Transport Committee & Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee
Oral evidence: P&O Ferries, HC 1231
Thursday 24 March 2022
Ordered by the House of Commons to be published on 24 March 2022.
Members present:
Transport Committee: Huw Merriman (Chair); Mr Ben Bradshaw; Simon Jupp; Chris Loder; Grahame Morris; Gavin Newlands.
Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee: Darren Jones (Chair); Alan Brown; Ms Nusrat Ghani; Paul Howell; Andy McDonald.
Questions 38–95
Witnesses
III: Brian Johnson, Chief Executive, Maritime and Coastguard Agency; Dean Beale, Chief Executive Officer, The Insolvency Service; and Katy Ware, Director, UK Maritime Services.
Witnesses: Brian Johnson, Dean Beale and Katy Ware.
Chair: We now move on to our third of five panels. We welcome Dean Beale, chief executive officer at the Insolvency Service; Brian Johnson, chief executive of the Maritime and Coastguard Agency; and Kate Ware, director of UK Maritime Services.
Q38 Huw Merriman: I will start with the Maritime and Coastguard Agency. The Secretary of State said that you, as an agency, will go in to inspect the ships from a safety perspective. Can you tell us what you have been doing so far, what you have found, and whether you consider this new crew to be safe to sail?
Brian Johnson: Can I give just a little bit of context around this?
Huw Merriman: A little bit, yes.
Brian Johnson: We operate within an international framework set by the International Maritime Organisation, a UN agency. Every ship is flagged with a state—the flag state—and that is the state whose legislation holds on board the ship. The international conventions lay down the accountabilities of the flag states, which, for those particular ships, are Cyprus, Bahamas, and Bermuda. Those are the primary accountabilities around hardware, equipment, manning, and the experience and competencies of the crew.
Living underneath that, for each nation that a ship visits, is the port state responsibilities. That is like a safety net—in this case, for the UK—to check that we are comfortable that the flag state has fulfilled its primary responsibilities. That is the broad context for a lot of what Kate and I might talk about today.
Q39 Huw Merriman: In a way, even if the Cypriot requirements have not been met, you can ensure that the UK standards are met not just in port, but all the way through the journey.
Brian Johnson: It is the Cypriot standards—there are minimum standards that have to be met internationally. And the specific standards on board the ships are set by the Cypriot flag state—
Q40 Huw Merriman: You are only looking at safety from a Cypriot safety book perspective?
Brian Johnson: We are looking at it from—the safety envelope that we would require, we would require within the UK. But—
Q41 Huw Merriman: Let me just be absolutely clear here. So, are you looking at the UK safety rule book and applying that, or are you looking at the Cypriot safety rule book and applying that?
Brian Johnson: There are universal safety standards that have to be applied on shipping and those are what we would apply. Those include, for example, and as previous witnesses have talked about, Standards of Training, Certification, and Watchkeeping, or STCW, the Maritime Labour Convention, and the International Safety Management, or ISM, system. So we would ensure that those are being applied.
Q42 Huw Merriman: Okay, let me ask it another way round. So if they were actually registered in the UK and Cyprus wasn’t in existence, would there be any difference in the type of safety regime that you would go in and look at?
Brian Johnson: Yes, there would, because we would have dual accountability. We would have flag state accountability—so, that primary overview accountability for all the standards on the ship—and we would be looking at it from the safety fall-back position, which is the port state regime.
Q43 Huw Merriman: Okay. Let’s drill now into what you have actually done. The Secretary of State has been very bold in the House of Commons and said you are going on to those ships to inspect them. What have you done so far?
Brian Johnson: The Pride of Hull, which sailed yesterday, is probably the one that we have been most engaged with. We went in and we did full port state inspections, and those cover the certification of the crew and certification of the vessel. Certification of the crew includes what qualifications they have got. The checking would look at hardware. It would look at key safety drills and actually run through those safety drills, doing them live with the crew.
Katy can describe it in a little bit more detail, if that is helpful, but essentially we would be covering that. We covered all of that off.
Q44 Huw Merriman: So you signed off on it?
Brian Johnson: Correct.
Q45 Huw Merriman: On that vessel, how many new crew were there? What percentage were new crew?
Brian Johnson: 18 in total were new.
Q46 Huw Merriman: 18 new crew. And how many crew in total were there?
Brian Johnson: Katy, do you know?
Katy Ware: There were 110 crew on board; 18 were new.
