Doncaster Sheffield Airport
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Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)
My Lords, the Opposition have called for this UQ since I understand that it is the Minister’s personal responsibility. Would she like to expand on the points made—or, indeed, not made—in the other place? In particular, why has the Secretary of State refused to meet local representatives? Further, is it not the Minister’s responsibility to support a solution between the combined authority, Peel Holdings and potential buyers? Why have the Government refused to use the Civil Contingencies Act?
Airports Slot Allocation (Alleviation of Usage Requirements) (No. 3) Regulations 2022
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Lord Jones (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for her helpful introduction—she got airborne and made height. She might know that there is one airport in Wales, in Cardiff, and that the Welsh Government bought it for some £50 million some years ago. Previously, there were difficulties, and it was thought that the lovely land of Wales needed an airport—at the very least one. So I think that the Welsh Government were right to make their intervention. Cardiff Airport was undoubtedly not congested before purchase.
Could the Minister make a statement here in this Committee about Cardiff and slots—the 80:20 rule? Can she explain the general situation as it might concern Cardiff? One presumes that these regulations apply to Wales—it is there on page 1. Does the Minister have the information? How does the 80:20 rule impact on Wales’s one and only airport? Can she make any remarks of a helpful nature about Cardiff Airport in the context of the pressures on Heathrow and Stansted? What is the impact of the regulations on Cardiff Airport?
Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for introducing the instrument, which I welcome and which again amends the airport slot usage rules, this time to 70:30, for the winter 2022 season. The aviation industry brings growth and prosperity to the UK and, as we deal with the after-effects of the pandemic, the Government are right to amend rules such as these. However, they must also plan for the long term and provide certainty to airlines, passengers and businesses that rely on the industry.
The airline industry is now recovering from significant challenges and levels are still at around 80%. As a result, airlines would likely operate ghost flights without an amendment to the rules. None the less, I would appreciate clarification of how the department decided that 70:30 is the correct rule for the fall/winter period. Will the Minister confirm what formula was used to decide this? I hope she can confirm whether the Government expect to extend the relaxation further when this instrument expires.
I listened to the case for reconsidering. We do support the extension as it stands, but I recognise that, to some extent, this solution is looking a bit tired—I have a vision of sticking plasters stuck round it to try to make it work. My recommendation to the Minister and the department is to be extremely careful with any modification. It would be very easy to have significant unintended consequences. Ideally, we should hope that growth which allows us to grow out of the need is in sight. Once again, we support this instrument.
Vehicles: Purchase Price and Running Costs
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Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)
My Lords, the transition to electric vehicles is vital to the survival of our society as we know it; the impact of climate change is even worse in many other countries. The report sets out some sensible recommendations to help on the way. Which, if any, of the three or two-plus-two recommendations does the Minister reject, and why?
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
I am afraid that I am not familiar with the recommendations in the report.
Seafarers’ Wages Bill [HL]
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Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)
My Lords, the amendments in this group relate to the territorial scope of the Bill and the vessels to which this legislation applies. Seafarers across the board deserve proper compensation for their work and I welcome the opportunity to consider whether the Bill, in its present form, achieves this. To this end, I hope the Minister will clarify that all workers on the vessels listed in these amendments are already covered. When we landlubbers think of seafarers, we often picture those who directly control vessels, but the definition is incredibly wide and covers everyone from cleaners to the administrative staff on board. I hope the Minister comments on the Government’s approach to supporting better wages and conditions for all seafarers.
Amendment 5 in my name is a probing amendment and it is key. It seeks information from the Minister on the state of negotiations, particularly those with France and the Republic of Ireland, on the corridor concept. This Bill, which we support, is one small step towards addressing the issue of seafarers’ terms and conditions.
I respect what my noble friend Lord Berkeley just said but, at the end of the day, if these international conventions have achieved utopia for seamen, I would hate to see hell. Wages seem incredibly, unacceptably low in an international world. Perhaps that is not so true in the wider world, but they seem unacceptably low in Europe. I hope the Government put all possible energy into negotiations with other European states to establish these corridors. It sets a precedent for the worldwide consideration that seafarers deserve a better deal than they are getting.
Amendment 23 would prevent the refusal of harbour access where doing so would break international maritime law. In any situation in which harbour access is refused, in framing the appropriate guidance, a Government must have considered the safety and environmental implications of refusal. It moves to the general view that we must work on the international agreements in parallel and seek to ensure, as does the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, that the various conventions not only exist but are universally and even-handedly implemented.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Transport (Baroness Vere of Norbiton) (Con)
My Lords, I am grateful for the careful consideration of this Bill by all noble Lords. I reiterate what I have already said to noble Lords in private sessions: the Government are listening to concerns and will endeavour to answer in full all the questions raised by your Lordships today. I suspect that some will certainly be in writing, and I may well try to develop on some on some of the things I am able to say today so that we have full information as we head towards Report.
I sense that there are slightly differing views around the Committee, where some people want this to go much further and others are very cautious. Of course, both of those views potentially risk the Bill itself. I therefore just want to make sure that everybody has as much information as I can get out, particularly around the Government’s intent with the Bill and why it is drafted as it is. Noble Lords will have heard the previous Secretary of State speak about the nine-point plan many times, which was in response to the P&O decision that was made back in March. We recognise that this Bill is narrow in scope and potentially also in effect, as we cannot legislate outside UK territorial waters. It is none the less an important part of the nine-point plan that this sits hand in glove with the other work that we are doing to improve the welfare of seafarers to make sure that their terms and conditions are as good as they can be.
