UK government must ‘go in to bat’ for its ports

“We continue to invest in our major ports – over GBP300m per annum in the five years to 2011 and, importantly, productivity in that period has also improved by 14% and crucially since the financial recession 2009 by 8%,” he said.

So far so good – but, said Charles Hammond, who is chief executive of Forth Ports, all of this success had been helped by a policy of allowing the UK’s ports to make their own commercial decisions on investment and operational matters. Which brought him to the thorny subject of the EU’s continuing determination to push through a Port Services Directive.

“It is the success of our industry that causes us to react so negatively to the proposals by the EU Commission for port services regulation, which would introduce unnecessary bureaucracy, interference in commercial negotiations involving ports and customers, and a level of control over port charges which is both unacceptable and unnecessary,” he said. “These proposals have been defeated on two previous occasions and we will be pressing in partnership with the government to defeat the latest set of proposals too.”

UK transport minister Stephen Hammond was quick to respond, and his support was unequivocal. He has been in post just over a year, ‘and one of the obvious and overriding impressions one gets is exactly how important the shipping and ports industry is to the UK’, he said. “It is the sheer professionalism and environmental responsibility and competitive spirit of your industry which is always so impressive.”

His comments on Europe’s plans were music to the ears of many. “One area where we must work together is the Port Services Directive,” he said. “Of course we want to see an efficient ports sector and don’t want to see distorted and wasted state aid. But this minister will do all he can to make sure that the Port Services Directive will be defeated.”

The UKMPG’s members have fought and lobbied hard against Europe’s attempts in this regard but, as one said earlier this year: “We need the government to stop it. We will do everything to support them – but they are the ones that have to go in to bat.”

The European proposals threaten the efficiency of a market that is essentially very different to the ports sector across the rest of Europe, said this observer. “The UK has a largely commercial private sector – other European ports are state-owned. It would be almost like re-nationalising everything. The Directive has stated that some ports in the EU are performing on a sub-optimal basis. But to have a new blanket requirement, one size fits all across Europe, is essentially an attempt to tackle people being naughty in some parts of Europe.

“There is already existing legislation if national governments have the appetite to tackle issues like market access. Bringing in a new set of rules for people who have no track record for abiding by the rules isn’t going to make any difference.”

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