Q47 Huw Merriman: Okay, so a small percentage. Is that the sort of percentage you are expecting on, say, the Dover-Calais ships? Because we have been told that all the seafarers have been made redundant, or sacked, so that’s a small percentage.
Brian Johnson: I am not sure we are clear about exactly what that situation is going to look like at the moment.
Q48 Huw Merriman: P&O Ferries believe that they will soon—in days—be able to move their ferries from Dover. How long do you believe it will actually take in this situation for you to fully inspect and sign off?
Brian Johnson: An inspection would take one day minimum; it could be slightly longer than that, depending on what’s found.
Q49 Huw Merriman: Give us an example. If you have got a completely new crew, say, or if there is a much greater percentage of new crew, how long would that take? Surely it would take you a heck of a long time to make sure, given every single person who has come on board that ship, and who has not been part of the ship’s crew before. This is one of the most dangerous shipping lanes, and ro-ro requirements are stricter, perhaps after the Herald of Free Enterprise, so surely you will be taking a heck of a long time.
Brian Johnson: Chair, can I defer to Katy on this one, because she can add a bit of colour to exactly what those inspections involve, which might help?
Q50 Huw Merriman: Please do. We really want to know how detailed you can make this.
Katy Ware: I will just confirm for the Committee that we have not actually got the port state control inspections scheduled for the Dover fleet yet; we are waiting for confirmation from P&O with respect to the crew. So, we have not got those port state control inspections scheduled.
We would go on board that vessel. As Brian has said, we will inspect the certification of the actual vessel. We will inspect the certification of the minimum safe manning of that vessel, to ensure that they have got the right qualifications.
We will ensure that those members of the staff, and that could be hotel staff, who are responsible for dealing with passengers during an evacuation have got the necessary safety familiarisation.
Q51 Huw Merriman: Sorry, Katy, can I ask you to speak up a bit?
Katy Ware: Sorry; my apologies.
With any crew who are not operating the vessel but who are responsible for mustering and escorting passengers off the vessel when there is an emergency, we ensure that they have got their proper familiarisation around management, crowd management, risk assessments, etc.
When we go on board, not only will we be checking the certification but we will do full drills. We would put in place a complete fire drill. We would exercise those fire crews and those hotel staff to make sure that they are completely familiar and able to evacuate those ships in an emergency.
For example, we even drill down into making sure that that crew can take orders and communicate instructions in the assigned language of the vessel. It is a very heavily focused operational exercise. As Brian has said, that can take between one and two days—I do not envisage them taking less than two days. We were on the Pride of Hull on 22 and 23 March; as we have shown from the figures, that is a crew who are familiar with the ship, but it has still taken us two days to do that port state control inspection.
Q52 Huw Merriman: Okay, thank you. Would you speak to every single member of crew to ascertain that they know and understand what they’re doing, as well as looking at it from a holistic team perspective?
Katy Ware: The surveyors on board would watch the fire parties do what they do. As for crew members such as hotel staff who are responsible for guiding passengers through, we would talk to them and ask them questions about their roles and responsibilities, so that we were clear that they understand what they are required to do. For crew who are responsible for launching the lifeboat, we would talk directly to each individual member of those teams and ask them to explain to us what they are doing to prepare and launch those lifeboats; we would then watch them launch, manoeuvre and recover those lifeboats. It is an intensive discussion.
Q53 Huw Merriman: And you are responsible for hours of work or rest, safety management and the certification and training of seafarers?
Katy Ware: Correct.
Q54 Huw Merriman: Picking the latter up, obviously you cannot just pitch up—even if you have experience—and be able to operate that boat. It must take a long time to train up. They must have to go out to sea.
Brian Johnson: There is a highly structured training system under STCW, which is the international standard for seafarer training. We would make sure that people were qualified to the right level. The idea of that system is that it can be used and applied internationally on board ships. We would absolutely check that people were certified to the correct standards on board, as well as looking at how they perform within the drills, as Katy has described.
Q55 Huw Merriman: Coming back to the ship that sailed from Hull—was it the Pride of Hull?
Brian Johnson: Yes.
Q56 Huw Merriman: Did that get signed off? Did it sail successfully? Had you certified it?
Brian Johnson: Yes.
Q57 Andy McDonald: Chair, can I just introduce a tweet that has gone out? “Breaking: Confirmation that the MCA have not given P&O ferry ‘Pride of Hull’ permission to return to normal operations! No ‘ropax’ means no passengers! It’s our understanding the vessel is en route to Rotterdam for replacement crew & safety drills.”
