MP tables motion in Parliament to mark 20th anniversary of Morecambe Bay cockling disaster
This week, Cumbrian MP Tim Farron has tabled a motion in Parliament to mark twenty years since the Morecambe Bay cockling disaster.
On 5th February 2004, 23 Chinese men and women tragically drowned while harvesting cockles out on the sands of Morecambe Bay.
Tim’s Early Day Motion (EDM) ‘honours their memory and holds their loved ones in our thoughts and in our prayers, remains committed to maintaining safety in the Bay and supports legislation that has prevented a repeat of the tragedy’.
The motion also states concern that restriction of access to the Bay has ‘caused great hardship to local families who have cockled for generations’, and asks for permits to be issues to local cocklers ‘as a priority’.
The EDM finally calls for family members to be allowed to pass their cockling permits down to younger generations “in order to maintain the safety of the Bay and the survival of the local cockling industry”.