Before we begin, can I encourage Members to wear masks when they are not speaking? This is in line with current Government guidance and that of the House of Commons Commission. Please also give each other and members of staff space when seated and when entering or leaving the room.
That this House has considered the UK’s maritime sector.
It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Sir George. May I first draw the House’s attention to my declaration of interests? I am also chair of the all-party parliamentary group for shipbuilding and ship repair. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for allocating time for the debate, and the 16 Members from across all parties in the House who supported the application.
It is right that we meet today, in London International Shipping Week 2021. This is an opportunity to discuss the maritime sector, which is worth some £46 billion to the UK economy, ranging from shipbuilding and ship repair to ship brokerage in insurance, in which we are world leaders. It is an opportunity to speak up for the sector, which we need to do. I am a passionate believer in a bright future for this country, and the sector supports 1 million more jobs than air and rail. Further, 95% of UK imports and exports are transported by ship.
During the pandemic, we took it for granted that we could order on Amazon or similar sites, and that the package would arrive, but few people consider how that package actually comes to their doorstep. I know Mrs Jones certainly does not give much thought to that. However, it is important, and other aspects are in play—48% of our food supplies come through the maritime sector, as does 25% of our energy needs.
The sector is vital to the resilience of our economy and is also a wide-ranging industry. Ports, for example, generate £600 million in private sector capital each year. It is a source of highly skilled, well-paid jobs. There is an important issue here across the industry, which is mentioned in the briefing note I received from the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers: we must invest in those skills and ensure that we have not only individuals with the right set of skills, but the right numbers of workers. As the RMT quite rightly points out, its membership is an ageing population. It is important that we focus on that and make the sector attractive to young people as an industry to come into.
I am sorry to interrupt. The right hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point about the skills that we need to create a workforce who can work in the sector. I am interested in his thoughts on retrofitting, because a lot of merchant vessels out there need to be retrofitted with modern technology that allows us to meet our green ambitions. That goes hand in hand with the way in which we want to train a new generation of skilled workers, especially on tackling climate change.
The hon. Gentleman speaks with a great deal of knowledge, and he raises an interesting point. I think the understanding is that we cannot ever compete with the Koreans or others in the far east, because they will do the work cheaper. He knows as well as I do that the country that is doing more retrofitting than anywhere else is Norway. Let us be honest: Norway is not paying poverty wages to its workforce, and it has different overheads from other countries, so if Norway can do it, we can do it, but we need a strategy for that. I will come to green shipping in a minute, but the hon. Gentleman is right to say that there is a huge market. New green technology will come in, but a lot of it will be retrofitted to existing vessels.
That brings me to research and development. What we need from the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy is an R&D fund that is ringfenced for the industry, because that would ensure that we got the innovation we need. One area that I have spoken to several Members about is hydrogen, which will need a large amount of R&D. Some good companies are already doing that type of work, but we perhaps need to provide them with Government assistance and access to capital.
We have some great brains thinking about green technology in shipping, but I fear that we will get foreign investment coming in to buy out some of those companies and to provide the capital, but they will then take all that abroad. What we need to do—it can be done by the Government—is give support to the new technology here in the UK, so that we can retain not just the technology, but the jobs that will be done now and in the future in a host of areas in green shipping, as well as the new technologies that will come through. I accept that some of those might not work, but we should be brave enough to invest. It is not a great scandal if, at the end of the day, something does not work. It is important that that is done, which is why marine research and innovation need to be at the forefront of any initiative we undertake.
It is a pleasure to see you back in your place, Sir George. I congratulate both the right hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) on securing the debate and the Backbench Business Committee on listening to his passionate request for it.
Notwithstanding the UK’s rich and proud maritime history, there is a concern at times that the sector is overlooked and that the lead role that it can play in delivering the Government’s key objectives of levelling up, building back better and decarbonisation is not as centre stage as it should be.
This debate provides the opportunity to showcase the sector and its various facets, such as ports all around the UK, including, in my own area, Lowestoft, the UK’s most easterly port. It serves the southern North sea, which includes one of the largest clusters of offshore wind farms in the world, rich fishing grounds and gas fields in which to store carbon.
Lowestoft has an illustrious maritime past, being the former fishing capital of the southern North sea—a title that it wishes to regain—and the home of two great shipbuilders, Richards and Brooke Marine, although both are sadly long gone. That said, Lowestoft’s dry dock, which is run by SMS Marine, is increasingly busy. In fact, it got the contract for the refurbishment of the UK Border Force vessels. That in itself was welcome, but the point that the right hon. Gentleman made—namely that we really want the actual building of the boats in the first place, which is the important bit—was correct.