Katy Ware: We undertook port state control. It was completed yesterday. My technical manager, who leads in the north-east, confirmed to us that that vessel was cleared by the MCA to sail. P&O advised us that that vessel would sail from Hull to Rotterdam yesterday evening without passengers and cargo. That vessel is due into Rotterdam, where she will be presented to the Dutch administration; the Dutch maritime administration will also undertake inspection of that vessel.
Q58 Andy McDonald: And “no ropax”—what does that mean?
Katy Ware: There were no passengers or cargo on board.
Q59 Huw Merriman: It would have to do that again with passengers on board as well, and you would be inspecting at that point.
Katy Ware: No, we won’t be inspecting again. They will present the vessel to the Dutch administration before loading passengers and cargo.
Q60 Huw Merriman: My final question: what conversations have you had with the Secretary of State about the inspections that he feels you should be delivering and what you can do?
Brian Johnson: We have been clear with colleagues at DFT that we will absolutely be enforcing all the port state inspections in a really rigorous way. We have been talking with the flag states as well; we understand what Cyprus, Bermuda and Bahamas will be doing in terms of inspections of those vessels. We have been in touch with French and Irish colleagues; although these port state inspections are absolutely UK inspections, colleagues from France and Ireland also wish to witness them.
Q61 Huw Merriman: You have been clear, but what conversations have you had with the Secretary of State? You’re the chief executive of the agency; he is the Secretary of State. Have you had a conversation with him?
Brian Johnson: My conversations have been with my opposite number in DFT, who I know has been in contact with the Minister.
Q62 Huw Merriman: With an official, not a Minister.
Katy Ware: Perhaps I can help you there, Chair. Following Minister Courts’ statement in the House on Thursday 17th, I contacted his private office to advise him that we would be inspecting all eight vessels, and that we had agreed with P&O that we would be inspecting all of those vessels. We advised that if we had any safety concerns, we would obviously enforce the regulations, and if necessary, we would stop those ships from sailing. I sent that to Minister Courts’ private office on Thursday 17th.
Q63 Huw Merriman: Would you not have expected the Minister to contact you and say, “Right, we want to make absolutely sure these ships are safe. You look in every nook and cranny and speak to every single person”? Would you have expected that conversation to come your way?
Katy Ware: Sorry, Chair, I should have said that that email was in response to the Minister seeking my assurance that the safety concerns would be addressed with P&O.
Huw Merriman: Okay. I will leave it there, because others will want to come in. Thank you so much.
Q64 Ms Ghani: Good morning. I have quite a few questions. I will try to keep them brief; if the answers can be brief, that would be great. You talked about the inspections taking place. There is some anxiety that inspections are taking place without any passengers on board, so how are the new crew expected to evacuate potentially up to 2,000 people in an emergency? How are you going to prove that, inspect it and authorise it, Ms Ware?
Katy Ware: It is a difficult question to answer. I have explained how we do the drills and the operations. It is quite normal practice for us to do it without passengers. For safety reasons, we very rarely use passengers for those drills—as you can understand—and often when we are doing those drills, there are no passengers on board. That is not just applicable to the ferries; it is the same for the class 1 passenger vessels. We do not do it with passengers.
Q65 Ms Ghani: This is complicated, because we have new crew in a very difficult situation. I am now going to read out a message that was sent to me by a person who arrived on the ship as new crew. They did not know where they were going; they had not realised this was where the contract was. They sent me a message that has given me a huge amount of anxiety: “The safety of the vessel has not been considered. The crew that I am with have no knowledge of the vessel. The ship is currently in a situation whereby the engines could stop running, as the crew do not know how to transfer fuel to them. This morning, the vessel almost ran out of water.”
I do not want to read too much—I do not want to give the identity of the person or the ship away—but how absurd is it that P&O thought you were going to authorise these ships in 10 days, and how can you authorise these ships as fit when this is the information we are getting from crew on board the ships?
Katy Ware: It is difficult for me to respond when I do not know the ship. If that information was shared with the MCA and we knew what that ship would be, we could obviously bring forward the inspection.
Q66 Ms Ghani: Mr Johnson?
Brian Johnson: Yes, same thing: if we have the information, we can bring it forward. As Katy said, we will apply the port state control inspections absolutely rigorously. Our surveyors are good at what they do, and if we have safety concerns, those ships will not sail.
