Immigration Rules: Offshore Workers

Chris Philp Excerpts

Tuesday 6th June 2023 Westminster Hall

[Kenny MacAskill]

indicated assent.

[The Minister for Crime, Policing and Fire (Chris Philp)]

indicated assent.

[Sir Christopher Chope (in the Chair)]

Thank you. I call Karl Turner.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for Crime, Policing and Fire (Chris Philp)]

It is a pleasure, as always, to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Christopher. I add my congratulations to the hon. Member for East Lothian (Kenny MacAskill) on successfully securing this afternoon’s debate.

I shall start by saying that I appear in place of the Minister for Immigration, my right hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick), who, unfortunately, cannot be here this afternoon. He takes a close interest in this debate and will, I know, be reading it afterwards. Having that in mind, I hope that Members will forgive me if there are occasions when my detailed knowledge is not as acute as that of my right hon. Friend.

Let me address one or two of the points that the hon. Member for East Lothian made at the start of his speech about the United Kingdom’s aspirations around renewable energy and the progress that we have made in that area. Members will be aware that, back in 2012—just 11 years ago—43% of this country’s electricity generation was from coal-fired power stations, the most polluting form of power generation. Last year, it was just 1.5%, which is a fantastic reduction. If other countries emulated our example, things would be a lot better.

Last year, 48.5% of our electricity generation came from zero-carbon sources. In the first quarter of 2023, wind energy generated 32% of our electricity. It was the largest single contributor to electricity generation. All of us can be very proud of the enormous progress made by the United Kingdom in generating non-polluting forms of electricity, which means that we do not have to import gas or oil from sometimes unreliable countries. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will join me in welcoming the phenomenal progress made by the United Kingdom.

Let me turn now to the topic of the debate, which is the immigration rules affecting offshore workers. I will be completely clear with Members that the immigration rules applying to those people working in our territorial waters are precisely the same now as those applying to people working on land. We made that expressly clear through section 43 of the Nationality and Borders Act 2022, which, I am glad to say, came into force in April—in my previous incarnation, I was the Minister for that Bill. Section 43 of the Act makes it absolutely clear that foreign nationals working in our territorial waters need our permission to do so—they need a visa in exactly the same way as foreign nationals working on our land do. That has been made absolutely clear now in legislation.

As the hon. Gentleman alluded to, there have in the past been particular exemptions for offshore wind farm workers. I know that he has been an extremely eloquent and I might even say persistent advocate on that point, and, as he said in his speech, that exemption was discontinued relatively recently. His representations over a period of months, or probably even years, have contributed to the thinking on that topic.

On the matter of skilled worker visas, which apply both on land and in our territorial waters, there are some fairly clear rules around salary thresholds, English language requirements and the level of skill that a worker must have. The Government are advised on that, of course, by the Migration Advisory Committee. It is fair to say that the immigration figures that came out a week or two ago were higher than the Government wished in a number of categories, including skilled workers. The Government’s policy is to try to ensure that jobs are filled first by United Kingdom residents. We have plenty of people here who are economically inactive—many are claiming benefits—and we would like to see them employed first in our economy, whether onshore or offshore. I assure hon. Members that we want more UK resident workers to fill vacancies, as opposed to immigration filling them, whether onshore or offshore. On that point, the hon. Member for East Lothian and His Majesty’s Government are as one. Of course, those rules—the salary thresholds and so on—are kept continuously under consideration.

I will first address the point about territorial waters, and then I will talk about the exclusive economic zone. Often, the people in those waters are transiting, working in those waters or stopping off at a UK port in the course of making a passage from one place to another, so the rules governing people in transiting ships of different kinds necessarily need more latitude than those we apply to people working on terra firma. That is why there is a little more latitude in those cases, but it is not without limitation, and we do not want it to be abused. If there are points of detail that need fine-tuning, the Minister for Immigration, my right hon. Friend the Member for Newark, is always willing to engage in dialogue to ensure the rules are not in any way being misused. I am not aware of any evidence that they are, but if the hon. Member for East Lothian has any points about the details of that, I am sure my right hon. Friend the Member for Newark will be happy to enter into dialogue about that.

The exclusive economic zone is the area of sea outside territorial waters—more than 12 miles from the high water mark, but less than 100 miles from the coast. International law confers upon it particular economic rights in relation to what is found under the sea—for example, oil in the North sea—but it does not confer a power of sovereignty over what happens on the surface. That therefore severely limits—indeed, largely excludes—our ability to impose economic or labour market regulation on activity in the exclusive economic zone outside territorial waters.

A point was made about sectoral collective bargaining. I suspect that falls under the policy ambit of another Department—probably the Department for Business and Trade—so I do not wish to trespass on its territory, save to say that, regardless of the technicalities in international law, the Government are not generally huge fans of imposing collective bargaining on particular bits of industry. We much prefer individual employers to offer terms that are attractive to their employees. Of course, workforces are free to unionise if they wish to do so, but imposing sectoral collective bargaining is reminiscent of the 1970s. I am not sure the Government would wish to go in that direction, but I note the comments of the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull East (Karl Turner) in that regard.

I hope I have addressed the points that have been raised. I congratulate the hon. Member for East Lothian once again, not just on securing this debate, but on his representations on ending the exemption in relation to offshore windfarm working. They have been not only listened to but acted upon.

Question put and agreed to.