Seafarers’ Wages Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Scott of Needham Market and Lord Hendy

Wednesday 26th October 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Scott of Needham Market (LD)]

My Lords, in Committee we sought to deal with a number of operational issues that have been giving us concern. The harbour authorities—the port authorities—do not want the powers they are being given in the Bill; we covered that area very well. They do not think that it is appropriate or that they are equipped. We sought to make amendments to give those powers instead to the Secretary of State, so the irony of the debate we have just had is that if the Government had accepted our amendments, taken the powers away from the port authorities and kept them for the Secretary of State, they would have been in compliance with the instructions of the Delegated Powers Committee. There is a certain Alice in Wonderland quality about this debate—and not for the first time.

I would like to return to one issue. I see that the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, is not in his place, but in the 22 years I have been in this House the common practice is to have debates in Committee in which we listen to each other, then a gap in which we reflect on what has been said, talk to stakeholders and, crucially, have meetings with and letters from the Minister. Then we come back on Report. If taken seriously, his suggestion that this is somehow too late would render this House completely impotent. Despite his not being here, I wanted to make that point.

I turn to the point about denial of access to a vessel as a punishment for various transgressions under the Bill. Detention in a port is the accepted international way of dealing with all sorts of transgressions. It is well understood and has been done for many years. As the Minister pointed out in her letter to us, it is a considerable inconvenience to the port and therefore never undertaken lightly. The main impact is on the shipping company, which gives it an absolute incentive to comply in the first place.

Denial of access, as opposed to detention, raises a whole host of issues. The International Chamber of Shipping does not believe that it complies with international law. The British Ports Association believes that it would break long-standing UK law by denying access to such a vessel. The Government are expecting harbour authorities to take the risk of costly legal action, at their own expense, when there is this legal uncertainty hanging over them. It is even more ridiculous to expect port authorities owned by ferry companies to deny their own ships access. It is simply not going to happen. As we have just heard in Clause 11, the Secretary of State could overrule the port authorities for a wide range of reasons, which leaves the harbour authorities no comfort all. What possible incentive does the Minister see for port authorities to ever deny access to a vessel? Given the Government’s assertion that this is the ultimate compliance measure, it is really hard to see how it will ever be effective as a deterrent.

If—just assuming for the moment, and giving the Government the benefit of the doubt—a ship is denied access, what might the result be? Presumably the Minister does not expect ships to be bobbing around between Dover and Calais with passengers and crew onboard. In all seriousness, I would like it confirmed that that would not be the way the Bill would work. Denying access in advance is still a massive inconvenience to the passengers who have booked on the ferry. Many will have cars; they might find it impossible to make alternative arrangements. Moreover, the port in which the vessel is docked, unable to leave because we will not take it, is going to be put to significant inconvenience. That is likely to be in another country, almost certainly France. There will be significant diplomatic ramifications if a ship is not allowed to leave the harbour, which could result in all sorts of retaliatory action. I really cannot believe that the Government think this is a sensible way to proceed. I beg to move.

[Lord Hendy (Lab)]

My Lords, I support this amendment for the reasons put forward by the noble Baroness. In the Minister’s letter to us of 21 October, she said that sufficient notice will be given of a contravention that will result in refusal of access, so that a vessel will not start its voyage. If that is so—which many doubt—the same notice that the vessel will be detained for transgression will no doubt preclude it coming to port as well. If adequate notice is not given, detention is safer for the vessel, its cargo, its passengers and other vessels than if the defaulting vessel is refused access just outside the port in question. The arrest of ships for non-payment of debts that are payable to seafarers, the port or third parties is a common and international practice. I for one am at a loss to understand why the Government do not accept that practice here.

