Oral Answers to Questions

Charlotte Nichols Excerpts

Thursday 21st March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Guy Opperman]

Unlike the hon. Gentleman, I was at the launch of the said report and have read it. He will be aware that, for example, one reason for the complications is that the number of people working from home has increased by 40%. We have a plan to tackle that with the record investment that is being made to Mayors. He talks about franchising, but it is also the case, without a shadow of a doubt, that he does not have a plan to finance it, particularly for rural local authorities. What is the case is that, when Labour organisations are challenged on this, they struggle to find out how they will deal with the funding. The truth is that there is no plan and they are not putting forward any funding. Individual people who attended that event were genuinely in shock at the shadow Secretary of State’s suggestion that Labour was going to do this, but was unsure about how it would fund it.

[Charlotte Nichols (Warrington North) (Lab)]

2. What recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of seafarer welfare standards on P&O Ferries’ fleet.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Anthony Browne)]

I wish to make it clear that the dismissal two years ago by P&O Ferries of nearly 800 seafarers without notice and without consultation was completely unacceptable, which is why this Government introduced a comprehensive package of measures to improve the welfare of seafarers and to stop the abuse.

On the specifics of the question, the Maritime and Coastguard Agency periodically inspects vessels that enter UK ports to assess their compliance with international standards, including those in the Maritime Labour Convention. We expect all operators to meet if not exceed those standards, and the UK continues to play a leading role internationally in driving up working conditions across the maritime sector. We are pleased that, just this weekend, P&O Ferries has committed to signing the Seafarers’ Charter along with four other operators. We will work with P&O Ferries to support it in its application for chartered status and assess its welfare standards against the charter’s requirements.

[Charlotte Nichols]

Two years on from P&O Ferries’ shocking attack on seafarer jobs, trade union rights and employment law, the legal loophole that it used to escape criminal sanctions has still not been closed. The P&O seafarers were UK-based workers, but because P&O Ferries had flagged its ships out to Cyprus, Bermuda and the Bahamas, P&O and, crucially, the Government knew that criminal sanctions, including fines for the offences that it committed, would not apply. Why have the Government not closed that loophole?

[Anthony Browne]

As I said, the Government have introduced a comprehensive package of measures to stop the abuse of seafarers. In particular, we have introduced the Seafarers’ Wages Act 2023, which will come into force this summer and ensure the minimum wage for seafarers in the UK. We have the minimum wage corridor that is opening up this summer with France, ensuring the minimum wage across the channel, and we have the seafarers’ charter, which raises standards far higher. As I said, P&O and four other operators have applied to join it.