Merchant Shipping (Pollution) Bill [HL]

My Lords, it falls to me to wind up on behalf of our side of the House on this small but significant Bill. I am particularly grateful to the Minister for his detailed explanation of the contents of the Bill and, more significantly, of its implications for the shipping industry and, indeed, for international maritime operations generally. It was a welcome explanation that helped to clarify our thinking. We have had a very useful debate in which a number of questions were raised, some of which were raised by several speakers and some of which were raised once only. I shall touch on those points and raise a few of my own. We shall then probably have spent just short of two hours debating three pages of legislation. I am immensely glad that the Bill is not 150 pages long, as some have been recently. My noble friend Lord Hanningfield raised an important point about the fund regarding how it will be contributed to. Will it be contributed to annually in advance or only after a disaster has occurred when the funds are called upon? It is very important that that question is answered. The other points that my noble   friend raised were mentioned also by the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw. What action is being taken to encourage others to sign up to the scheme? What about those in what I call the ““flags of convenience”” industry? Do they have to sign up to the scheme? If not, what sanctions exist to prevent unsafe shipping continuing to operate? We heard something about that   from the noble Lord, Lord Clinton-Davis, if my memory is correct. The noble Lord, Lord Greenway, introduced an interesting concept with the electrified container port—as he called it—in Los Angeles. I hope that he will forgive me if I am slightly sceptical; it is an extremely good idea and it removes from Los Angeles the pollution that the port otherwise generates. However, if the electrification is of a coal-fired power station in northern California, all that does is to shift the pollution in form and type from one location to another. If it is a coal-fired power station it might be worse than the maritime engines running on fuel.