Seafarers’ Wages Bill [Lords]

David Linden Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 19th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Natalie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)]

Not only has 2022 been a year of opportunity, new jobs, higher wages and investment across Dover and Deal, but it has been a difficult and challenging year, with a number of significant and sometimes shocking events occurring around our sea border. Looking back to this time last year, I would not have expected to see a household name, a much-loved part of the Dover landscape, a global company headquartered in the town, become a pariah and a disgrace, not just in the maritime community, but in the business world. That is what the directors of P&O Ferries made it in March 2022. P&O’s management is a total disgrace, and it has put a stain on the name of this great company. In March, I wrote to the Insolvency Service, calling on it to consider director disqualification action against the named directors of P&O Ferries Ltd and its parent company, P&O Ferries Holding Ltd, on the basis of the directors’ misconduct.

The Insolvency Service has a responsibility to uphold confidence in directors and to hold them to account for serious misconduct. The response from the service has been wholly inadequate so far. I ask my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to press the Insolvency Service to step in and do its job—to hold those P&O directors to account for their reprehensible, immoral and unlawful conduct. I still have constituents who have not been compensated properly for lost or stolen belongings. I ask the Minister to meet me to see how my constituents can be helped, so that this matter can finally be resolved for them.

In relation to the well-made comments on the intensity of the channel route, the Maritime and Coastguard Agency looked at these issues for Irish Ferries when it came into Dover and for P&O when it tried to stand up its agency workers and was not allowed to do so because they were not good and ready. I ask the Minister to have a conversation with the agency and then for us to meet further to discuss how assurances can be given that the intensity of the channel route is being properly monitored and considered in relation to the safety of workers and passengers on it.

Looking back to the sackings in March, I was glad to take up an offer from Darren Procter of the RMT union to march with the workers, my constituents in Dover Town, along with other prominent local Conservatives. As the local MP, I supported workers in two previous restructurings of the workforce of P&O, working with the unions and speaking to the management of P&O. It was completely untrue, therefore, for P&O to seek to blame predicted union militancy by RMT for its disgraceful management behaviour, because previous restructurings had been by negotiated settlement.

P&O did not even try to negotiate. It just decided that it would break the law. None the less, it is true that, on the day I marched with the RMT, we did see the ugly face of the militant unions and the Labour party. It is also true that the Labour party saw an opportunity to exploit the shocking corporate behaviour of P&O, just as we have heard that it intends not to fully and unequivocally support the measures of this important Bill today.

As I was surrounded by bused-in, hard-left aggressive militants outside the RMT headquarters in Dover, I was rescued by local union members whom I know and who brought me into the building for my safety. Imagine my shock when I saw the leadership of the RMT—Mick Lynch no less—and other trade union barons holding a Zoom meeting with none other than the Labour leader, the right hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer). While I was in that private meeting, I was shocked to hear how the Labour leader and the trade union barons were chatting away about exploiting the P&O situation in Parliament for political gain in those coming days, and how the unions could create a winter of discontent, stoked up by trade unions here. It seemed to me, listening to everyone that day, that they were working hand in glove with the Labour leadership.

Back then, in the spring, I thought that it was just wishful thinking on the part of Labour and the trade union barons. Now Mick Lynch has turned into the Christmas Grinch and the winter of union trouble making is well and truly under way—and not a word of condemnation from those on the Labour Front Bench, and I think that we all know why.

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

As a Scottish nationalist MP, there is not a lot of love lost between me and the Labour party. It certainly comes as a surprise to me to hear that the right hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer) is very much in cahoots with the unions. I think that he could do an awful lot more to stand up for Labour values. However, at the heart of all of this are the hon. Lady’s constituents who were treated incredibly badly by P&O. The issue here is not the RMT union; the issue here is P&O Ferries, which has acted disgracefully. I urge her to try to get back to that point, which is what the Bill is about.

[Mrs Elphicke]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. As I have made it very clear, as the Dover MP, I have worked very constructively with the RMT, and particularly with the local branch. What I saw that day was the Labour leader on Zoom, and it seemed to me from that meeting that he was looking for political opportunism, rather than having the interests of my constituents at heart. I am therefore very pleased that so many Members on the Opposition Benches now speak so freely about my constituents, but I urge them to fully support the Bill, and not to seek to create division and engage in shameless political opportunism on what they know is a very specific Bill, as they have already done in the Lords.

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[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Dover (Mrs Elphicke), particularly with some of the late Christmas cracker jokes she was deploying in the Chamber there.

As we approach the recess, many of us will have our usual favourite films and programmes to watch as we rest up on the couch, recovering from the excesses of Christmas and new year celebrations. For some it may be “Miracle on 34th Street”, “Home Alone” or that classic “It’s a Wonderful Life”. I personally look forward to the now-annual mockumentary on Netflix, previously called “Death to 2020” or “Death to 2021”. I have no doubt that the March segment of “Death to 2022” will feature the disgraceful behaviour of P&O Ferries and its chief executive officer Peter Hebblethwaite—who would surely make Scrooge look like Bambi—as it chronicles the outrageous decision to fire nearly 800 directly employed seafarers on these islands.

In watching the Netflix mockumentary, I suddenly remember all the appalling things that unfolded in the year just past. However, for many seafarers, including those who live in my East End constituency, the P&O tragedy is much more than a mere three or four-minute segment of a documentary. While the P&O dispute is long buried in most folks’ memories, it is important to understand how and why we came to that position and how we can improve things.

