Seafarers’ Wages Bill [HL]
Lord Hendy Excerpts(2 years ago)
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Lord Hendy (Lab)
My Lords, I support both my noble friend Lord Berkeley’s amendments. They make it more likely that operators will not be able to evade their obligation to pay at least the national minimum wage equivalent. The behaviour of P&O Ferries in March this year is the very reason for the Bill, and that behaviour shows the lengths to which operators will go to save money on seafarers’ wages. The Bill should bend over backwards to narrow every opportunity for operators to evade their very modest obligation to pay seafarers the national minimum wage equivalent and prevent such behaviour.
It is not just P&O Ferries. The effect of allowing ship operators to evade the national minimum wage equivalent is that they undercut their competitors, which then join the race to the bottom and put at risk the jobs of some 2,000 UK-resident ratings and officers. Like my noble friend Lord Berkeley, I looked at the table provided by RMT. Perhaps he will forgive me giving a correction: he said that the lowest rate was £2.40, paid by Condor Ferries. However, according to the table, the lowest rate is P&O Ferries on the “Pride of York”—a vessel registered in the Bahamas—on the Hull-Zeebrugge route, which pays €2.04 per hour for cooks of Lithuanian extraction. There are a number of other low rates. For example, DFDS’s “King Seaways”, going from Newcastle to Ijmuiden, is on the Danish international ship register and has Polish, Ukrainian, Romanian and Filipino crew, and it pays $2.63 an hour for a cabin steward. I will not read any more examples, but this appears to be a perpetuation of nationality-based discrimination on pay which this legislation should be tight enough to avoid.
I hope the Minister will forgive me for asking before I sit down for her to clarify a point raised in Committee—namely, whether a harbour in one of the Crown dependencies is a UK harbour or whether it will become subject to a national minimum wage equivalent corridor. I did not understand the answer she gave in her very kind letter of 21 October. If it is to become the subject of a corridor, can I ask how negotiations are progressing, and whether they involve the social partners?
Lord Berkeley (Lab)
My Lords, I tabled Amendment 10, which is designed to do exactly the same thing as the amendments from the noble Baroness. All I can say is that I entirely agree with what she said. It is really not acceptable that the Government can instruct or direct ports to do something, direct them not to do something, and then basically fine them, take them to court or whatever if they do not do what they say. It is all wrong and I support the noble Baroness’s statement. I hope the Minister will consider this and possibly come back with changes, as she did with the earlier recommendations.
Lord Hendy (Lab)
My Lords, as a member of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, I support all these amendments. The Government accepted the committee’s recommendation in relation to Clause 3 and introduced Amendment 3; they should also concede Amendments 6 to 9, and preferably Amendment 10.
The problem is that the Government have made harbours the enforcers of the Bill, in particular by way of imposing surcharges. That reveals the flawed structure of the legislation. The arguments are by now familiar so I will outline only three of them.
First, the national minimum wage equivalent for seafarers should not be enforced by harbours, some of which are wholly conflicted since they share ownership with the shipping lines they are to police. I do not understand how the noble Baroness could say in her letter to us of 21 October:
“The Government is confident that there are no conflicts of interest.”
Instead, the declaration of compliance should be received by, and the prime enforcement body should be, a state authority. The obvious candidate is the MCA.
Secondly, there should have been provision for seafarers or their unions to enforce the national minimum wage equivalent, not least by making the entitlement to it contractual.
Thirdly and lastly, enforcement by way of surcharge is, with respect, inappropriate. It is a penalty and the noble Baroness’s letter to us, of 21 October, says of surcharges that
“Rather than being a punitive measure, its purpose is to make it not worthwhile for an operator to underpay their seafarers.”
Of course that is so, but then there is no distinction of purpose between a fine and a surcharge. One suspects that the real reason that a surcharge is preferred to a fine is that it avoids the stigma of a criminal sanction, which is, if that is true, an unattractive justification given that we are all here seeking to prevent repetition of the disgraceful behaviour of companies such as P&O Ferries. Such companies should be stigmatised by criminal prosecution if they underpay their seafarers.
Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)
I thank the Minister for Amendment 3. Moving on to Amendments 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10, I am more sympathetic with the Government than any of the previous speakers. These sorts of powers are necessary. Arguably, the way pressure is put on harbours to do the right thing is wrong, but it is the way the drafters of the Bill have chosen.
I wish the Government would get back to the tradition of doing what the DPRRC says, which way back, when I sat on those Benches, we did. However, none of those things will probably happen and, certainly, I do not feel it is an issue over which we would support dividing the House. I would, however, recommend that the Minister allay some of the fears that these clauses have provoked, by reading into the record the statement made to the DPRRC on 25 October, particularly, from the bottom of the page in the report:
“The policy intention is that this power would only be used in the following circumstances”
and all those circumstances, to the end of that document. In the best Pepper v Hart frame, the world would then have easy access to those limitations, much improving the likelihood of the Government sticking to those limitations. Of course, if she wants to amend the document more fully, I would not be averse to her bringing this back at Third Reading. However, I can tell from her demeanour there is not a prayer of that, so would she agree to putting those assurances into the record?
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.
Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)
My Lords, there is quite a good case for the noble Baroness’s amendment, but I accept that the Government have, I hope, expended an awful lot of effort working through the intricacies of how this will happen. I fear that passing the amendment at this point would unduly stop this extremely important Bill’s progress. I hope that the Government’s judgment is correct, and that they come back very rapidly with emergency legislation if it proves to be incorrect.
Lord Woodley (Lab)
My Lords, this amendment is needed to put the seafarers’ charter in the Bill. There is no doubt about that. Voluntary agreements do not work with employers such as P&O which have shown complete and utter contempt for the law and have avoided working with trade unions fighting to preserve local jobs that really keep the economy going. As a good example, the agency crew on P&O ferries are denied the basic ILO right to organise.
We have mentioned often in this debate the Dover-Calais route, and that must be an absolute priority for imposing conditions that P&O and Irish Ferries have to abide by, stopping them exploiting foreign seafarers on poverty pay for long and exhausting roster patterns. We need more ratings to be trained, but it is disappointing to see that only 60 new ratings have been trained since 2020. It is scandalous at a time when demand for ratings is increasing. The number of UK ratings employed in the industry has plummeted, with almost all the jobs operating in and out of UK ports now held by foreign workers.
Will the Government act now to protect our depleted and declining maritime workforce or are they prepared to see UK seafarers suffer and struggle for survival at the hands of law-breaking profiteers such as P&O? I urge everybody to support this important amendment.
Lord Hendy (Lab)
My Lords, I have added my name to this amendment, which goes some way to implementing one of the Government’s nine points in response to P&O Ferries’ shameful conduct. That point was the creation of minimum wage corridors and
“asking unions and operators to agree a common level of seafarer protection”
on ferry routes.
In the Minister’s recent letter to us of 21 October, she said that the Government were
“committed to a voluntary Seafarers’ Charter because it avoids confusion, complexity and over-regulation of an industry. It is right to keep this as a voluntary agreement initially, while we monitor the impacts of the Charter. However, we are keeping the need for a legislative basis under review.”
It appears, disappointingly, that discussions have stalled; the last version of the charter has not been circulated since early August, and the forum of employers and trade unions overseeing it appears to have been unilaterally scrapped by the department. The crucial area of roster patterns, which had been agreed by unions and operators —two weeks on and two weeks off—has now stalled, because the Government have proposed that further research is needed. That may be delay the publication of the seafarers’ charter. Is the Minister in a position today to give us a timeline for completion of that vital work?
Still, the principle of collective bargaining lies behind point nine, and also underlies the amendment proposed by my noble friend Lord Tunnicliffe. Given the precedent established by P&O Ferries in abrogating without notice collective agreements with unions that had been updated and developed over 100 years, it is essential for the Government to act to restore protection for seafarers by way of upholding collective bargaining, as intimated in the Minister’s letter.
