Asked by: Karl Turner (Labour - Kingston upon Hull East)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what recent assessment he has made of the availability of skilled workers for employment on vessels engaged in construction and maintenance projects in the offshore wind sector.
Answered by Anne-Marie Trevelyan
In March 2020 the “Offshore wind Sector Deal - one year on” policy paper was published on the GOV.UK website, which includes a section on developing skills and improving diversity in the sector. It noted that the sector has introduced a workforce and skills model developed by the National Skills Academy for Rail to track and report on workforce data, and that data was being gathered from the operators, developers and original equipment manufacturers, with plans to gather data from regional offshore wind clusters over the longer term.
Asked by: Karl Turner (Labour - Kingston upon Hull East)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what steps he is taking to ensure that vessels contracted to work on offshore wind farm developments in UK waters are based in UK ports for the duration of such contracts.
Answered by Kwasi Kwarteng
The Government is committed to ensuring the economic benefits to the UK arising from offshore wind deployment is maximised.
Developers of offshore wind farms and offshore wind turbine manufacturers are responsible for contracting for vessels to build offshore wind farms. This is a commercial matter for the companies concerned.
Asked by: Karl Turner (Labour - Kingston upon Hull East)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, how many successful applications have been made to the Coronavirus Large Business Interruption Loan Scheme from (a) medium-sized and (b) large business in the (i) transport and (ii) offshore energy sectors to date; and what the value is of those applications.
Answered by Paul Scully
As of 7 June, 244 loans have been issued under the Coronavirus Large Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CLBILS), with a total value of £1.57 billion.
Issuing new loans is the priority for lenders and the Government. We are working with the British Business Bank, HM Treasury and the lenders on providing regular and transparent data publication going forward.
Asked by: Karl Turner (Labour - Kingston upon Hull East)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what steps he is taking to ensure that major employers of UK seafarers do not make staff redundant due to the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Paul Scully
The Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme is designed to help employers whose operations have been severely affected by coronavirus (COVID-19) to retain their employees and protect the UK economy. The scheme will help businesses to retain staff and reduce the need for redundancies.
Any entity with a UK payroll can apply to the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme as long as they have: (1) created and started a PAYE payroll scheme on or before 19 March 2020, (2) enrolled for PAYE online and (3) a UK bank account. This applies to any employer, including those employing seafarers.
My Rt. Hon. Friend Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer has now announced that the scheme will be extended, in full, until the end of July. After July, we will introduce more flexibility to the furlough scheme so that we move out of it in a measured way that protects people’s incomes and helps support furloughed employees as they return to work. This will run for three months from August through to the end of October.
Asked by: Karl Turner (Labour - Kingston upon Hull East)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, if he will take steps to ensure that HMRC National Minimum Wage Enforcement increase the amount of targeted enforcement work for seafarers working in the shipping industry.
Answered by Kelly Tolhurst
Enforcement of the National Minimum Wage is a priority for the Government. Since 2015, we have doubled the budget to enforce the NMW and in 2018/19 HM Revenue & Customs identified a record £24.4 million in arrears for over 220,000 workers.
HMRC takes a risk-based approach to enforcement, which means they can flex their resources to tackle an emerging threat or issue, including for seafarers working in the shipping industry. Indeed, HMRC have recently closed a seafarer case, where arrears of £31,042 were identified for 9 workers, with penalties of over £56,000.
The Government has begun working on the next steps necessary to extend the NMW to all seafarers on all vessels on domestic voyages in UK territorial waters, and will look to introduce legislation in the autumn.