Seafarers’ Wages Bill Remaining Stages

10th February, 2023

My contribution to the debate on the remaining stages of the Seafarers’ Wages Bill earlier this week:

I rise to support the amendments in the names of my hon. Friends the Members for Sheffield, Heeley (Louise Haigh) and for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Mike Kane), in particular new clause 2, which seeks to put the seafarers charter on the face of the Bill; amendment 24 to clause 3, which seeks to reduce the threshold to 52 calls to a UK port; and Opposition amendment 40 to clause 4, which seeks to protect existing seafaring national minimum wage entitlements beyond a 12-mile limit on the UK continental shelf. I am concerned about unintended consequences driving down seafarers’ wages, given that our purpose is to drive them up and protect terms and conditions. I would also like to speak to amendment 41, which proposes making clause 16 subject to the affirmative procedure.

I declare my interest as a member and, indeed, vice-chair of the RMT parliamentary group. I want to give the Minister credit. The Government have moved in several areas of concern that were highlighted on Second Reading, in the other place and in Committee. When the Bill was first published, the trade unions representing both ratings and officers, who were attacked by P&O Ferries and DP World, identified a number of the issues that we have raised, including the level of fines for non-compliance and the use of surcharge revenue to fund seafarer welfare facilities onshore. I am glad that the Minister has acknowledged those concerns and acted on them.

The purpose of the amendments tabled by His Majesty’s Opposition and my friends from the SNP, the hon. Members for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Gavin Newlands) and for Glasgow East (David Linden), is to strengthen the Bill, not to undermine or devalue it. They aim to make sure that the Bill achieves its purpose.

Government amendment 15 creates a national tariff of surcharges set by the Government rather than tariffs set by individual harbour authorities. In Committee we identified a potential conflict of interest, so I am very pleased to say that the trade unions and the Opposition parties support the amendment.

As I have indicated, sadly the Bill does not go far enough in a number of key areas, including the detention of vessels in port as a punishment for non-compliance, and in the two areas that could cause maximum damage to P&O’s business model. Those two areas relate to the argument that a ship should be designated as within the scope of the Bill for 52 days rather than 120 days, and to the roster patterns, which are covered by the seafarers charter. That is addressed in the Opposition’s new clause 2.

I am thanking the Minister quite a lot, but I have to say that one of his letters to the Committee did not provide the further detail that we had asked for about the Department of Transport’s review of the Equality Act 2010, including the regulations to prevent nationality-based pay discrimination. The Minister is rolling his eyes because that is outside the scope of this Bill, but it was contained in the EU retained law Bill, so I think it is reasonable to seek clarification.

In the time I have, I want to speak in support of Labour’s amendments and, indeed, those tabled by my friends from the SNP, which I believe would greatly improve the Bill and ensure maximum protections for our seafarers. New clause 2 focuses on the seafarers welfare charter, and I hope that the Labour Front Benchers will put it to a vote. I know that the unions, employers and the Government have been discussing a number of versions of the charter since April as part of the much-publicised nine-point plan, which we very much welcome and which is included in the “Maritime 2050” review. It is intended to set minimum standards on wider employment issues that the Bill does not cover. Again, I must mention roster patterns, crewing levels, pension rights, training and taxation, because the additional savings that P&O in particular made were not just down to saving the cost of seafarers’ wages. Most of the financial benefits were from changed roster patterns, pensions and other savings.

Given the importance of linking wages and terms and conditions, the nine-point plan and the seafarers charter really should be on the face of the Bill. The Minister has been quite consistent in disagreeing with that and instead aims to publish a voluntary seafarer welfare charter. I had rather hoped that it would have been published in advance of these remaining stages, including Third Reading, but perhaps it will be published later this month.

In a letter to the Committee, the Minister wrote:

“The Seafarers’ Charter is being developed with the maritime industry and social partners to enhance the core employment protections available to seafarers.”

For the avoidance of doubt, “social partners” means the trade unions. That is really interesting, and I welcome the fact that the Government have chosen to adopt the language of the European Union in referring to seafarers’ rights. Again, for the avoidance of any doubt, the maritime industry includes P&O Ferries, the Irish Continental Group, which operates Irish Ferries, and DP World. The Government must be honest about the discussions they have had and are having with P&O Ferries about its future viability. The Minister responded to an issue raised in Committee relating to P&O by writing:

“The Department works closely with ports and operators across the Maritime sector to understand the market and any potential sources of disruption. We have not however made any specific assessment of the viability of P&O Ferries’ routes to or from UK ports.”

The unions have not seen a draft of the charter since August, and neither to my knowledge has Stena Line or DFDS, whose collective bargaining agreements with the RMT and the officers’ union Nautilus formed the basis of the original framework agreement. Safe roster patterns and crewing levels based on the agreements with Stena and DFDS were prominent, but sadly have since been diluted or removed. That puts hundreds more UK seafarer jobs under threat from bad bosses who are ruthlessly undercutting responsible employees, and I include P&O and Irish Ferries in that. I urge the House not to forget that Irish Ferries started operating on the Dover-Calais route in June 2021 with one vessel doing a freight-only service. It now operates a freight and passenger service with three Cypriot-flagged vessels on the same route. That is the reality, and progressive operators that provide decent seafarer jobs are being undercut every day. It is so important that this Bill is properly targeted.

