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.

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.