New businesses are moving into Lowestoft, such as SSE and ScottishPower Renewables, with operations and maintenance bases in the port. Associated British Ports has exciting plans for the future, and it is vital that national Government provide the right policy framework so that those plans can be realised.
ABP’s plans are focused on the Lowestoft Eastern Energy Facility, or LEEF, which over the next five years should bring significant upgrades to facilities in the outer harbour, creating key capabilities to support the UK’s journey towards achieving net zero. This project will deliver infrastructure that will ensure the port can accommodate the next generation of offshore support vessels. The facility will provide a site that is suitable for operations and maintenance activities, in addition to a quayside suitable for construction support. This is an investment estimated at around £25 million, which will enable the port of Lowestoft to add to the £30 million per annum that it already contributes to the local economy. In doing so, the project will help us to reach net zero, and it complements well the Government’s levelling-up ambitions.
It is a pleasure to serve under your stewardship, Sir George. I congratulate the right hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) on securing the debate, and thank the Backbench Business Committee for allowing it.
Such debates are all too rare. That, in itself, is an illustration of what the briefing from Nautilus calls “sea blindness”. One of the biggest difficulties the maritime industry faces is getting the political attention it needs in just about every respect—whether for its own development, for health and safety on vessels, or for minimum wage implementation. It all happens far from sight at sea. This debate is a welcome opportunity for those of us with an interest in the maritime industry to put some of those concerns on the record.
It has been a difficult couple of years for those working in our maritime industry. During lockdown, many seafarers found themselves in difficult situations, caught between different lockdown regulations—testing, tracing, self-isolating—in different countries. In its briefing, Nautilus highlights its survey, which shows that about 11,000 maritime professionals fell through all the gaps in the safety nets; none was able to get assistance from the job retention scheme or the self-employment income support scheme. That statistic illustrates the different way in which the maritime industries work compared to those based onshore.
Both the right hon. Member for North Durham and the hon. Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous) believe that this is an industry with a future, and I endorse that sentiment. However, I would say that there is nothing inevitable about the UK maritime sector having a bright future; it will require a determined and driven strategic agenda from the Government to ensure that that actually happens.
We have seen the issue at different times over the years. Going back 15 or 20 years, the Blair Government introduced the tonnage tax—a really good, welcome initiative. However, it never really achieved its full potential, beyond getting tonnage to flag under the red ensign, because it was difficult for the Government to get the conditionality attached to it: getting the number of officers trained under the tonnage tax, and then getting the shipping companies that had trained them to keep them on. There was a commitment to train officers in order to qualify under the tonnage tax. After that box was ticked, there was a commitment to retain them for a year, but after that, there was a cliff edge. There was a glut of one-year post-qualification officers.
I am grateful to my good friend for giving way. I congratulate him on the work that he has done in the last couple of years to ensure that national minimum wage rates are paid to seafarers. Does he agree that what we would like to hear about from the Minister is a proactive approach to ensuring the enforcement of the national minimum wage?
I thank the hon. Gentleman, who is characteristically generous. Others in the House, himself included, have been working on the issue as well. It comes back to the first point I made: as a former Prime Minister used to say, sunlight is the best disinfectant. People like us, talking about issues like that, on occasions like this, do allow pressure to be brought to bear, which ultimately leads to progress being made.
The right hon. Member for North Durham spoke about the need for a more proactive and less competition- based approach to the awarding of contracts. In principle I agree with him, and I understand what he is saying when offering comparators from Europe and around the world.
To sound one note of caution, as the hon. Member for Glasgow South West (Chris Stephens) knows, we have a difficult recent history of this, north of the border. Two ferries are being procured from a shipyard owned by the Scottish Government: the replacement for the Glen Sannox and Hull 802—so called because, although it is now heading towards five years overdue, it still does not have a name. Partnership between Government and industry of the sort that the right hon. Member for North Durham is talking about worked very effectively with the procurement of the aircraft carriers and is something we should be taking seriously. However, the rigours of private sector involvement are needed to ensure that these ferries are obtained on time and give value to the taxpayer, as well as giving longer-term security for the workforce in the domestic shipyards we have left.
