Seafarers’ Wages Bill [Lords]

Mike Kane Excerpts

Monday 19th December 2022 Commons Chamber

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

Today represents the 41st anniversary of the Penlee disaster when eight brave members of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution set out on a stormy night off the coast of Cornwall to rescue the crew of the Union Star. Having rescued four of them, another 16 were lost at sea. Today we remember the pain of that community in the south-west, and the bravery that those people show on a daily basis.

The maritime sector is responsible for transporting 90% of global trade and supplying the world with food, fuel, medicines and goods. The world’s 1.9 million seafarers are key workers. We as a nation ask a lot of them, and they do not let us down, as has been pointed out tonight, particularly during the pandemic. We owe our mariners and seafarers the most protection, and I use the word “protection” deliberately. We must protect their rights as workers, protect their pay and conditions, and protect their future.

We have seen what happens when bad bosses go rogue. We are a proud seafaring nation that was once the envy of the world. How could a Dubai-owned company, which was given millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money by this Government during the pandemic, sack 800 staff and seemingly get away with it? It has got away with it. It knew we have a weak Government, who might talk a good game—after all, at the time both the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for Transport said that the company would be criminally investigated and sanctioned. But that has not happened.

Peter Hebblethwaite, who was described by the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Gavin Newlands) as the world’s worst boss—I have noticed it is a crowded field—cynically trampled on workers’ rights, and has gone unpunished and faced zero consequences. When P&O pulled the rug out from underneath its staff, and sacked them illegally over a pre-recorded Zoom call, I can honestly say that never in my political life had I seen such blatant abuse of workers’ rights at such a scale. That must not happen again. The Bill is supposed to strengthen protections for workers, and we will work with the Government to set out what the Bill can do. My hon. Friend the shadow Secretary of State said that the Bill does not address the situation that happened with P&O, so let us not fool ourselves. Until we start with criminal liabilities, and hike them up, as well as protection against criminal negligence, such companies will continue, and are continuing, to get away with it.

First, we will press for a reduction in the number of port visits to UK ports from 120 to 52 times a year. We will amend the legislation to ensure that HMRC’s involvement is stronger, and that its role is clear when it comes to ensuring that bad bosses comply with the minimum wage. We ask that the Bill ensures that fines are mandated for non- compliance with the national minimum wage, and that they are punitive enough to act as a deterrent. We will ask in Committee that if directors of those companies fail to pay the national minimum wage, they should be found criminally responsible. Our amendments, if accepted by the Government, will ensure that port operators are not their own authorities and are not marking their homework. There must be firm guidance on surcharges, and the Secretary of State should be responsible for establishing a method for collecting those fines. We cannot give ultimate power to port operators—bear in mind that P&O operates a port, and it is inconceivable that it would potentially be responsible for fining itself and its business competitors at the same time. We know that bad bosses will exploit any gaps in the Bill, and it is incumbent on us to ensure that a third party collects the fines, not individual port authorities.

We have had a full and thorough debate, and I thank hon. Members who have, towards the end of the year, turned up to participate in it. First, I thank the Chair of the Transport Committee, the hon. Member for Milton Keynes South (Iain Stewart), who said that the Bill is not the whole solution to the problem. He is absolutely right. I hope that, some time after the Bill has passed, his Select Committee will take it away and reflect on how successful it has been. The hon. Member for Thurrock (Jackie Doyle-Price) is a doughty champion for the docks in her constituency, and she was exactly right to say that P&O’s action was a disgusting act of industrial vandalism. I note further that her council has been declared bankrupt tonight, so I wish it all the best and hope that it can come through its current problems.

My hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull East (Karl Turner) is another doughty campaigner who, in a tour de force, eloquently described the working conditions that these workers now face, with weeks and weeks at sea, on for 12 hours a day, seven days a week. He is right that the Bill needs improving,

I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Witney (Robert Courts) for being the Minister through such turbulent times for both aviation and maritime. He put in a shift—in my opinion, on some days there is no fairness in politics. He said that P&O’s actions did not appeal to a British sense of fairness. I would say that they could not have happened in any country with proper employment laws. That is what really needs to change if we want to make progress.

My hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale (Mike Amesbury) talked about morality. I rarely go into morality in politics because there is rarely a black-or-white day in this business, but he described P&O’s action as immoral—it was—and the Bill as a missed opportunity.

The hon. Member for Dover (Mrs Elphicke) started well, and I am sympathetic to the crisis in her coastal community. However, she strayed into errant Whips’ lines. She kept saying that Labour Front-Bench Members were silent on something, but she did not say what that was. I am happy to give way if she wants to tell me what we are silent on. On her criticism of unions, as a fellow traveller of faith, I will lend her my copy of Pope Leo XIII’s 1892 encyclical “Rerum Novarum”, which stood up for the rights of trade unions to organise. Labour Members will always stand up for that right.

The hon. Member for Glasgow East (David Linden) took us down a Netflix line for a while. He said that seafarers get poverty pay. It is poverty pay, but it is worse than that, because people now cannot get into these jobs. The hon. Member for Edinburgh West (Christine Jardine) made a great speech. My right hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) said that the legislation is like a mouse. My hon. Friend the Member for Reading East (Matt Rodda) said that DP World’s pension deficit is the same as the amount it spent on a golf tournament.

My hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Grahame Morris) talked about a bright future for our coastal communities and how those jobs that could have been the future of those communities now cannot be accessed. Labour will work constructively with the Government to strengthen the Bill by closing the loopholes that we know bad bosses will exploit and to ensure that our seafarers are protected.