It is a significant, and somewhat shocking, feature of current legislative practice that an influential maritime state, such as the United Kingdom, has to introduce major reforms to its maritime law through the medium of private members’ Bills and not as official government legislation. The 1993 Act and the Carriage of Goods by Sea Act 1992 are both examples of this practice. The Department of Transport has been fortunate that members of Parliament have been persuaded to use their place on the ballot for private members’ Bills for such politically unrewarding legislation. Nevertheless, technical law reform relating to commerce, safety or the environment ought to be part of the normal legislative programme of the government of any state and should not be dependent on such bizarre Parliamentary machinations as a government “hand-out” bill. The Merchant Shipping (Salvage and Pollution) Bill will even be used for the incorporation of international Conventions, a function normally reserved for government bills. The matter is more than one of theoretical principle alone, for there is far less opportunity in practice for reasoned debate to take place over, and informed amendments to be made to, private members’ Bills and there will be far fewer resources available for preparation than with a government Bill. There is a reluctance to introduce necessary, but potentially controversial, amendments because of the threat that any delay will bring down the whole Bill—despite goodwill on both sides of the House. An example of this in the 1993 Act is that there was no attempt to reverse the decision in The Shizelle,2 which leaves the buyers of unregistered ships such as yachts at risk of having unregistered and undiscoverable mortgages enforced against them.