1: Clause 1, page 1, line 5, at end, insert—
“(1A) This Act also applies to a service for the carriage of persons or goods by ship, with or without vehicles, between—(a) a place in the United Kingdom and another place in the United Kingdom;(b) a place in Crown Dependencies and a place in the United Kingdom;(c) an offshore oil and gas installation on the UK Continental Shelf and a place in the United Kingdom; and(d) an offshore renewable energy installation within the UK Exclusive Economic Zone and a place in the United Kingdom.”
My Lords, I begin by apologising for not being able to be present at Second Reading on 20 July. I am not just sorry to have missed your Lordships’ contributions on the Bill; it is a deep personal regret that I did not hear the valedictory speech of Lord Mackay, who was in my view one of the greatest of our Lords Chancellor. Of course, I was able to read the proceedings in Hansard and watch them on television. I thank the Minister for her Teams seminar yesterday. Again, I apologise that my equipment failed me and I was able to participate for only the first two minutes.
Naturally, the Bill is to be welcomed but it is a matter of regret that it is confined to the national minimum wage equivalent. This is just one of the nine points in the Government’s response to the P&O Ferries calamity on 17 March and, even in that regard, it may not achieve the purpose stated by the Minister in point one of her letter of 31 March, which said that this will ensure that P&O can derive no benefit from the actions it has taken in paying staff less than the minimum wage and it must reverse the decision. The fact is that, even paying the national minimum wage equivalent, P&O will in fact save money over the previous regime.
Apart from the egregious flouting of the law on 17 March, one striking feature of the P&O Ferries saga is that it also threw overboard all the collective agreements that the company had reached with the trade unions over the previous 100 years or so. These contained provisions about, among other things, procedures to achieve changes to terms and conditions, dealing with redundancies, and procedures to resolve disputes. That is why the Minister’s ninth point in the letter was so gratefully received: the creation of “minimum wage corridors” and asking unions and operators to agree a common level of seafarer protection on ferry routes. The Bill could have given legislative support to these excellent proposals and I ask the Minister, first, how the Government will achieve them and, secondly, where she and her department have got to in their bilateral discussions.
My Lords, I will speak to my Amendment 38. Noble Lords might remember that at Second Reading the noble Lord, Lord Mountevans, and I raised the compatibility of this Bill with international agreements to which the UK is a signatory. Regrettably, the Minister did not address that issue in her reply, nor in her follow-up letters to participating Peers. It is really important that we give this issue an airing today.
There are many long-standing and recognised international conventions, including the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and the international Maritime Labour Convention 2006, to which the UK is a signatory. Earlier this year, the International Labour Organization reached an agreement on minimum levels of wages for seafarers for 2023, 2024 and 2025. This was broadly welcomed by all stakeholders, including social partners. When the National Minimum Wage (Offshore Employment) (Amendment) Order 2020 was published, the department’s Explanatory Memorandum made it clear that these conventions precluded the provisions being applied to seafarers from non UK-flagged vessels, yet that is exactly what this legislation will do. I would like the Minister to clarify for the Committee what has changed between the publication of that memorandum in 2020 and today.
The fact of the matter is that, no matter how well- intentioned the legislation—these Benches do support a better deal for seafarers—a measure that appears to be contrary to the long-established norm that port states should not interfere with the internal running of foreign-flagged vessels, provided they conform with internationally agreed conventions, is something we should avoid. All these agreements were developed over many years, and they reflect the complexities of operating in multiple jurisdictions with very different legal systems and with an international workforce, with many nationalities on the same vessel.
My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, has made the case well. This is from somebody who, I imagine, has not spent her whole life in maritime as I have, so I congratulate her; her points were made well.
We have the IMO close to us here in Parliament. It is just across the way, up the river and on the other bank. We are privileged to have it. If we do not abide by, for example, UNCLOS resolutions and agreements, it will be damaging to our position. I am sure that many maritime people would agree. It is extremely important that we do not behave irresponsibly here, particularly at a time when Britain is open for business. With all the other splendid slogans we have heard, it is important that we abide by international agreements. These were carefully worked out over a long period involving all parties, so I support the amendment.
I say in passing that I also support Amendment 23 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, which is in the same space but on a more restricted, faute de mieux basis and also holds good in that situation.
My Lords, I do not have any amendments in this group but I think it is appropriate for me to speak to some of the clause stand part amendments I have tabled. Basically, they result from a discussion during the International Chamber of Shipping’s briefing, to which the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, referred, about whether this Bill is compatible with international law.
