Seafarers’ Welfare

Alison Bennett Excerpts

Thursday 4th December 2025 Westminster Hall

[Alison Bennett (Mid Sussex) (LD)]

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.

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.

[John McDonnell]

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.

[Alison Bennett]

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.