Maritime Apprenticeships

David Hamilton Excerpts

Friday 24th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Katy Clark (North Ayrshire and Arran) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am pleased to have secured this debate, which I asked for after Dan Henderson, a constituent and National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers local representative at Caledonian MacBrayne ferries, visited one of my constituency surgeries. He highlighted CalMac’s positive work in my constituency, such as the apprenticeship scheme that it is now running after two years of very hard work by the RMT, the Scottish Trades Union Congress, Scottish Union Learning, Skills Development Scotland, the Maritime Skills Alliance and CalMac. I am a member of the RMT parliamentary group, which is perhaps partly why Dan Henderson came to my surgery. I thank the RMT, particularly Dan Crimes at its head office, for the briefing it has provided for this debate.

The work of unions such as the RMT with CalMac resulted in CalMac successfully offering 10 apprenticeships, including to two of my constituents who are aspiring seafarers. The 10 places were hugely oversubscribed, with over 1,000 applications received, testifying to the high level of interest in these opportunities, particularly among young unemployed people in Scotland. This exposes the myth that is often peddled in the shipping industry that no one in the UK wishes to go to sea as a rating any more.

[Mr David Hamilton (Midlothian) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this Adjournment debate. She is drawing attention to an extremely good example of how co-operation between employers and trade union representatives can achieve these goals.

[Katy Clark]

Yes, we should pay tribute to all who were involved in the process.

CalMac must be congratulated on leading the way in taking on the 10 trainee ratings. I hope that this is the first of many new intakes into the industry in Scotland. The 10 apprenticeships started with a course at South Tyneside college last October. CalMac has committed itself to training 10 ratings through the Scottish apprenticeship route in the year to 2015-16 and to recruiting 45 officer cadets during the same period. CalMac has invested over £7 million in seafarers’ training in the six years to 2012-13, and that must bode well for it when the Clyde and Hebrides ferry service contract is re-tendered, which we expect to happen in 2016. The Scottish Government claim that EU law obliges them to re-tender these lifeline ferry services. That is of particular concern in my constituency, where we have five harbours with ferry services—Ardrossan, Brodick, Lochranza, Largs and Cumbrae—and where CalMac operates lifeline passenger and freight ferry services for island communities to and from the mainland.

One of the problems that CalMac and other companies have had is that none of the six Scottish colleges named as partners in the modern apprenticeship framework was able to offer maritime occupations training in Scotland. Indeed, they were unable to offer anything, despite being named by the Scottish Government as the appropriate providers. Therefore, South Tyneside college, which is not a named provider, is offering training for the apprenticeships, which are designed and accredited in Scotland. Even after extensive representations about this issue, the only colleges that the Scottish Government say can give accreditation are Orkney and Shetland. Anyone who knows the part of the world that I represent will appreciate that those colleges are a very long way from my constituency and, indeed, a very long way from where a lot of people in Scotland live.

The UK Government could usefully engage with the Scottish Government over this. The Maritime Skills Alliance, although it sets the standards, is not formally recognised as the sector skills council for the maritime industry in Scotland. The recommendation of the Richard review commissioned by the UK Government was to abolish the frameworks for apprenticeships in individual industries, and it is believed that this is causing problems regarding the adoption of a collaborative approach between the two Administrations. I ask the Minister to try to see how to improve the relationship with the Scottish Government to ensure that we achieve results.

The public sector is clearly leading the way in training the next generation of seafarers, because CalMac is a public service company, while the private sector has a sorry tale to tell. However, these public sector apprenticeships in Scotland took far too long to achieve—and of course, if I may say so, they are a drop in the ocean. They will not make the contribution to recruiting the next generation of seafarers to the industry that is needed if we are to avoid witnessing the catastrophic collapse of the UK maritime skills base that was forecast in the SMarT—support for maritime training—review of 2011.

