UK Maritime Industry

Karl Turner Excerpts

Thursday 12th January 2017 Westminster Hall

[Mr Carmichael]

I am immensely grateful to the Minister for that intervention. I know he has a personal and political commitment in this regard and I am delighted that he was able to offer us that assurance again.

This is not just about the treatment of Filipino seafarers; there is also an effect on UK seafarers. First, because of such employment practices, UK seafarers are excluded from employment opportunities that would otherwise be available to them. That also drives down wages for those who are employed. I am told that Stena Line, the largest UK employer of seafarers, cut the hourly rate of pay for ratings employed seasonally—from June to September—from £8.31 to £7.20, which is the minimum wage rate. That is a graphic illustration of the direct impact on UK seafarers.

The situation has a context. For the Government’s purposes, that context is the maritime growth strategy that they commissioned in 2014. That was a good, comprehensive piece of work, and it was welcomed. If anything, it was somewhat overdue, coming the best part of two decades after the previous piece of work had been done. It made a number of recommendations. The most important was that leadership was required from both Government and the industry, including though a more commercial and responsive UK maritime administration within Government and an industry-led promotional body, with more proactive action to replenish and develop the skills needed to maintain our position as a world-leading maritime sector and effective marketing by the industry and Government of what the UK maritime sector has to offer both domestically and internationally to be strengthened.

I could probably do 90 minutes on the maritime growth strategy alone, but in view of the number of others who wish to take part in the debate, I will concentrate on the one aspect that, to my mind, is probably the most significant: training of seafarers. The Minister will know that since the turn of the century, we have had the SMarT—support for maritime training—scheme, which currently holds something in the region of £15 million. The British Chamber of Shipping tells me that it is looking for a doubling of that. I hope the Minister will look at that, because in terms of Government expenditure that is of course a significant ask, but it could bring significant rewards. I hope, though, that when the Minister engages with the industry in respect of that ask, he will not be shy about attaching some strings to any increase in funding.

I am told that a year’s guaranteed employment is on offer for those who are trained as officers under the scheme. That of course would tackle one of the major difficulties that I hear about consistently from constituents who work in the industry: that officers in particular are trained under SMarT scheme funding, but there is no employment for them once they qualify. There has to be a little more detail. We have to do more than simply extend the cliff edge out by one year, so that a situation in which we currently have training followed by no employment does not then become training followed by one year’s employment followed by no employment.

[Karl Turner (Kingston upon Hull East) (Lab)]

I think the right hon. Gentleman is right about the officers being trained under the scheme—15, I think—but only one rating is required to be trained under the deal, and that does not happen either.

[Mr Carmichael]

Indeed, and the hon. Gentleman anticipates my next point. Currently within SMarT training, a minuscule proportion of the fund is allocated to the training of ratings, and even that portion is not being taken up by the industry. When the Minister comes to look at the question of SMarT funding and the training scheme that comes under it, it should not be all about officers; it also needs to be about the training of ratings as well, otherwise we are again only seizing the low-hanging fruit.

My constituents have significant concerns not only about the lack of availability of jobs when the training is concluded, but very often about the quality of the training provided for them. I have been told of one constituent who in five months as a cadet officer was able to speak English on his ship only once. Given that we are talking about predominantly young men who are away from home for the first time, the significance of that as a living experience should not be overlooked.

The Minister and the Government really need to look at the roles of the Merchant Navy Training Board and the Maritime and Coastguard Agency and the lack of joined-up administration between them. We might then see people getting quality training that gets the taxpayer value for the money that they are putting into it. I do not believe there is any shortage of people looking for a career at sea, but there are obvious and significant obstacles being put in their way. The head of UK shipping for Maersk said that it had taken on 34 cadets selected from 936 applications, which illustrates the demand out there for careers in this vital sector.

I want to remind the House what the industry brings to the United Kingdom. According to PricewaterhouseCoopers, the maritime services sector directly contributes £4.4 billion and 10,000 jobs to the UK economy. Shipping in general produces £11 billion and 113,000 jobs. The Baltic and International Maritime Council’s latest five-yearly report to the International Maritime Organisation states that the worldwide shortage of officers is 16,500, which could rise to 92,000 by 2020. That is the scale of the opportunity ahead of us, as a highly respected maritime nation, if we take the right decisions now for the future of our industry.

--- Later in debate ---

[Karl Turner (Kingston upon Hull East) (Lab)]

It is always an absolute pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Walker. I declare an indirect interest, because if I did not, I suspect my father would be upset with me. For more than 30 years he was a full-time trade union officer for the National Union of Seamen, which is the maritime branch of the RMT. I am a member of the RMT parliamentary group and a very proud member at that.