We saw this week that, in the tender for the construction of the two ferries to serve Islay and Jura, two of the shipyards tendering are in Turkey, one is Romanian, and one is in Poland. Not a single shipyard in Scotland or anywhere else in the United Kingdom is now being invited to tender by the Scottish Government. That shows that we need to have the strategy that everyone else has spoken about. If we have a gesture here on a difficult news day there, we do not do any favours for the people who work in these shipyards, never mind island communities such as Islay and Jura.
Order. I will call the Front Benchers at 2.30. The right hon. Gentleman has already taken up more time than will be allowed to a Front-Bench spokesman, and there are other speakers trying to get in. There is no time limit, but I would ask him to bear that in mind.
I now feel obliged to impose a time limit of seven minutes on Back-Bench speeches. That should enable everybody who wants to speak to get in.
2:11 pm
Jackie Doyle-Price (Thurrock) (Con)
It is good to see you in your place, Sir George. I will endeavour to meet your time limit, although as hon. Members know I can talk about the maritime sector till the cows come home.
I would very much like to associate myself with the remarks made by the right hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones), who has set out as good an exposition as any of why we need to prioritise shipbuilding and the maritime sector. I agree that we often do not celebrate the sector enough. It is very telling that, through the horrendous couple of years of the pandemic, the supermarket shelves stayed full. That is because our maritime sector kept going. I suspect that it is only when things start to go wrong that people start to realise its importance. In that respect, we had something of a stay of execution when there was a slight difficulty in the Suez canal; I do feel that we are perhaps still yet to see the out-turn of the difficulties created by that.
It is great pleasure to contribute to this debate as chairman of the all-party parliamentary maritime and ports group and during London International Shipping Week. We have had a lot to celebrate in the ports sector this week: only yesterday, we heard confirmation from DP World that it is investing a further £400 million in a new berth at London Gateway, and Forth Ports are due to invest a further £1.2 billion in new port facilities at Tilbury3, following hot on the heels of Tilbury2, which I can tell the House took just under a year between planning permission and the ships arriving. That shows how dynamic the sector is. If only our public sector procurement could deliver things as quickly.
That success is very rarely celebrated. I know that I am preaching to the converted when I address all this to the Minister, who has taken on the brief with characteristic ambition and gusto; he is much respected in the sector, and we hope he continues to do the job for quite some time. Could I just ask him to switch his phone off, perhaps?
The right hon. Member for North Durham referred to the fact that maritime is seen as a smokestack industry. When it comes to how public policy makers see the sector, I could not agree with him more. They generally do not see it as part of the future, yet it is an intrinsic part of our present. We cannot talk about global Britain or the importance of trade if we do not actually value the means by which we secure that trade. We really do need to make sure that we champion the sector more.
I lose the will to live when I have meetings with public policy makers in my constituency, which is, as I often call it, the port capital of the UK. It is the fastest- growing port in the country, yet I still have to tell them that the ports are our future and ask why they are wasting time prattling on about spending money on creative industries, which frankly are never going to contribute as much to the wealth of this country as the maritime sector does.
It is a pleasure to speak in the debate and to add a Northern Irish perspective to the contributions that have already been made. First, I thank my friend the right hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) for his contribution, and for setting the scene for us so very well.
Northern Ireland can be proud of its maritime heritage and excited about its maritime future: from the construction of ocean-going liners to fighting ships for our armed forces, facilities to build offshore wind farms, cutting-edge technologies designed to secure carbon-neutral status for the United Kingdom’s maritime sector, and the tradition in my own constituency of Strangford of a sustainable fishing industry, providing fresh, healthy seafood and, importantly, good jobs.
Companies such as Harland & Wolff are synonymous with the maritime sector in Northern Ireland. The shipyard’s huge cranes continue to dominate the Belfast skyline as the company celebrates 160 years of marine manufacturing. I well remember, as an 18-year-old in the mid-1970s, guarding Samson and Goliath as a member of the Ulster Defence Regiment. That was one of the roles we had to do, because it was so important to ensure that there was no terrorist attack on those cranes. It is superb to see Harland & Wolff exhibiting at this week’s Defence and Security Equipment International exhibition here in London. I very much look forward to the Ministry of Defence rewarding that shipyard and its partners with future contracts for new ships for the Royal Navy and the Royal Fleet Auxiliary, which as well as delivering the finest ships for the nation would help achieve the Government’s goal of levelling up the UK’s economy, as the hon. Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous) mentioned. It is very important to remember that this would provide a much-needed boost to the entire economy of Northern Ireland.