Delay and difficulty have been features of obtaining any maritime apprenticeships in England. The number of maritime ratings apprenticeships being taken up throughout the UK is extremely low. The Merchant Navy Training Board estimates that a maximum of 12 deck and nine engineering apprentices would enter the industry each year as a result of new apprenticeships. It estimates that in 2012-13 there were about 20 ratings apprentices and no officer apprentices, which is extremely disappointing, given that the apprenticeships were launched in Parliament in June 2011. The total number of trainee ratings for the whole of the UK is believed to be about 30, although such data are not collected by the Government.

To put those figures in context, in 2012-13 there were 25,700 apprentices in Scotland and nearly 860,000 in England. One step the Government could easily take is to start including the number of trainee ratings in the annual seafarer statistics produced by the Department for Transport at the end of January.

The seafarer statistics show that in 2012 there were 2,160 officer cadets, which is significantly less than the estimated 3,900—or 1,300 per year—that are needed. The RMT and Nautilus unions are united in their concern about the future of maritime skills, the falling number of UK ratings and officers, and the ageing demographic of seafarers.

The most significant development in UK shipping in recent years was, of course, the previous Labour Government’s introduction of tonnage tax, which led to a significant increase in the number of UK-registered ships. Yet, despite that growth in the number of ships and, indeed, jobs, as well as the mandatory requirement to provide training for officer cadets, there has been a decline in UK seafarer numbers and the position of ratings is particularly desperate. The number of jobs on qualifying ships nearly doubled, but only a couple of hundred of those jobs went to UK ratings.

The main reason for that, of course, is the exclusion of seafarers from employment and equality laws and, in particular, the application of minimum wage legislation. Stena Line—the biggest employer of UK seafarers—is systematically undercut by low-cost operators in the Irish sea who crew their vessels as cheaply as possible by using loopholes in UK law to recruit Estonians and other non-UK seafarers, paying them below the minimum wage.

Stena is abiding by the minimum wage legislation, and in a recent meeting with the RMT and Nautilus it cited that as a cause of its higher crewing costs. It is now threatening to adopt the crewing practices of its low-cost competitors. Essentially, the Government need to apply their own guidance on paying the minimum wage to seafarers or face a catastrophic further loss of UK seafarer jobs and further damage to the UK maritime skills base.

To illustrate the problem, Irish Ferries operates passenger services that pay seafarers wages as low as $4 per hour. Crews live on ships for the entirety of the four-month contract, with no shore leave. The routes are from Dublin to Holyhead and Rosslare to Pembroke, and the crews are largely Estonian. Sea Truck operates freight services and also pays below the minimum wage at a rate of $6.06 per hour. P&O ferries, which operates near the area I represent, provides services from Larne to Cairnryan, Larne to Troon and Dublin to Liverpool, and they also pay $6.06 per hour in crewing costs. It is vital that the Minister works with his colleagues in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills to ensure that the problem is addressed as a matter of urgency.

To return to apprenticeships, I understand that BIS met the Maritime Skills Alliance earlier this year about the apprenticeship trailblazer opportunity, which will supersede all existing apprenticeships in England, and I understand that there were discussions about apprenticeships for ratings. Will the Minister update the House on his Department’s role in those discussions?

UK Government policy is to increase the number of UK seafarers through maritime apprenticeships. At present, as I have shown, such apprenticeships are practically non-existent. How does the Minister intend to address that? Will he outline the resources and funding that the Government are providing to address such challenges, as the response from the private sector has so far been pitiful? The apprenticeships with CalMac, which I have mentioned, very much came from the public sector.

What is the Minister doing to address the unfair competition, which I have outlined, that CalMac, Stena and others that employ UK seafarers—paying them the minimum wage or above—face from those that undercut pay and conditions and pay less than the minimum wage? What is he doing to address the legal loophole that enables that to happen?

The issues that I have raised present challenges for not just the UK Government, but the Scottish Government, the devolved Administrations and the Irish Government. What discussions are taking place with them about the issues, and if none are taking place, will the UK Government now start to discuss the issues that affect us all?

Finally, these matters affect many hon. Members’ constituencies in which seafarers were traditionally employed. Will the Minister meet me and any other interested Members to discuss what more can be done to address the significant challenges we face in providing the next generation of UK seafarers with a clear, affordable and supported route into the maritime industry?