Seafarers’ Wages Bill [Lords]

Gavin Newlands Excerpts

Monday 19th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Newlands (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to follow the brand-new Chair of the Transport Committee, and, as someone who serves on the Committee, may I say that it is relief to hear that he is not a lawyer? I also pass on my best wishes to Members—most Members, even in my own party—and Clerks and staff for a very Merry Christmas, and a happy new year when it comes.

When the previous, previous Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Grant Shapps), brought forward the nine-point plan to protect seafarers, I genuinely welcomed the action outlined that day. However, the strength of his words must be followed by the strength and urgency of actions. We welcome the intent behind the Bill to tackle companies that fail to observe even the most basic employment rights while operating from ports in the UK but, clearly, there are areas where this Bill could, should and must be strengthened.

Before I come to the substance of the Bill, could the Minister give us a little more detail on the Government’s progress with their overarching nine-point plan? Clearly, today we are attempting to deal with point No. 1. Point No 7 is on taking action against company leaders who break the law. Earlier this year, P&O and its parent company DP World, achieved the rare—perhaps unique—feat of uniting the Institute of Directors, the TUC, the CBI and the RMT, alongside Nautilus and Members across the House, in their condemnation of P&O’s actions against its staff. The chief executive, Peter Hebblethwaite, appeared before a Joint Committee of Parliament and admitted that his company deliberately broke the law when it dismissed 786 employees with no consultation and no notice.

Mr Hebblethwaite still hangs around P&O Ferries like a bad smell—an albatross around the neck of a company that is now a byword for corporate greed and bullying. He recently had the honour of being named the worst boss in the world by the International Trade Union Confederation, beating out the likes of the chief executive officers of Amazon, Starbucks and Emirates airlines. That is quite an achievement for a relative newcomer. I am sure that his trophy will have pride of place on his mantlepiece.

It is doubtful that P&O’s reputation will ever recover—quite rightly—but as it stands, it is clear that provisions in the Bill will need to be beefed up in Committee. I hope that the Secretary of State and his ministerial team are feeling festive, because I have a list for them. I am sure the House would agree that I have been very good this year.

First on the list is roster patterns. For reasons passing understanding, the Government suddenly rejected the previously agreed roster pattern in the seafarers’ charter to commission further research into roster patterns and crewing levels. That was despite the collectively agreed standard in place at Stena and DFDS, and evidence of the danger that crew fatigue poses to maritime safety.

The RMT gave an example of P&O staff having worked one week on, one week off, as has been mentioned, on the Dover-Calais route where 75% of the jobs were lost. The agency crew who replaced them work much longer—in the case of Indian Able Seafarers, up to 17 weeks for at least 12 hours a day, seven days a week without shore leave. P&O is making bigger savings from that dangerous change to roster patterns than it is from the sub-national minimum wage rates of pay.

Crewing levels must be addressed. For those who do not know, crewing levels are the ratio of full-time-equivalent positions required to maintain the vessel in service for each rank or role required. P&O used operate with a crewing factor of four. They now operate with a crewing factor of just over two. That does not sound safe or advisable. The charter must be incorporated into the Bill if it is to be properly effective. The fact that those operators that seek to exploit workers are complaining should tell the Minister all he needs to know.

The Government defeated amendments in the Lords to reinstate the Government’s previous position of setting the qualification threshold at 52 visits per year. The 120-visit threshold may well allow operators to port hop or design routes to avoid having to make declarations about the national minimum wage equivalent. We must also ensure that accommodation costs cannot be deducted from the national minimum wage equivalent. P&O could potentially deduct over £1,000, and Irish Ferries nearly £500, from a non-qualifying seafarer’s wage if the accommodation offset is available to it under secondary regulations in the Bill.

