That this House has considered seafarers’ welfare.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Christopher. The UK is an island nation. Our history and economy have been defined by maritime trade. That is certainly true in my constituency of Thurrock. Part of our local identity is shaped by our position as a key port in the Thames estuary—from the instrumental role Thurrock played in the D-day preparations to the arrival of the Empire Windrush at Tilbury to help to rebuild the nation in the post-war period.
The shipping industry has driven economic growth. The port of Tilbury in my constituency, and the nearby London Gateway, act as key links in the supply chain that keeps our country moving, bringing significant investment and economic opportunity into the region. Some 95% of this country’s goods and services arrive by sea, with Thurrock’s ports receiving more than 65 million tonnes of cargo a year to quite literally keep our country moving.
It is easy to forget the people at the heart of the industry: the seafarers who staff the ships to bring goods to our shores. Their impact in Thurrock and the country as a whole is profound. More than 160,000 seafarers work in the UK shipping industry. Without them, and international seafarers, our supermarket shelves would be empty within seven days. As we enter the run-up to Christmas, the busiest time of the year for the shipping industry, many of us will be opening presents brought here on ships.
Yet the workforce are often overlooked. Seafarer charities call this phenomenon sea blindness—out of sight, out of mind. They remind us that welfare standards slip when no one is watching, particularly aboard deep-sea vessels. Many workers live in cramped conditions, performing physical roles with limited opportunities for rest. When crews are small, long shifts mean that sleep deprivation and chronic fatigue are common. This can be incredibly dangerous, especially when staff are handling complex machinery. It also drives poor mental health among crews. Loneliness and isolation are common, as they are separated from their families for often months at a time.
The Queen Victoria Seafarers Rest, established in 1843, has a long history of serving those in need, both on land and at sea, including through its accommodation centre in my constituency, which is a safe haven for many hundreds of active and retired seafarers, including from the Somali community, who are in need of a home. Will my hon. Friend join me in paying tribute to Alexander Campbell, who is in the Public Gallery and who leads a fantastic team? Does she agree that although charities are central to meeting the statutory obligations to seafarers, they are underfunded, and that we need to address the deep inequalities in the provision of seafarer welfare at UK ports?
I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. I will come on to talk at length about the charitable contribution made by organisations such as the Queen Victoria Seafarers Rest. I am familiar with its work in her constituency and in mine. I do not think we can overstate the contribution that organisation makes to the welfare of seafarers, and to maintaining the shipping industry as a whole.
Mental health among crews is at a low and, tragically, suicide rates are higher among seafarers than among the wider population. We must do a much better job of supporting seafarers and ensure that they receive the same support as our domestic workforce. The Government have a key role to play in that.
The Employment Rights Bill is a critical step, paving the way for a legally binding seafarers’ charter that will help to root out poor practice in the industry. It aims to limit maximum periods of work at sea, improve safety training and strengthen laws around mandatory rest. Importantly, the Bill also combats unacceptable fire-and-rehire cycles. Trade unions such as the RMT have shone a light on these issues and stood up for British workers when they have been at the sharp end of the practice in the past.
The challenge now is to ensure that our interventions make a real difference for workers. If international partners are able to sidestep their obligations, UK nationals will lose out. We must not allow a situation in which the welfare and pay protections afforded to British seafarers put them at a competitive disadvantage.
It is encouraging to see our Government working to combat the issues, teaming up with signatories to the international maritime convention to drive up standards together. Tackling abuse and malpractice in the seafarer sector will, however, require a co-ordinated international approach. I would welcome any update from the Minister on engagement with our international partners to that effect.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Christopher. I congratulate the hon. Member for Thurrock (Jen Craft) on securing this important debate, because we are indeed a maritime nation.
Sir Christopher,
“I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied”—
John Masefield’s poem “Sea-Fever” brilliantly captures the magnetic draw of the ocean which, as an island nation, we feel acutely. Yet to be a sailor is not for everyone. My father was a sailor all his working life—a marine engineer who qualified on steam power and ended up on jet engines. His career spanned deep-sea tankers and roll-on, roll-off ferries, and he visited much of the world—or at least sailed past it. However, the salt water in his veins was not passed down to me, for I get seasick in a bath. That does not mean that I cannot appreciate what it is to be a sailor, and I want to express how important maritime traffic is to this country.