The amendments in this first group cover territorial scope and international law and I will try to address them in turn. Amendment 1 from the noble Lord, Lord Hendy, seeks to probe the application of the Bill in various circumstances. I completely accept the way that he introduced this and that he had intended some separate amendments that were deemed to be out of scope. It is worth making sure that the different groups of seafarers who he identified in his amendment are indeed covered. To look at it in more detail, on proposed new subsection (1A)(a), seafarers working or ordinarily working in the UK, including UK internal or territorial waters if the vessel is not exercising a right to innocent passage, are already entitled to the national minimum wage. That stems from Section 1(2)(b) of the National Minimum Wage Act 1998 and Article 2 of the National Minimum Wage (Offshore Employment) Order 1999. That change is therefore unnecessary, and I think the noble Lord would agree.
On proposed new subsection (1A)(b), voyages to or from the Crown dependencies would already be in scope of this Bill under the service definition in Clause 1. Of course, I recognise at this point that the UK Government can legislate only in the waters of the UK; therefore, it would be a similar circumstance as one would have, for example, with a journey to France.
On proposed new subsection (1A)(c), under Article 2 of the National Minimum Wage (Offshore Employment) Order 1999, a worker working or ordinarily working in connection with the exploration of the seabed or subsoil or the exploitation of natural resources in the UK sector of the continental shelf is treated as if they are working, or ordinarily work, in the UK. Those workers are therefore already entitled to the national minimum wage, so, again subject to the caveat about UK territorial waters, those workers are covered—ditto those who are working on services to offshore renewable energy installations. Again, I note that some of those may be far away from UK territorial waters. I hope that that reassures the noble Lord.
I note the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, that it is not only the people who are in control of the ship. When I think about this, I do not think about the people in control of the ship but of all the other people on board, who do the really important day-to-day tasks that are sometimes forgotten. I accept that this is about making sure that we cover everybody on board, and I am satisfied that we do.
Lord Fairfax of Cameron (Con)
My Lords, I apologise; I have only just arrived, because I was detained elsewhere. I want to pick up on the point of the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, about ferries. Ferries have been referred to, so maybe the Minister can clarify this later. I need to read the Bill again, line by line, but nowhere does it refer to “ferries”. It refers to “ships”. In the current energy crisis, for example, you may have a service of tankers of diesel fuel coming in with the required regularity. They might be caught by the Bill, because of the frequency with which they call on the UK as part of their service, but they are certainly not ferries. The Minister will confirm this later, but I do not believe we should use the language of “ferries”, when we are in fact talking about ships.
Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)
My Lords, this is a useful set of amendments to clarify some of the points. I hope that the Minister will either be able to provide that clarification or, if she wants to worry about the syntax of her reply, supply it in a careful letter.
I have two amendments in this group. Amendment 10 seeks to replace 120 with 52 in Clause 3(3), so I sit alongside my noble friend Lord Berkeley and the noble Baroness, Lady Scott. My noble friend made a persuasive case for 50, as opposed to 52, and I will need considerable persuasion not to press this point on Report, unless the Minister is able to create a very powerful argument that there would be unintended consequences from that.
Amendment 36 seeks, in essence, to stop the effects of the Bill being, in a sense, destroyed by repeated regulations. Surely the Bill’s minimum requirements are in the primary legislation, and the adjustments to them should really be only upwards, not reducing the requirements.
I also join the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, in her concern about the DPRRC’s concerns. In my day, if it produced a recommendation, we used to shake in our boots and recognise that some deal or other had to be made with it because of the authority it carried. Once again, I hope the Government will recognise the authority and wisdom of that committee and accede to its suggestions.
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
My Lords, I am again grateful to noble Lords for sharing their thoughts on this group of amendments. The thrust of the amendments in this group is very much around probing the scope of the Bill in terms of the services and ships to which it applies. As the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, noted, I will write. I do not think he was implying that my oral replies are not carefully thought through—maybe he was—but the letter will be perfect. Noble Lords should await further information in the letter, but I will try to cover as many points as I can.
I look at this borderline, grey-area conversation that noble Lords are having, and at the back of my mind I keep thinking, “What sort of an operator are you if you will go to a different port in order to drop your frequency down to be just under or over any particular target so that you don’t have to pay your seafarers the national minimum wage equivalent in UK waters?”
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
The Government are very willing to define what these services are and, by implication, those have close ties to the UK. I can probably come up with lots of other clever descriptors to define these sorts of services. A large container ship stopping at the UK once a month does not have close ties to the UK; it is an international container ship, shipping around wheat or whatever it might be shipping. We can think of some other language, but once we have nailed what the service is, where it goes, how frequently it goes and which ships it utilises, then we have defined it. That is it, we are done. That is the definition that works legally because it has hard boundaries and can be fairly well defined, I think.
I absolutely appreciate that Amendment 27 is a probing amendment. We intend to provide guidance to harbour authorities, and that guidance will be consulted on. We can define what the service is but we need to help harbour authorities to fully understand those definitions. We will consult with the industry to make sure that there is absolute clarity. I would not say that the guidance should be put on a statutory footing; that is not entirely necessary in this particular case.
I turn finally to Amendment 37. I have of course seen the DPRRC report. It was published only a few days ago so I beg your Lordships’ leave just to say that, at this stage, we are considering what is in it. We are taking it very seriously; I reassure the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, that we take all DPRRC reports very seriously. We will publish our response to it before Report so noble Lords will have the opportunity to peruse that. I have no doubt that we will be able to have further conversations about that.
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
I absolutely shall cover Amendment 36. My apologies, I slightly went off-beam so I thought I had already covered it.
Regarding Amendment 36, the clause as drafted does not allow a Government to amend or reduce the overall extent of services in scope of the Bill. It provides only that regulations may make different provisions for different cases, including for different descriptions of service to which the Bill applies or non-qualifying seafarers. This power cannot be used to amend the Bill and is not intended to be used to alter the scope of the Bill. I slightly thought that I would need to come back to this particular issue to make sure that noble Lords are in agreement as to what we are trying to achieve here. I will give that further consideration.