In many ways, Northern Ireland and Belfast share a special bond with Scotland and the shipyards of the Clyde, but surely—I say this very gently to my colleague and friend the hon. Member for Glasgow South West (Chris Stephens)—there is something not quite right when the latest HMS Belfast is being built in Glasgow. Artemis Technologies is a relatively new company on the maritime scene in Northern Ireland, but last year it was awarded a significant UK grant to research and develop zero-emission ferries that will revolutionise the future of maritime transport, so we need to be efficient in moving forward and be visionary in what we foresee for the future.
I congratulate the right hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) on securing the debate. It is curiously unique that we have not had many of these debates, but, going back through Hansard, we find that, all too often during London International Shipping Week, the topic is ignored. As a former shipbroker who worked in Singapore, then London and Nigeria, I really do believe I have seen some of the finer sides of the UK shipping industry and what it means to our economy.
I must start by saying what a fantastic opportunity this is to get together in this Chamber and see the common-sense agreement across the House about the value of the maritime sector—in coastal communities, ports, infrastructure and pay—and what needs to be done across the country to see it thrive.
I pay particular tribute and attention to the shipping services of this country. Although a significant proportion are based in London, I hope that colleagues will also reflect that across all four corners of the UK there are burgeoning businesses benefiting from the UK’s leading shipping services, whether that be in accountancy, arbitration, classification, consultancy, education, finance, insurance or legal—it is all based here. Be it in Singapore, Nigeria, Geneva or the middle east, people always talk of the UK as the capital of the shipping industry. This is something that we need to protect, not be complacent about; we must reflect on that and recognise that if we do not compete, if we do not challenge those around the world, we will lose our status.
I hope my hon. Friend the Minister recognises that this is a debate not for us to have a go at him, but for us to encourage him. We know him to be a highly energetic Minister to whom we offer a great deal of support to take this issue up. We also have what I believe to be a very ambitious maritime strategy, the 2050 strategy, which touches on several of the right points that have been raised in the debate. The third or fourth point in that report states that if we are not turbocharged and are not active in supporting and securing businesses in the UK, they will move abroad. Singapore and Geneva are competing every day to take businesses away from this country to be based in theirs.
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Internationally, the sector will be worth around £3 trillion by 2030 and it is a great source of exports from the UK. Indeed, many businesses throughout the UK are providing not only products for the marine sector around the world, but services. My own region, the north-east, has a long tradition of service industries working around the world. When the Dubai flight from Newcastle recommences at the end of November, marine engineers will be flying all round the world to service ships, but their companies are based in the north-east. It is important that we recognise that fact.
The sector’s problem, certainly in shipbuilding and in other areas, is that there is a view among the public that this is a smokestack industry—an industry of yesteryear. It is quaint that we are involved, but the sector is not the future. Well, nothing could be further from the truth. I do not know how we can do this—the debate obviously allows Members to highlight the issues—but we must promote the sector and say that it is not only important to our economy in the present but can be more important in growing our economy in the future. That is where the Government come in; they have a key role to play.
Let me turn to the shipbuilding and ship repair sector, where there have been welcome moves by the Government, such as the national shipbuilding programme. We have a shipbuilding tsar—the Defence Secretary—and to be fair to him, I think he is committed to this, but does he actually believe that we can be a world-leading shipbuilding nation again? I think we can, with the right support.
It is a mistake to think that there is any shipbuilding industry around the world that is not reliant on the state—either directly owned by the state or provided with huge subsidies. We should not get into the mindset that if we have to put money into the shipbuilding and ship repair industry or help it with finance, that is somehow a bad thing. It is a good thing if we can grow the industry. The Koreans do not bat an eyelid at putting in huge amounts of money, nor do our European neighbours—the Norwegians, the French, the Germans or anyone else.
The other key issues are port infrastructure, which will be important, and skills. I will talk later about research and development, because the next thing that will change radically in this area is the green agenda. This country has an opportunity to get ahead and be world leaders there.
I welcome the national shipbuilding strategy, but we are still waiting for the refresh, which was promised in August. Its main emphasis—this is self-evident to anybody who knows the industry—is that the industry needs a drumbeat of work running through it. The strategy committed to a 30-year drumbeat of work, but we must ensure that that is a reality, and the Ministry of Defence, which is obviously constrained by the Treasury, is still not laying out that clear pathway for the industry. We saw that with fleet solid support ships, which I will refer to later.