My Dumfries and Galloway constituency has the ferry port of Cairnryan, which is a vital link with our friends in Northern Ireland. Our stunning coastline is studded with harbours—Kirkcudbright, Garlieston, the Isle of Whithorn, Port William and Portpatrick—which are used for leisure craft while the working boats win a valuable harvest of seafood from our pristine waters. Yet for all its romance, the sea is a tough place to make a living and, like all coastal communities, Dumfries and Galloway knows just how steep a price it can exact. The motor vessel Princess Victoria left my hometown of Stranraer—ironically with the motto “Safe harbour”—on 31 January 1953, but it never reached Larne. The more recent losses of the trawler Mhari-L and the scallop dredger Solway Harvester, with all 12 hands, are still raw.
Happily, support for our sailors comes from many sources, including the Mission to Seafarers Scotland and the Scottish Nautical Welfare Society, but I want to highlight the charity Combat Stress. As well as reaching out to veterans of the Royal Navy, it also helps with the mental health issues of former members of the merchant navy, which was Britain’s lifeline in wartime, and is very much the same today. As a journalist, I worked closely with the late Colonel Clive Fairweather, who was second in command of 22 SAS and commanding officer of the King’s Own Scottish Borderers. This tough infantryman was clear that Combat Stress’ outreach to the merchant navy was key. He would say:
I genuinely congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Jen Craft) on securing the debate, which she introduced eloquently. I refer to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests: I am the convenor of the RMT parliamentary group.
I want to start by referring to the loss of life in the Royal Fleet Auxiliary. A few weeks ago, we lost a crew member. The Royal Fleet Auxiliary has civilian crew; they are not Royal Navy, but they work alongside it. During a debate a few weeks ago, we were passed a note saying that one of our RMT members had lost his life overboard. I can now say that his name was James Elliott. On behalf of us all, I want to repeat our condolences to his family. I also pay tribute to the RFA for the essential role it plays alongside our Royal Navy and the work it does in protecting our shores. These are civilian crew. There was some confusion on the day, because the BBC reported that it was a member of the Royal Navy. It is important that we improve communication, because that caused some distress among a number of families who were trying to find out what had happened.
I met some RFA-RMT representatives today, who asked me to raise the fact that in the defence review there is a reference to the Royal Fleet Auxiliary that is causing some confusion about the role it will play and what investment there will be. I ask the Minister to pass on to his colleagues in the Ministry of Defence the message that the RMT would welcome a meeting with the Secretary of State or a Minister as soon as possible to discuss the defence review.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock said, one of the issues is that seafarers’ welfare is directly related to the conditions of their employment, which are governed by the International Labour Organisation’s maritime labour convention. That is the primary legislation that sets out legal standards for seafarers. In this country, the UK Maritime and Coastguard Agency is the competent authority for ensuring that every UK vessel, or vessel entering our ports, complies with that legislation. There are specific legal responsibilities under the convention on welfare standards.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Christopher. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Jen Craft) on securing this incredibly important debate and raising awareness of the plight of seafarers. She spoke with heart about the unseen strain and pressure on seafarers. I hope that, in some small way, this debate can help to shine a light on those issues.
The UK’s history can be viewed through the lens of the river and the sea. A main artery of the lifeblood of this island nation flows through my constituency of Gravesham: the Thames. Trade, travel, tourism and troops have flowed up and down the Thames since pre-Roman times and the river still shapes Gravesham today. Many of us have personal connections with the sea, and my household is no different. My late father-in-law worked for long periods of time on the sea laying underwater cables, which put a strain on his family.
Aside from the River Thames’s history, and all the people who have sailed and worked on it, it provides job opportunities for local businesses, employment, leisure and tourism. The Port of London Authority in Gravesham works safely around the clock so that one of the UK’s busiest ports flows without becoming gridlocked. It has a vision of the future where a trading Thames is the key commercial hub for the UK; of a destination that people can enjoy and where they can play and live; and of a natural Thames. All those things require the support of seafarers—those highly skilled professional men and women. I have also seen the immense work that goes on, day in, day out, to keep the river moving and keep it safe.