I am aware that the RMT general secretary, Mick Lynch, who has been busy in other sectors, wrote to the Secretary of State last week, asking for sight of the latest version of the seafarer welfare charter before Report. As far as I am aware, Ministers have not been able to comply with that request either. It is utterly perverse for P&O Ferries and DP World to continue to benefit from royal charter status, as my friend the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North referred to, when the Government will not mandate a charter for seafarers’ rights on international ferry and shipping routes. I would be interested to know from the Minister what benefits the royal charter confers on P&O. It is an historical legacy that DP World effectively purchased when it bought P&O, but how does the Minister feel about that?

I was appalled by the lack of contrition from Peter Hebblethwaite when he appeared in front of our Select Committee. He was quite unrepentant. I had thought, given the reassurances we received from the shipping Minister at the time, the hon. Member for Witney (Robert Courts), that P&O would be in receipt of hefty fines to dissuade them from such a course of action. If we can do no more, I hope we can at the very least revoke its royal charter. How does the Minister feel about that? What protections are afforded to P&O under the terms of that charter?

It is vital that this Bill protects pay, working hours, pensions and other remunerated conditions of seafarer employment. New clause 2, in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East, continues to offer the best solution, given how narrowly drafted the Bill is. We should not forget that we are coming to the first anniversary of the P&O sacking, on St Patrick’s day on 17 May. We now know there is a strong possibility that P&O will take delivery of its new electric hybrid ferry, to be called Pioneer, in either Dover or Calais, ahead of the route familiarisation process. The ship will be sailed by an agency crew from International Ferry Management, some being paid under £4 an hour basic pay for a fixed-term contract of 17 weeks solid, with 12 hours on, 12 hours off and no shore leave. Those are aspects of the dangerous and discriminatory conditions on the Pride of Canterbury, which the Pioneer will replace on the Dover-Calais route. Putting broader employment conditions on the face of the Bill is a necessary response to P&O Ferries’ attempt to greenwash its reputation with these new green ferries, but it is still using exploitative labour practices in respect of the crews.

Another electric ferry for the Dover-Calais route is to be delivered from China later this year, and I was amazed to hear that Dubai is hosting COP28 in November, where it is highly likely that DP World will try to use P&O Ferries as a “just transition” case, when it is anything but a just employer for seafarer ratings. P&O Ferries and other companies operate their vessels with crew recruited on exploitative conditions that bear little relation to the economic conditions in the ports they regularly work from.

An equivalent to the national minimum wage in UK territorial waters is an improvement for many ratings on the services in scope of the Bill, but we must guard against the potential for bad employers to use this legislation to bring things down towards the UK national minimum wage. I hope that will not be an unintended consequence, and I hope the Government will take that into consideration. If they will not support new clause 2 in the name of His Majesty’s Opposition, I would like them to state in detail the timeline within which they will legislate, should the voluntary approach that the Minister has outlined through the seafarers charter not work well.

Amendment 24 to clause 3, which would restore the original threshold of 52 calls a year, is so fundamental, and I hope we will have a vote on it. I very much support it. Unions and Opposition parties have consistently sought to restore this 52 calls threshold. Once a week is a significant link between the crew and the UK. I thought my hon. Friend the Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East gave a very good analogy about someone playing for a football team once a week or using a restaurant once a week being a regular player or a regular customer. A ship that uses a UK port once a week is a regular user of that port.

A number of concerns have not been addressed in the passage of the Bill, which will be music to the ears of P&O Ferries, Irish Ferries and other unscrupulous bosses and operators. For example, the Bill’s impact assessment did not estimate the total number of seafarers who would be covered by its provisions. The Department is collecting figures—I think they might even be published today—but we should know how many seafarers will be protected under the Bill. I do not think that 120 calls a year, as laid down under the terms of the Bill, accords with the Government’s aim of improving pay protections for seafarers working on services with a close link to the UK. Calling at a UK port once a week is a clear and direct link between the crew and the UK economy, as well as raising the wage floor for UK-French routes in the channel.

Government amendment 1 imposes a duty on ports to request declarations of national minimum wage equivalence, but that is insufficient if it applies only to non-qualifying seafarers on services that call at UK ports 120 times a year. A lower minimum threshold of 50 port calls in the UK would also make it more difficult, as one of my colleagues pointed out, to avoid this legislation by port-hopping, particularly on services that call more frequently at UK ports.

