Seafarers’ Wages Bill [HL]

Baroness Scott of Needham Market Excerpts

Wednesday 26th October 2022 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Scott of Needham Market]

4: Clause 9, leave out Clause 9 and insert the following new Clause—
“Detention of vessels for failure to pay surcharge
(1) A ship providing a service to which this Act applies may be detained by a person appointed by the Secretary of State for the purposes of this section if—(a) a harbour authority has imposed a surcharge on the operator of the service in respect of the entry into its harbour by any ship providing that service, and(b) the operator has not paid the surcharge in accordance with provision made by or under this Act.(2) It does not matter for the purposes of subsection (1) whether an objection has been made to the surcharge under section 8.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would replace the penalty of refusal of access with a more conventional penalty of detention.

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[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.

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[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

The noble Lord is absolutely right. It would be costly to the ports and disruptive to passengers.

[Baroness Scott of Needham Market (LD)]

I thank the noble Baroness for that reply, which was not wholly unexpected. I happen to think that the Government are wrong. Being an optimist at heart, I still hope that, by the time this gets to the Commons, there will have been an outbreak of reality and that we might come up with something different, in not just this but other parts of the Bill. If not, then the next amendment that we come to discuss, which is about monitoring, will be really important. With that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 4 withdrawn.

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[Baroness Scott of Needham Market (LD)]

My Lords, I added my name to this amendment because the concerns that we have raised in this House have been quite wide ranging, from the principles of the Bill and its compliance with international law to details of its implementation. We are all agreed that we need to do something about the pitifully low wages being paid to seafarers. I think we were all probably quite shocked to hear from the noble Lords, Lord Hendy and Lord Berkeley, just how low they are. But wages are by no means the only problem; rosters and pensions and so on are equally problematic. So we commend the Government for giving this some thought, particularly in the nine-point plan; the difficulty is that if the Bill does not work as intended, nobody is a winner.

We know that the International Chamber of Shipping is very concerned about compliance with international conventions, and we have heard from both the RMT union and the port authorities that they just do not see how the Bill is going to work in practice. We know that the Government do not accept those concerns. That is fine. But it is slightly troubling to me anyway that the key stakeholder groups have not really been listened to.

Rather than re-table amendments on all those issues, I think we have settled on this amendment being the best way forward because it provides an opportunity to review how the Bill is operating in practice and, crucially, how it is fitting with the nine-point plan and with the progress we are making on international wage corridors and so on. We can see how the international shipping community is responding and where the port authorities have found ways of delivering what the Government ask. Crucially, we might be able to work out whether this legislation is resulting in a better deal for seafarers.

[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.