My right hon. Friend is entirely right. I have been out with some fishermen and one only has to look at their radar and sonar scanners to see the large amounts of plastic and other debris in Lyme bay. It would be interesting to know whether the Minister thinks that they should be compensated, because a lot of that stuff has still not been recovered. However, my right hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I will come to why I think it questionable that a boat in that condition should have been anywhere near either of our coastal areas.

The Lyme bay area is part of a world heritage site and part of the Jurassic coast—I should declare that I am a trustee of the Jurassic coast trust—but it is also the subject of a fisheries exclusion zone, in recognition of its status as

"one of the UK's richest marine wildlife sites".

I would like to quote from a DEFRA document, "A summary of responses to the consultation on measures to protect marine biodiversity interests in Lyme Bay from the impact of fishing with dredges and other towed gear"—I do not know what the acronym for that is, but it would help if there was one—which was published in March 2008. The document states:

"The Bay hosts some of the UK's most important reef habitat and is considered to be both nationally and internationally important in conservation terms."

The Devon coast is an area that depends heavily on tourism and our coastline is very important to the economic and social well-being of our community. A new study, conducted by the non-profit regeneration consultancy Era Ltd, on the Jurassic coast suggests that it has exceeded expectations in bringing economic, social and cultural benefits to the region since it was awarded UNESCO world heritage site status in 2001. Its status has given a boost to the area of Dorset and East Devon in terms of learning and education, business opportunities, facilities and services, especially benefiting the local tourism industry—and we in East Devon are rightly very proud and also very protective of maintaining this special coastline. Does the Minister consider that Lyme bay, given its recognised importance as a marine habitat and its UNESCO world heritage status, is an appropriate site to be used for a shipping emergency?

Lyme bay is also an important wintering site for many bird species and within two days of the beaching more than 900 birds were reported oiled. It is estimated that for every bird found oiled on the shore, between three and 10 times as many will have been oiled at sea. The wreck of the Napoli may also have threatened as many as 28 sites of special scientific interest, including the Exe estuary, Chesil beach and the Fleet SSSIs. Will the Minister therefore ensure that provisions specifically to keep ships away from environmentally sensitive areas, as my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset has just suggested, and legislation covering navigation are built into the Marine and Coastal Access Bill, particularly in the light of the Napoli incident?

The beaching of the Napoli was an event that highlighted serious deficiencies in many aspects of dealing with such an occurrence, which is why action must be taken now. This report must be heeded, the national contingency plan must be strengthened, maritime legislation must be adapted and a single person to take charge on land must be appointed. Only two months ago, police admitted that they were powerless to stop members of the public helping themselves to sawn timber that had washed up on the Kent coast, which had been lost by a Russian ship, the Sinegorsk.

For an island nation with a proud maritime heritage, it is now high time that the Government demonstrated some form of real commitment to the shipping industry and seaside communities and ensured that costly situations such as this are avoided in the future. The channel is one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world and although economic times are more constrained at present, with container ships less frequent along our coast than they once were, that is not to say that things will not pick up again.

Figures from Lloyd's Register-Fairplay show that as the world fleet has grown, so has the propensity for accidents to happen. In fact, the number of serious navigational accidents rose from around 30 in 2000 to more than 120 in 2006, and statistics now show that a ship is twice as likely to be involved in a serious grounding, collision or contact accident today compared with only five years ago. The grounding of the Napoli demonstrated the costly dangers to a marine nation such as ours, and while mistakes were made, this need not happen again. Instead, it is time to grasp this opportunity to learn lessons and implement real changes that can prevent these disasters in future. When will the Minister finally listen to what he is being told from all sides and implement effective change? If the Government are not simply paying lip service to marine conservation and planning, they will adopt the recommendations set out in the report.

Finally, I would like to add that without the professionalism and efforts of all those who worked tirelessly on the operation, including Robin Middleton, the SOSREP at the time, the situation could have been far worse. What I and those affected by this and similar incidents would like to see is these actions replicated on future operations on land. The Napoli incident has exposed many problems that must be taken seriously and addressed by the Government as soon as possible. This event could and should be used as a template for future containership casualties and provides an opportunity to frame legislation accordingly.