While extending national minimum wage coverage is welcome, we would like to see ways of introducing other employment protections that are available to those working on land in the UK, such as better rights to redundancy pay, sick pay and consultation, and a clear statement in legislation of exactly how much those rogue operators who try to avoid compliance with the new regime will forfeit to the Exchequer. We will also be looking for assurances on the kind of action that the Government and port operators will be empowered to take against rogue employers. We all saw Mr Hebblethwaite brazenly sitting in front of the Committee happily agreeing that he and his colleagues had broken the law, knowing that the likelihood of any sanctions against them as controlling minds was minimal. Making something against the law is not the same as making people comply with that law. We want to see a sanctions regime that has teeth. The Insolvency Service is still dragging its feet, citing a lack of legal clarity as to whether the dismissed seafarers worked outside Great Britain. The Government must accept amendments to the Bill to close these legal loopholes if they are truly committed to preventing a repeat of the unlawful actions of P&O.

It might be outside the current scope of the Bill, but I would like to see the Government take the lead internationally to amend and improve the current maritime law to boost employment rights for all seafarers around the world, as those changes would also improve the lot of maritime workers here. As a result of this Government merely announcing action, the French Government were prompted into taking similar action. That shows that there is an appetite elsewhere to improve the lot of seafarers across borders and across the water. In the UK Government’s own words from just a few years back, the UK is one of the world’s leading maritime nations, so perhaps it is time to leverage that leadership into a fairer deal for workers across the world, rather than only for those—while fully appreciating our international obligations—who will be covered by the Bill. We also need to ensure that all those who serve the ever-growing offshore wind sector are protected. This Bill does not protect most of those workers.

I very much agree with the Law Society of Scotland’s view that it is unclear how harbour authorities will resource, upskill staff and cover costs to be able to undertake these additional tasks and obligations. Enforcement will be needed for these measures to be of the greatest benefit, and this will require sufficient resourcing. We also anticipate that processes will require to be set up between the Secretary of State, the Maritime and Coastguard Agency and the harbour authorities to manage the requirements, powers and duties in the Bill in practical terms. It also points out, notwithstanding the point that the Secretary of State made in opening the debate, the deviation of the description of a vessel in this Bill from the description in the Merchant Shipping Act 1995, which includes every description of vessel used in navigation. This should be addressed not just for consistency’s sake but to close any loopholes that this may unintentionally open.

There is quite a lot to fix, and we have only one Committee day to do it. I think it is fair to say that the Government’s record on workers’ rights has been deplorable. With this one Bill, the Tories claim to be supporting workers while they plan others that will roll back workers’ rights and attack the right to collective bargaining. This Bill will make welcome but small changes for a small number of workers while at the same time the Government are promising new anti-union laws for millions of others. What was originally planned as a limited transport striking law designed to prevent railway strikes seems to have morphed into a wider anti-union move that the Tories claim will save lives and prevent disruption. Despite their claims, it is the Tories themselves who are responsible for this winter’s disruption.

All of this is on the back of the Government’s appalling response to fire and rehire, which has seen hundreds of thousands of workers faced with the threat of redundancy or a lower wage. I am sure that workers who were forced out or who are on inferior contracts at British Airways, British Gas, Go North West, Tesco and Menzies Aviation, to name but a few, will be pleased that the Government are trying to do something, but they will look at these plans and think, “Where was our help in our time of need?” The Government had plenty of opportunity. I brought forward three Bills to deal with fire and rehire, and the hon. Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner) had a private Member’s Bill, but the Government thought that a simple change to guidance would deal with it. I totally agree with the question from the Labour shadow Secretary of State: where is the code? We were promised it long before now and we have not heard a thing about it.

It might be churlish of me—but I hope the House will allow me a bit of festive churlishness—to point out that the RMT that the UK Government were working closely alongside in March this year, when P&O Ferries put in motion its despicable actions, is the same RMT that the UK Government have been baiting in public and in private over its industrial dispute with employers. Perhaps if other areas of the Department for Transport could revisit that spring spirit and fuse it with some festive spirit, they might remember that trade unions and workers are there to help improve working conditions and will work with Governments of all political stripes—even this one—rather than be reviled and demonised for their work.

I will stop now before I am accused of turning even more into Ebenezer Scrooge. In the Christmas spirit, I will close by saying that this is a welcome Bill that we very much support in principle, but we need to work with the Government to improve it, alongside the trade unions and staff whose working conditions will be improved by it. I look forward to that work and hope that it is as constructive as the Minister has been thus far.