Last night, I had the pleasure of joining many people from the maritime sector at an event in Greenwich. I must have spoken to more than a dozen experts in the field who questioned why the Government are doing this at all. They said, almost to a person, that the Bill will not deliver what the Government want. I certainly support its purpose—to protect the employment and remuneration of seafarers—but all the experts said to me that it will not do that.
One useful comment has come from Nautilus about the Insolvency Service work on assessing whether P&O had acted in a criminal manner when it did. Basically, the Insolvency Service is not going ahead with the criminal case while the civil investigation is still under way, but what it is really saying is that it does not think this Bill will deliver. This is from a union that represents many seafarers. It is worth quoting the information from the British Ports Association to put on record that it and other associations are not convinced that the Bill is compatible with the international commitments under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. If we take this uniliteral action, we risk other people who are possibly less responsible than the UK—I do not know whether that is still the case these days—doing the same thing and providing justification for doing things that adversely affect our ships, our seafarers and everyone else.
I hope the Minister can explain why this is being done at all. I will go into details on some later amendments, but will finish on this matter of principle. Presumably, the Government believe that this is compatible with international law, because Governments should not be breaking the law; I am sure the Minister agrees. But two people said to me last night that, within a few weeks of this Bill receiving Royal Assent—if it does—judicial reviews will start flowing. That is a terrible thing to say at this stage of the debate, and I hope it does not happen.
My Lords, the amendments in this group relate to the territorial scope of the Bill and the vessels to which this legislation applies. Seafarers across the board deserve proper compensation for their work and I welcome the opportunity to consider whether the Bill, in its present form, achieves this. To this end, I hope the Minister will clarify that all workers on the vessels listed in these amendments are already covered. When we landlubbers think of seafarers, we often picture those who directly control vessels, but the definition is incredibly wide and covers everyone from cleaners to the administrative staff on board. I hope the Minister comments on the Government’s approach to supporting better wages and conditions for all seafarers.
Amendment 5 in my name is a probing amendment and it is key. It seeks information from the Minister on the state of negotiations, particularly those with France and the Republic of Ireland, on the corridor concept. This Bill, which we support, is one small step towards addressing the issue of seafarers’ terms and conditions.
I respect what my noble friend Lord Berkeley just said but, at the end of the day, if these international conventions have achieved utopia for seamen, I would hate to see hell. Wages seem incredibly, unacceptably low in an international world. Perhaps that is not so true in the wider world, but they seem unacceptably low in Europe. I hope the Government put all possible energy into negotiations with other European states to establish these corridors. It sets a precedent for the worldwide consideration that seafarers deserve a better deal than they are getting.
Amendment 23 would prevent the refusal of harbour access where doing so would break international maritime law. In any situation in which harbour access is refused, in framing the appropriate guidance, a Government must have considered the safety and environmental implications of refusal. It moves to the general view that we must work on the international agreements in parallel and seek to ensure, as does the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, that the various conventions not only exist but are universally and even-handedly implemented.
My Lords, I am grateful for the careful consideration of this Bill by all noble Lords. I reiterate what I have already said to noble Lords in private sessions: the Government are listening to concerns and will endeavour to answer in full all the questions raised by your Lordships today. I suspect that some will certainly be in writing, and I may well try to develop on some on some of the things I am able to say today so that we have full information as we head towards Report.
I sense that there are slightly differing views around the Committee, where some people want this to go much further and others are very cautious. Of course, both of those views potentially risk the Bill itself. I therefore just want to make sure that everybody has as much information as I can get out, particularly around the Government’s intent with the Bill and why it is drafted as it is. Noble Lords will have heard the previous Secretary of State speak about the nine-point plan many times, which was in response to the P&O decision that was made back in March. We recognise that this Bill is narrow in scope and potentially also in effect, as we cannot legislate outside UK territorial waters. It is none the less an important part of the nine-point plan that this sits hand in glove with the other work that we are doing to improve the welfare of seafarers to make sure that their terms and conditions are as good as they can be.
The amendments in this first group cover territorial scope and international law and I will try to address them in turn. Amendment 1 from the noble Lord, Lord Hendy, seeks to probe the application of the Bill in various circumstances. I completely accept the way that he introduced this and that he had intended some separate amendments that were deemed to be out of scope. It is worth making sure that the different groups of seafarers who he identified in his amendment are indeed covered. To look at it in more detail, on proposed new subsection (1A)(a), seafarers working or ordinarily working in the UK, including UK internal or territorial waters if the vessel is not exercising a right to innocent passage, are already entitled to the national minimum wage. That stems from Section 1(2)(b) of the National Minimum Wage Act 1998 and Article 2 of the National Minimum Wage (Offshore Employment) Order 1999. That change is therefore unnecessary, and I think the noble Lord would agree.
