submit their ideas to the clerks before that meeting. The clerks could collate the submissions and bring them back to the committee for discussion on 23 May. We could conclude the matter at that meeting, rather than embarking on a big discussion.

I agree that it would be sensible to consider the matter again before we reach any conclusion. I would like to see a little more in the way of submissions from the ferry companies; I wonder what the general views are among the companies and whether they think that there will be an effect on their operations. I am sure that we would all subscribe to the aims that have been expressed if those with impaired mobility can get better access in the future than they have had in the past.

I had hoped that we might have had some input from the consumer side. The Scottish rail users committee, which used to deal with such matters, was disbanded and I do not know whether we are in a state of limbo, with no consumers' representatives. Since the rail users committee no longer exists and the new multimodal committee and the ferry committee have not come into being, it seems that there is nobody to provide input; perhaps that could be confirmed. That point is of concern among the circles that are active in highlighting such issues for disabled people and for ferry users in general. I do not know whether there is a way for us to tackle that; perhaps we could ask some of the people who used to be involved in that area of work before the committee was disbanded.

It would certainly be possible for us to find out whether any of the existing organisations—you mentioned the ferry companies—have particular views. We cannot get involved in an extensive piece of work, because we have only got about a fortnight to conclude the work, but the clerks can explore whether any of the companies have views that they would wish us to draw to the attention of the Commission.

We will check the status of the ferry representation committee. I thought that an organisation was in existence, but I might be wrong. We can clarify that, find out the current position and establish whether any further views can be elicited.

Our paper says that "tourist voyages/cruises" are included under shipping in this regard. We do not seem to have got much information back about that, although the cruise market in Scotland is growing. Have we consulted harbours about access? Sometimes there is no quayside access when large liners come in and transfers have to be made to a smaller vessel; in such circumstances, I wonder about access for people with mobility problems. I realise that there is not much time available, but I was not here to raise that issue previously. Could we ask about that? In particular, we should contact harbours where cruise liners have gone in the past and are likely to go in the future.

I am pretty sure that we could make contact with the various port authorities and ask whether they wish to submit views. We can take your point on board.

Michael McMahon's suggestion, which has been broadly supported by other members who have spoken, is that we put the matter on the agenda for our meeting in a fortnight and seek further views from the various organisations that have been mentioned. If members have points that they want us to consider making in our submission, it would be useful if they could e-mail them to Martin Verity before the meeting. He will draw together a paper that sets out members' views and which, if members have conflicting views, outlines the options that are before us. Is that acceptable to members?

Members indicated agreement.