Shipping: Minimum Wage

(asked on 21st March 2022) - View Source

Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that companies employing seafarers in the UK’s territorial waters comply with minimum wage legislation.


Answered by
Lucy Frazer Portrait
Lucy Frazer
Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
This question was answered on 29th March 2022

HMRC enforces the National Minimum Wage (NMW) and National Living Wage (NLW) in line with the law and policy set out by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS).

The government is determined that everyone who is entitled to the National Minimum Wage (NMW) receives it.

All businesses, irrespective of size or business sector, are responsible for paying the correct minimum wage to their staff. HMRC won’t hesitate to take action to ensure that workers receive what they are legally entitled to.

Consequences for not complying with paying NMW can include fines of 200% of the arrears, public naming and, for the most serious offences, criminal prosecution.

HMRC takes seriously and considers all complaints from workers. If anyone thinks they are not receiving at least the minimum wage, they can contact Acas, in confidence, on 0300 123 1100 or report their employer online using the link www.gov.uk/minimum-wage-complaint

On 1 October 2020, BEIS changed the law so that seafarers and other maritime persons who work or ordinarily work in the UK or in UK territorial waters (generally 12 miles from the seashore) are generally entitled to NMW. This is regardless of where the vessel is registered or whether the worker ordinarily resides in the UK.

There are some circumstances where NMW legislation does not apply, such as work performed on ships exercising the "right to innocent passage" or "the right of transit passage" as defined by the 1982 United Nations Convention of the Law of the Seas (UNCLOS).

HMRC has worked with maritime worker representatives and employers to raise awareness of the new NMW legislation that came into force on 1st October 2020, and wrote to employers in the maritime sector, asking them to check that they are paying all their workers the correct minimum wage and pointing them to available guidance.

HMRC have also produced multi-lingual leaflets for seafarers, to raise awareness about their entitlement to NMW and routes of redress and distributed these via the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT) and Nautilus International union.

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