There have been some welcome moves in defence and elsewhere, whereby people are looking at how the UK shipbuilding industry underpins prosperity. The Royal United Services Institute study of aircraft carriers said that 36% of the money that went in came directly back to the UK taxpayer in tax and national insurance, and that is not counting the knock-on effect of the local economic boost generated in those areas. We should not just look at the top line when we are considering contracts; we should look not just at the price, but at how that money comes directly back to the Exchequer.
We need a whole-Government approach to ensure that, when we procure ships, we look to the UK. There was an announcement last week or the week before about Border Force’s new cutters. The existing ones were built in Holland, and I think one was built in Finland or Estonia. That is a £200 million contract, and the default mechanism should be to get them built in the UK. If 30-odd per cent. comes straight back to the Exchequer, that is an opportunity.
A throughput of work is important because that allows industry and business to invest. It is a way to draw in capital to the industry. The problem is that the Ministry of Defence is still in competition mode, which no other country in the world is into, so we have a farcical situation with a fake competition going on between four consortia for the FSS contract. We had a great example of how to do it when we procured the aircraft carriers. Yes, there was a shotgun marriage between various UK yards to provide them, but it worked.
Let us look at those contracts. There was a lot of controversy about the cost, but the build was on time, on budget and world beating. There is nothing like it. We should be proud of that. That was an opportunity to get a consortium of companies together to produce world-beating ships, but what did we do? We broke up the alliance afterwards, which was absolutely shocking. It should have continued.
From the point of view of the taxpayer, should we give out contracts to various companies no questions asked? No, we should not, but we should have a partnership approach rather than competition. The partnership approach should ensure that we have a skills agenda and that we get value for money. Also, the partners put their own shareholder capital into the business. I was speaking to businesses this week at DSEI, the defence and security equipment international exhibition. They do that, but they want certainty. We have the strategy in a nice glossy document, but there is an old mindset of false competition. If we can get that drumbeat of work running through the industry, we will be world beating not only in providing great first-rate ships for our Royal Navy, but in being able to compete for work regarding other vessels. That will be key.
I am not talking about only the bigger yards. The Wight Shipyard Company, which recently won a Queen’s award for international trade, is a small company on the Isle of Wight that produces great vessels. Companies such as that should be the first call, rather than throwing contracts open to international competition, because no other country would do that. There is certainly an opportunity to look at that sector for Border Force ships. Again, that would give security to individuals.
We need some joined-up thinking. We need to ensure that the Treasury not only looks at every single contract, but that the work is there for the long term. The easiest thing in terms of the build programme would be to get on and order the FSS vessels. If we did that, we would have a throughput of work in Rosyth and other places, and we would retain skills. An important thing in the shipbuilding report is that if we are to retain skills or get an influx of new skills into the industry, we need a continuation of work. What we do not want is stopgap areas where we are not employing new apprentices and the workforce get older and older. That point was made by the RMT about its members who work on ships. Oversight is needed. What other skills do we need and in what areas? That is a role for Government as well.
We have the maritime enterprise working group, but it remains on a non-permanent basis. I do not wish to criticise the Minister, because he is passionate about the sector, and about aviation as well. If I remember correctly, he is a bit of a plane spotter when it comes to knowing different types of aircraft. He announced the £20 million investment in the clean maritime demonstration competition, which he described as a turning point. That was welcome, and it is great that he did it, but he must get more money out of the Treasury for the sector. If we do not get more money to the sector, we will be at a disadvantage.
The opportunities are there. We talk about the carbon targets that we want to meet, which are good. If we do this right, however, we can get jobs out of it as well, so it is important that we invest now and that we ensure that the talk about net zero and so forth has some real teeth. It would be sad if we had new and innovative companies working in the sector, but the technology went abroad, and we ended up importing it or allowing other countries to develop it. That technology will be very important.
Within this new agenda, we must take a legislative stance as well. We are a world leader in working with the International Maritime Organisation and others on standards and regulations for the future. Those will be new concepts, so ensuring that we have regulations and international governance that are in our favour, not that of the Chinese and others, will be important. I do not underestimate the Chinese in particular, in terms of their wanting to have international rules that favour their industries rather than ours, so it is important that we play a key part in that process.
I will finish where I started. This is an industry of the future. We need to talk more about it, and we need to invest in it. Yes, the private sector involvement is hugely important, but if Government money and strategies can be put in place at the key point, they could be huge levers, not only to lever in more private sector capital, but to grow the sector. Perhaps we just need to say to people, “Just think when you are ordering things—how do they get to your doorstep?” That is the basis of it.