Q67 Ms Ghani: All right. I received another message from a person on board the ship: “The MCA will verify the vessel is safe to sail when the ship’s master and officers indicate that they are ready, and we expect a port state inspection as the vessels are flagged in the Bahamas. The ship officers were expecting the vessels will pass initial inspection as the majority of the officers are unfamiliar with the ship.” How is this being managed? How many communications are you having on board with people on the ship to give you the confidence that you can let the ships go?
Brian Johnson: Our surveyors would have conversations with people on board during the inspection. That is a key part of what they do. Katy, do you want to illustrate the sorts of conversations that take place?
Katy Ware: It is difficult for us to prejudge until we get on board those vessels, but our absolute priority when we get on board those vessels is to ensure that the seafarers on board are familiarised, qualified, and clear about their responsibilities. Until we get on board, it is difficult for us to prejudge, but you have my absolute assurance that we will go into absolute detail to ensure that those crew on board are familiarised, qualified and trained, and that we are satisfied they can operate their ship safely. Those vessels will not leave until we are satisfied they are safe to operate.
Brian Johnson: To be clear, we are not working to a timetable on this.
Q68 Ms Ghani: They are working to a timetable. They want to be done in 10 days, so do you think it is going to be 10 days, 20 days, or three months?
Brian Johnson: I do not have a view. We will do our job on the port state inspections, and we will do it well.
Q69 Ms Ghani: The Maritime and Coastguard Agency has a stellar reputation. What P&O Ferries has done has undermined the reputation of the MCA. Three flag states overseas were involved. Why was there not better communication with the MCA, with yourselves, so that they could have given you notice that they had been given notice? You could then have started communicating with P&O Ferries.
Brian Johnson: We have spoken to the flag states, and they were not informed until the 17th.
Ms Ghani: Say that one more time for the record, Mr Johnson.
Brian Johnson: We have been in communication with the flag states, and they were not informed until the 17th, which was Thursday last week.
Q70 Ms Ghani: The flag states themselves—that is Cyprus, the Bahamas and Bermuda.
Brian Johnson: Cyprus, the Bahamas and Bermuda, that is correct. That is what they told us.
Q71 Ms Ghani: The action of P&O Ferries, I would argue, has undermined all the work of the sector, the Government and even me when I was in the Department, all the work towards Maritime 2050. Taking a decision on how we manage and take care of seafarers in the UK and our relationship with companies such as P&O Ferries, what do you suggest, Mr Johnson?
Brian Johnson: I think what we need to do is to make sure that the Maritime and Coastguard Agency continues to operate with the absolute professionalism that it is known for. Our commitment is to do that.
Q72 Ms Ghani: You take care of the flagging as well, don’t you?
Brian Johnson: Yes.
Q73 Ms Ghani: Does this not also undermine flagging? We have two more passenger ferry companies flagged with grade A seafarers, and their business model now, they will feel, is being challenged.
Brian Johnson: Of course, we would love to have as many ships on the UK flag as possible—
Q74 Ms Ghani: This doesn’t help, does it? What P&O Ferries has done does not help that whatever, does it?
Brian Johnson: I would love to have more ships on the UK flag.
Q75 Ms Ghani: When was the last time you spoke to a senior representative of P&O Ferries, and the last time you spoke to a senior representative of DP World?
Brian Johnson: I have not had any communications with DP World. I spoke to the chief executive of P&O Ferries on Monday morning, to make sure that we had proper lines of communication and clarity on what was happening when. There was a Teams call that I had with him and one of his colleagues—me with one of my colleagues—on Monday morning.
Q76 Ms Ghani: For the record, when was the last time you were in a room with a Minister to provide evidence, support or guidance on this issue?
Brian Johnson: Can I do it with a Teams call, rather than a room? In a virtual room, that was yesterday.
Q77 Ms Ghani: The first time.
Brian Johnson: Sorry, I thought you said the last time—
Ms Ghani: That was the last time, but when was the first time?
Brian Johnson: The first time, on this particular issue, personally—let me think back. I am really not sure. The bulk of the communication was the one that Katy had.
Q78 Chair: I have two supplementaries, but I am also conscious of Mr Beale—I do not want you to feel like you have missed a morning in the sun. The Secretary of State has written to the Insolvency Service, asking you to look at the notification requirements and the potential for penalties to be applied to P&O Ferries. In the first panel, we heard that if P&O Ferries had not notified the flag nations—Cyprus, the Bahamas, Bermuda—with appropriate notice, that is a breach of UK notification law. Do you agree?