Seafarers’ Wages Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Scott of Needham Market and Lord Hendy

Wednesday 12th October 2022 Grand Committee

[Lord Hendy (Lab)]

My Lords, I begin by apologising for not being able to be present at Second Reading on 20 July. I am not just sorry to have missed your Lordships’ contributions on the Bill; it is a deep personal regret that I did not hear the valedictory speech of Lord Mackay, who was in my view one of the greatest of our Lords Chancellor. Of course, I was able to read the proceedings in Hansard and watch them on television. I thank the Minister for her Teams seminar yesterday. Again, I apologise that my equipment failed me and I was able to participate for only the first two minutes.

Naturally, the Bill is to be welcomed but it is a matter of regret that it is confined to the national minimum wage equivalent. This is just one of the nine points in the Government’s response to the P&O Ferries calamity on 17 March and, even in that regard, it may not achieve the purpose stated by the Minister in point one of her letter of 31 March, which said that this will ensure that P&O can derive no benefit from the actions it has taken in paying staff less than the minimum wage and it must reverse the decision. The fact is that, even paying the national minimum wage equivalent, P&O will in fact save money over the previous regime.

Apart from the egregious flouting of the law on 17 March, one striking feature of the P&O Ferries saga is that it also threw overboard all the collective agreements that the company had reached with the trade unions over the previous 100 years or so. These contained provisions about, among other things, procedures to achieve changes to terms and conditions, dealing with redundancies, and procedures to resolve disputes. That is why the Minister’s ninth point in the letter was so gratefully received: the creation of “minimum wage corridors” and asking unions and operators to agree a common level of seafarer protection on ferry routes. The Bill could have given legislative support to these excellent proposals and I ask the Minister, first, how the Government will achieve them and, secondly, where she and her department have got to in their bilateral discussions.

Noble Lords need not fear—I have just another couple of sentences to say before I introduce the amendments. The Bill could have gone a lot further in re-establishing terms and conditions beyond the minimum hourly rate, including those that were provided for in previous collective agreements, such as training, pensions, rostering, crewing levels, recognition, disputes, and so on. I wonder whether the Minister and the department have any plans for legislative support in that regard.

One other obvious thing the Bill could have done was to stop up the loophole in Section 193 of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act, which excludes any penalty to enforce the duty of a ship operator sacking UK workers for redundancy to notify the authorities in the flag state of the vessel. We know this is a loophole because on 19 August this year the Insolvency Service said that a prosecution of P&O Ferries in this regard was not possible. I wonder whether the Minister will be able to say something about filling that lacuna.

With that digression, I turn to the first group of amendments, which concern the territorial scope of the Bill and an aspect of the application of international law. I will speak to my Amendments 1, 15 and 16, while Amendments 5, 23 and 38 deal, respectively, with minimum wage corridors, preventing breaches of maritime law and upholding international agreements to which the UK is party.

I will of course withdraw my first amendment, but it was put in on the footing that I would move an amendment to expand the scope of the Bill from dealing with not just the national minimum wage but the protection of other terms and conditions as well. However, I was advised quite properly by the Public Bill Office that that was not possible within the scope of the Short Title. I am therefore left simply asking the Minister to confirm my understanding that the national minimum wage already applies on vessels working on domestic routes, that those seafarers in the offshore oil and gas maritime supply chain are also covered by the National Minimum Wage (Offshore Employment) (Amendment) Order 2020 and that vessels sailing between the UK and Crown dependencies will be covered either by the Bill or existing legislation.

It is known—or so I am advised by RMT—that Condor Ferries, a low-cost operator contracted by the Governments of Jersey and Guernsey, pays less than the national minimum wage at present. It was not paying that national minimum wage up to 2014. Since then, I understand that Condor has denied union access to the Bahamas and Cyprus-registered vessels and therefore it is not known what rates of pay are operable. Presumably we are right in thinking that the Bill will apply to such vessels.