Although the previous Prime Minister—I mean the second-to-last one—had said that Ministers would be taking legal action, the Insolvency Service quietly dropped criminal prosecution of P&O Ferries. While the actions of P&O Ferries were disgusting and deeply unethical, they highlighted some serious weaknesses in employment law, not to mention refuelling the “fire and rehire” issue that continues to plague ordinary workers and be a plaything of unscrupulous bosses in boardrooms across the land. That is why many of us on the Opposition Benches have been disappointed that the long-awaited post-Brexit employment Bill never materialised and why many of us would, frankly, now be surprised to see one this side of a general election.

The Bill before the House tonight—just a day before we rise for our Christmas recess—is obviously not one that should be opposed, but I think there is a broad consensus in the debate, including on the Conservative Benches, that it is not a silver bullet, nor will it fix the problems it seeks to remedy. The Bill needs significant amendment and improvement, as many of my constituents have made clear.

I was struck by the hon. Member for Witney (Robert Courts) referring to the fact that he represents a rural, landlocked constituency in Oxfordshire. Similarly, in my small city constituency I have a number of RMT members, particularly seafarers, who have worked on P&O Ferries. My constituent from Barlanark wants the Bill improved to increase seafarer jobs and build our green maritime skills base. Another constituent from Easterhouse who wrote to me wants to see the Bill amended to promote collectively bargained terms and conditions, as is the case, for example, in France.

Likewise, another constituent believes the Bill must support domestic seafarer jobs on the international routes that keep the economy of these islands functioning and secure. Lastly, an email from a resident of Sandyhills gets to the nub of the issue here, state-sanctioned pay exploitation, highlighting that P&O Ferries pays under £4 per hour on contracts of up to 17 weeks. Ministers regularly stand up at the Dispatch Box and tell us that work is the best route out of poverty—but not, it would appear, for a seafarer.

Many hon. Members have outlined and will outline how the Bill can be improved, particularly as it moves into Committee, but I want to touch on just a few things this evening. I am particularly grateful to colleagues in the RMT, which I am proud to support, for their briefing on this Bill. More generally, I send my continued solidarity and best wishes to their rail members who are engaged in an industrial dispute. I have certainly been proud to join them on picket lines, and I have no expectation that my party leader will ask for me to be fired or anything like that as a result of doing so.

However, coming back to the Bill, it would be fair to say that it must be widened in scope. In my opinion and that of many others, it is too narrowly drawn, a point made by peers when it started its legislative journey in the other place. The Bill would, I believe, benefit from being widened in scope to tackle some of the wider conditions that P&O and other operators use to exploit and recruit crew on pay and conditions that undercut UK-based seafarers and responsible operators.

Fundamentally, in its current form, the Bill does not address the nationality-based pay discrimination on ships that routinely work from UK ports, regardless of flag or crew nationality. There is a real risk that this Bill’s passing unamended would lead to avoidance techniques such as changes to port call schedules, which have already been referred to. Basically, port-hopping becomes more likely the more frequently a vessel calls at a UK port.

The RMT briefing, for example, makes it clear that at 120 calls per year, it would be far easier for operators to make very modest changes to scheduled port calls in order to avoid this legislation, whereas 52 calls would be far tighter and was, I understand, the Government’s intention when the Bill was launched. Looking at the Hansard from when the Bill went through the Lords, I can see no legitimate reason why the Government departed from 52 weeks after the consultation, especially when there was widespread support for it from trade unions.

Baroness Vere is on record in the other place saying:

“I do not think operators would play switcheroo with UK ports because, frankly, their customers would not put up with it.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 26 October 2022; Vol. 824, c. 1506.]

In short, the Minister is saying that it will be all right on the night and we should just leave it to market conditions to dictate the direction of travel. However, I remind Ministers that the whole reason we are in this sorry mess in the first place is precisely a lack of regulation and an increasing tolerance for casino-style decision making on the part of bosses who have shamelessly, and unquestionably, exploited staff. We should learn that leaving it to the market will not necessarily be helpful.

There is one other aspect of the Bill I want to draw to the attention of the House before I conclude. It relates to offshore wind and the renewables sector, something particularly pertinent to Scotland. At the moment, as I understand it, crew working on vessels servicing the offshore oil and gas industry are entitled to protection when it comes to national minimum wage legislation, but that protection is not extended to crew, sometimes on the same ships, who work instead on offshore windfarms in the UK exclusive economic zone. That point was respected by the Minister in Grand Committee in the House of Lords, so it is clearly an issue for the Government. As an MP from Scotland, where we have a burgeoning offshore and renewables sector, that gap concerns me greatly and I believe it must be plugged.

All that makes the point that the Bill before the House tonight falls short of what is expected following the P&O debacle. The unintended consequences of not tightening things up will, once more, lead to future Parliaments having to come back and fix issues that have been highlighted in this debate and will only prolong the injustice faced by seafarers.

I started my remarks tonight by talking about the films we all watch during the Christmas holidays. I rather fear that, if this Bill was made into a film, it could quite easily be called “A Missed Opportunity”. Let us ensure that that is not the case, and instead bring the Bill into dry dock for major repair and improvement when this legislation is considered in Committee.