Dean Beale: My team are working through all the facts of the case, looking at the law, and we will very quickly I think arrive at a determination as to whether there have been breaches and what action could be taken as a result.
Q79 Chair: When will you come to that conclusion?
Dean Beale: The Secretary of State has asked for a response from us by 8 April, so we are working very hard. You will have heard this morning—
Hon. Members: What?
Grahame Morris: All the crew will be sacked by then, and the officers.
Q80 Chair: Why does it take so long to come to a view?
Mr Bradshaw: We had a lawyer, several lawyers, saying it was illegal. How long do you need?
Dean Beale: There are inquiries ongoing. There are inquiries to the foreign jurisdictions that colleagues in the Department for Transport are pursuing. We need to gather all that information in. We need to—
Q81 Andy McDonald: You have been told that they were notified on 17 March, and that is inappropriate. There is a breach of the law. That is established. It is what you now do with the interpretation of that breach of the law.
Dean Beale: If we can come back to the Secretary of State quicker, we absolutely will.
Q82 Chair: I think you probably should. On the question of penalties, there was some confusion in the first panel about how you would calculate a penalty if this overseas notification was done inaccurately. What is your view of that?
Dean Beale: Again, it is really unclear. We heard this morning about the complexities of the different applicable rules that might be appropriate in a case with multiple jurisdictions. On the face of it, my understanding is that the penalty for failure to notify would sit with the jurisdiction where that requirement to notify would exist. We need to look at that very carefully. They were very interesting contributions from the speakers this morning, and we will absolutely look at them very carefully as well.
Chair: Okay. We have to move on, but I suggest you really do need to move quicker than getting an answer by 8 April. Chris Loder, please.
Chris Loder: Brian and Katy, I just want to say that, from what I have heard from you today, and as someone who worked in the transport sector for my entire career before coming to Parliament, I am quite concerned about the effectiveness of the safety regulator. I would appreciate it very much if you would share with us the paperwork that was signed off for the Pride of Hull to sail. Certainly my colleague Mr Morris and I would be quite keen to understand in a little more detail at a later point, when you do further inspections, the extent to which we can have confidence in that. Thank you.
Q83 Huw Merriman: I just want to come back on something. One of the issues that have been raised is the concept of moving from one week on, one week off, to two weeks. Given that rostering has to be within what is safe, do you have a view on whether that is normal, safe, or concerning?
Katy Ware: The key thing here is the hours of rest and ensuring that the crew— You could have crew on board for up to six months; that’s permissible. The key thing here is ensuring that those crew have the hours of rest that are required by law. When we go on board the vessels, we inspect those hours of rest, and they have to be recorded. So the key thing is making sure that the crew are rested and able to perform their jobs.
Q84 Huw Merriman: Right, but do you not look at it and say, “Actually, from a safety and good practice perspective, these shift patterns are right—a good industry standard—but this isn’t; it’s a deviation”?
Katy Ware: It is not for me to tell ship operators what their shift patterns should be. The key thing is that the crew get their hours of rest.
Q85 Huw Merriman: I think it should be for you to tell them what their shift patterns should be, because you are responsible for safety. If you believe that is not safe, I think you should.
Brian Johnson: Again, it is a slightly complicated regime that we operate within. The primary responsibilities around this are—let’s say the ship was flagged with Cyprus, for example—with Cyprus and the ship operator to get that right. What we do then is apply international regulation and any appropriate local UK regulation—
Q86 Huw Merriman: Oh, so that’s a “If the Cypriots say it’s safe,” test rather than a UK one?
Brian Johnson: And if we are uncomfortable with that, we can write to the Cyprus flag regime. But that’s the slightly complicated regulatory framework that we operate in—
Q87 Huw Merriman: I am coming to the conclusion I am interested in your powers. Given what I remember in terms of the Herald of Free Enterprise, I am slightly concerned that we are actually relying on what the Cypriot standards of safety are whilst on the straits of Dover. You have just said that actually that’s a Cypriot—
Brian Johnson: But it is also governed by a set of international regulation and safety—
Q88 Huw Merriman: Yes, international, but I am talking our own high UK standards here. It seems to be that—unless other members can completely understand it and I am missing the point—we are not entirely clear here whether Cyprus governs, the UK governs or you have actually got the best and the highest standards of both. Perhaps answer that.
