Coastguard Volunteers: Remuneration and HMRC Guidance

Alec Shelbrooke Excerpts

Wednesday 1st July 2026 Westminster Hall

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Sir Alec Shelbrooke (in the Chair)]

Order. I remind Members that they should bob if they wish to catch my eye. Colleagues can see how many people are bobbing. We will go to the Front Benchers at 3.28 pm. I intend to start with a three-minute limit to try to get in one speaker from each of the parties. That may not be possible, but I will try to achieve that.

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[Dame Nia Griffith]

Indeed I do.

Sir Alec, just think how much time and effort our volunteer coastguard rescue officers put into ensuring that they can provide the very best service and dovetail with the other emergency services. They are real multitaskers and trained to a very high standard. They have to be multiskilled. They are trained in search skills up to police search adviser standard and trained to medical critical care standard. They have the mud rescue fitness of a fire officer, do water rescue—entering the water in full personal protective equipment, including steel-toed boots—and are trained for cliff rescues and working with rescue helicopters. In other words, they have to be really versatile and ready to go out in the most appalling rain, risking their lives.

CROs give up their own time to do the training, but it is no good just doing the training. They have to maintain the skills through practice sessions, because lives depend on it. They get £11 an hour for some training sessions, but they have to do the practice sessions every week just as volunteers. Of course, many of them have been extremely loyal, given many years of service and even had awards from the King for their service. No one is pretending that volunteer coastguards do it for the money, but a little something towards the costs and inconvenience that they incur is welcome in a cost of living crisis. Yes, they get some costs and mileage, but there are, even there, serious legal matters like having to pay business insurance for their own cars.

Stopping the payments in September looks exceedingly cynical: as if to say, “We will make the most of your skills and dedication over the summer, when we are expecting loads of visitors”—perhaps more than ever, because of the jet-fuel fears—“but come September, we will make the cut that we know might make some of you resign.” I can tell the House that CROs feel so insulted and angry, to put it mildly. Who can blame them? If His Majesty’s Coastguard thinks that it will be able to get new recruits, it is living in cloud cuckoo land. No one is going to volunteer after this treatment. Plus, it takes a very special person to be able to do this type of work, and gone are the days when big employers could release people. It is much more difficult now, given that far more people are self-employed.

Will my hon. Friend the Minister, first, pause the current cuts plan for September to give time for a rethink and then, importantly, find a way for volunteer coastguards to be at least as well rewarded financially as they are now? I do not want any hiding behind legal issues. There must be ways of doing that. Could the Minister also clarify what is happening about death in service for those who pass away while they are still volunteer CROs? That would greatly benefit the families of the deceased.

We simply cannot allow our dedicated volunteer coastguard rescue officers, with all the service that they have given and continue to give, to be kicked in the teeth like this. Lives depend on their good will and expertise, and we have a responsibility to ensure that they are properly respected and rewarded—

[Sir Alec Shelbrooke (in the Chair)]

Order.

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[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Sir Alec Shelbrooke (in the Chair)]

Order. I am going to break with convention ever so slightly. The next speaker will be the hon. Member for Arbroath and Broughty Ferry, as she is one of our new colleagues and I want to give her three minutes. After that, returning to convention, I will call Lloyd Hatton, at which point we will have a two-minute limit.

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[Andrew George]

My hon. Friend is right, and I will come to that in a second. I want to share quotes from some of many CROs who have been in contact we me. One said,

“Many CROs…make considerable personal financial sacrifices in order to respond to incidents. Whilst nobody joins the coastguard for financial gain, the current remuneration helps offset the real costs associated with responding, including loss of earnings, disruption to employment, interrupted family life, loss of sleep and the wider impacts that emergency responses can have.”

Needless to say, many of the CROs in my area are self-employed. Others say that on this occasion the bosses have

“made us all redundant and re-employed us as volunteers.”

The right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Liz Saville Roberts) spoke about using the model of retained firefighters, who are recompensed through a combination of an annual retainer, hourly rates for training and call-outs, and specific disturbance fees. That is a good model for the MCA to look at seriously.

I gave the Minister advance notice of a large number of questions, so I will summarise some of them. What level of consultation was undertaken with CROs prior to this announcement? What alternative options, including models such as the fire service and the RNLI, have been considered? What workforce modelling has been conducted to assess the likely impact on retention and availability? What operational safety assessment has been completed regarding the potential loss of experience, skills and leadership capability? What contingency plans exist if volunteer numbers fall below expected levels? In terms of viability, how has HM Coastguard satisfied itself on public safety? What impact assessment has been undertaken of the resilience of the future of coastguard rescue teams as a category one emergency call-out?

