MP Peter Pike is backing a motion calling for rigorous and comprehensive scrutiny of evidence surrounding the loss at sea of the MV Derbyshire to establish guidelines so it doesn't happen again.

Nineteen-year-old Nigel Coates, from Burnley, was on board the biggest British vessel ever to be lost at sea when it sank in a typhoon off Japan in 1980.

A motion before Parliament, backed by the Burnley MP, says a further 350 boats of almost identical design and construction to the MV Derbyshire have disappeared in similar circumstances, most of them inexplicably, causing the deaths of 1,634 people.

A full scale public inquiry was announced in March this year by Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott after a £2 million survey of the vessel pointed to a design failure. The MV Derbyshire sank with the loss of 42 crew and two wives.

The motion urges the government to respond positively to the long standing distress of the Derbyshire Families Association by ensuring the most rigorous and comprehensive scrutiny of all the evidence now available.

It also urges "most careful consideration of the concerns of every single interested party" with a view to establishing more dependable and lasting standards and specifications for vessels like the MV Derbyshire to halt the tragedies and render less likely the prospect of any more in future.

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