Seafarers' Wages Bill [ Lords ] (First sitting)

David Linden Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 17th January 2023 Public Bill Committees

Deductions for accommodation are not explicitly prohibited by the maritime labour convention. Normal practice across the industry is that accommodation is provided free of charge, as it is essential to allow seafarers to do their jobs on board. We also note the Low Pay Commission’s recent recommendation that such deductions should not be allowed for seafarers who do qualify for the national minimum wage. We will be setting out the detail of how national minimum wage equivalence is to be determined in regulations, including the position on deductions. This has been the case for the national minimum wage legislation today in the UK, so the use of secondary legislation in this way is entirely consistent with existing practice and will ensure we get this complex matter right. We will be holding a public consultation on the draft regulations after the Bill has received Royal Assent.

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. I will start by returning to some of the comments I made on Second Reading. The Bill is far too narrow in scope. Considering the egregious behaviour of P&O, we could be doing much more. I hope the Minister will look at some of the amendments.

I rise to speak to amendments 44 to 47 and 49 in my name and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North. I should point out that amendment 49 is not dissimilar to Labour’s amendment 62, which we clearly support. In speaking to these amendments, I also want to oppose Government amendment 1, which would doubtless knock out our amendment 45. I will deal first with the issue of port hopping and national minimum wage equivalence.

In clause 3, the requirement to produce a declaration of national minimum wage equivalence is applied to services that call at a harbour 120 times a year. That is the result of a change made following consultation on the draft Bill, which had proposed covering ships that called at a port or UK harbour 52 times a year—once a week. In July, in response to the consultation, the RMT—the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers, to which I pay tribute—proposed that the definition in the Bill should be this:

“Seafarers working on ferry services that are frequently operated from UK ports (at least once a week).”

However, following consultation, the Government changed the Bill to apply it to services calling 120 times a year.

The impact assessment says that part of the reason for the change is this:

“The more regularly a seafarer calls at a UK port, the closer their ties to the UK.”

I certainly believe, as I think the Government did, that calling at a UK port once a week is a sufficiently close tie between a seafarer and the UK economy. Indeed, their lordships speaking in support of the shipping and ports industry stated that the Government’s plans contravened the international maritime conventions, specifically the UN convention on the law of the sea.

It is my understanding that the British Ports Association has legal advice that the Bill will not work and will be subject to legal challenge, including on the ground that it infringes the UN convention on the law of the sea. Indeed, the International Chamber of Shipping has also raised the matter, as the shipping industry’s de minimis crewing practices and flagging policies rest on the assertion of innocent passage in international waters between states.

[Grahame Morris]

The hon. Gentleman is making relevant and sensible points. On the issue of the 120 days, we have concerns, which I am sure he shares, that there are so many exclusions that the Bill will be like a colander—full of holes. The original proposal was 52 times a year, or once a week. What will be the impact of the Bill on the offshore continental shelf with respect to the frequency of the use of supply vessels? Will the figure of 120 days effectively exclude them from the legislation? I suspect it will.

[David Linden]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for making that point, which gets to both the nub of the issue and a source of real concern for me. He is right to talk about the colander effect, and not making the legislation sufficiently tight means that in many cases companies will exploit the measure, as has he eloquently outlined. Let us be honest: the legislation was introduced because a company sought—within the law—to exploit people, and it would be a dereliction of duty by the House and by the Committee if we did not seek to tighten the Bill in such a way as to ensure that industry cannot get away with using such practices.

[Gavin Newlands]

My hon. Friend has referred to the House of Lords, but on Second Reading in this place, the Secretary of State said in terms of the number of visits to harbour:

“We think the definition in the Bill at the moment will capture the vast majority of the services we wish to capture.”—[Official Report, 19 December 2022; Vol. 725, c. 66.]

The Secretary of State referred to “the vast majority”, but this relates to the national minimum wage. Why should we be happy with a majority, rather than ensuring that all employees get the minimum wage?

[David Linden]

Even if people were not around last night, it will not come as a huge surprise that the Government are not particularly wild about standing up for workers’ rights. We on this side of the Committee happen to be of the view that we should be doing everything we can to try to support workers—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich chunters. I am more than happy to give way if he wants to stand up and speak. If he wants just to make a wee bit of noise behind the Minister, he is welcome to do so.

We support returning to the stricter criterion of 52 calls per year, which is what amendment 45 seeks to do. This is a key test of the Government’s commitment to seafarer welfare, and they failed in the Lords when they narrowly defeated Lord Tunnicliffe’s amendment that aimed to restore the criterion of 52 annual harbour calls.

National minimum wage and domestic employment law are difficult to enforce and apply in the maritime sector. That is why employers such as Stena Line, which employs UK crew on international routes from UK ports in Cypriot-registered vessels, enter collective bargaining agreements with domestic maritime trade unions. The UK Chamber of Shipping estimated that up to 45 major ferry routes served the UK economy in 2020, but that is subject to change. For example, P&O closed Hull-Zeebrugge in October 2021, but DFDS opened an unaccompanied freight service between Sheerness and Calais earlier that year.

In my view, the Bill should cover crew working for operators of containers, bulk carriers, cargo ships and vessels working in the offshore energy supply chain, as well as ferries. In 2018, the RMT estimated that extending the national minimum wage to cover domestic and offshore energy routes would bring 13,000 seafarer ratings into scope. The impact assessment for the Bill estimates only the cost to employers, not the number of seafarers who would be covered by the Bill.

I am concerned that the Government have dismissed out of hand the unions’ concerns over avoidance techniques. Port hopping, as we often refer to it, remains a genuine avoidance technique that becomes far easier to use the more frequently a vessel calls at a UK harbour. At 120 calls per year, it would be far easier for operators to make minor changes to scheduled port calls in order to avoid the legislation. A threshold of 52 calls, which was in the Government’s original proposals, would be far tighter. It was changed only after consultation with industry, although the trade unions supported 52 calls. I go back to the point that if the Bill is about protecting workers—the very workers who were so cruelly shafted by P&O—then it is incumbent on the Government to listen to the voices of those workers and trade unions, not the voices of industry. That is the whole reason we are here.