At this point I wish to pause and pay tribute to the Royal National Lifeboat Institution. My local branch in Gravesham, despite some recent criticisms, is essential and has helped so many who have fallen into the water. The RNLI’s mission is simple: to save lives at sea. My heartfelt thanks go to it.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Christopher. I thank the hon. Member for Thurrock (Jen Craft) for securing this important debate, and for setting out why this issue matters.
Three years ago, the country watched in disbelief as P&O Ferries carried out one of the most disgraceful attacks on workers’ rights in recent memory: 800 loyal seafarers, men and women who had given years of dedicated service, were summarily dismissed over video call—no consultation, no notice and no dignity. It was a scandal that shocked the maritime sector. It shocked people across the country and it shocked people in Sussex communities, given that at Newhaven we have our much-treasured ferry service to Dieppe—thankfully not operated by P&O.
From the moment that outrage unfolded, the Liberal Democrats were clear and principled. We demanded urgent answers from the Conservatives’ then Transport Secretary, Grant Shapps; we demanded justice for the workers and families whose lives had been thrown into turmoil; and we demanded a fundamental change to ensure that nothing like that could ever be allowed to happen again. Hard-working seafarers and their families should never suffer because of corporate neglect or corporate greed.
In the months that followed, we pressed the Government to tighten the rules around how ships that are registered to operate in the UK treat their workers. We supported the Seafarers Wages Act 2023 as a necessary first step. It requires ships that make frequent calls at UK ports to pay at least the UK national minimum wage for time spent in our waters, but we also made it clear that the Act did not go far enough.
We have championed the calls of maritime unions and the UK Chamber of Shipping for stronger safeguards: measures to stop companies engaging in port-hopping to dodge basic obligations; collectively agreed standards on roster patterns, pensions, crewing levels and training; and tougher enforcement so that operators cannot simply ignore the law with impunity. After all, laws mean very little if bad employers know that they can bend or dodge them entirely, and we now know exactly how determined some operators have been to do just that.
I welcome the hon. Lady’s engagement on this matter and the list of issues. Those issues will be subject to consultation, which will be part of the negotiation. I want to reassure her that the RMT strategy is usually not just crossing its fingers.
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that reassurance.
An issue too often overlooked while talking about seafarers is their mental health, as the right hon. Gentleman drew to our attention in his contribution. We know that life at sea can be tough, isolating, demanding and physically and psychologically draining: long stretches away from family, stress, exhaustion and the unique pressure of maritime work all take a heavy toll. Seafarers rely on the NHS for mental health support, just like anyone else, but our NHS is in crisis after years of Conservative neglect. Mental health waiting lists have spiralled, and thousands of people are waiting months, and sometimes years, for the care they urgently need. That includes the people who keep our essential maritime supply chain moving.
Liberal Democrats believe that mental health must be treated with the same seriousness and urgency as physical health. That is why we are campaigning for regular mental health check-ups at key life points, just like blood pressure or eyesight checks. We are also calling for prescriptions for people with chronic mental health conditions to be free on the NHS, because we believe that no one should have to choose between treatment and financial strain. We will also create a statutory, independent mental health commissioner to advocate for patients and their families and carers. Those reforms matter for everyone, but are especially vital for communities such as seafarers, who often face some of the toughest working conditions.
The P&O Ferries scandal was a turning point. It exposed deep flaws in our system—in employment law, in enforcement, and in the way that successive Governments have allowed bad employers to exploit loopholes at the expense of ordinary workers. It also presented us with a choice: to accept this broken system or to build something better. The Liberal Democrats would choose to build something better. We choose fair pay, safe working conditions and dignity at work. We choose an NHS that supports people’s mental health properly, not one that is forced to ration treatment. We choose an economy where responsibility, fairness and respect guide the way businesses operate. Britain can be better than P&O Ferries’ behaviour—and Britain must be better. I look forward to hearing from the Minister on how the Government aim to chart a course towards that destination.
