UK ports will be required to check whether ferry crews are paid at least the national minimum wage following the P&O Ferries sackings, Transport Secretary Grant Shapps has announced.
The Cabinet minister told MPs that the Government will introduce new legislation in response to the company’s decision to replace nearly 800 seafarers with cheaper agency workers.
The new crew are paid an average of just 5.50 per hour.
This is below the UK’s national minimum wage of 9.50 per hour, but P&O Ferries insists it is in line with international maritime law.
Giving evidence to the Commons’ Transport Select Committee, Mr Shapps said the Government will include amendments to the 1964 Harbours Act in the Queen’s Speech on May 10.
He said “we won’t be expecting ports to physically enforce” the new minimum wage requirement on ferries.
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“What we will require them to do is ask for confirmation and clarification – in the same way as they ask, for example, that the relevant insurance has been paid – that the relevant pay was being made.”
Mr Shapps said enforcement of minimum pay rules for ferry workers will be the responsibility of himself and the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA), but ports will “have a check that they will do to ensure (a ship is) within the law”.
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