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The important Amendment 5, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, is probing about how we are getting on with the minimum wage equivalent corridors. I am not entirely sure that he necessarily seeks to remove those declarations, because it is the case that any national minimum wage equivalent corridor would have a memorandum of understanding—a bilateral agreement between two nations—but it would need to be put into each nation’s domestic legislation to ensure that it could be enforced.
To update the Committee on the national minimum wage corridors, they were, as I noted earlier, introduced by the previous Secretary of State and we are continuing that policy. We are liaising with our near European neighbours to explore these corridors; conversations are progressing. Obviously, I am not able to give a running commentary on how they are going, but we are pursuing that, and as soon as further information becomes available, we will update noble Lords. Nevertheless, in the absence of those corridors, which is currently the case, we are progressing the legislation for your Lordships today. To clarify: we are working with the Governments of Denmark, Belgium, France, Germany, Ireland, Norway, the Netherlands and Spain.
Amendment 15 would expand the territorial application of the Bill. Again, we are bumping up against the fact that we cannot legislate outside our territorial waters. That is why we would seek to reject that change; it is not appropriate for any Government to define wage rates beyond their waters.
Amendment 16, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hendy, probes whether a loophole might exist which would prevent the provision of information to ports. It is well spotted and a good challenge. I took it away to make sure that our view was that it would not. The information that we would request from operators under the Bill’s provision is not likely to encompass material subject to data protection laws. The material would be in aggregate; it would not be detailed enough to fall under most data protection laws, so we do not believe that that is a significant risk. It is unlikely that an operator would seek to reflag specifically for this purpose. But the UK Government would of course not require anybody to breach the laws of another jurisdiction, so if the noble Lord has any further evidence as to what sort of information might break data protection laws, I would be very happy to see it. At the moment, we believe that we are well within the bounds of what normal and usual information would be.
Amendment 23 seeks to prevent the refusal of harbour access. This is incredibly important. The Government agree that we must not give ports the right to refuse access pursuant to the UK’s international obligations. To this end, Clause 9(3) provides for circumstances in which a harbour authority may not refuse access and replicates the conditions under which the United Kingdom permits otherwise prohibited ships from entering United Kingdom ports under the United Kingdom’s port state control regulations. We are satisfied that the circumstances provided for comply with our international obligations. This being so, there is no need to add a further broad condition necessitating interpretation of our international obligations, because we believe that we already meet them.
I turn finally on this group to Amendment 38. I am grateful to all noble Lords for their contributions and note the comments from the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, who was at a maritime party last night, which sounds great fun. He clearly had some interesting conversations. If people want to share their views and thoughts on this matter with us, we are very much open to receiving them, because this Government do not consider that the Bill proposals interfere with the rights and obligations under international law, in particular the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, or UNCLOS. Therefore, we do not deem it necessary to state as much in the Bill.
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Noble Lords need not fear—I have just another couple of sentences to say before I introduce the amendments. The Bill could have gone a lot further in re-establishing terms and conditions beyond the minimum hourly rate, including those that were provided for in previous collective agreements, such as training, pensions, rostering, crewing levels, recognition, disputes, and so on. I wonder whether the Minister and the department have any plans for legislative support in that regard.
One other obvious thing the Bill could have done was to stop up the loophole in Section 193 of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act, which excludes any penalty to enforce the duty of a ship operator sacking UK workers for redundancy to notify the authorities in the flag state of the vessel. We know this is a loophole because on 19 August this year the Insolvency Service said that a prosecution of P&O Ferries in this regard was not possible. I wonder whether the Minister will be able to say something about filling that lacuna.
With that digression, I turn to the first group of amendments, which concern the territorial scope of the Bill and an aspect of the application of international law. I will speak to my Amendments 1, 15 and 16, while Amendments 5, 23 and 38 deal, respectively, with minimum wage corridors, preventing breaches of maritime law and upholding international agreements to which the UK is party.
I will of course withdraw my first amendment, but it was put in on the footing that I would move an amendment to expand the scope of the Bill from dealing with not just the national minimum wage but the protection of other terms and conditions as well. However, I was advised quite properly by the Public Bill Office that that was not possible within the scope of the Short Title. I am therefore left simply asking the Minister to confirm my understanding that the national minimum wage already applies on vessels working on domestic routes, that those seafarers in the offshore oil and gas maritime supply chain are also covered by the National Minimum Wage (Offshore Employment) (Amendment) Order 2020 and that vessels sailing between the UK and Crown dependencies will be covered either by the Bill or existing legislation.