Disappointingly, the Minister in the Lords, Baroness Vere, was unconvinced that that avoidance technique could be used. She said:

“I do not think operators would play switcheroo with UK ports because, frankly, their customers would not put up with it.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 26 October 2022; Vol. 824, c. 1506.]

The translation of that is, once again, “Leave it to the markets. The markets will dictate.” If we have learned anything over the course of the last few months in this House and during the P&O debacle, it is that simply leaving it to the markets is not a great idea. I am not reassured that the logistics market will self-regulate. The recent merger between Cobelfret and Seatruck Ferries, two operators who have been paying seafarers below national minimum wage on regular international services from UK ports for years, frankly, also increases the prospect of avoidance techniques.

I hope that has outlined just some of our concerns on the issue. For those reasons, I will formally seek to divide the Committee and vote against Government amendment 1.

[Mrs Elphicke]

I will take the opportunity to speak to these clauses and amendments. They cover the short straits, and first I will comment specifically on the issue of 120 calls per year. Looking at the short straits, according to figures from the UK Chamber of Shipping, the number of port calls meets the threshold by 30 to 40 times in relation to the Dover-Calais and Dover-Dunkirk lines: around 4,000 port calls that are made would come within the legislation. Whenever we set a threshold, it is important to set it with reference to the matter that we are addressing. The evidence is very clear that 120 days is a relevant and, indeed, low threshold in relation to the particular services that we are seeking to address within the remit of this important Bill, which, as has been discussed, very much has my short straits of Dover at its heart.

I am conscious that some good points have been made in relation to seafarers more generally. I hope that we can show some global leadership on this issue. I have been pleased to have the opportunity to speak at great length about seafarers’ rights with my hon. Friend the Member for Witney when he was Ports Minister. Although I can understand the remit being extended in the way that is being sought within the remit of the Bill, we need to look at seafarers’ rights more generally, as well as those bilateral agreements.

I now turn to amendments 47, 62 and 49. The Minister made some helpful comments in introducing this section, but I ask him, if I may press him further, for an assurance of the position, particularly relating to the calculation for food and accommodation. If I were to work in McDonalds—indeed, I did so for a very long time and enjoyed it greatly—I could have a certain amount of food on my food break if I were to work for four hours. If I were to work for the entire day, I would get much more McDonalds food—very tasty. That food would be free to me as a worker and that is the principle that we want to see for those at land and within our waters.

However, I think that some of the concerns that have been raised must not be seen only through the lens of our own domestic legislation in relation to the minimum wage and its calculation. I have taken some time to look at how these issues are treated within our national minimum wage legislation on land and issues such as accommodation—staying on ship would not, in my view, fall within the current definition of “accommodation” and its applicability for national living wage purposes. But it is right that these issues have been raised and that they are looked into carefully as we go through because, in relation to the operation of seafarers, particularly on these routes, our domestic provisions are not the market provision for these matters. The market for this is global; the conditions are global and international. When we talk about common market practice, it is within a global and international setting, with different countries applying different regimes to their seafarers.

When it comes to seafarers’ rights, we tend to think that this means countries who are very international, such as the Philippines and others, but I will give the Minister a directly relevant example to this food and accommodation issue. The Danish Maritime Authority allows for seafarers’ food subsistence allowance to be deducted from the calculation of national minimum wage. It is a matter for negotiation, either collective agreement or individual contracting, but, none the less, in the application of their calculation of national minimum wage, they do—

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[Mr Holden]

My right hon. Friend makes an important point. We are looking into the terms and conditions, which will be there in the regulations, and we will have a wide public consultation. He is absolutely right: we want to get this right.

The legal issue raised by the hon. Member for Wakefield was about legal risk in the 52 versus 120 days element. When a ship stops at multiple points in Norway, for example, then has one trip a week to the UK, to argue that it should be covered by UK legislation rather than Norwegian legislation would put it into a very difficult international legal position. Under international maritime law, that would expose us to greater legal risk for the entirety of the legislation, rather than on specific points. I hope hon. Members understand.

The hon. Member for Glasgow East made a number of comments. On the broad issues, at least, I say to him that the Government have raised the threshold at which people pay income tax, taking millions of people out of tax. They have introduced the national living wage and reduced the age at which people qualify for it. Moreover, and in a massive and long-term benefit for huge numbers of people, they have expanded auto-enrolment in pensions to hugely benefit working people. His comments were broadly ill judged and, in a certain way, bringing forward this conversation today shows our commitment to delivering for working people. While I appreciate that everyone in the Scottish National party is an expert on ferries these days, I am not sure they are when it comes to this legislation.

[David Linden]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Holden]

I have finished my comments already.

Question put, That the amendment be made.

Seafarers' Wages Bill [ Lords ] (Second sitting)

David Linden Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 17th January 2023 Public Bill Committees

[Mr Holden]

I will write to the hon. Member for Easington on the specific issue of the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill. I will start now by saying that there have been some strong and robust improvements from this Bill, not the least of which is the imposition of a duty on the harbour operators, which I think goes a long way to addressing many of the concerns expressed at earlier stages by hon. Members.