It may be relevant for your Lordships to note that the EU, which of course covers the countries to and from which most of the routes that we are considering go, has adopted a social pillar, which in principle encourages the social partners
“to negotiate and conclude collective agreements”.
Partly in consequence of that, the European Council and Parliament have recently approved a draft directive on minimum wages. Seafarers are excluded on the basis that ship owners and seafarers’ unions will collectively bargain their own procedures to determine minimum wages. The UK should encourage such sectoral collective bargaining. That would be consistent with our obligations under the trade and co-operation agreement.
A return to encouragement of the social partners in the shipping industry to negotiate a comprehensive seafarers’ charter, impact assessed and monitored in accordance with my noble friend Lord Tunnicliffe’s amendment, is important. I invite the Government to adopt his amendment.
Lord Balfe (Con)
My Lords, I will say a couple of words. This clause is a typical “Let’s have a review” clause. In 90 days, it could do nothing at all, of course, because by the time the Act has commenced nothing at all will have happened. We have a failing in this House, and in legislature generally, that we tend to pass Acts and then forget them; they just pass away into the distance. I would welcome it if the Minister could give us some assurance that there will be monitoring of this Act and that we will be looking to see where it goes.
A subject such as this seems to be an ideal one for an inquiry in about a year’s time as to how the Act has affected the industry. I suspect that it will have very little effect on pensions, for instance, and we might well wish to look at a stronger charter overall. Could the Minister assure us that her department will keep this under review? Perhaps some noble Lords could decide in time that it might be a subject that should be looked at by a special committee of this House.
Seafarers’ Wages Bill [HL]
Lord Hendy Excerpts(2 years ago)
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Lord Hendy
“(1A) This Act also applies to a service for the carriage of persons or goods by ship, with or without vehicles, between—(a) a place in the United Kingdom and another place in the United Kingdom;(b) a place in Crown Dependencies and a place in the United Kingdom;(c) an offshore oil and gas installation on the UK Continental Shelf and a place in the United Kingdom; and(d) an offshore renewable energy installation within the UK Exclusive Economic Zone and a place in the United Kingdom.”
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.
Lord Hendy (Lab)
My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who contributed to the debate and to the noble Baroness for her response, in particular her reassurance that all the seafarers mentioned in my Amendment 1 are covered by the provisions of the Bill. The minimum wage corridors are clearly important and I am grateful to the noble Baroness for her update on the continuing negotiations. Is she able to say whether embedding minimum wage corridors in the legislation of bilateral states is under contemplation? She did not mention one matter: the progress towards collective agreements between ship operators and trade unions.
I hear what the noble Baroness said about legislating outside our territorial waters, but I wonder whether the department has considered other ways in which seafarers might be protected. It may be the case that operators in the North Sea will deliberately anchor hotel vessels and so on outside territorial waters to avoid the obligations of the Bill. I am also grateful to the noble Baroness for saying that she or the department will look again at the problem—if there is one—of operators with ships flagged in other states with less strict or stricter data protection laws saying, when they come to harbours in this country, “I cannot tell you what my seafarers’ wages are, because I am prohibited by the data protection laws of the state in which the vessel is flagged”.
We heard what the noble Baroness said on international law and international agreements, which everybody in the Room considers should be upheld in every way. There may be more discussion on this subject later today. I beg to withdraw my amendment.
Lord Berkeley (Lab)
My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 7 and 9 in my name, which cover the same ground that the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, outlined so well. I still get confused—I know that some associations are also confused—as to whether it is one ferry or a service. As the noble Baroness said, how do you define a service? For example, does it matter where the ship is registered? I do not think it does, but it would be interesting to hear the Minister’s response. Where the contract of employment with the seafarers is concerned, does that make any difference?
