Coastguard Volunteers: Remuneration and HMRC Guidance

Debate between Alec Shelbrooke and Nia Griffith

Wednesday 1st July 2026 Westminster Hall

[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.