Baroness Randerson (LD)
My Lords, we do not have any amendments in this group, but I take this opportunity simply to make the point that we share the concern of those noble Lords who do have amendments in this group. These are important issues that reflect the reasonable fear that employers could use tactics that circumvent the measures in the Bill.
One thing that has been speculated on is that seafarers could be paid at a lower rate when they are outside UK waters to compensate for the higher rate that they must be paid in UK waters. There are things about which the Government can do nothing, but it is really important that the things that can be got right are looked at carefully to ensure that they are absolutely on the nail. I point in particular to Amendment 26 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, to emphasise the importance of monitoring the effectiveness of this legislation and engaging with the trade unions. P&O’s tactics—the audacity with which they were announced surprised everyone, I think—exposed the weakness of the current safeguards. However, if the Government attempt to plug the loophole but fail to do so effectively, I fear that P&O would not be alone and other owners would attempt to do something similar—perhaps not as blatantly as the way in which P&O did it, but it certainly could undermine legislation further if the Government’s efforts here are not fully effective.
Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)
My Lords, I will speak on the two amendments in my name in this group, but I commend the other amendments to the Minister’s study, because it is important to achieve clarity on some of these issues.
On Amendment 25, my original involvement with these sorts of issues was in an analogous industry—transport—where I was a shop steward and subsequently an industrial relations manager. In the crew situation, issues with roster patterns and pensions are every bit as important as wages. The way that rosters are handled in particular can have a serious impact on remuneration and a massive impact on quality of life. It is important that there is a proper impact report on these issues, ideally within 90 days.
This leads on to Amendment 26, because this and other issues would be much enhanced if we could develop a proper relationship with the trade unions. The importance of this from the point of view of the trade union movement is exemplified by an appeal—for want of a better term—to the International Labour Organization from the general secretary of Nautilus; the general secretary of the RMT, Mick Lynch; the general secretary of the TUC, Frances O’Grady; the acting general secretary of the European Transport Workers’ Federation; the general secretary of the International Transport Workers’ Federation; and the general secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation. I read those out to emphasise that this is a heavy coalition of the trade union movement. Their appeal is set out in a document that I hope the Minister has seen, which centres on what happened at P&O. It helps one to understand how broad detailing and managing the employment conditions of crew is and how important it is to get a hold of this to make sure that crews are properly looked after, both in their remuneration and conditions of work. I therefore commend Amendment 26 to the Minister.
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
My Lords, this third group of amendments is broadly concerned with the relationship of this Bill to the domestic national minimum wage. The noble Lord, Lord Hendy, has already decided that Amendment 3 is not necessary; I agree with him so, if noble Lords agree, I shall just move on.
Amendment 13, also in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hendy, relates to the calculation of the national minimum wage equivalence and deductions. We have been clear that this will be covered by regulation and is not for the Bill. This also allows us a little more flexibility decades hence, should changes need to be made. Nevertheless, Section 2(5)(c) of the National Minimum Wage Act 1998 does not prohibit deductions from pay of costs for providing seafarers’ accommodation, food or water, but simply provides for regulations on the matter. We will very much be matching up.
Regulations under the Bill will need to be consistent with the provisions within the Maritime Labour Convention, or MLC, whereby requiring seafarers to meet the cost of food and water is expressly forbidden. We therefore do not need to amend the Bill to account for this. Perhaps the noble Lord might remind the RMT about that, if it feels that seafarers out there are being charged for those things. That is clearly and expressly forbidden.
Regarding deductions for accommodation, under the National Minimum Wage Regulations 2015, employers on domestic services are permitted to apply a reduction of up to £8.70 per day in respect of the provision of living accommodation, without that affecting the assessment of the worker’s pay for national minimum wage purposes. The MLC does not make express provision for reduction for accommodation, and shipping industry practice is not to charge seafarers for accommodation. It is not our intention that operators should be encouraged to make such reductions for accommodation to reduce their overall wage fee, so we will be considering this in the regulations in due course.
Baroness Randerson (LD)
My Lords, I start by thanking the noble Lords, Lord Berkeley and Lord Mountevans, for joining us on some of these amendments. I will briefly underline some of the points that my noble friend and those noble Lords made.
The complexity of expecting ports to do what is essentially the Government’s job for them will undermine the effectiveness of this legislation. Think about the use of the term “surcharge”. You pay a surcharge when you use a service voluntarily; it has no implication of illegality. If, however, a company finds itself paying a surcharge according to the rubric of this Bill when it becomes legislation, it will have broken the law. In other words, it is paying a surcharge as a fine—and a fine should be called a fine. I urge the Minister to look again at the phraseology here. Let us be clear: if companies are going to be fined, let us call it a fine.
The other issue is the complexity of expecting ports to deny access to the harbour. The international law on denying access to a harbour is complex and it would be difficult for them to do so. They would have to be absolutely sure that there is no question of danger to life. As a result, they will err on the side of caution and it will not happen. As both the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, and my noble friend Lady Scott said, detaining ships is a normal course of events. It is not done frequently but it is done, and for safety reasons as well. I urge the Government to have the courage of their convictions and give these powers to the Secretary of State, because they are much more appropriately those of the Secretary of State.
It is not as if the Government do not want to be involved, because Clause 11 gives them wide-ranging powers of direction. It essentially gives them control, so the Government want that control behind the scenes but do not have the courage to put their name on the notices. That is a strange approach, so I urge them to rethink the way this is to be done. The impact would be that well-meaning and very important legislation could be undermined. At the same time, it would put our ports in a difficult position, make their relationship with ship owners more complex and create for them, as other noble Lords said, a conflict of interest.
Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)
My Lords, I have a couple of amendments in this group. The first is Amendment 12, which would create a minimum fine of £1 million. Whether that is the right figure, I am not sure, but the real concern is about the size of the owners; I believe that P&O’s owners have made $721 million in the past six months. There is a real risk that, if businesses of this size take an almost doctrinal opposition to the measure—the P&O debacle showed such a doctrinal opposition to reasonable conditions on board ships—a fine that is not substantial becomes just a cost of business. That would be regrettable; I am sure that it is not the Government’s intention but I would value some feedback from the Minister. How does one assure oneself that the fines are sufficiently large to impinge on the decision-making of these companies? There is a concern that good companies do the right thing anyway. The trouble is that we have a very real example in the recent past of one of these companies not doing the right thing; that is what provoked this legislation.
The second area concerns naming the inspector or inspectors. I tabled my amendment here to draw out how the world will know that this is happening. Organisations that have either a principal inspector or someone like that as a named individual are so much clearer as to who will be held to account for appropriate levels of activity. As a minimum, I hope that the Minister will be able to give me a feel for how quickly inspectors will be appointed and how many of them there will be, as well as assure us that there is adequate inspection capability. We know that this whole issue of minimum wage enforcement is pretty difficult in a land situation; at sea, it will be much more difficult to get the details to know whether an offence or the wrong charge has been committed.
With that, I come to the amendments in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, regarding the Secretary of State having the authority to determine the tariff, which will really be a fine. I think that harbour authorities are about harbours. I can see why they perhaps must be drawn in at one level but when it comes to becoming a policeman, in essence, that is what the state should be doing. I agree with the general thrust that this should be the Secretary of State’s responsibility.
Finally, I hope that the Government will give careful consideration to the amendments addressing the DPRRC’s concerns.
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
My Lords, this fourth and final group of amendments is concerned broadly with incentives, enforcement and compliance. There is a wide range of amendments herein. It has been helpful to have this discussion today.
I will start with Amendment 4, with which the noble Lord, Lord Hendy, seeks to make requesting a national minimum wage equivalent declaration a duty rather than a power that can be used with some discretion. The payment of national minimum wage equivalent would be a condition of port entry and so should be a matter for the harbour authority to decide. Furthermore, by making this a “may” rather than a “must”, we are allowing for flexibility in circumstances where there might be overlapping harbour authorities, for example where a vessel transits through one harbour authority’s area of jurisdiction to call at a port within another harbour authority area of jurisdiction. There may be other circumstances that noble Lords can think of where it is not necessary that this declaration is shared every single time. It should be noted that the Bill provides the Secretary of State with the power to direct harbour authorities to request a declaration, so there are necessary safeguards against harbour authorities not discharging this function properly.
Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)
The noble Baroness promised to write letters. Will it be a common letter to all of us?
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.
Stockton to Darlington Railway Anniversary
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Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
I thank my noble friend for his question. I pay tribute to his outstanding service as DCMS Minister—he therefore knows an awful lot about the topic of heritage rail. He is right that we are not going to have a full celebration without making sure that all of our railway museums are fully engaged in the process. I completely agree with him that we absolutely need to ensure that railway museums across the country, including the fantastic National Railway Museum in York, are involved in the celebrations.
Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)
My Lords, I am afraid that I agree with the Minister—it is a bad habit these days. That day in 1825 was an historic one. It gave the United Kingdom first-mover advantage in this extremely important industry. It is one of the most important dates in the whole development of the Industrial Revolution, from which we as a society still benefit. I am delighted that the Minister supports the celebration of it. Will she allow in her answer that that support may involve some financial support?
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
I will allow that it may involve some financial support.
Motor Fuel (Composition and Content) (Amendment) (Northern Ireland) Regulations 2022
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Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for introducing this SI, which of course we will support. However, having done a little research on this issue, I have ended up with a few questions. First, I think she said that the situation in Northern Ireland and mainland UK will be precisely the same after 1 November. It seems to me that we have E10 and E5, and 97 and 95. As I understand it, in Northern Ireland all the E5 will be 97 and all the E10 will be 95. I should know this from when I fill up my car, but is that the situation in the UK today?
The second area I am interested in, from doing research on that glorious but occasionally seductively dangerous Google, is that there have been questions about whether there is a fuel consumption penalty. Indeed, looking it up on GOV.UK, there is an acknowledgement that there is. The government website suggests that it is 1% or 2%; some motoring magazines have suggested it is rather higher. It would not require much of an increase in overall fuel consumption to arguably negate the advantages of ethanol in the fuel.
If one is unfortunate enough to own one of the 5% of cars which, I think, are not E10 compatible—or perhaps fortunate because they are some of the nicest cars around—it seems that one would have to go to E5 97. My general experience is that 97 is substantially more expensive than E10 95, so it seems to be something of a penalty. Indeed, it might lead some people to use E10 even though they know their vehicle is incompatible. Can the Minister give us some feel for the impact on the engine of consuming incompatible fuel E10 95 instead of the E5 97 that should be used?
GOV.UK explained—it is set out in the EM—that carbon dioxide emissions are reduced by this process. I would be grateful if the Minister could explain the mechanisms by which that is achieved. I have to say that until today I thought petrol was petrol, but when I got on to Google I discovered that it is a gigantic mixture of all sorts of things, and that it varies according to the time of year, and so on. However, it is a hydrocarbon—that is, it takes its energy from releasing hydrogen and carbon from the molecules and creating water and CO2. That must be as true for ethanol because its chemical formula contains only carbon, hydrogen and oxygen, and, as far as I can tell, all the components of petrol contain carbon, hydrogen and oxygen. I therefore find it difficult to see how the emissions from the vehicle would be different. I can see that there is a difference between fuel which comes from various processing of vegetable matter, which of course captures the CO2 in its creation and then it goes through a cycle in order to be able to go into a car.
