Draft National Minimum Wage (Offshore Employment) (Amendment) Order 2020

Mike Kane Excerpts

Monday 22nd June 2020 General Committees

[Mike Kane (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)]

I congratulate the Minister on getting through all those legal niceties. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hosie. I enjoy our long conversations, sometimes into the evening, about your fanaticism for Dundee United. We share a similar passion, as your preferred English premiership team is Manchester City, one of the finest teams to grace the land or the world. I hope I have not ruined your career in the Scottish National party by outing you as having a preferred English team.

There is no doubt that the national minimum wage was one of the last Labour Government’s crowning achievements. However, the legal complexities of maritime meant that it was not introduced on our seas. I thank the Department for Transport, officials, Government Members who worked on it, and the legal working group for creating this legislation that sets a minimum wage at sea.

The Labour party is pleased to support the draft order, but it is only a small step in the right direction. It applies only to ratings and seafarers who are going from port to port in the UK. For instance, some hon. Members may not be aware that it does not cover the Dover to Calais route. Although it is a small step, it is important to protect UK seafarers from low-cost crewing models, which have directly contributed to UK ratings being systematically replaced in the last 30 years. UK seafarers now make up just 19% of seafarers in the UK shipping industry, which is a record we should be ashamed of. We should also be ashamed of importing people from all over the world to work for less than the minimum wage and serve British citizens on ships from this country.

I congratulate the RMT, which, as the Minister said, served on the working group, on its tireless work in campaigning since the late ’90s for national minimum wage legislation to cover seafarers employed on ships working from UK ports. Through its campaign and representation on the legal working group, it should be rightly proud of championing the rights of its members.

Scandalous levels of low pay are used by some operators where they can bring in foreign labour to undercut the British workforce that is already there. It is troubling to see signs that some operators may be using the coronavirus pandemic and the Treasury’s job retention scheme, which we welcome, to restructure their workforces and further reduce the number of UK seafarers.

As highlighted by the legal working group, some businesses are doing the right thing: treating their workers with respect and dignity in the workplace, with good pay and good conditions. I and everyone else should applaud that. I am sure the Minister shares my view that that practice should be adopted across the whole industry. The coronavirus crisis has highlighted the fact that even more needs to be done to protect UK seafarers and the UK maritime industry. Will the Minister consider reconvening the legal working group to consider further legislation to protect UK ratings and maritime interests?

This country was built on the shipping industry. The UK remains one of the world’s leading maritime nations. We must continue to champion this heritage and do everything we can to promote the industry and maritime occupations to UK residents. The primary purpose of leadership is to create more leaders. The Government should be at the forefront of getting more UK residents working in maritime and its associated industries.