Seafarers’ Wages Bill [HL]

Lord Fairfax of Cameron Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 20th July 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Fairfax of Cameron (Con)]

My Lords, I first declare an interest: apart from working in shipping for 40 years and being a director of one of the ship owners’ P&I clubs, I am currently a non-executive director at a green tech fuel additives company which has relevance to shipping.

Today, of course, as many of the earlier speakers have said, is first about the valedictory speech in this House of my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay. I think I was one of those very few who were here—I think it was said—43 years ago on my first-iteration outing in this place. It was my pleasure and honour to have my hand shaken him as Lord Chancellor when I took the oath all those years ago. As noble Lords have heard today, there are very many greatly deserved plaudits from all sides of this House for his incredible long record of service with distinction.

I turn to the Bill itself. Following the P&O Ferries incident in March this year involving its peremptory sacking of—I think—786 staff, of course it is right that the Government should address the issues coming out of that. As noble Lords have heard, one of the main strange things about this is that, despite its name, P&O Ferries does not have its vessels flagged in the UK. If you were a member of the British public reading about this incident, as I was, and someone in fact who, as I say, worked for a long time in shipping, I immediately assumed that not only were the relevant staff British nationals but the vessels were probably flagged under the UK register. As noble Lords have heard, that is not the case: it is Cyprus, the Bahamas and Bermuda—so-called flags of convenience. There is nothing wrong with that. This is a totally widespread practice in international shipping, but it is perhaps not what was first thought.

Against that background, the Government have brought forward the Bill and, in general, I support what it is trying to do. But I would like to highlight three issues that come out of it. First—I think the previous speaker, the noble Lord, Lord Mountevans, touched on this—there is the extraterritorial nature of the Bill’s provisions. In particular, there is a suggestion that they may conflict with the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, and I believe there is a similar submission by the UK Chamber of Shipping.

This leads on to my second question, which I asked the Minister about during the briefing last week. What do other countries involved in some of these frequent ferry services think about what we are doing? I think of France, for example. I live on the Isle of Wight, where we see Brittany Ferries coming in just about every day, as well as Condor and others. What does France think? And what do Germany, Holland and Ireland think? What are they doing to address this type of concern? I note that there is a reference in the briefing to the idea of “minimum wage corridors”, which may be the solution.

Finally, this is really repetition of a point that I have made already, but this Bill will in fact catch not UK flag vessels but foreign flag vessels. The nationality of the seafarers involved is irrelevant. I originally thought that the nexus would be that they were British, but that is not the case; this will catch foreign flag vessels. To take the case of Brittany Ferries, they are presumably French citizens. I am not sure, but I have a feeling that this is not what the British public first thought when they heard of the P&O Ferries case.

Seafarers’ Wages Bill [HL]

Lord Fairfax of Cameron Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 12th October 2022 Grand Committee

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, I want to clarify what the debate has thrown up so far. I fear that the Government are guilty of mission creep on this, which may have occurred with the very best of intentions, but there is certainly confusion as a result. As outlined by the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, a move from 120 calls to 52 would inadvertently bring in a much broader range of shipping.

The noble Lord, Lord Hendy, just touched on another issue that needs clarity, and I have three specific questions that it is important that the Minister answers clearly. If she cannot do that at this moment, we would all appreciate correspondence on this. First, on the move from “ships” to “services”, can we have absolute clarity on what a service is? How would it be covered if, for example, there is a refitting such as that just referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Hendy? I anticipate all sorts of ways in which companies will seek to avoid inclusion through the way they configure services, so we need clarity on the definition of “services”.

Secondly, in summing up the first group of amendments, the Minister again used the phrase

“close ties to the UK”.

This is at the core of the whole thing. Can we have a definition that will stand up in a court of law of exactly what the Government mean by that?

Thirdly, I am sure we would all be grateful if the Minister could address the concerns of the DPRRC, to which my noble friend Lady Scott referred.

[Lord Fairfax of Cameron (Con)]

My Lords, I apologise; I have only just arrived, because I was detained elsewhere. I want to pick up on the point of the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, about ferries. Ferries have been referred to, so maybe the Minister can clarify this later. I need to read the Bill again, line by line, but nowhere does it refer to “ferries”. It refers to “ships”. In the current energy crisis, for example, you may have a service of tankers of diesel fuel coming in with the required regularity. They might be caught by the Bill, because of the frequency with which they call on the UK as part of their service, but they are certainly not ferries. The Minister will confirm this later, but I do not believe we should use the language of “ferries”, when we are in fact talking about ships.

[Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)]

My Lords, this is a useful set of amendments to clarify some of the points. I hope that the Minister will either be able to provide that clarification or, if she wants to worry about the syntax of her reply, supply it in a careful letter.

I have two amendments in this group. Amendment 10 seeks to replace 120 with 52 in Clause 3(3), so I sit alongside my noble friend Lord Berkeley and the noble Baroness, Lady Scott. My noble friend made a persuasive case for 50, as opposed to 52, and I will need considerable persuasion not to press this point on Report, unless the Minister is able to create a very powerful argument that there would be unintended consequences from that.

Amendment 36 seeks, in essence, to stop the effects of the Bill being, in a sense, destroyed by repeated regulations. Surely the Bill’s minimum requirements are in the primary legislation, and the adjustments to them should really be only upwards, not reducing the requirements.

I also join the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, in her concern about the DPRRC’s concerns. In my day, if it produced a recommendation, we used to shake in our boots and recognise that some deal or other had to be made with it because of the authority it carried. Once again, I hope the Government will recognise the authority and wisdom of that committee and accede to its suggestions.