Automatic Enrolment (Offshore Employment) (Amendment) Order 2020

Baroness Fookes Excerpts

Tuesday 19th May 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Fookes (Con)]

My Lords, I have for many years been a supporter of the Mission to Seafarers and know from the work I have seen it undertake how important it is. Very often seafarers are stranded in ports perhaps many thousands of miles from home. They may have personal difficulties of their own or may be worried about family back at home, so anything which gives some stability through this automatic enrolment in a pension scheme is very much to be desired. I imagine that the work of the Mission will now be even greater, given the virus. An earlier speaker mentioned the plight of seamen onboard ocean liners; the passengers have long since gone home, but the seamen are apparently still stranded. I sincerely hope that action will be taken swiftly to bring them home.

Noble Lords will have guessed that I am extremely pleased by this permanent arrangement for this group of workers. I have one or two questions for my noble friend. It may be that I should know the answers already, so I am probably betraying woeful ignorance. Are British seafarers working for foreign companies allowed to be enrolled in this scheme? Conversely, are foreign nationals legitimately living in the United Kingdom automatically enrolled with British employers?

This brings me to another point which does not relate much to these instruments but has always been a grievance for me over the years. It has always worried me when a particular topic which is the subject of law is spread among a number of Acts of Parliament or regulations. I notice with some concern that the two before us this afternoon are not to be consolidated. The official announcement says that this is because they are considered trivial, but that is not the point. What one really wants is an umbrella system so that it is very easy for anyone to look things up. Will my noble friend look at this again—maybe not on this occasion but at the soonest opportunity—and make sure that these matters are sensibly consolidated?