Lord Davies of Brixton (Lab)

My Lords, I ask noble Lords to cast their minds back three years to 24 March 2022, when the P&O Ferries chief executive officer Peter Hebblethwaite made it clear to the House of Commons Transport Select Committee that he knew that his decision to sack 786 British seafarers broke the law. He went on to explain that he knew there would be penalties to pay, but these were simply, in his view, a cost of business. He even had the audacity to say that he would make the same decision again. My noble friend Lord Hendy has already dealt with this, but it is a crucial issue which has raised important questions about how industrial relations operate in this country. The gross premeditation of the company’s action was evident to the whole country, as private security guards boarded ferries to physically force the crew out of work, to be replaced by cheaper agency crew recruited internationally and oblivious to the circumstances. I have been relatively modest in putting all my proposed amendments in a single group, given the extent of the degrouping of amendments that has taken place. There are three issues being dealt with here: first, the need to widen the scope of the promised seafarer’s charter, mentioned by my noble friend the Minister; secondly, the need to reduce the threshold for the application of The Seafarers’ Charter in terms of visits by ships to UK ports; and thirdly, to ensure the necessary monitoring of the effectiveness of the legislation. On the need to increase flexibility in The Seafarers’ Charter, the key amendment is 200AD; the rest are consequential. These amendments provide the flexibility to strengthen the mandatory seafarers’ charter, in addition to standards on pay and roster patterns. They are constructive in spirit and look to explore the Government’s position on mandatory employment standards for seafarers at work today and in the future. Back in 2023, on the first anniversary of the scandal, Labour’s shadow Employment and shadow Transport Ministers committed the party to a mandatory seafarers’ charter as a direct response to this appalling episode. In a joint article in the Independent they wrote: “The P&O scandal was … supposed to draw a line in the sand for seafarers’ rights. But for too many low-cost operators, their business model is based on exploitation. That is why we will introduce a strong, legally-binding Seafarers Charter that smashes the business model dependent on the cruel manipulation of vulnerable workers from around the world. This will mandate an agreement between unions, government and employers on minimum protections for pay, roster patterns, crewing levels, pensions, taxation and training”. The unions, together with many MPs and Peers, continue to support that explicit aim for the charter set out by the Labour Party. I also understand that the RMT was given ministerial assurances only last December that there would be flexibility to add employment conditions to the mandatory charter. Regrettably, DfT and DBT officials now tell us there will be no flexibility, citing difficulties around compliance with the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. We are told that UNCLOS prevents the Government adding other employment conditions such as sick pay, holiday pay and pensions. This is hard to understand, and I would be grateful if my noble friend the Minister could explain. Even the voluntary seafarers’ welfare charter, introduced by the last Government in July 2023, includes sick pay and pension rights, as does the French Government’s legally binding seafarers’ charter, introduced on ferry routes to the UK in June 2024. I beg the Minister to help us understand why national legislation on pay and hours of work for seafarers on international routes from UK ports is UNCLOS-compliant, but other areas of employment, including remuneration such as sick pay, holiday pay and pensions, are not compliant. If the Minister cannot do so in reply to this debate, a summary of the Government’s position should be circulated before Report. I ask the Minister to meet with the unions to explain why we have ended up in this situation. I reiterate that a public promise was made by the then shadow Secretary of State for Transport and the then shadow Minister for the Future of Work that the charter would cover not just pay and rosters but other issues, including sick pay, pensions and training. Amendments 200AA, 200AB and 200AC deal with the threshold for application of the seafarers’ charter created in Schedule 5. We of course welcome the seafarers’ charter, but its effectiveness is set by the criteria which apply in terms of the rate at which the ships concerned visit UK ports. Clearly, the lower the figure for the number of visits required, the greater the proportion of seafarers who will have the necessary protection. In simple terms, the proposed amendments bring ships that call weekly in UK ports within scope, in contrast with the Bill, which requires more than twice-weekly visits. I make no secret of my desire to see as many seafarers covered as possible, and not, in effect, limiting this to those who work on roll-on, roll-off ferries. Most ships that regularly work in UK waters are not that type of vessel. According to DfT statistics, over 160,000 seafarers are employed in the UK shipping industry and where possible, we must use the Bill and future legislation to equalise their employment rights with land-based workers. The previous Government introduced a threshold of 120 calls per year in Section 3 of the Seafarers Wages Act. When that legislation was going through the Lords, the then Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Vere, responded to an amendment from my noble friend Lord Tunnicliffe on this matter, stating that 52 calls per year “would catch too many vessels that we did not intend to catch and would be overreach in terms of the current settlement with the international shipping community”.—[Official Report, 12/10/22; col. GC 102.]