It is always a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Christopher. As an island nation, Britain has always been reliant on our sailors, as other Members have said. For centuries, we have depended on them to protect our nation, to transport goods around the world and to deliver the products of our national endeavours across the seas to other countries.
The continued significance of maritime trade to our economy cannot be overstated. Of all international freight traded with the United Kingdom, around 85% by weight and 55% by value is moved by sea. Our seafarers also play a vital role in connecting communities across the United Kingdom, whether that is in our Scottish islands or the Isle of Wight, where my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight East (Joe Robertson) has introduced proposals around fares on ferries, demonstrating that those services remain essential to our national fabric.
Even for those of us representing constituencies that could not be further away from the sea—Mid Buckinghamshire proudly holds the title of the second-most landlocked constituency in the country—the importance of the maritime sector to the UK’s past, present and future prosperity is abundantly clear. I therefore thank the hon. Member for Thurrock (Jen Craft) for securing this debate. It is right that we recognise the work of the estimated 23,700 UK seafarers active at sea, according to data from 2024, whose skill and dedication power this indispensable industry.
Understandably, the debate has referenced the actions of P&O Ferries in 2022. For all who observed that situation, the conclusion was unmistakeable: P&O’s decision was wrong. That is why the then Secretary of State for Transport, Grant Shapps, condemned it in the strongest possible terms. Indeed, during my time on the Transport Committee in the last Parliament, we heard very detailed evidence—often difficult to listen to—about the scandalous and wholly inappropriate behaviour of P&O. As the Minister will know from his briefings, the last Government acted swiftly in response. It is worth briefly reflecting on those steps, as they represented meaningful progress in protecting seafarers’ rights and, therefore, as the right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) said, their welfare.
I was elated at first to attend a Statutory Instrument Committee dealing with these matters, until I discovered that the Government had redefined the nature of British waters. Restricting the measure to UK waters was even less effective.
The point of my comments on the actions of the previous Government is not to say that they were wholly conclusive and the end of the matter. But I believe the steps that were taken by the previous Government did demonstrate a step forward, as I think the right hon. Gentleman acknowledged in the debate—perhaps not the entire length of step that he would have preferred.
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Next year, new amendments to the international maritime convention come into force, including measures to strengthen repatriation rights. They will be critical for seafarers. Across the world, ship owners who face legal disputes or financial challenges are abandoning vessels in ports. Crew are left without pay, food or access to vital medical equipment. The issue has grown increasingly severe, and 2024 was the worst year on record, with more than 2,000 seafarers left to fend for themselves. Many have family at home who rely on their income. When a ship is abandoned, whole communities suffer.
The issue is more common abroad, but the UK has been affected on several occasions. Even when vessels are not abandoned, seafarers may find themselves stuck for weeks following ship arrests. This has happened several times in my constituency, with a notable incident at Purfleet-on-Thames last year that also highlighted why port-side support services are so important.
Several charities do excellent work in this space, including the Queen Victoria Seafarers Rest and the Merchant Navy Welfare Board. I offer my thanks for their tireless efforts, and for the tireless work of their volunteers—especially those who serve in my constituency at the Queen Victoria Seafarers Rest in Tilbury. I am incredibly impressed by their support for seafarers who come into port. They offer a brilliant service, including port transport, free wi-fi and fresh food. They also run a bar, host social events and assist with safeguarding concerns when necessary.
The latest Seafarers Rest project, wrapping 3,000 Christmas presents for seafarers, is well under way. I was pleased to lend a hand last month. Every seafarer receives either a hat, scarf or pair of mittens; SIM cards so that they can contact their family; a little bit extra and a chocolate bar. Importantly, they all receive a handwritten card thanking them for their efforts, on behalf of the people who are on the receiving end of all their hard work. For many people, this is the only Christmas present they will get.
While I was at the Seafarers Rest, one of the volunteers shared the story of a sea captain who came to visit. He was 17 the first time he went to sea, and he spent Christmas away from home. He was Norwegian, and he went to a similar set-up—not in this country but abroad—and was given a Christmas present. He still remembers it and still has the woolly hat that someone, somewhere knitted for him. He said it meant the world and lifted his spirits. So the efforts the volunteers put in do not go unnoticed, and we should all be grateful for what they do.