I suppose my purpose in putting down the amendment to change the number of visits to a harbour—or the harbour—from 120 to 50 was also to probe whether it matters which harbour it is and what a harbour is. I know that this Bill is designed to support ferry workers, which of course I support, but a lot of other ships go around the coast. Coasters, for one, move china clay, cement, aggregates and other things. I am a former member of the harbour board of the port of Fowey in Cornwall. These ships go backwards and forwards; their crew are probably employed in UK contracts but they might not be. Are they included? If not, should they be?
Ditto with cruise ships. We read about many employees on cruise ships not being well paid. Most cruise ships probably move internationally; they certainly do not come to a particular port even 50 times a year. On the other hand, some smaller ones go around more often. Why should those employees not be protected in the same way as ferry operators? I asked one or two people why they thought it was so important to protect ferry operators. The answer was, “Well, they’re a particular type of crew who usually go home after their shift”. That is an odd definition. I am sure that it is not true when you look at the services to Spain and up to Scandinavia; they certainly do not go home every night. It is important that the Minister sets out the limits of this clause, why it is that way and whether it relates to the ships or the crews.
In relation to ships going across the channel—P&O might have three or four going across; I am sure that the crew get moved from ship to ship—is it a matter of making sure that the ship or the captain produces the documents? How is it recorded that crews who have gone from one ship one week on to another ship another week are covered by this Bill? It is a pretty complicated solution, but it is terribly important for people who may be on one side of the fence or the other. I am sure the Minister can give me a wonderful answer on this; if not, she can write to me.
Lord Hendy (Lab)
My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 8, which is simply an elaboration of the points that my noble friend Lord Berkeley has already made. The proposal here is to delete “the harbour” and insert “a harbour”. What lies behind that is catching those vessels that might do what I understand is referred to as harbour-hopping, where, in order to decrease the frequency with which they are recorded in any particular port, they go to a nearby port every so often to reduce the number.
My second point, which my noble friend Lord Berkeley and I have addressed, and my noble friend Lord Tunnicliffe has a slight variant on, is whether 120 occasions a year is far too high. It will exclude a lot of vessels that do weekly ferrying, which we would want to catch. If I may speak for my noble friend Lord Berkeley as well as myself, the reason we think it should be 50 is that, quite often, a ship may be serviced for a couple of weeks a year and it may not therefore achieve the full 52 occasions, even if it is running a weekly service.
Baroness Randerson (LD)
My Lords, I want to clarify what the debate has thrown up so far. I fear that the Government are guilty of mission creep on this, which may have occurred with the very best of intentions, but there is certainly confusion as a result. As outlined by the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, a move from 120 calls to 52 would inadvertently bring in a much broader range of shipping.
The noble Lord, Lord Hendy, just touched on another issue that needs clarity, and I have three specific questions that it is important that the Minister answers clearly. If she cannot do that at this moment, we would all appreciate correspondence on this. First, on the move from “ships” to “services”, can we have absolute clarity on what a service is? How would it be covered if, for example, there is a refitting such as that just referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Hendy? I anticipate all sorts of ways in which companies will seek to avoid inclusion through the way they configure services, so we need clarity on the definition of “services”.
Secondly, in summing up the first group of amendments, the Minister again used the phrase
“close ties to the UK”.
This is at the core of the whole thing. Can we have a definition that will stand up in a court of law of exactly what the Government mean by that?
Thirdly, I am sure we would all be grateful if the Minister could address the concerns of the DPRRC, to which my noble friend Lady Scott referred.
Lord Hendy
Lord Hendy (Lab)
My Lords, this group of amendments seeks to extend the protections given by the Bill. My noble friend Lord Berkeley will speak to the question of whether Clauses 4 and 9 should stand part of the Bill and my noble friend Lord Tunnicliffe will speak to Amendment 25, which seeks an impact assessment in relation to roster patterns, pensions and wages, and Amendment 26 on engagement with trade unions.
