Seafarers’ Wages Bill [Lords]

Christine Jardine Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 19th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)]

It is an honour to follow the hon. Member for Leeds East (Richard Burgon). Like him, I feel that a consensus is emerging in this place tonight. We all welcome the Bill, but we welcome it as a first step and see the flaws in it. I would like to reassure the hon. Member for Dover (Mrs Elphicke) that there is not really any opposition to the Bill, and reassure her constituents that everybody in this House feels very strongly about what happened to those workers who had given their careers, and in many cases their lives, to P&O.

As the hon. Member for Witney (Robert Courts) said, P&O is an iconic company in this country. To many people, it epitomises our seafaring tradition and the merchant marine—people see that in P&O. Like Cunard, P&O is synonymous with the image of Britannia and the waves, so when I look back to March, it is not easy to put aside the shock that came with the news that it had treated almost 800 of its staff so shamefully. It is clear from the reaction in the House tonight that none of us here has been untouched by what we remember from that time. The RMT estimates that 75% of those 800 UK seafarers worked on the Dover-Calais route, as well as on services out of Hull, Liverpool, Cairnryan and Larne. Just about every port in the UK was affected and had constituents who were affected, and landlocked constituencies had families who were affected by what happened. What was also significant about it was that it exposed a major flaw in UK employment legislation as it affects seafarers, and the potential for that major flaw in UK law to be exploited by others.

The Liberal Democrats support the Bill, which has three main principles at its core. Seafarers with close ties to the UK who work aboard services in scope of the Bill but do not qualify for the UK national minimum wage will receive fair pay. The Bill will disincentivise the race to the bottom that we have talked about in employment standards among operators. It will protect the reputation of the UK maritime sector, of which P&O is such an important part, following the disgraceful actions of that company.

However, there are flaws in the Bill. The Liberal Democrats in the other place had three main concerns: the lack of sufficient protections for seafarers; compliance with international conventions and agreements—of which the Bill potentially challenges a number—and the practicalities of implementation and enforcement, which have been raised by the UK Chamber of Shipping, the British Ports Association and trade unions. The RMT in particular wants to see changes to the Bill, including amendments to prevent port-hopping and other avoidance techniques by operators, and to introduce collectively agreed standards for roster patterns, pension rights, crewing levels and training schemes.

When the Bill moves forward into Committee, I urge the Government to take on board those concerns and to ensure that the Bill is improved in the way that I think we all—on both sides of the House—would like to see, for the wellbeing of seafarers, not just at the moment but in the future, in an industry that is in the DNA of this country.

Seafarers’ Wages Bill [Lords]

Christine Jardine Excerpts

Report stage & 3rd reading
Tuesday 7th February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)]

I recognise that this measure was based on data carefully collected. However, does the Minister not accept that the figure of once a week would bring into scope an awful lot of shipping with seafarers who do have a close connection to the UK, and that once a week might be a fairer figure?

[Mr Holden]

I understand what the hon. Lady is saying and I will address that point directly in a moment, after I have gone through the main points of why we are pushing back on this suggestion. The rationale for the high-frequency criterion is to ensure that seafarers affected by the policy are only those with close ties to the UK by virtue of their working on services that regularly call in UK ports. That covers the overwhelming majority of passenger ferries. We have assessed this using Department for Transport data, which has also been backed up by the Chamber of Shipping’s written evidence to the Public Bill Committee. Crucially, this focuses the Bill on the short-sea services, clearly justifying the seafarers’ connections to the UK and therefore a UK-equivalent level of pay protection. Reducing the frequency with which services must call at UK ports before coming into the scope of the Bill’s requirements to include weekly services would dilute the concentration of the Bill in protecting seafarers with the closest ties. It would then bring into scope some deep-sea container services which we do not feel can legitimately be said to have close ties to the UK. Services that might visit many ports in a foreign country, perhaps coming to the UK once a week, would also be included, which gives rise to the question of whether we would be legislating for another country.

Furthermore, the national minimum wage equivalence will apply only in UK waters and therefore would extend to a cargo service dropping off once a week for a matter of hours, with marginal if any impact. The proposal therefore has multiple downsides, and I hope the hon. Lady can understand why we are looking at it in that sphere.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Holden]

I will write to the right hon. Gentleman about that to see whether we can publish anything further. I just say that a full consultation took place, and the details of it have been fully in the public domain. We have arrived at this position having considered all the implications of the proposal. On a major number of issues the Government have moved significantly in this area. I have listened to Members from across the House and in the other place to address their concerns. However, on this specific issue the scope would be widened to operators that really are not UK operators; they are from other countries and would just be popping into UK ports. That would have major international implications, as I am sure he can understand.

[Christine Jardine]

rose—

[Mr Holden]

I will take one final intervention.

[Christine Jardine]

I appreciate that the Minister is giving up a lot of time on this. However, would most people listening to this debate not feel that vising a port once a week is a regular, substantial amount of presence, and that we would be missing out a substantial number of people?

[Mr Holden]

I think the hon. Lady is incorrect on this point. We are talking about someone based overseas who visits a UK port once a week for a matter of hours and who may be operating in the territorial waters of another country for the overwhelming majority of their working time. This would be similar to someone employed under a British lorry driver’s licence going over to do deliveries in another country as well. There is this idea that we would suddenly change things for those few hours that people were perhaps at a UK port, but that would be inconsistent with our obligations and it raises real issues associated with our interactions with other port operators, particularly across the North sea, and with our friends and allies in Europe, who are looking at similar legislation. We have been working on that with our European partners. We are already in conversations with the French on this issue and on others. The UK is leading the way on legislation in this area of regular services, but we have to do it in such a way that it also fits with international maritime law. We also need to ensure that we are on the same page as our friends and partners across the continent.