Question

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, if he will make it his policy that the National Minimum Wage should apply to seafarers working on ferry services from (a) Portsmouth to the Channel Islands, (b) Weymouth to the Channel Islands, (c) Poole to the Channel Islands and (d) Portsmouth to Cherbourg.

The Government is examining the application of the legislation to seafarers, in particular those seafarers working on ferry services.

Officials have been working closely with the Department for Transport, unions and stakeholders to fully understand pay practices in the maritime industry.

Seafarers who ordinarily work in the UK are entitled to the National Minimum Wages (NMW). Seafarers who believe they are entitled to the NMW and have not received it should contact the free and confidential Pay and Work Rights helpline on 0800 917 2368.

The Equality Act 2010 (Work on Ships and Hovercraft) Regulations 2011 extend certain equality rights, including pay, to all seafarers serving on UK or EEA registered vessels operating wholly or partly in Great Britain and its territorial waters. Seafarers from the EEA or designated States, whose legal relationship in regard to their employment is located within Great Britain, are also covered to the same extent. Outside our territorial waters the same level of protection is afforded to the same category of seafarers on UK registered vessels.

The Department for Transport is currently reviewing the application of the Equality Act Regulations with the social partners, this Department and other Departments.

However, the UK must give due consideration to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea that states that a vessel is entitled to the right of innocent passage when in the territorial waters of another State. The majority of ferries operating out of Great Britain are not flagged with the UK register and the Channel Islands and Cherbourg are beyond our territorial waters.