Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Kelly Tolhurst and Alex Cunningham

Tuesday 11th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

5. What steps he is taking to tackle rates of pay in the offshore wind supply chain that are below the national living wage.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Kelly Tolhurst)]

In the autumn the Government will introduce legislation to extend the right to receive the national minimum wage to seafarers operating in UK territorial seas. Any business, British or otherwise, benefiting from consumer subsidies and the growth of UK offshore wind has a clear moral responsibility to abide by the spirit of UK employment law, even where operations take them beyond the UK’s formal jurisdiction.

[Alex Cunningham]

I think that is the most helpful answer I have had in this place since I got elected nine years ago so I am grateful to the Minister for that, but why do we have to wait until the autumn when she could introduce secondary legislation and close this loophole now?

[Kelly Tolhurst]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his supplementary question. This is a complicated process; I have been working with my counterparts in the Department for Transport and we are committed to delivering this legislation in the autumn. As I mentioned at previous questions sessions, we have also doubled our enforcement on the national minimum wage and are determined to make sure we are tackling all areas where people are not upholding the spirit of UK employment law.