National Minimum Wage (Offshore Employment) (Amendment) Order 2020

Baroness Burt of Solihull Excerpts

Thursday 25th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Burt of Solihull (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I too welcome this order, which closes a loophole that allows companies operating in British territorial waters potentially to pay their workers below the minimum wage. The order amends Article 2 of the National Minimum Wage (Offshore Employment) Order, but I would like to ask the Minister why it has taken so long to close this loophole. Have some seafarers been paid below the minimum wage for many years? Did anyone know about that and did any of the unions complain?

The order newly applies to shipping, with certain exceptions as described by the noble Viscount, operating in UK waters whether or not the vessels are UK-registered, and to workers who may or may not ordinarily be employed in the UK. I welcome this: anyone employing people working in British waters should not be allowed the undercut the competition by underpaying its staff.

My second question relates to the estimated cost of implementation. The Explanatory Notes state that HMRC cannot estimate this exactly because there is

“no robust data as to how many employees are in this position, and a lack of concurrence amongst sources which are available.”

How will the requirement be policed and how can the legislation be enforced? I would be grateful to the Minister if he could explain that.

Apparently some ship owners have said that certain services will no longer be viable on the implementation of this order. My heart bleeds for them. Any business that makes money on the backs of underpaid and exploited workers does not deserve to be in business. I remember business groups using the viability argument before the national minimum wage was first introduced. Today, it is an accepted part of business practice in this country and only cowboys, as opposed to pirates, exploit it.

Finally, on the Day of the Seafarer, I would like to ask a slightly tangential question about the estimated 150,000 international and British seafarers who have been trapped at sea since the beginning of the lockdown, awaiting crew changes. They cannot get home and their relief crews cannot get to ports to board. As I said in a debate on 19 May:

“Tragically, suicides have been reported as individuals suffer mentally, trapped on board and trying to get home, but unable to because of the lack of organised transport.”—[Official Report, 19/5/20; col. 1004.]


There are also issues with visas. Will the Minister please favour the House with an update on this?