Amendment 39 would protect collective bargaining conditions above the national minimum wage. P&O Ferries and other companies operate their vessels with agency crew recruited under exploitative conditions that bear little relation to the economic conditions that prevail in the ports from which they regularly work. An equivalent to the national minimum wage in UK territorial waters is an improvement for many ratings on the services in scope, but the potential for employers to use this legislation to bring down pay towards the UK national minimum wage must be guarded against. As such, it is regrettable that the amendment has not been selected.

In all the technical detail we must not lose sight of the fact that collectively bargained terms and conditions were, ultimately, P&O Ferries’ target for its shameful actions. This was not fire and rehire. The agency crew employed by International Ferry Management of Malta are not covered by collective bargaining agreement—not even pale imitations supported by the International Transport Workers’ Federation, to which Peter Hebblethwaite made reference in his appalling evidence to the joint hearing of the Select Committees.

Seafarer employment agreements—the legal requirement under the MLC—merely reflect existing CBAs. They should and can be underpinned by stronger protections in domestic legislation. It would reassure France, Belgium, Ireland and other countries with whom the Government are seeking to negotiate bilateral agreements if the Bill did not undermine existing seafarer terms and conditions. That is important for good operators such as Brittany Ferries, which operates a 100% French flagged and crewed fleet, including on routes from Portsmouth and Plymouth. Brittany Ferries has clearly stated that P&O Ferries’ employment style is against its principles and not in the longer-term interests of French seafarers or the French national economy.

Amendment 40 would protect existing seafarer national wage entitlements beyond the 12-mile limit, as the Minister referred to. It seeks to shore up the 2020 regulations that extend the national minimum wage equivalent entitlement to the offshore oil and gas sector, bound by the UK continental shelf, which is 200 nautical miles from the UK coastline. As Ministers have said throughout the passage of the Bill, offshore vessels will be caught if they call at a UK port on or over the minimum number of calls per year. The Government are saying that should be 120; the Opposition say that it should be 50 or 52.

Once again, that highlights two glaring anomalies in the legislation. First, seafarers working from a UK port to an installation on the UK continental shelf and back to a UK port are already entitled to protection of the national minimum wage, regardless of whether the vessel is UK flagged or the nationality of the seafarer. There are serious concerns about how well that is enforced by His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, particularly as it is under no obligation to inform unions or others of the outcome of those investigations into third-party complaints. A significant proportion of seafarers qualifying for the national minimum wage in the UK continental shelf are not UK residents. The MCA currently has no responsibility for national minimum wage enforcement, as was repeatedly stressed during the passage of the 2020 regulations. It is vital that enforcement work for that section of the seafarer population is not neglected.

Secondly, seafarers working from a UK port to an offshore wind farm and back to a UK port are not entitled to national minimum wage protection. The Government and the offshore wind industry seem to be relying on the good will of individual developers to commit to voluntary schemes such as the real living wage. I note the Minister’s letter sent yesterday, I think—that is when I received it—on the position of seafarers in the offshore wind turbine supply chain on the continental shelf. That is a very worrying intervention. I am not sure whether the Minister is conflating offshore workers and seafarers. I am not sure how familiar he is with the offshore wind sector, but turbines are not platforms, and they are not staffed in the same way. We hear that the Prime Minister is to split up the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, so how does the Minister advise we take this issue up with the appropriate Minister and their officials if it does not come under his responsibility?

In Committee, the hon. Member for Dover (Mrs Elphicke) was quite keen to underplay Labour’s efforts to broaden the scope of the Bill to cover wider seafarer employment conditions as not serious. I urge hon. Members to look at the Government’s woeful performance in this sector.

Many hundreds of millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money is going in to support this vital sector as part of our ambition for zero carbon, and there is a golden opportunity to ensure that the workers in it are properly paid and protected. We need to grow seafarer jobs in the offshore renewable sector, but not with voluntary agreements or voluntary pay rates such as the real living wage. It clearly will not happen with this Bill, and I want to place on record the urgent need for the Government to equalise employment protections for all seafarers and offshore workers, regardless of flag or nationality, working in the UK exclusive economic zone or the UK continental shelf.

There are a number of other points that I want to make, but I will conclude. On its own, this Bill will not break the discriminatory seafarer employment models at P&O Ferries, Irish Ferries or elsewhere, and neither will it return the 600 directly employed seafarer ratings jobs on the Dover-Calais, Hull-Rotterdam or Cairnryan-Larne routes affected by P&O’s callous and profit-driven actions on 17 March last year. We must not lose sight of the fact that with this Bill, we are trying to remedy the plight of the almost 800 seafarers who were notified by recorded message that their employment was being terminated.

I urge the Government to revoke P&O Ferries’ royal charter. It is unthinkable that after this primary legislation was introduced in response to P&O Ferries’ attacks on terms and conditions, the company should continue to derive any benefit—I do not know whether there is any—from the royal charter, which was part of the £3.3 billion deal that DP World paid for the company in 2006. As we approach a year since those shameful actions, I urge Members across the House to support the Opposition amendments, to attempt to bridge the gaps and ensure the best possible deal for our seafarers.