The one area where no protection is offered, as I understand it, even by the Bill is for the supply chain to offshore renewable installations in the exclusive economic zone, because they are not covered by the National Minimum Wage (Offshore Employment) (Amendment) Order 2020. The amendment that I propose should therefore close that loophole, but it may be that the noble Baroness has another way of dealing with that issue. Again, I am advised by RMT that there has been a recent case of a UK-flagged offshore facility utility vessel in the Port of Sunderland, where seafarers were working 12-hour days at a daily rate of €55, which comes to €4.58, or just over £4, an hour. In effect, by moving this amendment I simply ask the Minister to confirm that all those cases will be covered either by existing legislation or by the Bill.

The second of my amendments is Amendment 15, the purpose of which is to expand the phrase “territorial waters” to include

“the UK Continental Shelf and the UK Exclusive Economic Zone”,

both of which should be covered. What we are considering is the seafarers working on project vessels, floating hotels and other vessels that can be anchored at sites outside the UK’s territorial waters but within the continental shelf and UK economic zone. That is important, because the production of clean energy from offshore renewable sources and the storage of carbon in subsea facilities will see an increase in seafarer employment associated with this work, particularly in the North Sea.

My third amendment in this group is Amendment 16, which would delete Clause 5(3). Its purpose is to discourage operators of vessels from seeking to avoid the obligations under the Bill of providing data relating to the wages of their crew by registering vessels in countries or territories where not so restrictive data protection laws apply. I note that the Bill’s impact assessment does not consider the possibility of operators breaching the data protection laws of a flag state. I wonder whether that is because it was not thought to be a significant problem, but it might well become one if there are operators, such as P&O Ferries, that are quite happy to evade British law.

Those are my three amendments in this group. I beg to move.

[Baroness Scott of Needham Market (LD)]

My Lords, I will speak to my Amendment 38. Noble Lords might remember that at Second Reading the noble Lord, Lord Mountevans, and I raised the compatibility of this Bill with international agreements to which the UK is a signatory. Regrettably, the Minister did not address that issue in her reply, nor in her follow-up letters to participating Peers. It is really important that we give this issue an airing today.

There are many long-standing and recognised international conventions, including the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and the international Maritime Labour Convention 2006, to which the UK is a signatory. Earlier this year, the International Labour Organization reached an agreement on minimum levels of wages for seafarers for 2023, 2024 and 2025. This was broadly welcomed by all stakeholders, including social partners. When the National Minimum Wage (Offshore Employment) (Amendment) Order 2020 was published, the department’s Explanatory Memorandum made it clear that these conventions precluded the provisions being applied to seafarers from non UK-flagged vessels, yet that is exactly what this legislation will do. I would like the Minister to clarify for the Committee what has changed between the publication of that memorandum in 2020 and today.

The fact of the matter is that, no matter how well- intentioned the legislation—these Benches do support a better deal for seafarers—a measure that appears to be contrary to the long-established norm that port states should not interfere with the internal running of foreign-flagged vessels, provided they conform with internationally agreed conventions, is something we should avoid. All these agreements were developed over many years, and they reflect the complexities of operating in multiple jurisdictions with very different legal systems and with an international workforce, with many nationalities on the same vessel.

These agreements are not really drafted like legislation —nor could they be, because they come from so many legal jurisdictions. They are about intent, and the intent is pretty clear. I hope the Government will think very carefully about whether they wish to risk disrupting these global agreements, or be seen to be thought of as disrupting them, because it would not be in the interests of the UK, or of any other country, for this established order to start to become undermined; nor would it be in the interests of seafarers.

There is a particular issue for the UK. We have enjoyed strong leadership in the maritime sector; that is something we should protect and preserve. The Government’s own impact assessment says that there is

“a reputational risk that the UK may be seen to be moving unilaterally on seafarer welfare issues rather than seeking improvements exclusively via multilateral channels.”

Does the Minister acknowledge that risk? Can she explain to the Committee what the Government intend to do to mitigate it?

Finally, many noble Lords were struck by the letter from the International Chamber of Shipping, which did not hold back on its concerns about the Bill. Again, I would be interested to hear about persuading not just Members of this House but the wider shipping community that we are still fully on board with these international conventions.