Unfortunately, such support is not in place across the country. Facilities like the Queen Victoria Seafarers Rest in my patch exist at only about 40% of all UK ports. Where services are available, many face financial uncertainty. Meeting their running costs can be a challenge, with most sites needing £170 a day to keep the doors open. Their funding comes from a variety of sources: funds from the Government, donations from shipping companies or port authorities, and fundraising efforts by the centres themselves. Some welfare centres have strong partnerships with the local port, but that is not the case across the board. In practice, voluntary organisations bear most of the financial burden for welfare support, relying on fundraising efforts to fill the financial shortfall and subsidise the costs that should fall to shipping companies to care for their own workforce.
There are long-term solutions that could be explored. A small opt-out levy charged to vessels entering UK ports could be a game changer. Just £50 per visit would make a significant difference. To put it in perspective, the cost of bringing a large ship into port often exceeds £100,000, so a small £50 donation would represent only a fraction of that cost.
Throughout the country, 25 ports have already implemented similar schemes, with varying levels of success. Levies have been most effective where port owners communicate with shipping companies, emphasising the importance of independent welfare support. Humber port, for example, raised over £72,000 last year by being proactive with its levy system. However, in ports where intervention is more limited, ships that often pay £100,000 or more in fees will regularly refuse to make a £25 donation. Currently, the total income generated from levies represents only 3% to 4% of the funds that UK charities require. I urge the Government to look into the idea and to work with ports and shipping companies to explore how to scale up schemes across the country.
Several other countries, including France, Germany and New Zealand, already have successful models in place. I encourage Members with significant ports in their constituencies to contact the local port authority to ask whether they would consider implementing an opt-out levy. For many vehicles, £50 represents less than 0.03% of docking costs. A levy would create a reliable, long-term funding stream for seafarers’ welfare. It would make a huge difference and give the organisations that work tirelessly to support them financial security into the future.
The Government are making historic progress on seafarers’ welfare, but it is vital that we continue to build on that momentum in ports and at sea. I look forward to the implementation of the mandatory seafarers’ charter and the Employment Rights Bill, which will deliver significant change, but we can go further in supporting the seafaring community, whose needs are often overlooked. The Government have a key role to play, working with ports, shipping companies, trade unions and international partners to drive better employment standards and improve welfare support. We must all remember what seafarers do for our country: their contribution is invaluable and cannot be overlooked.
“Worse things do happen at sea”,
acknowledging the strain that a life on the ocean waves can exert.
We all, in our comfortable lives, owe a debt of gratitude to the men and, increasingly, women who sail the planet’s one great ocean for us all. They are the ones who answer the call of the sea that was captured so well by Masefield:
“I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull’s way and the whale’s way where the wind’s like a whetted knife”.
As my hon. Friend said, we have 160,000 seafarers—unfortunately, fewer and fewer are British, but that is the overall number. They work on UK and internationally flagged ships in UK ports. At the moment, there are 120 Maritime and Coastguard Agency staff who undertake surveys and inspections. Last year, they undertook about 2,800 inspections and 3,000 surveys on UK-flagged ships, and 1,500 port state control inspections on international ships. There are 100,000 vessels calling into UK ports every year, and there is a real concern that, with so few staff, the ratio of inspections for the ships is insubstantial. For some time now, there have been calls for an increase in resources for the Maritime and Coastguard Agency.
My hon. Friend raised our concern that, for the last 40 years at least, there has been a tendency for shipowners to flag elsewhere, rather than the UK, with the aim of reducing labour costs. They do that, as my hon. Friend said, by putting pressure on the workforce. The number of ships registered elsewhere is startling. The practice of registering under a flag of convenience has begun to dominate the industry. Ships are registered in places such as Panama, the Marshall Islands, Liberia, Cyprus, the Bahamas and Malta, and that undermines the ability to maintain standards of basic welfare for seafarers. Huge numbers of ships are registered in the Philippines, Indonesia, China, India, Ukraine and Russia. Some of those countries undertake no inspection of their vessels whatsoever. They fail to manage welfare standards, which has resulted in a reduction in those standards and even, as my hon. Friend said, in tragedies, because of the pressure the workforce are under.
