Seafarers’ Wages Bill [Lords]

Christine Jardine Excerpts

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.