I am a passionate advocate for the sector. It is not yesterday’s industry; this is the industry of tomorrow. What it needs is a direct and clear strategy, and money behind it. Now is the time to provide those things.
From LEEF, it is appropriate for me to move on to REAF, which is the Renaissance of East Anglian Fisheries. In 2018, the local fishing industry came together with local councils, the New Anglia local enterprise partnership and Seafish to produce a report on how to revive the local fishing industry as the UK left the European Union. The report was launched here in the House of Commons in October 2019.
Following the trade and co-operation agreement reached with the European Union at the turn of the year, which, frankly, was a let-down for so many, the strategy has been revised to take into account the setting and policies within which the fishing industry now has to work. Initial funding has been secured to implement the strategy and, while I will not go through the 11 recommendations in full, I will highlight the following features, which complement the aspirations of other maritime sectors and fit in well with the Government’s levelling-up and decarbonisation agendas.
The first is the need to embrace the industry’s whole supply chain, from the net to the plate. The second is the importance of ensuring that it is local communities, local people and local businesses that benefit from a revived industry. The third is the importance of reducing CO2 emissions. The report recommends that all offshore demersal vessels fishing in the southern North sea part of the UK’s exclusive economic zone should, in due course, be restricted to 500 hp. The fourth is the need to invest in supporting port, marketing and processing infrastructure. Finally, there is the importance of attracting and training new entrants to the industry, which East Coast College in Lowestoft will be doing. It has set up a new course.
As I go on about fishing, I see the Minister’s eyes may be glazing over because he is saying, “What has this got to do with me? This is for the Fisheries Minister in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.” That highlights the particular challenge that the maritime sector faces, in that it touches on the work of a large number of Departments. The Minister himself is from the Department for Transport. We also have the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, which is overseeing the levelling-up agenda, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs with the Fisheries Minister and, as we have heard, the Ministry of Defence when it comes to contracts for the Navy. That is five. That emphasises the need for joined-up and co-ordinated government, and I hope that in his summing up the Minister will confirm that that is happening.
I welcome the freeport initiative, which I sense the Minister will refer to in his summing up and, in particular, I welcome Freeport East at Felixstowe and Harwich, which is 50 miles down the coast from Lowestoft. However, I express a note of caution and emphasise the importance for Government of not jumping from one intervention to the next catchy initiative, but continuing to see through proven strategies that are already up and running. Like other enterprise zones around the country, the Lowestoft and Great Yarmouth enterprise zone, which was set up in 2012, has been very successful. It has an energy focus and is firmly in line with the levelling-up and net zero strategies. It now needs reigniting and that can be done by reallocating the existing footprint of the enterprise zone around Lowestoft port and the adjoining PowerPark. That could create more than 300 jobs, support 40 new businesses and generate between £1 million and £3 million of retained rates.
Earlier in my speech, I mentioned the need for the Government to provide the right policy framework for the maritime sector to realise its full potential. The framework that I would urge the Government to adopt is broadly Maritime UK’s spending review bid. Time does not permit me to go through that in detail, but I believe it is compelling. It will create a large number of well paid, exciting and innovative new jobs right through the supply chain. Those jobs will be in coastal communities where they are much needed and will fuel the levelling-up agenda. Moreover, the strategy will set the UK firmly on a course to meeting its net zero maritime obligation.
In conclusion, it is important to re-emphasise the lead role that the maritime sector can play in the post-Brexit economy, particularly in terms of levelling up and decarbonisation. There is, as I have mentioned, a requirement for joined-up government and also, I sense a need for maritime-proofing of economic policy. I say that having just read the Salvation Army’s report on the levelling-up agenda, which concludes that coastal communities have not been properly recognised in the place prioritisation that has accompanied both the levelling-up fund and the community renewal fund. I hope the Minister will allay any concerns I have in this respect in his summing-up.
That is the challenge facing the Government, and I do not envy them. It is difficult for any individual country to take on companies operating in an effectively global environment. This is probably the best working definition of a global industry. In its briefing, the RMT illustrates some of the challenges affecting the enforcement of minimum wage legislation. This was something of particular concern a few years ago, when I discovered that many of those working on the freight ships going from Aberdeen to Shetland, in my constituency, were deemed by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs not to be in its remit for enforcing the minimum wage because the boats operated in international waters. Its definition of international water is being outside the 12-mile limit.