My amendments are Amendments 3, 13 and 14. I have now convinced myself that Amendment 3 is completely unnecessary. I was trying to ensure that the protection in Section 40 of the National Minimum Wage Act 1998, which deals with residency of seafarers, or lack of it, would still be a condition for engaging the Act where the seafarer was a regular visitor to UK ports but not resident in the UK. On reflection, it seems that it is not necessary to refer to Section 40 because Clause 2(c) specifically engages the National Minimum Wage Act as a whole, and therefore Section 40.
Lord Hendy (Lab)
My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who spoke in the debate, and to the noble Baroness for her explanations and her undertaking to look at certain matters again. I share my noble friend Lord Tunnicliffe’s regret that she could not go a little further with his Amendments 25 and 26, because we know from the experience with P&O Ferries that the collective agreements were torn up and the role of the trade unions abolished by that employer. Those amendments would have been quite useful to see what the impact would be on industrial relations and whether trade unions would be left with any role, whether over pensions, rostering or any other matter concerning terms and conditions. I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
Lord Hendy
Lord Hendy (Lab)
My Lords, these amendments also concern enforcement of and compliance with the Bill’s provisions. I have Amendments 4 and 11 but, to deal with this generally, Amendments 12 and 24 seek to impose much higher penalties—detention of a ship or a minimum £1 million fine. Amendments 31 to 34 deal with the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee’s report. Amendments 20 to 22 and 31 deal with transferring tariffs from harbour authorities to the Secretary of State. Amendments 30, 35 and 39 depend on the removal of earlier clauses. Amendment 17 deals with naming the particular inspector.
My Amendment 4 is to Clause 3(1), which provides:
“Where ships providing a service to which this Act applies use the harbour of a harbour authority, the authority may request the operator … to provide a … declaration”.
I seek to change “may” to “must”, because it does not seem appropriate that the harbour should be left with any discretion at all. I appreciate that there are to be regulations later on that would give the Secretary of State power over harbour authorities, but one might have thought that it would not be unreasonable to demand in the Bill that harbour authorities demand an equivalence declaration.
My Amendment 11 is also to Clause 3, this time to Clause 3(5). As it stands, it requires that the operator must inform the harbour authority that there is an inconsistency with a declaration. I am seeking for the Maritime and Coastguard Agency likewise to be informed, because it will, essentially, be the regulator. I beg to move.
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
Yes. I tend to do one letter addressed to all noble Lords present. A copy will be placed in the Library. It will be lengthy, but it will be set out by topic and cover, with as much detail as I can, things that I have not been able to cover today and any additional information that would be helpful to noble Lords.
Lord Hendy (Lab)
My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken in the debate, and to the noble Baroness for her explanation and response to the points raised in this group of amendments. I am very grateful in particular that she will look again at the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee’s recommendations. I should have said earlier that I am a member of that committee.
I wonder whether, having heard the almost unanimous view expressed this afternoon about the effective delegation of authority to harbour authorities, the Government would be prepared to look at that a little further. Having said that, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
P&O Ferries
Lord Hendy Excerpts(2 years, 7 months ago)
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Lord Hendy (Lab)
The noble Baroness is to be congratulated that a package of measures is to be introduced, late thought it may be, but will that package include the preservation of the right to collective bargaining and consultation, which this company so clearly flouted?
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
When it comes to collective bargaining and negotiations with the unions, we need to get to the bottom of whether the existing law was disregarded in this case. Mr Hebblethwaite seemed to suggest that it might have been, which was unwise.
Extraordinary Funding and Financing Agreement for Transport for London
Lord Hendy Excerpts(2 years, 11 months ago)
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Lord Hendy (Lab)
My Lords, I too declare an interest as a Londoner and a Freedom pass holder. I am also standing counsel to the RMT, ASLEF and Unite, which means that from time to time I advise and represent those unions. I have not been called on in relation to the issue now before the House and, needless to say, I represent nobody but myself.
