UK Maritime Industry

Debate between Alistair Carmichael and Chris Stephens

Thursday 12th January 2017 Westminster Hall

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the future of the UK maritime industry.

I am grateful to the Backbench Business Committee for allowing us the opportunity to debate this most important industry today, and I am grateful to see so many colleagues from across the House present. We have probably gone beyond the point in the year where we should be wishing each other a happy new year, but given that today we are on the old new year, I can wish you, Mr Walker, and indeed those residents in parts of my constituency such as Foula, where they still keep the old new year, a happy old new year. I say that because the people of Foula—like, indeed, people in island communities throughout the country—can maintain their lifestyle because of the dedication, commitment and professionalism of seafarers. Without seafarers, we who live in island communities simply could not exist in the way we do. Of course, that is true of the nation as a whole because the United Kingdom is an island nation.

The UK maritime industry faces a number of fairly significant challenges. Those are not new. We have been on a track that has taken us mostly down—occasionally up—for some decades. I will start, however, with a rare piece of good news. Hon. Members will have heard me speak before about the situation pertaining to the arrangements involving Seatruck, which provides the freight ferry to the Northern Isles that serves Orkney and Shetland. It was announced yesterday that Serco, which holds the franchise for the service, and Seatruck, which provides the ferries, have been able to do a deal that guarantees that the ratings on the ferries will be paid the minimum wage at the very least. It remains to be seen whether the collective bargaining agreement between the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers and NorthLink for the remainder of that franchised public service will be extended to those ferry services, but the guarantee is at least something to welcome.

[Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)]

I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on securing the debate. Does he agree that it would be helpful if the shipping Minister were to announce today that the national minimum wage would be paid to all seafarers across the United Kingdom?

[Mr Carmichael]

It will not surprise the hon. Gentleman to hear that I will have a fair bit to say about national minimum wage and national living wage enforcement, because that is something that has come very much to the fore this year. It came to my attention in particular through the detention of the Malaviya Seven in Aberdeen and its sister ship, the Malaviya Twenty, in Great Yarmouth. Those ships have been detained by the International Transport Workers Federation as a result of non-payment of the crew’s wages. The ownership of the ships is being contested—the case is winding its way through the courts. I am afraid I have to say that the willingness of the shipowners in those cases to leave the seafarers they employ effectively destitute does them no credit. Sadly, it does not reflect particularly well on the wider industry, either.

Where we have seen some progress—the Seatruck case—is however perhaps the low-hanging fruit. As I see it, that is just the tip of the iceberg. As we speak here in London, there are non-domiciled seafarers, principally Filipinos, working out of Scottish ports, being paid significantly less than the national minimum wage but still having retained by their employment agents—also domiciled outside the EU and also principally Filipinos, I am told—some 32% of their wages in respect of UK tax and national insurance. In some ways, that illustrates the absurdity and inadequacy of the current enforcement arrangements. If these men are not here working as part of the UK, why are they paying UK taxes? If they are here working as part of the UK, why are they not given the protection offered to other UK employees and workers?

The more I find out, the more it seems that the situation facing many seafarers working on ships that in some cases have not left UK waters effectively for decades is just as bad as the situation that led the previous Labour Government to set up the gangmasters licensing system. It may be that at some point we will have to take a similar approach on the position of seafarers.