I give credit to HMRC and the Government for having closed some of the loopholes, but we know that many of the jobs advertised will come nowhere near the level of minimum wage protection. The RMT briefing for today quotes some examples of that:
“The expansion of Irish Ferries into Dover is a case in point. Irish ferries pay below the National Minimum Wage to its Cypriot registered ships”.
That is Irish Ferries coming into Dover in Cypriot registered ships—seeing that, one begins to understand the complexity of international shipping. It continues:
“as revealed by recent inspection of the WB Yeats by the Inspector for International Transport Workers Federation (ITF) in France (Irish Ferries have blocked ITF access in UK and Irish ports)”.
It then quotes the pay rates on the W. B. Yeats, Rosslare to Cherbourg, in June 2021. A bar and galley steward gets an hourly rate of £6.47; an able seafarer has an hourly rate of £6.89; both a cook and a plumber had an hourly rate of £7.42; a receptionist earned £7.69; and a bosun earned £9.39. In fact, going back a few years, some of the ships that were operating in the North sea were paying figures that were less than half the lowest figures in the RMT briefing. It shows that, because of the way the industry is structured and operates, enforcement of conditions is a game of regulatory whack-a-mole.
As Great Britain, it is part of our DNA that we are a maritime nation, but sometimes we say these things and then realise there is not very much to back them up at all. My hon. Friend the Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous) put it very well when he talked about how the sector touches on various Departments, because one of the tragedies in how we get things wrong in government and policy making is that so many of these things are siloed. We plonk maritime in the Department for Transport, which has to deal with providing infrastructure for how we get around the country, but maritime is at the heart of how our economy functions in an international way, as well as of employment. We need to get better at making sure that we deal with all those things.
I will make just a couple of final points. First, I totally endorse what the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) said about seafarers. I also say gently to the Government that we are very good at lecturing other countries around the world about poor working conditions, but we look the other way when they exist in our sphere of influence; there are many complex reasons why that might be the case, but we must value seafaring and make sure it is adequately compensated. I give my personal thanks to my hon. Friend the Minister for finally getting the cruise sector moving, a sector that has obviously been hit very badly during the pandemic.
I have one final ask before I sit down. I endorse the comments made by the right hon. Member for North Durham about the need to foster investment in new technologies, particularly if net zero is going to mean anything, so I particularly encourage the Minister to look at Windship Technology, which I am hugely excited about. I think it could offer such a big future to this industry, but that technology and innovation is in every danger of going elsewhere if we do not do our bit to support it. I could go on for much longer, but I will sit down now.
Artemis leads a Belfast maritime consortium that brings together the best in Northern Ireland’s academia and other partners, including Belfast Harbour port authority. This kind of consortium is not unique to Northern Ireland. The Kilkeel Harbour network works collaboratively, based—as the name suggests—around Kilkeel harbour in my neighbouring constituency of South Down. That network brings together boatbuilders, marine engineers, ship painters and various other ancillary businesses. Over the past 18 months, it has created new employment against a background of what we know have been very challenging circumstances.
G. Smyth Boats is one of the companies in the network with an order book stretching for several years. It supplies small fishing vessels to customers throughout the UK, Ireland and beyond. The hon. Member for Waveney is absolutely right to say that the maritime sector stretches further than the big ships and container ships—it goes as far as local fishing communities, such as mine in Portavogie and Kilkeel, where this development will happen in a bigger way. Indeed, the latest new-build from G. Smyth Boats will be launched this week.
The network has the fishing industry at its core, and the fishing industry is at the core of my constituency of Strangford. In May, my party colleague and Northern Ireland Executive Minister Edwin Poots MLA published the “Fisheries and Seafood Development Programme”, which is probably the most extensive review of the sector carried out in the United Kingdom in recent times. It is very important to us. The Minister recognises the importance of it, and so do I. The FSDP does not hide the challenges facing the fishing industry: an ageing fishing fleet, and the need to build new ships and recruit fishing crew. Nevertheless, the opportunities more than outweigh the challenges. The report advocates investing £100 million in fishing harbour infrastructure to help create a place where we can build those boats, not only for Northern Ireland but for the United Kingdom, Ireland and far beyond. The predicted timeframe for the delivery of that infrastructure fits neatly with the future negotiations between the United Kingdom and the EU, whose stated aim is to secure enhancements to the UK’s share of fishing resources within UK waters.