The interests of the Government, the Department for Transport, the mayor, TfL, Londoners and visitors are obvious. My concern in the present negotiations between the DfT and TfL is: what about the workers? These are the people who, as essential staff, kept Londoners working and travelling during the pandemic. Almost 100 workers on London’s transport died because of Covid, together with an unknown number of cab drivers, private hire drivers and delivery riders.
Uncertainty of funding means uncertainty of employment. We understand that TfL must prepare for the worst as the current funding package runs out, but whether its worst-case scenario of an 18% cut in bus services and a 9% cut in Underground services turns out to be too pessimistic, the staff working the buses and the Tube are left anxious and worried that some of them may lose their livelihoods and others have their hours and/or pay cut. This is no way, as they say, to run a railway. Nor are cuts to jobs in London transport, as the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, implies, any way to build back better or to prepare for a green transition.
Just as TfL—and indeed the Government—needs long-term planning, so do the individual members of its staff and their families. I ask the Minister to assure the House that when agreement is reached for funding past 11 December, the department will then sit down with TfL to agree a long-term plan for funding so that finances do not lurch from one half year to the next. I ask her too to undertake to ensure that the unions are at that negotiating table. Staff are entitled to have their voice heard on long-term strategy as well as day-to-day issues.
Health Protection (Coronavirus, Wearing of Face Coverings on Public Transport) (England) Regulations 2020
Lord Hendy Excerpts(4 years, 4 months ago)
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Lord Hendy (Lab) [V]
My Lords, I support the regulations, which make it mandatory to make a wear a form of personal protective equipment. As the Department for Transport’s Explanatory Memorandum says:
“Mandating the use of face coverings, when used alongside other measures, therefore offers a reasonable protective measure to reduce the risk of infection on contamination by a virus that presents a significant harm to public health.”
Like public transport, many workplaces have a similar risk of infection because they contain a number of people in a confined space for significant periods of time, with limited changes of air. Yet, notwithstanding the Personal Protective Equipment at Work Regulations 1992, instead of making mandatory the provision of face coverings at work, the Government have published eight sets of guidance advising that workplaces should not encourage the precautionary use of PPE. In light of the regulations under debate, how can the Government justify advising employers not to adopt at work what the Department for Transport describes as a “reasonable protective measure” on public transport?
Flybe
Lord Hendy Excerpts(4 years, 8 months ago)
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Baroness Vere of Norbiton
My noble friend is absolutely right. We cannot be clear enough that this affects only Flybe, and that at many airports, Flybe makes up only a small number of the flights. At Teesside, I believe that Flybe passengers account for only 14% of passengers, so that airport remains very much open for business, and there are some excellent airlines operating out of it. Passengers should therefore continue to fly with confidence. For example, at Leeds Bradford, Flybe accounts for just 5% of passengers. Again, passengers should feel confident in booking with other airlines out of Leeds Bradford—and, indeed, many other regional airports.
Lord Hendy (Lab)
My Lords, Flybe is not the first notable company to go bust in recent times—one thinks of Carillion—but does the Minister agree that the protection of workers in these circumstances is totally inadequate? Will the forthcoming Employment Bill be an opportunity to enhance and protect their rights in relation to prior consultation on circumstances that might lead to the collapse of a company; to place obligations on the company to provide more by way of retraining and assistance with finding alternative employments; and to enhance redundancy pay? One sympathises with the passengers in this case and the customers of other companies, but it is the workers who, I understand, heard of their loss of jobs—their loss of careers in some cases—on the radio, as we did, this morning.
Baroness Vere of Norbiton
On the issue of communications with employees, hearing it on the radio is less than ideal. I am sure it is not how any noble Lord would treat any of their employees. It is not acceptable and there are better ways of keeping employees up to date with what is going on. I cannot agree with the noble Lord that all is doom and gloom for employees and that everything must be improved. As I set out in the opening Statement, there are many routes that employees can now take. The Government stand ready to help, working alongside the unions, and the Insolvency Service is able to make payments.