Like my hon. Friend, I welcome the fact the Government are seeking to address a range of these issues. The mandatory seafarers’ charter that has been introduced in the Employment Rights Bill is a huge step forward for us, and I congratulate the Government on it. The charter arose, as my hon. Friend said, partly out of the P&O scandal, whereby P&O just sacked its entire workforce. That was a scandal recognised across the House, and it should not have happened. P&O sacked its entire workforce, introduced agency staff on lower wages with no holiday or sick pay, and paid the minimum amount that it could possibly get away with. Exactly as my hon. Friend said, that means that those agency staff are working under intense pressure, which inevitably has consequences for safety.
Safety is one of our main worries, which is why the mandatory seafarers’ charter is so important. It was introduced to protect seafarers in the short-sea ferries sector, regardless of their nationality or the flag of the vessel they work on. It will cover standards of pay, roster patterns and other employment conditions through collectively bargained standards in the industry. It will also set out maximum periods of work at sea and minimum periods of rest, which is absolutely critical. There will be robust requirements to manage seafarer fatigue, which is an issue that my hon. Friend raised so forcefully. It will reinforce training requirements for operators, such as familiarisation with the vessel, to support safety and skills, so that the seafarers have the time to understand and appreciate what is needed on a particular vessel. There will also be strong standards of sick pay, holiday pay and pension rights, which is vital.
This charter is a major breakthrough, and the unions really welcomed it. Progress is being made and at the RMT union executive meeting this morning we discussed that. The RMT welcomes the detailed consultation that will take place in the coming months and the roll-out of the charter itself.
However, I will now raise the issue of discrimination within the sector. I have been involved in this campaign for nearly 30 years, but the issue has gone on for 50 years. It remains legal to practise nationality-based pay discrimination against non-EU nationals working as seafarers on UK-flagged ships. That is a discriminatory practice. It originates in part 9 of the Race Relations Act 1976, which explicitly permits racial discrimination against seafarers recruited overseas to work on UK-flagged ships for lower pay and longer periods than UK nationals.
Way back in 2009, I was involved in the fight against this discrimination. Gordon Brown’s Labour Government initiated the Carter review to make recommendations on ending discriminatory seafarer pay differentials. Susan Carter, who led the review, recommended in 2010 that nationality-based seafarer pay differentials should be prohibited on all UK ships. The proposal was supported by the union, but unfortunately it was rejected by the Conservative and Liberal Democrat Government who came into office in 2010.
The estimate emerging from surveys by the union is that tens of thousands of seafarers working today in the UK shipping industry are paid less than UK seafarers, simply because of their nationality and the flag of the ship that they work on. This situation impedes progress to improve seafarer welfare overall, both at the national level and the international level. The UK Government introduced secondary regulations in 2011 to do the bare minimum to avoid legal action by the European Commission over the continued practice of nationality-based pay discrimination among seafarers. I attended the Committee that agreed those regulations. They have been subject to two reviews that have never been concluded, which contravenes the post-implementation review regulations for a review to be carried out every five years.
Another consultation was held just before the 2024 general election, and the current Government are now seeking to reconsult. With one action—one effective piece of regulation—we as a Government could end nationality-based pay discrimination on UK-flagged ships. It would raise welfare standards in shipping and reinforce our country’s reputation as the gold standard in seafarer welfare and maritime safety provision. I urge the Government to act on this swiftly.
My hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock mentioned support for charitable organisations and others in supporting seafarer welfare and the potential of a levy. Levies operate very successfully in many other countries. The Maritime and Coastguard Agency and the Merchant Navy Welfare Board have recommitted themselves to joint working on seafarer welfare and met last month to do that, which we welcome. However, without the resources, effective action will be very limited.