I would like to reflect on a couple of comments from my hon. Friend the Member for Dover. She mentioned the bilateral agreements and how important they are. With us legislating in this way and other countries now starting to look to the legislation for their own societies, perhaps the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North will reflect on how it is Britain leading the way in this space—a little.

In terms of the Laffer curve, I did not think I would see my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings and the hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East perhaps come out on the same side of things, but they do seem to have reflected a general, cross-party consensus that it is important to act in the best interests of working Britain. That is entirely what this legislation is designed to do.

Regarding fire and rehire, which has been mentioned by several hon. Members but is outside the scope of this Bill, I want to put it on record that BEIS will be launching a consultation and code of practice on fire and rehire shortly.

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

Can the Minister tell the Public Bill Committee how many consultations and letters BEIS has issued about fire and rehire? There is cross-party agreement in this House about what the problem is, so why do the Government have to take forward yet another consultation on it?

[Mr Holden]

I do speak for the Government but, on the specifics of what BEIS has been up to, I urge the hon. Member to speak to a BEIS Minister. But I do understand the broad thrust of his point. Where we are taking action here today is regarding seafarers.

The hon. Member makes quite an important point: how many consultations and reports can be had? The Opposition are currently proposing two more reports in their new clauses 5 and 7, both of which seek to legislate for the Government to produce a report. The first seeks to legislate for the Government to produce a report within six months of the Bill being passed on its implementation and monitoring. A number of the points that are sought to be included in such a report are well beyond the scope of the Bill. As hon. Members have said, the Bill is focused very much on the remuneration of seafarers who do not qualify for the national minimum wage. Six months after the Bill has been passed, there will be little to report on—hopefully very little indeed, as people will be complying with it. Indeed, the Bill will not be brought into force until secondary legislation is in place, and it is not expected that that will be the case within a short space of time after the Bill has passed.

Let me turn to the detail of the new clause, in particular subsection (2)(a). As a matter of course, we will be conducting a post-implementation review of the Act within five years of it being passed that will cover pensions and pay, as covered in the impact assessment. In any event, pensions and roster patterns are outside the scope of the Bill, and any effect on rostering would be indirect and challenging to distinguish from other factors.

Subsection (2)(b) goes beyond the implementation and monitoring of the Bill itself, and is therefore out of scope. We do not have plans to legislate further than is necessary, but that does not mean that we will not take action on areas beyond the matter of minimum pay, which we all know is not the only aspect of seafarer welfare that requires attention. As hon. Members have mentioned, as part of the nine-point plan, a new seafarers’ charter will be launched as a voluntary agreement, which aims to improve long-term employment and welfare conditions for seafarers. It covers a far wider range of employment protections than is currently covered by the Bill.

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[David Linden]

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Harris. I am conscious that I am the only thing stopping people getting out of this room, but I want to reflect on the fact that the Minister said, “Let’s not look at commissioning reports.” I do not necessarily agree and I did not vote that way, and actually, new clause 9 is specifically about putting into statute how to deal with some of the directors. For the remainder of the debate, I will refer to the new clause as “the Hebblethwaite amendment”.

Throughout this Committee’s proceedings, we have spoken about the importance of teeth and of tightening things up. One reason why we have come to this point and why the legislation is necessary in the first place is the actions of company directors and bosses who have decided to act in such a way as to exploit the workers, as was the case at P&O. If we are going so far as to pass the Bill, which the SNP supports—although we would have liked to have seen more amendments to it—let us at least make sure that it has the teeth to deal with the some of these individuals, who are not exactly reputable.

Let us start with Peter Hebblethwaite, the CEO of P&O, who was paid £325,000 a year before bonuses. Let us remember that this is a man who admitted to a Select Committee of this House that he knew that the action he was undertaking as company director was illegal, but he proceeded anyway, and he had the gall to say that he would do it again.

I absolutely agree with the RMT’s general secretary, Mick Lynch, who said:

“Gangster capitalists should not be rewarded for their appalling employment practices; they should be punished with the full force of law.”

That is exactly what my new clause seeks to do: to make sure that we have in statute the ability to deal with these capitalist gangsters who seek to ride roughshod over seafarers, if hon. Members will pardon the pun.

Let us not forget that this man was responsible for the unlawful sacking of 786 seafarers by a pre-recorded message on Zoom in March last year. He is already out there promoting himself again, scot-free—I think he has had a promotion at DP World. The kind of person this legislation would manage to tackle, if they fell foul of it, is one who admitted breaking the law when questioned by members of a Select Committee, as I said, and who used handcuff-trained, balaclava-wearing security guards to remove dedicated, unionised seafarers, replacing them with non-unionised workers, many of whom are paid a fraction of the UK minimum wage. After experienced crew were fired, the UK coastguard repeatedly detained P&O Ferries’ ships for a lack of crew training, including fire safety and lifeboat drills. He was responsible for a non-unionised P&O Ferries crew from Malta working 17 weeks straight with no shore leave. Let us not forget that this is a gentleman whose company took millions of pounds from the British Government in subsidies during covid-19. I could go on about how utterly unfit Peter Hebblethwaite is, and how he has caused so much distress to many constituents of the hon. Member for Dover.

[Karl Turner]

Is it right that an obvious calculation that would have been made about sacking 786 British seafarers and replacing them with exploited, poorly paid staff was that nothing was going to be done in terms of person liability? It was almost encouraged. Indeed, I would go further to say that it was done on the basis that, first, nothing would happen personally, and secondly, this particular Tory Government would turn a blind eye. That is the truth of what happened, is it not?