It is scandalous that we have this problem. The number of UK seafarers has fallen by a whopping 60% since 1982. This is not an issue that has only just come about; it has been an historical issue. However, the number of UK ratings has fallen by a further 25% since 2011 and now stands at about 8,800.

Pay discrimination is outrageous, but before talking about that, I will talk about people coming into the industry without being trained. That is scandalous, especially when we have a deal under the tonnage tax, the SMarT scheme—the support for maritime training scheme—which makes it a requirement for companies to train ratings and officers, as the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) mentioned. It is scandalous that we are not doing anything about that.

Since coming to this place in 2010, I think I have met every Shipping Minister, along with Steve Todd, the senior assistant general secretary of the RMT, and on one occasion the then general secretary, Bob Crow. Shipping Ministers always say, “Yes, this is an issue. We’re going to deal with it,” but they do not deal with the problem. It is not even party political. Although the previous Labour Government at least commissioned the independent Carter review, I am ashamed to say that we did not do anything about a timetable to implement its recommendations. That was scandalous. I am not being party political, because we have to be honest. It is time for the Government to act.

The situation in my constituency is just grotesque. P&O North sea ferries run out of my constituency in east Hull, with a hugely declining number of UK ratings. The company is paying £4.70 an hour to Spanish and Portuguese seafarers, more than 300 of whom are employed on those routes, although the minimum wage is £7.20 an hour. That is scandalous. When I speak to the company about the situation, it tells me that it is not making much profit. Well, as my father always reminds me, we do not see many skint shipowners. [Interruption.] The Minister is wondering what I said: I said “skint”. I am told that shipowners do not have much money, but I think that the opposite is true. The reality is that there are an awful lot of unemployed seafarers in my constituency, people who are keen to be employed, but there are not many skint shipowners.

In the short time that I have left, I want to just mention that we are doing great things in Hull. Siemens is investing in offshore wind, and Mick Cash, general secretary of the RMT, has written to the Health and Safety Executive to raise the issue that some employers are looking particularly for seafarers to go into the industry. We therefore have a real opportunity to do something about this now. We hope that a cruise terminal will be opened in 2022. We will need more seafarers to manage that terminal—I nearly said to “man” it, and my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby (Melanie Onn) would have been unimpressed if I had. Let us just get on with it and deal with the issue. The situation is scandalous. It needs sorting out.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Hayes]

Indeed I will. I recently held a roundtable meeting, which the unions attended, on precisely those matters. I have discussed recruitment with the trade unions, and I welcome the excellent briefing produced by my trade union friends. When I first became a Minister, I said to my officials, “I want to meet the unions regularly,” and they looked slightly nervous about it. During the course of those meetings, a union representative—I will not say who—said, “We never got this much out of Labour.” I can assure the hon. Gentleman—and particularly the hon. Member for Luton North (Kelvin Hopkins), who called for this specifically in his contribution—that I will continue to work with the trade unions in exactly the way in which he has described. It is vital not only that we recruit people, but that we train them appropriately and allow them the kind of career opportunities that he called for.

[Karl Turner]

Will the Minister commit to meeting a group of cross-party MPs, along with the RMT representatives, very soon to see what progress he has made following this debate?

[Mr Hayes]

Yes, I am happy to do that, perhaps under the auspices of the all-party group, which I have already met, but I am happy to meet again. That would be a useful vehicle for precisely that kind of discussion.

The fourth area that the debate touched on—this was referred to by a number of hon. Members—was what might be called the welfare and conditions that prevail in the maritime sector. I am absolutely committed to ensuring that the conditions are appropriate. Some alarming claims have been made today, which I take very seriously indeed, particularly if people are not being paid the appropriate wage and if the circumstances and conditions in which they are working are not adequate. I take the point made by the hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Liz Saville Roberts) about the need to attract more women and getting the conditions right to allow us to do so. I hear what has been said about the importance of safety, and that is a fundamental concern for all of us who care about the sector. We will take this further. As a direct result of the debate—perhaps it will happen in the discussions that were just described—I am very happy to consider what more the Government must do. The work I am doing on the maritime growth study should fill some gaps and allow us to consider what more can be done on recruitment, as well as how we can approach skills in a fresh way and how the terms and conditions that apply across the industry can be improved.

The debate has served a useful purpose in allowing me not only to be the champion of the maritime sector, but, I hope, to be able to emulate the best of my predecessors, such as the hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse, and leave some kind of legacy. I want to do that on behalf of our ports and the towns in which they are situated, our ship owners and our shipbuilders—we build ships and boats in this country, and shipbuilding is something of which we should be proud too—and fundamentally and most of all, what is dearest to my heart, on behalf of our seafarers.