I also discovered with my friend Google that there are worries about some issues such as condensation, and potentially water in fuel as result of that, and about the possibility of degradation of hoses and seals. I wonder to what extent in this introduction those concerns have been taken account of. Otherwise, this is a wonderful idea and I beg to support it.
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, and the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, for their consideration of the statutory instrument today. I am pleased that they are both able to support it, and they had some very good questions, definitely one of which I had to go and look up after I spoke to the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, this morning; I am very pleased to have an answer but I will leave it to the end, as it is my piece de resistance.
I turn first to the questions asked by the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, although this also applies to some of the issues the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, raised. We have had this fuel in Great Britain now since September 2021 so, if there were any significant concerns, they would have been raised. We are not aware of any. I recognise that some motoring magazines might raise certain questions, but certainly there is no evidence at the moment that there is a significant problem with the introduction. The noble Baroness asked whether we had learned anything from the introduction in Great Britain. One of the key things that we learned was to make sure that we made the introduction when the specification of the fuel changes from summer to winter, so that you get the throughput at the same time as you are trying to flush through the winter grade, in this case, into Northern Ireland. In broad terms, therefore, as regards this introduction, where there are any risks they have been mitigated or we are aware of them, and otherwise I expect a very smooth introduction.
Of course, it is true that this SI was delayed a little by the sad death of Her Majesty the Queen; that is why the communications campaign in Northern Ireland has already started. The noble Baroness spoke about classic cars and indeed classic lawnmowers. We are aware that a number of items of equipment will need to continue to use E5. E5 will remain available, and we will make sure that the communications include guidance for owners to check their manufacturer’s instructions to see whether E5 is suitable. In the vast majority of cases, they can just use E10 and then E5 if it is available. Light aircraft should also be able to continue to use E5. Again, as with the introduction in Great Britain, although we noted it and it was a potential issue, it has not turned out to be the case.
The noble Baroness mentioned EV charging points and I look forward, now that I am back in my role, to speaking with her further about them. I note that we have a new Minister for the Future of Transport, whom I was speaking to only today. I am not saying that the last Minister was slacking at all, but the new Minister has come at it with great new vigour to look through all our plans, to make sure that the funding is going to the places which need it most. We have to fund areas where there is a market failure because there is a significant private sector there that is willing to invest, and we need to make sure that we target those areas—for example, rural areas—where the value-for-money case for the private sector might not be so good, but we absolutely need to get those EV chargers there.
On the percentage of terminals that cannot blend, I can say that bat the moment there are two terminals, which represent less than 5% of total UK petrol production. I am afraid that the point about the percentage of petrol from the Republic is a step too far, but I will write if we have that information. When the Republic introduces E10 in January, that will be consistent across the island of Ireland and within the whole of the UK. There will be consistency for the vast majority of people who are driving compatible cars.
I am afraid that the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, slightly lost me with his first point about Northern Ireland and the mainland and 95 and 97. I will go back to read it again to make sure that we can respond properly and that we have fully understood his concern about the supply of 95, 97, E5 and E10. He is right to note that there is a penalty in terms of miles per gallon when using blended bioethanol. We think it supplies about 1.7% less energy. As we noted when we did the last SIs, it is probably about the same as driving with the air conditioning on or driving with slightly flat tyres. It is not a game-changing decrease in the energy supplied from the petrol. That impact was of course included in the impact assessment on whether it was a good idea to do this at all. The impact on the consumer is fairly marginal.
I turn to the costs for those who have an incompatible vehicle. As the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, mentioned, some classic cars cannot run on E10 and would need to continue to use E5, which will continue to be available. I recognise that it might be a little more expensive than the E10 prices one would hope to see. For those who are unwilling to pay for super grade petrol, there are very good second-hand alternatives on the market. Unfortunately, that will probably be the option that they have to pursue.
As for what happens if you put the wrong grade in, whether E10 or E5, if you do it infrequently it is unlikely to damage your vehicle at all. It is not like when you put diesel in your petrol car or vice versa—then you really are in trouble. Your car will be fine and you can just go back to using the right one. Should you put the wrong one in on occasion, it is not going to be too much of a problem.
Then we come to carbon calculations. When I spoke to the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, this morning, he got me thinking. Of course, he is absolutely right. I had to get my head around this. It is true that when you put bioethanol into petrol, it is combusted and it produces carbon dioxide. However, the point is that the carbon dioxide in that bioethanol is from the short-term carbon cycle. It is from the air and you could probably calculate how many months it has been gone. It is from the air, it goes into feedstuffs, it goes into the vehicle, it comes out of the tailpipe and it returns to the air again. Because it is from the short-term cycle, it is basically a case of taking it out temporarily and putting it back. Using bioethanol is stopping us using that percentage of fossil fuel-based petrol, which comes from stored carbon and is what we do not want to add to the atmosphere. That was a great learning point for me and I am grateful to the noble Lord for raising it. I am going to do a bit more digging to make sure we fully understand that. We know that this is not carbon dioxide free at the tailpipe, but it is a short-term cycle rather than the long-term release of greenhouse gases, which is absolutely what we are trying to reduce in this country. On that basis, I commend the regulations to the Committee.
Merchant Shipping (High Speed Craft) Regulations 2022
Lord Tunnicliffe Excerpts(1 year, 6 months ago)
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Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)
My Lords, we are looking at the high-speed craft regulations—the high-speed craft code. I assume—I may be corrected—that the code is de facto in two parts. There is presumably a part of the code which relates to construction—I noticed the reference to stability—and clearly there is a part which relates to operation. That is a classic division in international transport; it happens in aviation, and essentially, the international code for the construction of aeroplanes is obeyed more or less by every country to the same standard, which makes life very straightforward. There is a code about operation but clearly, that tends also to be influenced by the domestic philosophies of the airlines and operators concerned. Is my assumption that the code divides into two accurate?
