Seafarers' Wages Bill [ Lords ] (First sitting)

Debate between Mike Kane and Karl Turner

Committee stage
Tuesday 17th January 2023 Public Bill Committees

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. We hope to work co-operatively with the Government. The common good dictates that workers should be treated with dignity and respect in the workplace, and at the least they should be paid the national minimum wage, but as the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North pointed out, international maritime law is incredibly complicated legislation when it comes to looking at economic terms and the definition of ships. Renewables hold a very positive future for the United Kingdom. We need to ensure that this sector comes within scope of the Bill, as my hon. Friend the Member for Easington suggested.

Labour has tabled multiple amendments, along with other colleagues on the Opposition Benches, to extend the definition of to whom the Bill applies. The right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings in his often-erudite way points it out: this is about making Britain a greater maritime nation. That depends on the jobs on offer and the skills we train our maritime workers with. We must ensure British workers can get those jobs on our coastal waters and that when they do they are fairly paid, with at least the national minimum wage.

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

I do not want to detain the Committee for long, but I want to speak briefly to this issue. The rapidly falling number of British ratings in the maritime industry is a crying shame, and the former Minister, the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings, is right: all Governments of all political persuasions have failed to address that issue. They have addressed officers, to an extent, but they have not anywhere near sufficiently addressed ratings.

The Bill could be dramatically improved were the Government to agree to include energy installations. That area is growing exponentially. The Bill is a golden opportunity to recruit, train and encourage kids in schools in my constituency who live in the shadow of the docks, looking over at those vessels going out to sea and wondering whether they could possibly dream of having a job in that industry.

I commend the Government on bringing forward this legislation in good time. The former Transport Secretary, the right hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Grant Shapps), and the former Minister, the hon. Member for Witney, must have worked incredibly hard to put together this complex legislation—this area is particularly complex. However, we could go further and do better, and I call on the Government to think carefully about including energy installations in the Bill.