[Sir Alec Shelbrooke (in the Chair)]

I do want to let everybody have a chance to put something on the record but, due to interventions, I have to cut to one minute. Any further interventions on speeches will reduce that further.

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[Sir Alec Shelbrooke (in the Chair)]

Order. I call Edward Morello.

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[Greg Smith (Mid Buckinghamshire) (Con)]

It is, as always, a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Alec. I congratulate the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) on securing today’s debate—quite a feat, given that the Department for Transport was not meant to be answering Westminster Hall debates this week. He managed to secure a debate on an issue that has caused serious concerns not just for our coastal areas across the United Kingdom, but for all of us; I speak as a Member of Parliament representing a seat about as far away from the sea as it is possible to get within England.

The changes to the renumeration of coastguard volunteers have raised fundamental questions about the future of the service, as we have heard clearly from across the House today. I thank my colleagues who have attended the debate to set out those concerns and the scale of the challenges facing the coastguard. Those colleagues included my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight East (Joe Robertson), who has had to go to run the drop-in event. I welcome his informative comments on the process in the main Chamber, given his constituent’s role in the legal case and the need to get the response to the legal decision right.

The question of how the coastguard operates truly matters. Protecting our coastlines from harm is essential, and the coastguard has played a central role in that over centuries. We must preserve the lives of those who are in danger and support our coastal towns and cities, where upholding safety is a priority. That brings us to the issue underpinning the debate: what happens if we no longer have those volunteers? We know that the 3,000 volunteer staff play a considerable role in protecting the public; it is integral that they remain part of the service.

For as long as the coastguard has existed, there have been questions of remuneration. For example, in 1831, the Admiralty published new regulations as part of a plan for the coastguard to become a reserve for the Royal Navy. It included payments and allowances—a salary of £10 for a chief boatman and £5 for a commissioned boatman. As volunteer servicemen entered the system, the Government provided support to the coastguard and to volunteer lifesaving organisations across the UK. More recently, the 1990s saw the Department conduct internal reviews of the role that auxiliaries should play in the service compared with those working full time.

The relationship between the state and the coastguard has changed throughout the years along with the evolution of its structure, but there has been a principle of ensuring that people can volunteer, while maintaining incentives so that the coastguard is able to operate effectively. Worryingly, the decision that was accepted by the Government, stemming from the court case, completely alters the relationship that has been put in place.

[Sir Alec Shelbrooke (in the Chair)]

Order. I am about to suspend the sitting due to Divisions in the House. I will aim to come back earlier than 10 minutes after the last Division starts. If the Liberal Democrat spokesman, the shadow Minister, the Minister and the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland are here, we will start as quickly as we can, but it will be no later than 10 minutes after the last Division. I remind Members that if they have spoken, they need to come back to the Chamber. If I start slightly earlier, I will give some leeway, but I expect everybody who has spoken to be back in the Chamber 10 minutes after the start of the last Division.

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[Mr Carmichael]

Apologies for de-knighting you earlier, Sir Alec. I thank all hon. Members who took part in the debate and recognise in particular the contribution from the hon. Member for Arbroath and Broughty Ferry (Lara Bird). We welcome her to the community of Westminster Hall.

I did not remember to count early enough, but I think that we had at least 32 Members of Parliament in this Chamber at the start. In addition, I had indications from the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Torcuil Crichton), my hon. Friend the Member for South Devon (Caroline Voaden) and the hon. Members for Scarborough and Whitby (Alison Hume) and for Gower (Tonia Antoniazzi) that they would have been here also.

[Sir Alec Shelbrooke (in the Chair)]

Order. Mr Carmichael, you have been a Member of this House an exceptionally long time. You know that you are not allowed to wear clothing with slogans on it. Please fasten your jacket.

[Mr Carmichael]

I am bereft, Sir Alec. I do hope that nobody goes back and looks at the footage of me when I was inadvertently leaving my jacket open in that manner.

As I was saying, a number of other Members wanted to be here. I listened to the Minister. He is telling me—telling us all, in fact—that the problem is the law, and I am thinking to myself, “My goodness, if only there were something that the Government could do about the law.”

I do not honestly know what the answer is—I am not without sympathy for the position in which the Minister finds himself—but I do know what it is not. It is not to take away the terms and conditions that people have served under up until now and to treat them with the utter disregard that the chief executive and the senior management of the MCA are displaying. I again suggest to the Minister that we need to pause this, work it again, properly, talk to the CROs in a respectful and engaging manner, and then come back with something that focuses not on the process argument that we have heard and that we understand, but on the outcomes, because the outcomes for our communities, if we do not get this right, will be catastrophic and I do not want that to be happening on my watch.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered HMRC guidance and remuneration of coastguard volunteers.