Secondly, to what vessels or craft does the code apply? I discovered the formula—I cannot remember whether it is in the Explanatory Memorandum, the regulations or on Google, but wherever it is, how I would apply it did not entirely leap to my mind. However, as I understand it, it relates to volume and it then manipulates that volume to create a speed, which defines whether a craft is high-speed. If it goes faster than that, it is a high-speed craft, and if it goes slower than that, it is not. However, it means that the image of what a high-speed craft is is not self-evident. I understand that the “Queen Mary 2”, for instance, can achieve 30 knots—it normally goes around the world at about 20 or 22 knots. That sounds quite fast, but I believe it is not a high-speed craft. Equally, smaller vessels—the Minister mentioned smaller vessels which operate domestically—which clearly do not do 30 knots are categorised as high-speed craft.
My next question is on whether we have any in the UK; the noble Baroness has already told us that we do. If my conceptual division is right, clearly, this code would apply to how they are operated. I presume it applies to how they are manufactured. The question then is: do we manufacture any of these vessels in the UK? My sense from my Google exploration is that we do not, although I may have misread that. Are we comfortable that the philosophy behind the code has been applied in the original construction of these vessels?
Finally, the code is different. It says in paragraph 7.3 of the EM—and in the code, which I have looked at only very superficially:
“The HSC Codes take more of a risk-based approach than many maritime standards, which tend to be more prescriptive.”
Indeed, it is the history of transport that most specifications originate from simply building the particular transport facility, be it a train, a boat or an aeroplane, seeing how many of them crash, and from each crash you learn something new and put that in a regulation. You end up with a large amount of prescriptive things, and if you do it enough, you get pretty close to the optimum. Indeed, the high performance of aviation recently has shown that this approach works—sadly, with the notable exception of the 737 Max; it took two horrific accidents for Boeing to take its responsibilities seriously.
The interesting point is that taking a risk-based approach to safety, as opposed to a learning-based approach that creates the prescriptive codes, requires a different philosophical approach by the safety regulators. If the Minister agrees with my division between these two approaches, can she say whether the people who now enforce that code in the UK are equipped and educated to move from the prescriptive way of going about these things, which in a sense is quite challenging but really straightforward—it passes the prescriptive feature: it has the right number of this and that and will break or not break at this level, and so on—into the more judgmental or risk-based way and to apply the code in that flexible way? Have they exercised that sort of discretion in a way that can give us confidence? The problem with the risk-based approach is that until you get a mature group of regulators, it is possible for people to make poor judgments under such a code.
I have no further questions. We will support this code being incorporated, of course. While I deplore the delays, I will forgive the Minister because we have gone on about that enough.
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
I am grateful to all noble Lords who have taken part in today’s short debate, especially the noble Lord, Lord Greenway, for his insight as a relative expert in this area. I will start by trying to help all noble Lords with the definition of a high-speed craft; they may or may not need calculators. A high-speed craft is one
“capable of a maximum speed in metres per second”
equal to or exceeding 3.7 times the one-sixth power of
“the volume of displacement corresponding to the design waterline”
in metres cubed,
“excluding craft the hull of which is supported completely clear above the water surface in non displacement mode by aerodynamic forces generated by ground effect”.
I hope that is helpful.
Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)
I did read that definition, so I am not surprised by it. I really want to know what are typical high-speed crafts and what are not. Am I right that the “Queen Mary 2” is not a high-speed craft but that some smaller craft that do 30 knots are designated as high-speed craft?
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
I will see whether I can get further written clarification of that. My understanding is that a craft knows that it is a high-speed craft, is certified to be such and then falls under these regulations. Clearly, there is a balance between the speed and the displacement. We might come up with a nice little picture of the displacement and the speed, saying whether it is high speed. That might be quite interesting for all noble Lords, as we are unlikely to talk about high-speed craft again any time soon. Let us see how we do.
The other thing I want to cover at the outset is the impact of the delays, as mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson. I think the noble Lord, Lord Greenway, said it best; I believe he said that many of these changes are already adopted. During analysis, the UK’s high-speed craft were found to already comply with all the elements of these regulations, which transpose these international safety requirements for high-speed craft from chapter X into domestic law.
There are the two different codes, as noted by the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe. The noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, talked about being drunk at sea and a list of other things. Essentially, everything within those codes comes over to domestic law. I got a little confused at this point, so I will go back to Hansard and check that I have properly covered that issue, which I know was raised by both Front-Benchers.
On the delay in bringing them into domestic law, I hope I have been able to reassure noble Lords that all the UK craft were already doing it. The main benefit of the regulations today is the fact that we will be able to enforce them against foreign and UK craft if they are not. The MCA will certainly do that. The delay for enclosed spaces, et cetera—I am sorry; I cannot read my writing—was seven years; that came into force in 2015. On life-saving appliances and the deregulation of satellite services, there was a two-year delay. But as I say, the requirements were already in place and we are not aware of any incidents relating to vessels that did not put these requirements into place.
The noble Lord, Lord Greenway, asked about high-speed offshore service craft. Indeed, he is absolutely right: there is a completely different set of regulations, which I was going to mention in my opening remarks. I then decided that it would confuse all noble Lords because we would be talking about entirely different vessels which do very important things. I completely appreciate that there is huge innovation going on in that area with electrics and the foils—you only have to look at the America’s Cup vessels to see that they fly. They do not sail anymore; they just fly. It is amazing. But, yes, we are not talking about those vessels, or indeed offshore service craft, today.
I will take the point about advance warning of future changes back to the department to make sure that we have good stakeholder engagement before future changes, either international or domestic, are foisted upon the industry. We want stakeholders to be prepared, and it is obviously really important that we get their feedback as well.
The noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, asked whether we manufacture in the UK. Yes, we do—we manufacture hovercraft, and we also have a number of high-speed craft in development. I suspect that these might relate to some of the more innovative maritime things coming through, some of which are very exciting. Obviously, those craft will take account of these regulations, as would any vessel imported into this country before it can be certified.
