NewsBreakingOnline

Neil Murray, husband of Sheryll Murray MP who was campaigning for coastguard staff, died in an accident at sea There was praise from all sides when the Tory MP Sheryll Murray spoke eloquently in the Commons about the UK’s threatened coastguard service, telling the House: “It is because of those people that fishermen’s wives such as myself sleep a little better at night.” Just three hours later, she received a text from coastguards in her South East Cornwall constituency to say that her husband Neil’s trawler, Our Boy Andrew, was overdue and a search had begun. The jovial stalwart of Looe’s fishing community, a lifelong fisherman who appeared in a coastguard safety film and strongly backed his wife’s campaigning against planned cuts, was found dead near the Eddystone lighthouse after an accident with the 10-metre vessel’s winched nets. His funeral on Friday at Maker church on Torpoint, overlooking Cornwall’s inshore fishing grounds, united a typical British coastal community. The lifeboat crew carried Neil’s coffin. His son Andrew, the boat’s namesake and a marine engineer, and daughter Sally, a Royal Navy officer, helped their mother through the ordeal. But unity has strengthened more widely in the national coastguards campaign. The terrible coincidence is the latest blow to the government’s struggles over public service cuts and changes, with a coalition of opponents sensing a “forestry moment” in attacks over concentrating coastguard control in just two places, Southampton and Aberdeen. The minister due to decide the issue, former firefighter Mike Penning, has looked increasingly uneasy at repeated challenges that foreshadow coming battles over other emergency services, notably fire and police. A string of public meetings have been dire for Marine and Coastguard Agency (MCA) managers, whose consultation has been extended by Penning and is now the subject of an inquiry by the Commons select committee on transport. The regional director in the north-west, Tom Borland, got things off to a symbolic start at Southport by paying tribute to the hard work of coastguards at Holyhead, rather than the local Liverpool station, which is particularly nervous about its future. By the end of the evening, the chair was appealing for questions about subjects other than detailed local knowledge of the coast and its hazards. But that is what the tide of objections is all about. “I had a medivac three weeks ago – a client on the older side. The guys at Humber coastguard were absolutely spot-on,” says charter skipper Paul Kilpatrick, as he kits out his boat Sea Otter Two for a sea-angling party in Whitby. “Fast, reliable, knowing the area and exactly where we were in it. You can get that information later through the lifeboat crews or Coastwatch volunteers, during a rescue, yes. But it’s when the call is made that local knowledge really counts.” The MCA’s plan to cut the current 18 stations to the two main centres and probably eight daytime sub-stations rests on the opposite view. In the words of the agency’s chief executive, Vice-Admiral Sir Alan Massey: “Using the latest technology means it is largely immaterial where co-ordination centres are geographically located.” Modernisation, which most staff accept is necessary, is the driver rather than cuts, he says, expecting a future of “tackling more challenging jobs with new skills and getting better pay in return”. But the framework published in December, Protecting our Seas and Shores in the 21st Century, proposes an overall staff reduction from 596 to 370 over four years, with only a slight increase from 80 to 105 in full-timers supporting volunteers in the Coastguard Rescue Service, while station-based colleagues drop from 491 to 248 and those at MCA headquarters in Southampton from 25 to 17. “There’s beginning to be talk about individual stations continuing if they can make a convincing business plan,” says Humber coastguard watch officer Paul Chapman. “We’re getting more hopeful that the current approach will be scrapped and we’ll all sit down to discuss one which will work.” Staff want to get on with that, he says, because uncertainty is leeching experienced coastguards from the service, with stations such as Yarmouth, Thames, Forth and Holyhead suffering losses. Meanwhile the busiest season for the UK’s 11,000-mile coastline has started, with 17 people involved in emergency calls to the coastguard since the start of this month. David Cameron has warned that changes will be made only if they improve services. And at Maker church and beyond, mourners for Neil Murray contemplated his wife’s warning to her fellow MPs not to lose respect for “one of the most beautiful but dangerous elements in the world. If we lose that respect and believe that we can beat the sea, we are finished”. Emergency services Public sector cuts Martin Wainwright guardian.co.uk