It is known—or so I am advised by RMT—that Condor Ferries, a low-cost operator contracted by the Governments of Jersey and Guernsey, pays less than the national minimum wage at present. It was not paying that national minimum wage up to 2014. Since then, I understand that Condor has denied union access to the Bahamas and Cyprus-registered vessels and therefore it is not known what rates of pay are operable. Presumably we are right in thinking that the Bill will apply to such vessels.
The one area where no protection is offered, as I understand it, even by the Bill is for the supply chain to offshore renewable installations in the exclusive economic zone, because they are not covered by the National Minimum Wage (Offshore Employment) (Amendment) Order 2020. The amendment that I propose should therefore close that loophole, but it may be that the noble Baroness has another way of dealing with that issue. Again, I am advised by RMT that there has been a recent case of a UK-flagged offshore facility utility vessel in the Port of Sunderland, where seafarers were working 12-hour days at a daily rate of €55, which comes to €4.58, or just over £4, an hour. In effect, by moving this amendment I simply ask the Minister to confirm that all those cases will be covered either by existing legislation or by the Bill.
The second of my amendments is Amendment 15, the purpose of which is to expand the phrase “territorial waters” to include
“the UK Continental Shelf and the UK Exclusive Economic Zone”,
both of which should be covered. What we are considering is the seafarers working on project vessels, floating hotels and other vessels that can be anchored at sites outside the UK’s territorial waters but within the continental shelf and UK economic zone. That is important, because the production of clean energy from offshore renewable sources and the storage of carbon in subsea facilities will see an increase in seafarer employment associated with this work, particularly in the North Sea.
My third amendment in this group is Amendment 16, which would delete Clause 5(3). Its purpose is to discourage operators of vessels from seeking to avoid the obligations under the Bill of providing data relating to the wages of their crew by registering vessels in countries or territories where not so restrictive data protection laws apply. I note that the Bill’s impact assessment does not consider the possibility of operators breaching the data protection laws of a flag state. I wonder whether that is because it was not thought to be a significant problem, but it might well become one if there are operators, such as P&O Ferries, that are quite happy to evade British law.
Those are my three amendments in this group. I beg to move.
These agreements are not really drafted like legislation —nor could they be, because they come from so many legal jurisdictions. They are about intent, and the intent is pretty clear. I hope the Government will think very carefully about whether they wish to risk disrupting these global agreements, or be seen to be thought of as disrupting them, because it would not be in the interests of the UK, or of any other country, for this established order to start to become undermined; nor would it be in the interests of seafarers.
There is a particular issue for the UK. We have enjoyed strong leadership in the maritime sector; that is something we should protect and preserve. The Government’s own impact assessment says that there is
“a reputational risk that the UK may be seen to be moving unilaterally on seafarer welfare issues rather than seeking improvements exclusively via multilateral channels.”
Does the Minister acknowledge that risk? Can she explain to the Committee what the Government intend to do to mitigate it?
Finally, many noble Lords were struck by the letter from the International Chamber of Shipping, which did not hold back on its concerns about the Bill. Again, I would be interested to hear about persuading not just Members of this House but the wider shipping community that we are still fully on board with these international conventions.
As a matter of principle, whether the Government think that this Bill complies with international law or not, it would be good to hear the Minister tell us about this and particularly about Articles 21, 38 and 42 of UNCLOS, in which the British Ports Association is particularly interested. I look forward to her comments.
On proposed new subsection (1A)(b), voyages to or from the Crown dependencies would already be in scope of this Bill under the service definition in Clause 1. Of course, I recognise at this point that the UK Government can legislate only in the waters of the UK; therefore, it would be a similar circumstance as one would have, for example, with a journey to France.
On proposed new subsection (1A)(c), under Article 2 of the National Minimum Wage (Offshore Employment) Order 1999, a worker working or ordinarily working in connection with the exploration of the seabed or subsoil or the exploitation of natural resources in the UK sector of the continental shelf is treated as if they are working, or ordinarily work, in the UK. Those workers are therefore already entitled to the national minimum wage, so, again subject to the caveat about UK territorial waters, those workers are covered—ditto those who are working on services to offshore renewable energy installations. Again, I note that some of those may be far away from UK territorial waters. I hope that that reassures the noble Lord.
I note the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, that it is not only the people who are in control of the ship. When I think about this, I do not think about the people in control of the ship but of all the other people on board, who do the really important day-to-day tasks that are sometimes forgotten. I accept that this is about making sure that we cover everybody on board, and I am satisfied that we do.