Turning to the issue of a risk-based approach, I understand where the noble Lord is coming from. However, the high-speed craft codes of 1994 and 2000 have always taken a risk-based approach, so there is no change in mindset among the regulators here in putting a risk-based approach into place. Unless I have misunderstood the issue he raised, we believe that the MCA already operates in that way.
I have one last comment on our favourite topic: the maritime backlog. I recognise that this is one more brick in the wall, which is very good. This is one of the 13 outstanding statutory instruments, and I am sure noble Lords will join me again later this year as we debate some more. We are making progress. As I always say, I apologise, but we hope to get everything done by the end of 2023, which is what we committed to the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee.
Seafarers’ Wages Bill [HL]
Lord Tunnicliffe Excerpts(1 year, 9 months ago)
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Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have spoken today, but I particularly thank the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, for his contribution. I cannot match the eloquence of previous speakers, but I formally—for want of a better way of putting it—thank him on behalf of these Benches for his magnificent contribution over those 43 years. At a personal level, it has always been a pleasure to listen to his interventions, not just for his tone and style but for his wisdom. It is the sort of wisdom that melds both logic and personal values. In particular, we feel that his view of the world is to try to be more conciliatory. That is an important element in our deliberations. Too often, we lose that sense of trying to work for a common solution, and one always sees his interventions as trying to find out what someone really means and asking if there is some common ground. It is as if he had a personal ambition to make this House a better place for all of us to work. I thank him personally and on behalf of these Benches.
These Benches support the Seafarers’ Wages Bill, which we hope will mean that more workers calling at UK ports earn the equivalent of minimum wage. However, I am afraid that, in the aftermath of the P&O Ferries scandal, this will not be enough to give seafarers the security which they deserve at work. Seafarers kept this country stocked throughout the pandemic, but loopholes in the Bill will mean that many still will not receive a fair wage, and other key issues such as pensions and roster patterns are not even addressed. For this reason, we will seek to amend the Bill to give seafarers greater security at work, crack down on rogue employers and make sure that the P&O Ferries scandal can never happen again.
I turn first to the vessels which are in scope of the Bill. As drafted, vessels docking at UK ports must pay the equivalent of national minimum wage for the time spent in UK waters, but Clause 3 states that this will apply only to ships which
“entered the harbour on at least 120 occasions in the year.”
While most services will be covered by this, for some routes, such as that of the “Pride of Hull”, only slight adjustments to the timetable would allow them to escape paying a fair wage. The Government’s own impact assessment shows that the department considered applying the legislation to ships which dock on 52 occasions a year. Can the Minister explain why they have not pursued this option?
It is also not apparent why the Bill refers to “the harbour” rather than “a harbour”. This could open a loophole for vessels to dock at different ports to escape paying a fair wage. Has the Minister considered that possibility?
On the wages which seafarers will receive, it is disappointing that the passage of the Bill will not mean that a worker’s full wages will equate to the minimum wage. While the Bill states that seafarers must receive the equivalent of national minimum wage for the time spent in UK waters, workers could end up receiving far less than the national minimum wage in total because many European nations have no minimum wage. For example, in the hypothetical situation where a seafarer works for four hours in UK waters, on a national minimum wage of £9.50, and four hours in Danish waters, with no national minimum wage at all, in total the worker would receive an average of £4.25—half of the UK national minimum wage. While I appreciate that the Government are seeking bilateral memorandums of understanding to address this, the uncertainty in government could mean that policies such as these are abandoned. Can the Minister commit to pursuing such agreements in the Bill?
I am also disappointed at the narrow scope of the Bill and the lack of broader protections for seafarers. Despite initially being referred to as a harbours Bill, the Government have stripped back the Bill to focus on the narrow issue of wages, leaving out references to a seafarers’ framework, as well as other commitments from the nine-point plan. While I appreciate that secondary legislation will be introduced to enact other aspects of the framework, Ministers should place guarantees in the Bill, including in relation to pensions, roster patterns and collective bargaining. Will the Minister explain why the Bill is no longer a broader harbours Bill?
On the matter of enforcement and penalties, the P&O Ferries scandal should represent a line in the sand for seafarers’ rights. However, we cannot ignore the fact that bosses ignored existing protections because the fines were too weak. It seems that firms such as P&O are willing to look at fines as a mere cost of existing.
Although we support the inclusion of unlimited fines in the Bill, the lack of a minimum fine raises the prospect that precedents could be set for smaller penalties. Ministers should strengthen the penalties in the Bill to make sure that rogue employers can never again get away with flouting seafarer protection. Will the Minister explain the Government’s position on minimum fines?
Given that the Bill also allows harbour authorities to monitor compliance, as many authorities are also operators, this could end with employers marking their own homework. Will the Minister consider safeguards to protect this system from abuse?
Turning next to the regulatory powers, the Bill allows the Secretary of State to change which services this wage protection applies to. Although we would support the expansion of protections to more workers, there is a risk that these powers could be used to exclude workers. Can the Minister today commit to a principle of non-regression of seafarers’ rights?
Next, on the provisions which mean that harbour authorities will have the power to refuse harbour access in response to non-compliance, the Government must mitigate any risks and ensure that access is never refused when it is necessary for the safety of the crew. Although I am pleased that the Bill contains provisions for when authorities cannot refuse access, can the Minister confirm that this is in full accordance with international maritime law?
Finally, as we consider the implementation and application of the Bill, Ministers should consider the role that trade unions can play as experts in the safety and conditions of seafarers. The current situation means that P&O, Seatruck, Irish Ferries, Condor Ferries and Cobelfret are all still using the low-cost crewing model which P&O imposed on 17 March. As a result, ratings are often receiving below the national minimum wage pay and long contracts that cause fatigue.
