Equality Bill

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Since Labour introduced the tonnage tax, the volume of traffic under the British flag has trebled—a massive change. When we introduced the tax, the British flag register was so small that many people, the industry and the Chamber of Shipping included, thought that it would disintegrate, and that the flag would no longer be credible. During the original negotiations, promises and assurances were made that the increase in the British flag registry would be reflected in more training and more jobs for British workers, but that never happened, and that is wrong. In fact, we are meeting the Prime Minister shortly to pursue the matter. Going by the many meetings that we have had with Ministers and officials over the past eight years, I get the feeling that they are starting to agree with our sentiments on equality. They understand the principles behind reforming the law and making things fairer, and their only defence is that the changes conflict with the international law of the sea. I hope that the Solicitor-General will comment on that point when she responds. We are told that Foreign and Commonwealth Office lawyers say that, in their opinion, applying the minimum wage as described would infringe the law of the sea and the rights of innocent passage. Indeed, that has been the Government's view since we started pressing for these reforms—a long time ago. In the final paragraph of a letter dated 9 November that the RMT and I received recently, my very good friend, the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham (Paul Clark) wrote that""the Government's interpretation of the law…is legally sound. Therefore, it is with regret that we cannot consider this matter further. I understand that this will be a disappointment to you but I know you understand the importance of adhering to international law."" Well, we were disappointed, not least for the reasons that my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington outlined a few moments ago, and for the fact that our legal advice indicates that new clause 25 would not, contrary to what has been said, infringe the international law of the sea. So far, we have been denied sight of the Foreign Office's legal advice, and we look forward to seeing it sometime. I am not a lawyer or trained in the law, but I have spent many years at sea, and my lay understanding of innocent passage has always been that vessels should be allowed to sail on the high seas and in other countries' territorial waters without the threat of being stopped, boarded, searched or impounded. It is hard to relate those important and widespread protections to the narrow issues in new clause 25 and the application of the national minimum wage. These inequalities have persisted for far too long, and they cry out to be part of this important Bill. Without a far more positive response from those on the Front Bench, I intend to press the new clause to a vote when the opportunity arises.