[David Linden]

The hon. Member is spot on. The reality is that this gentleman factored in that he would appear before a Select Committee, that it would be uncomfortable and that he would probably have to get some crisis comms advice. I rather suspect that Peter Hebblethwaite is walking around waving the fact that he has been able to withstand all this pressure from Parliament as a feather in his cap. He will see it as some sort of virtue that he can sell to future employers. The hon. Member is absolutely spot on: the fact that there is no personal liability means that these kinds of directors will behave with impunity.

New clause 9 does not mandate Members to vote for a report. It mandates us, on a moral basis, to vote for action to ensure that a company director who was as egregious as Peter Hebblethwaite can never again get away with that. Members of this House have a responsibility to stand up for their constituents. On that basis, I have tabled the new clause.

[Mrs Elphicke]

I wish to speak about this new clause, because we are all of the view that Peter Hebblethwaite should not be allowed to be a director. I made a formal complaint to the Insolvency Service on directors disqualification for the whole of that board. The Insolvency Service has still not completed its civil proceedings, although it has said that it is not minded to take criminal proceedings. It is clearly unacceptable that company bosses are allowed to act in that way and that directors disqualification does not apply.

This is a specific Bill dealing with a specific set of circumstances. I would like the relevant Department to look at why the Company Directors Disqualification Act 1986 and the criminal obligations in the Insolvency Service did not apply to this specific case. I have made representations to the appropriate Ministers accordingly.

I completely agree with the sentiments expressed by the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull East, except his view that the Government have not taken any action. Throughout the P&O situation, we have walked literally shoulder to shoulder in support of people.

[Mrs Elphicke]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. That is clearly rubbish, because the Government at the time, including the then Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Grant Shapps), took immediate action—action that no one expected to be taken—as did the Minister at the time, my hon. Friend the Member for Witney. I was involved directly in that action along with the then Secretary of State, the then Prime Minister and a number of Government Ministers, including my hon. Friend the Member for Witney, in relation to this issue. That action is the reason why we have the nine-point plan and why we have the Bill.

Opposition Members will always say that whatever the Government do does not go far enough. However, I have to say, in representing the people in Dover who were specifically affected by P&O, that I am very proud of the action that we have taken across the Chamber and so far in this House. I want to see the Bill put on the statute book at pace.

[David Linden]

The hon. Lady is talking about the importance of taking action. Other than a pretty toe-curling Select Committee appearance and a couple of bad media interviews, the only action I have seen so far is that Peter Hebblethwaite has received a promotion. He is still able to act as a company director, so for the sake of the hon. Lady’s constituents, I ask her to reflect on the fact that until such a time as Peter Hebblethwaite is unable to act as a director and get away with such behaviour in future, that action will not be enough.

[Mrs Elphicke]

As I said, I do not think that Peter Hebblethwaite should be a director and I am taking steps to ask the Insolvency Service to remove him.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Holden]

As the hon. Member knows all too well, he and I are very much on the same page and would like the Insolvency Service to report as soon as possible, but it is an independent organisation and we cannot comment on ongoing investigations. The entire basis of the new clause tabled by the hon. Member for Glasgow East, which Opposition Back Benchers have spoken about too—that they want something that could disqualify someone—is there in what is being looked at. It is maintained via the Insolvency Service. While I cannot comment on the individual case, I think it is clear that what everybody wants to achieve is already there. I understand why Members are trying to invent another offence, but it is not necessary, as what the hon. Member for Glasgow East seeks to achieve can already be done through current legislation.

[David Linden]

I am not sure that is the case, given that Peter Hebblethwaite can continue to act with impunity and had a promotion recently.

I will not seek to make this party political; I have been tempted to in the past, but I will not. I was interested in the point the hon. Member for Dover made in an exchange that was probably the hottest point of our proceedings today. I offer a hand of friendship; I will act as the Cilla Black of Parliament and bring us all together. If the hon. Lady says that she appreciates the sentiment behind new clause 9 but wants it to go further, I am happy to work with her.

On that basis, I will not press the new clause to a Division in Committee, but I ask the hon. Lady to join me for a cup of tea at some point to help me look at how to strengthen it. Then we can bring it back for a vote on the Floor of the House during remaining stages. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.

Clause, by leave, withdrawn.

Bill, as amended, to be reported.

Seafarers’ Wages Bill [Lords]

David Linden Excerpts

Report stage & 3rd reading
Tuesday 7th February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Holden]

I will come later to the hon. Gentleman’s point about offshore workers in the energy sector. If the proposal were 52 weeks, we would be including services that were in UK waters for only a matter of a few hours a week. We think that would be a disproportionate measure and it would not address what we are trying to address, which is short-service ferry operations. They are the major point of concern. If we include other services, we move swiftly into international maritime law.

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

My understanding was that 52 weeks was the original threshold in the Government’s proposals and that that was changed after consultation with industry. The trade unions supported 52 weeks. As that was the Government’s initial proposition and only after the intervention of the British Ports Association did they chose to ignore the trade unions, can the Minister clarify why that was? If there was compelling evidence to make that change, will he place it in the Library of the House?

[Mr Holden]

My understanding is that the initial consultation was on that broader thing, but the legislation that was introduced was always based on a figure of 120, because after that broad consultation we looked at various issues, including where an operator, perhaps from Holland, visits several European ports and then pops into the UK once a week. The minimum wage equivalence being introduced for those operators would be very minimal and would affect a small number of people. Obviously, where someone was based in Holland, visited several European ports and then popped into the UK occasionally, we would be bringing in real questions of international jurisdiction, particularly under maritime law, as to where those services were being operated from.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Roger Gale)]

Order. I have only just been made aware of the fact—I was unaware of this fact—that the right hon. Gentleman was not here at the start of the debate. He has been here long enough to know that, if he is in that position, then he does not tell the Chair that he is waiting to speak.

