Seafarers' Wages Bill: call for evidence

Aims of the Bill

The Bill seeks to ensure that seafarers on ships using UK ports at least 120 times a year are paid a rate at least equivalent to the UK national minimum wage for work they do while in UK waters. This would apply regardless of the ship’s flag or the seafarers’ nationality.

Currently, seafarers working on international routes to or from UK ports are not entitled to the national minimum wage if they are not usually resident in the UK; do not work at least to some extent in the UK; or work on non UK-flagged ships.

If the Bill passed, it would mean that:

• Harbour authorities would have the power to request ship operators covered by the Bill to provide a declaration that their seafarers are paid at a rate at least equivalent to the NMW for their work in the UK or its territorial waters, if they did not already qualify for the NMW (Clause 3 of the Bill)
• Harbour authorities would be able to charge operators who failed to provide a declaration showing the equivilent rates (Clause 7)
• Harbour authorities could refuse access to the harbour if the operator failed to pay the surchage (Clause 9)
• The Secretary of State for Transport could appoint investigators from the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) to verify whether operators are complying (Clause 6)
• The Secretary of State would have powers to direct harbour authorities on whether to impose a surchase and how much it should be (Clause 11)

Follow the progress of the Seafarers’ Wages Bill [HL]

The Seafarers’ Wages Bill was introduced to the House of Lords on 6 July 2022. It received its third reading there on 7 November and its first reading in the House of Commons on 8 November. The Bill’s second reading in the Commons was held on Monday 19 December 2022.

• Bills before Parliament: Seafarers’ Wages Bill [Lords]
• Read Explanatory Notes: Seafarers’ Wages Bill [Lords]
• House of Commons Library Briefing Paper

There will be no oral evidence sessions.

Guidance on submitting written evidence

Deadline for written evidence submissions

The Public Bill Committee is now able to receive written evidence. The sooner you send in your submission, the more time the Committee will have to take it into consideration and possibly reflect it in an amendment. The order in which amendments are taken in Committee will be available in due course under Selection of Amendments on the Bill documents pages. Once the Committee has dealt with an amendment it will not revisit it.

The Public Bill Committee will scrutinise the Bill line by line. The Public Bill Committee is expected to meet on Tuesday 17 January only. You are strongly advised to submit your written evidence as soon as possible.

Your submission should be emailed to scrutiny@parliament.uk

Further guidance on submitting written evidence can be found here.

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