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Equality Bill

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, for explaining the purpose of his important amendment. However, I thought that he would propose his new schedule and other amendments to primary legislation merely as a probing amendment. I thought that the noble Lord was too experienced to propose amendments that would, at this late stage in the parliamentary process, have the effect of removing the power to make such regulations and of enshrining the extent to which the Bill as primary legislation will apply to ships and seafarers. To all intents and purposes, the contents of the proposed schedule repeat the draft regulations on which the Government are currently consulting all relevant stakeholders. As this process is not yet complete, it would be odd to enact the provisions now. Of course we look forward to the results of the consultation. The noble Lord makes it quite clear that these are complex issues. When the Minister replies, will she comment on the assertion of the UK Chamber of Shipping that, if adopted, the amendments would massively increase the costs of many ships operating under the UK flag and make their operation uncompetitive, with obvious consequences? On Amendment 30, will the Minister confirm that the FCO has clearly advised the Chamber of Shipping that to apply the national minimum wage to foreign-flagged vessels when they are on innocent passage within UK waters, including to and from UK ports, would be unlawful under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and would interfere with collective agreements made between ship owners and mariners’ representatives in accordance with the law of the relevant flag state and, as such, would be unenforceable?