[David Linden]

I rise to speak to new clause 4 in my name and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Gavin Newlands). I will come on to the substance of the new clause later, but for now I want to offer my support to the Opposition amendments before the House.

My fundamental position on the Bill has not changed. Yes, I think it is a welcome step in the right direction, but it is incredibly unambitious in tackling the scale of the problems unmasked by the exploitative behaviour of P&O Ferries. It remains a source of extreme frustration to me that, when the P&O debacle unfolded, politicians in this place talked a really tough game, yet the legislation put before the House has not met the scale of the challenge. Even worse, the British Government have reneged on their previous commitments and, I would argue, have watered down the Bill. For example, in clause 3, as it stands, the House effectively gives a green light to port-hopping, which is symptomatic of how this whole problem came about, ergo letting the free market exploit existing weaknesses in legislation and regulation. To be blunt, when it passes, this Bill will be a bit of a missed opportunity, and all that remains for us during its remaining stages is to try to ameliorate it.

For the purposes of brevity, I will refer to new clause 4 as the Hebblethwaite amendment. Throughout Second Reading and in Committee, we spoke about the importance of giving this Bill teeth and of tightening things up. If Members speak to seafarers, as I have done to those in my constituency, they will know that one big source of anger is the fact that senior management at P&O Ferries got away scot-free with their utterly disgraceful behaviour. If we are to go as far as passing this Bill, please let us at least make sure that it has the legislative teeth to deal with the some of these complete reprobates, who have patently exploited workers and should not be deemed fit and proper persons to hold directorship roles.

Let us start with Peter Hebblethwaite, the CEO of P&O Ferries, who was paid £325,000 a year before bonuses. This is a man, as others have said, who proudly admitted to a joint Select Committee of this House that he knew the actions he was undertaking as company director were illegal, but he proceeded anyway, and he even had the gall to say that he would do it all over again if he got the chance. I absolutely agree with the RMT general secretary, Mick Lynch, who said:

“Gangster capitalists should not be rewarded for their appalling employment practices; they should be punished with the full force of law.”

However, herein lies the problem, because passing this Bill without my new clause 4 would mean that Mr Hebblethwaite has carte blanche to again behave as he did in March last year. In summary, there must be individual consequences for directors who seek to exploit workers, and the Bill currently lacks a personal liability clause. That is exactly what my new clause would do by enshrining in statute the ability to deal with these gangster capitalists who seek to ride roughshod over seafarers and other workers.

At its most basic level, Hebblethwaite was responsible for the unlawful sacking of almost 800 seafarers, using a pathetic, cowardly, pre-recorded video message. Despite all that, he is already out there promoting himself again; indeed he was rewarded with a promotion at DP World. What kind of a broken, sick system sees almost 800 seafarers summarily sacked—and sacked unlawfully—yet the boss is given a plum promotion for showing ruthlessness and the sheer brass neck to shove two fingers up to Government?

So, the kind of person this legislation would penalise if they fell foul of the Act is one who admitted breaking the law, and one who used handcuff-trained, balaclava-wearing security guards to remove dedicated, unionised seafarers and replace them with non-unionised workers, many of whom are paid a fraction of the UK minimum wage. Even worse, after experienced crew were fired by Hebblethwaite, the UK coastguard repeatedly detained P&O ships for a lack of crew training, including fire safety and lifeboat drills. But still—yes, still—Hebblethwaite is allowed to retain his position as a company director, which makes a mockery of our legislative framework.

Only by adding new clause 4 to the Bill can we finally deal with these gangster capitalists who Government Ministers had tough words for last year. But what will they do this afternoon when the Division bell rings? Will they vote to bring the likes of Hebblethwaite to heal, or, now that the media circus has moved on, will their protestations be exposed as little more than hollow words?

This Bill is underwhelming and many of us are seeking to give it greater teeth to ensure that never again can a company director like Hebblethwaite take such a calculated risk with people’s jobs and livelihoods, knowing fine well that the consequences of doing so result in nothing more than a few uncomfortable column inches. We need to enshrine in statute a strict deterrent which makes personal liability a reality for the Peter Hebblethwaites of this world, because if this whole sorry episode has taught us anything, it is that bad bosses will continue to be bad bosses unless we hit them where it hurts. It is on that basis that I have tabled new clause 4.

[John McDonnell]

I have been working for 20 years for this legislation and I cannot tell the House how crushingly disappointed I am. I just did a Hansard search of my statements over the years. Way back in May 2003 I had a Westminster Hall debate on the application of the Race Relations Act 1976 to seafarers, and I said then that

“the disparity is that non-UK seafarers will be paid less than half the wage of the others. On some ships, they are paid less than the minimum wage. We have also seen the behaviour of some companies, such as P&O Ferries, where UK seafarers have been dismissed and replaced by Filipinos to reduce wage rates.”—[Official Report, 14 May 2003; Vol. 405, c. 132WH.]

I said, too, that the “moral case” for legislation was “overwhelming” and that we needed to act now because we had the opportunity to act, but we failed. I raised it again in 2004, when I cited the practice with regard to Irish crews who were replaced by seafarers from eastern Europe on exploitative pay and conditions. I raised it in 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2008; I raised it later in 2010 and 2012, urging the Government to implement regulations to outlaw pay discrimination against all seafarers working in UK territorial waters. It just went on: I can quote this on an annual basis.