Delivery of the FSDP’s recommendations needs support from central Government, and I am keen to hear the Minister’s thoughts on that. I suspect he does not have direct responsibility for it, but have the discussions that the hon. Member for Waveney referred to taken place? That is important, as there are different sections and Ministers have different roles to play.
The first part of the £100 million UK seafood fund was revealed last week, with £24 million of investment for cutting-edge science and fisheries research—the two together. It is important that those overseeing the fund and applicants to it consider the practical application of the projects to ensure we cover all the necessary maritime requirements. Too often, we see such funding being taken up by academic projects that might be important but have no practical application to the industry. They just have a visual impact on the maritime sector and the fishing sector in particular, for which they have allegedly been designed.
Competition in the marine space is growing. The maintenance of a sustainable and economically viable fishing industry is important to me, as it is to all my constituents. Marine protected areas and their highly protected cousins can also displace the fishing effort. Again, we are looking at the impact on the fishing sector of the central Government’s priority for more wind energy from offshore sites.
Recent headlines about a national shortage of haulage drivers struck a chord with me, as I have lobbied the Government over many years on recruitment and retention. I asked a question at business questions today and, to be fair, I was fairly encouraged by the Leader of the House’s response on what the Government are doing on that.
As an island nation, we depend on the sea for trade. It would be remiss of me not to refer briefly to the United Kingdom’s vital maritime trade lines—namely between Northern Ireland, Scotland and England—and the impact on them of the protocol that the Government negotiated with the EU as part of the Brexit deal. Much has been promised to resolve the issues relating to the sea border created by the protocol, but actions speak louder than words. I was encouraged by the Prime Minister’s answer yesterday to the hon. Member for Foyle (Colum Eastwood), but I would like to see actions, not just words. There should be no restriction on maritime trade on any trade between the islands of this great nation.
Our maritime heritage is important. We have much to look forward to, be proud of and learn from. It provides us with a tremendous foundation to ensure that the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland can once again resume a role at the pinnacle of the global maritime community, where we were in the past and can be in the future.
Therefore, we must recognise the need to point out our failures, where necessary, to support our successes where available, and to look for opportunities that Government policy can support. The right hon. Member for North Durham talked about research and development, and I am so pleased that he did. We have rightly committed 2.4% of GDP to research and development in our manifesto, as Government policy. We talk about the invention of the telephone; I think now about the inventions we can put hand in hand into shipping services to allow us to tackle climate change, to look at the new inventions that will help us create a truly 21st-century and green maritime sector that can be traded not just across the UK and our coastal communities, but across the world to be used by others.
I am particularly delighted that the right hon. Gentleman also talked about Norway. We are not necessarily expecting the UK to be building oil tankers and container ships, but we must look to try to retrofit vessels with new, high-end technology that allows us to capitalise on the work of the International Maritime Organisation and its ambitions for carbon neutrality by 2040. It is eminently possible and should go hand in hand with our levelling-up agenda.
We are home to companies such as Lloyd’s, the Baltic Exchange, Platts and numerous brokerages, two of which I have served with. I think they were probably rather pleased to see the back of me. However, there is a sense that this is an industry that is open to people from all walks of life. In some cases, there is no requirement for a degree; it can be entered into at any stage. When we talk about the levelling-up agenda, it is something that we must recognise as eminently achievable and that allows us to attract more people.
I have a few pleas to the Minister. We need to look at tax regulation and incentive schemes. We need to look at how our maritime flag is used both in the UK and abroad. We need to look at how we can champion maritime security. We need to talk more about supply chain resilience. We also need to think about how to get more people into maritime colleges. I am very pleased to say—and there will be an invitation to follow—that Noss on Dart in my constituency is setting up a maritime college within South Devon College, with the express purpose of getting people into the maritime sector at every level. There are opportunities coming up, and I would say there is broad thinking in further education colleges about how we can support this sector.
We have the history of being a very strong, globally leading trading nation with an extraordinary maritime history. We must return to that thinking, because it will help us in our ambitions of global Britain. It will help us in our ambitions as we join new organisations like the comprehensive and progressive agreement for transpacific partnership, which I hope we will be doing next year. It is perfectly fair to think of my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Jackie Doyle-Price) as Helen of Troy—she could launch a thousand ships. That is what we should be aspiring to do in the years to come.
The motto of the Baltic Exchange is, “Dictum meum pactum”—my word is my bond—and we must be very conscious that there is huge opportunity for us to develop the sector, to support it, to grow it and to encourage people to enter it. We can, once again, rule the waves.