Katy Ware: With the Cyprus flag, they are responsible for setting the safe manning levels on board. What we would expect from a port state control is the working hours, to make sure that they are working the necessary and they are getting their rest hours in a certain set period. I don’t have to hand the exact specifics of the working regulations, but I can write to you to verify that.
Q89 Huw Merriman: Yes, can you write to us and just set out this hierarchy and which applies? The last point I want to ask you is this. Have you dealt before with anything on the scale of this, in terms of seeing crews changed in such large numbers?
Brian Johnson: No.
Katy Ware: Never in my career.
Q90 Huw Merriman: You have the holistic powers. Rather than just looking at the individuals, why wouldn’t you turn round and say, “Actually, I’m looking at this entire practice”? It cannot be safe, certainly in terms of days, to be able to completely change your crew and bring brand-new crew on, so rather than looking at the individual parts, can’t you look at this holistically and say, “This can’t be safe”?
Brian Johnson: We have to operate within the powers of the port state control regime, which are all set out. We are part of the Paris memorandum of understanding, a group of countries that do port state inspections, and our powers are set out within that. If we are dissatisfied with the safety on a ship, we can detain it, but it is on a ship-by-ship basis, and we have to inspect it in order to use that power. We have not got those holistic powers that you mention.
Q91 Huw Merriman: You might look at it on a ship-by-ship basis and say, “This practice is so unheard of for us that we cannot cope with it as an agency. We are really concerned about safety, so therefore—”
Brian Johnson: We have to base it on the inspections that we do when we get on board the ships and on the results of those inspections.
Huw Merriman: Thank you, Chair.
Chair: I have two final supplementaries, but I will have to limit you to a one-minute question and a one-minute answer, Gavin.
Q92 Gavin Newlands: That’s fine, Chair. On a point of clarification, you mentioned rest hours. Obviously, the working time regulations and so on do not really apply here, but, as I recall from my previous career, you have different rest hours. You have your daily rest hours and weekly and perhaps monthly rest hours, depending on the job. You say that as long as you get 12 hours’ rest per day, that is fine. The way you answered the question, it sounded as if they could work for six weeks on and six weeks off, as long they get a 12-hour rest period per day, so could you clarify that?
Katy Ware: Sorry, my apologies, Mr Newlands. No, we do not just look at the daily rest; we look at the weekly and the monthly hours as well.
Q93 Gavin Newlands: What is your minimum requirement on that?
Katy Ware: I haven’t got those details to hand. I can write to you and clarify them.
Gavin Newlands: If you can write to us, that would be great.
Q94 Grahame Morris: In a statement on St Patrick’s day on 17 March, the Shipping Minister laid great store by your intervention. But having heard your explanation about the restrictions that apply in respect of the relevant flag, I am less than convinced.
You mentioned you had had a number of meetings with Ministers, including yesterday—some by Zoom and some in person. How frequently have you met the trade unions, Nautilus International and the RMT? They are the experienced seafarers and officers who know what safety systems are.
If I might just say, I had a terrible experience many years ago going from Stranraer to Larne in a very stormy sea, and I was so grateful to have experienced seafarers who were able to anchor the HGVs that were moving in that stormy sea and could have jeopardised the safety of the ship. Would it not be reasonable to have discussions with the existing crews and their representatives?
Brian Johnson: In answer to the general question, we and the RMT and Nautilus are in fairly regular contact, but we haven’t been on this particular issue. They have written to us, and we have responded to the concerns that they put in writing to us. We got another letter yesterday, which we will respond to first thing tomorrow. But we have not had face-to-face dialogue over this particular issue. We have, more broadly, got very good communications between ourselves and the trade unions.
Q95 Grahame Morris: Given the fact that both you and Katy have said this is unprecedented—the scale of the sackings and the impact it is having on this particular sector and this operator—would it not be prudent to have face-to-face meetings with the people who are actually familiar with safe working practices?
Brian Johnson: I think we are very ready to have dialogue with the RMT and Nautilus to take them through what our findings are when we do the inspections. One of the challenges is that, as we outlined earlier, our powers are quite tightly defined, so there is limited room for manoeuvre. We have got to do our job very, very well and very professionally, but there is quite limited flexibility around that because of the framework that we operate within.
Grahame Morris: I understand that, but safety is a critical issue—sorry, Chair.
Chair: Thank you to the three of you for your contributions this morning. We are grateful.