As has been said, the proposed legislation has been prompted by what happened, so predictably, at P&O last year. It has been said that the litmus test of this legislation is whether it prevents another P&O. It will not. We may be able to do something on the margins of wages with regard to this, but, just as P&O has done, companies will exploit people on rosters, or the number of hours they work, or how much time they have to spend on ship; they will undermine their pensions, introduce accommodation charges, as other employers have done as well, and reduce crew numbers, which, as has been said, puts lives at risk. That is the behaviour of the worst employers in the shipping sector, and we need to legislate to tackle the worst. The only thing that will prevent another P&O is firm legislation against fire and rehire. A consultation is currently taking place, but we should bring forward measures as rapidly as possible.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Holden]

I thank all hon. Members for their speeches. I found it a pleasure to work with everybody, particularly in Committee, to try to improve the Bill and get it into its best possible shape. I hope I have been clear in my responses during the debate that, with the Government amendments we have tabled, we have taken on board a lot of the feedback from Members. I understand that some will be disappointed that we did not go further, but I will come on to address a couple of points that were raised.

On amendment 24, the scope is intentionally tightly drawn because seafarers need to have close ties to the UK. The national minimum wage equivalent will be enforced in our territorial waters only. If we were to expand it to include less frequent services, there is a risk of bringing into scope seafarers working on services that we do not feel have legitimate ties to the UK.

The hon. Member for Easington (Grahame Morris) and others raised the issue of wages. We understand that wages are just one of the issues at stake more broadly, but they are important, which is why we are legislating on them today. On his broader concern, we are working on progressing the nine-point plan. I hope Members welcome the progress we have made, in particular on co-operation at international level. The hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Louise Haigh) did say back in March last year that we needed a binding framework to prevent a race to the bottom on international standards. I hope she can see that we are putting in a new international standard, at least at some level, and that we are working with international partners to improve conditions.

I thank the hon. Members for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Mike Kane) and for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Gavin Newlands) for their comments on unlimited fines and seafarer welfare. I appreciate their views on wanting things to go further. The hon. Member for Glasgow East (David Linden) raised Mr Hebblethwaite, as did other hon. Members. I have to agree with their comments about the man as an individual. However, we hope that the unlimited fines element for the company will make a real difference to the operation of people in this space.

[David Linden]

Will the Minister give way on that point?

[Mr Holden]

I do not have enough time to give way, I am afraid. I was very generous earlier on.

The right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) has raised the issue of the seafarers charter regularly. He and the hon. Member for Easington have raised it on a number of occasions. We will bring it forward in the near future. I hope they will see that it will, in quite a lot of ways, go further than I think they fear it might. Going beyond wages, food and accommodation will be covered under secondary legislation that will follow on from the Bill. They both also mentioned the scope of amendment 32.

My right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) raised broader issues around legislation. In particular, he wanted an update on the maritime growth strategy. I am encouraged by the positive action taken by the industry so far, but I will raise the matters he has raised with the maritime Minister and ask her to write to him.

The hon. Member for Easington raised a number of issues, but went further than other hon. Members on P&O’s royal charter. I will ask the Privy Council Office to write to him. My understanding is that one has not been revoked since the reign of Charles II. We are now in the reign of Charles III, which is quite a long time after that. There was, apparently, a third-party action in an administrative court in 1853, which is slightly more recent. That could possibly be another route, but I will ask the Privy Council Office to write to him with the full details. That is the best place for that to come from—it is stretching my legal knowledge in that particular regard.

We are confident that the combination of surcharges, refusal of access and criminal offences will incentivise operators to pay seafarers on services within the scope of the Bill at least the national minimum wage.

I hope that I have addressed some of the major issues on which hon. Members have pressed me today. On new clause 4, I ask them to consider the impact that making the fines unlimited would have on individual companies and directors, and to think again about what they are asking for. On new clause 2, I put it to them that it really would not be appropriate to have a review within six months, before even the relevant secondary legislation has been made. On amendment 24, I refer them to the extensive comments that I made in my first speech.

I hope that hon. Members will see fit to pass the Bill without further pressing any amendments or new clauses. If they do press their amendments, I hope we can defeat them and see the Bill through to a Third Reading.

Question put and agreed to.

New clause 3 accordingly read a Second time, and added to the Bill.

New Clause 2

Implementation and monitoring

‘(1) Within six months of this Act being passed, the Secretary of State must publish a report on the implementation of, and monitoring of the effects of, this Act.

(2) The report must include—

(a) an assessment of the impact of this Act on—

(i) roster patterns,

(ii) pensions, and

(iii) wages of seafarers;

(b) a statement as to whether further legislation will be introduced by the Government as a result of the findings of the assessment under paragraph (a);

(c) a strategy for engaging with trade unions for the purposes of monitoring the implementation of this Act, including in reference to conventions of the International Labour Conference;

(d) a strategy for monitoring the establishment of minimum wage corridor agreements with international partners of the United Kingdom, insofar as any such agreement ensures that any non-qualifying seafarer is remunerated for UK work at a rate that is equal to or exceeds the rate that would otherwise be required under this Act;

(e) an assessment of the interaction between this Act and existing international agreements or international maritime law, including reference to any litigation that has arisen as a result of this Act.

(3) The report must be laid before each House of Parliament.’ —(Louise Haigh.)

Brought up, and read the First time.

Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.