The P&O scandal must represent a line in the sand for seafarers’ rights, but in its current state, the Bill falls far short of achieving that.
Lord Hacking (Lab)
Before my noble friend sits down, I should be grateful if I could intervene for a moment to apologise to the House, most particularly the Minister and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, for my absence during the past hour. I had a commitment with the Lord Speaker that neither he nor I could change, but I apologise for not being here. I am greatly sorry to have missed a number of the speeches that your Lordships gave in my absence.
Airports and Airlines: Staff
Lord Tunnicliffe Excerpts(1 year, 9 months ago)
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Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
I have heard my noble friend wax lyrical about the wonders of Bournemouth Airport, and there are many other airports like that around the country. I encourage everybody to look at those smaller airports; you often might get a better service.
Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)
My Lords, the noble Baroness often says, as she said today, that this is for the private sector. Heathrow is ultimately a monopoly licensed by the state. There is not lots of competition out there; everything that is capable of managing significant international traffic is full. The Government are responsible for Heathrow’s performance. They are responsible for the common good; that is what Governments are for. They seem to agree with me: as of 12 July, the strategic risk group has met five times, the summer resilience group four times, and the ministerial border group four times. According to its chief executive, Heathrow is improving. This shows that the Government have intervened and had a benign effect. I congratulate them, but why did they not intervene sooner and save passengers from the misery they have suffered?
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
I am incredibly happy to accept the congratulations of the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe. We have worked with the aviation sector incredibly hard to try to minimise the disruption that happened at half-term as we go into the summer period. He asked why it took so long, but we have been working on this for months. For example, we changed the law so that training could start before certain checks had been completed. We laid that statutory instrument on 29 April. Statutory instruments do not just appear in order to be laid; they are the subject of weeks of work. We have been working very closely with the sector, and the Civil Service has been working extremely closely and very hard on all these measures. As he said, they are having an impact.
Merchant Shipping (Additional Safety Measures for Bulk Carriers) Regulations 2022
Lord Tunnicliffe Excerpts(1 year, 9 months ago)
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Lord Shipley (LD)
My Lords, I welcome the legislation being updated to ensure that we meet our international safety obligations for bulk carriers; it is clearly right to do so. There was an eight-week consultation, which elicited only one response, resulting in no changes, so it is good that there was full consultation.
However—the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, covered this point—there seem to have been no substantive amendments to the regulations since 2004. The 2018 amendments were minor, yet the design of bulk carriers has been transformed since the turn of the century, and ships are much larger, so it is extremely important that our legislation is up to date. We welcome the fact that this SI sensibly establishes a system for keeping us in step with international standards for the future.
The Explanatory Memorandum, at paragraph 3.2, explains the conclusions of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, which discovered a massive backlog of EU maritime legislation that had never been incorporated into UK law. This seems to go back more than a decade, which suggests that we have not been internationally compliant, which would be a worrying situation for a maritime nation. I therefore ask the Minister whether what I have just said is true; I should appreciate confirmation.
The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, made a number of points, one of which was about enforcement. I have two questions on that. As I understand it, there are 28 bulk carriers registered on the UK flag, and they are all, apparently, already compliant. Paragraph 4.2 of the Explanatory Memorandum says that bulk carriers registered under other flags must also comply while in UK waters.
Worldwide, there are many thousands of such bulk carriers. It would be helpful for the Minister to say how many carriers under other flags are entering UK waters, let us say in the course of a year, and what checks have been done and will be done to establish that they comply with the convention. Clearly, in the context of many thousands of bulk carriers across the world, only 28 are registered with a UK flag.
Secondly, the statutory instrument has a long and complex list of exceptions in Regulation 7. Is the Minister convinced that it will be effective given that number of exceptions, and are they all based on international precedent and regulations which are adopted elsewhere? In other words, is that list of exceptions our list that would apply only to this country, or are we establishing exceptions based on what other countries also do?
I welcome generally the statutory instrument—the proposal is absolutely right—but it has raised a number of questions and it would help if they were clarified.
Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)
My Lords, I welcome the draft regulations to revoke and replace the Merchant Shipping (Additional Safety Measures for Bulk Carriers) Regulations 1999, to ensure that the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea 1974 is fully implemented.
These regulations affect bulk carriers and enforce chapter XII requirements, such as standards and criteria for construction, inspection and maintenance of both UK-flagged and non-UK flagged vessels. On this, can the Minister confirm what discussions the department held with international counterparts to ensure that non-UK flagged vessels are aware of these changes? It is important that these are fully incorporated into domestic statute, in part so that they can be enforced but also to act as a deterrent, which will make bulk carriers safer, including for the benefit of seafarers. On the issue of seafarers’ safety, can the Minister confirm that the department worked with trade union representatives in the development of these regulations?
There are, of course, limitations to the application of the regulations; the requirements for bulk carriers of double-side skin construction cover only those constructed on or after 1 July 2006. Is the Minister able to provide an estimate of what proportion of carriers are therefore covered? I welcome the regulations and I hope that the Minister can provide some clarification.
I know absolutely nothing about bulk carriers; I have to admit that it has really stood in my way in this House. There is a fair old gap on this occasion, so I went to my friendly Google and came away terrified. It seems that these ships face a worrying variety of hazards. We had the “Derbyshire”, which is a story relevant to today. In a sense, the problem with these regulations is that they are about complying with somebody else’s regulations. I feel that to some extent it would be useful if there could be some overview of how safety has improved. In particular, is there anything outstanding? Do we know of risks that are not covered but which ought to be addressed, simply because they have emerged through recent design changes, different cargoes, and so on?
Secondly, can the Minister give a few words of comfort about the many ships which, I assume, were constructed before 1 July 2006? Are those ships safe on the seas and in our ports?