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Equality Bill

My Lords, discrimination against foreign national seafarers is permitted under the Race Relations Act 1976—I think in Sections 8 and 9. Seafarers have to reside and be recruited abroad for the current exemption to apply. They are recruited abroad on local rates of pay to work on UK-registered vessels. Seafarers on ships trading between UK ports, including UK-registered vessels, can be paid at rates significantly below the national minimum wage. This discrimination is applied in British workplaces. Other industries employing workers from abroad would, rightly, be expected to pay UK rates of pay when in a UK workplace. The number of UK seafaring ratings has declined from over 30,000 in 1980 to fewer than 9,000 today. In the last decade, the number of British ratings has fallen by almost 20 per cent. One of the primary reasons for this is the use by shipping companies of so many foreign national seafarers on low rates of pay, facilitated by the continued exemption in the 1976 Act. In addition, foreign national seafarers work longer hours of duty than UK seafarers. For example, the UK seafarers employed by P&O Ferries work for one month followed by a month off. This is due to the long and demanding working hours. On ferries, these are normally around 84 hours per week but can be longer. Portuguese seafarers undertaking the same hours work for two months on and one month off. Filipino seafarers can be engaged for three whole months before they receive one month off. Discrimination specifically against other EU nationals has of course now been declared illegal by the European Commission. A consultation paper setting out options for reform was finally published in March 2007 but proposals were put off on the basis that changes would instead be introduced alongside other changes in discrimination legislation under the single Equality Bill. Regulations to reform existing seafarer discrimination were published early in December 2009. They do not repeal all the discriminatory provisions of the 1976 Act but represent significant progress. It is proposed that the current discrimination against EU and EEA nationals be outlawed on UK-flagged ships when a ship is in UK territorial waters. This is also proposed for non-EU and non-EEA nationals. In addition, for EU-flagged ships, discrimination could be outlawed for just EU or EEA nationals if the seafarer’s employment had a sufficiently close link to the UK. How this will work needs to be clarified by the Department for Transport. The priority is now to ensure that regulations can become law alongside the Equality Bill. The best way to ensure that this happens and that the regulations stay as currently drafted is through the regulations being incorporated in the Bill. That is the purpose of Amendment 28, which I hope my noble friend the Minister will agree to. A second issue is the national minimum wage. We are still waiting for action to be taken on enforcement of the national minimum wage for seafarers on ships trading in UK territorial waters or, as a minimum, on all ships trading between UK ports and the UK offshore sector. The Government have attempted in the past to defeat these proposals by referring to the position of the Foreign Office, which says that enforcement cannot be taken on foreign-flagged ships in any circumstances. However, as a result of the matter being raised by the tabling of amendments in the other place, I understand that the Department for Transport has agreed to convene a cross-departmental meeting to consider apparently conflicting legal advice. The issue is that foreign national seafarers are entitled to the national minimum wage on UK-registered ships only when they are in port or in internal UK waters, as opposed to UK territorial waters. UK-resident seafarers receive the national minimum wage in UK territorial waters provided that the ship is flagged in the UK. UK internal waters include, for example, the Solent, the sea between Scotland and the Inner and Outer Hebrides, the Firth of Forth, the Wash and the Thames estuary. They do not include, for example, UK territorial waters between Scotland and Shetland or between the mainland and the Channel Islands or the Isle of Man. The national minimum wage does not apply to the foreign national seafarer where the ship goes out of UK internal waters, even if the ship trades between two UK ports—for example, between Liverpool and Belfast or Aberdeen and Shetland. The current law does not give an entitlement to the national minimum wage to foreign national seafarers in these examples, even where employment is on a UK-flagged ship. On top of that, a simple transfer of flag can mean that the ship owner can avoid responsibility for payment of the national minimum wage to foreign national seafarers even where the seafarer is employed on a trip deemed to be within UK internal waters. Under current legislation that could potentially apply to a ferry sailing to one of the isles west of mainland Scotland. Legal advice to the seafaring unions advises that an amendment limiting coverage of the national minimum wage to all ships trading solely between UK ports or in the UK offshore sector should not infringe the right of innocent and free passage for a ship. Amendment 30 would apply the national minimum wage to ships and vessels of all flags trading solely between UK ports and in the UK offshore sector. Applying the national minimum wage to ships of all flags tackles the usual argument that ships will flag out to avoid any minimum standards. To repeat, the amendment provides for the application of the national minimum wage to all ships trading between two UK ports or working from one UK port—that is, in the UK offshore sector. I hope that my noble friend the Minister will recognise the unfairness to seafarers of the current situation, in relation to both the Race Relations Act and the national minimum wage, and that the Government will accept these amendments. I beg to move.