We have looked at what has happened elsewhere. Levy systems, including mandatory payments, are used by other maritime nations. They fund seafarer port facilities. We have heard some fantastic examples of those today. In New Zealand, the then Labour Government introduced a mandatory levy to fund shore-side facilities in 2022, which influenced the thinking in Australia as well. In Europe, France has operated a mandatory seafarer welfare levy system since 2016, and there are levy systems in Germany, Spain and Romania. It is critical that we introduce such a system.
One example of the issues that we are increasingly dealing with at the moment is the abandonment of seafarers. They are recruited in one country, reach our country and then abandoned by the ship owners. That is happening more frequently across the globe. Yes, we can legislate for protections as best we can, but we need the wherewithal—the resources going into the charities and agencies that can help those seafarers, who are lost in a foreign country and bereft of support. Overall, a real programme of reform is needed.
Raising the issue of mental health has been one of the strong concerns within the seafaring unions. There has been report after report across the movement about mental health issues and the stress placed upon people, and the increased number of suicides taking place as a result, and it does relate to the person’s employment. If we get the seafarers’ charter operating effectively, it could transform people’s lives and take that pressure off them, as well as save people from harm and save people’s lives.
This debate is for all those who work, sail and live on the sea and the river. I am hopeful for the future of the Thames and for the agenda to modernise it, invest in it and prepare it. We must ensure that the people working to deliver the growth that our country desperately needs are supported. I recently met a group of young apprentices who have started their working-age life with the sea and the river. There is pressure to ensure that the seafarer job is well protected so that as the ambitions of those apprentices grow, our country matches that ambition with the job that they look to flow into. Our country desperately needs that. My plea to the Minister is to hear the concerns that have been raised. I hope that we can help protect and support seafarers in the future.
In 2024, it was revealed that P&O’s replacement agency workers were being paid just £4.87 an hour—a shocking, exploitative wage that made a mockery of the protections that Parliament had tried to strengthen. Later, when the then Transport Secretary, the right hon. Member for Sheffield Heeley (Louise Haigh), rightly described P&O Ferries as a “rogue operator”, the Prime Minister dismissed her concerns to protect a £1 billion investment by P&O Ferries’ Dubai-based parent company. Once again, workers’ rights were treated as secondary.
Of course, public outrage did have consequences. In August 2025, Peter Hebblethwaite, the chief executive officer, who admitted to breaking consultation law, finally resigned. But accountability for one individual is not enough; we need systemic change. No worker, whether on land or at sea, should be discarded at the convenience of their employer.
That brings me to the Employment Rights Bill, and in particular the provisions on fire and rehire. The Liberal Democrats welcome the parts of the Bill that strengthen protections for workers and curb the disgraceful practice of firing staff, only to rehire them on worse terms. Under the Bill’s provisions, dismissals will be deemed automatically unfair unless an employer can provide clear evidence of financial difficulty and show that changes were truly unavoidable.
The Bill represents progress and it moves us in the right direction, but large parts of it are unfinished and critical details have been left to secondary legislation or promised consultations, including a long-awaited seafarers’ charter. That does not give workers or responsible employers the stability and certainty that they deserve. People whose livelihoods depend on those reforms should not have to cross their fingers and hope that the details are sorted out later.
Unions are rightly concerned about carve-outs that may allow companies on the verge of collapse to bypass protections. We accept that businesses face genuine existential threats, and sometimes they need flexibility, but we must ensure that exceptions are not exploited by those who simply want to trim costs at the expense of their staff. Workers must not be treated as disposable.
As the Bill gives Ministers new powers to implement international maritime conventions and a seafarers’ charter through secondary legislation, we must insist on ambitious and enforceable standards, including on maximum periods of work at sea and minimum periods of rest, as well as measures to manage fatigue, strong training requirements and protections that cover every seafarer who works in our waters. We need not just vague promises but real rules with real enforcement and consequences for those who break them.
First, the Seafarers Wages Act 2023 ensures that those working on ships that provide a regular international service from the United Kingdom are paid at least the equivalent of the national minimum wage while operating in UK waters. This reduces the incentive for operators to employ overseas labour on worse terms and conditions—although I heard the arguments put forward by the right hon. Gentleman and the discrimination that he highlighted, which is still a wrong to be righted.