My Lords, as a member of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, I support all these amendments. The Government accepted the committee’s recommendation in relation to Clause 3 and introduced Amendment 3; they should also concede Amendments 6 to 9, and preferably Amendment 10.
The problem is that the Government have made harbours the enforcers of the Bill, in particular by way of imposing surcharges. That reveals the flawed structure of the legislation. The arguments are by now familiar so I will outline only three of them.
First, the national minimum wage equivalent for seafarers should not be enforced by harbours, some of which are wholly conflicted since they share ownership with the shipping lines they are to police. I do not understand how the noble Baroness could say in her letter to us of 21 October:
“The Government is confident that there are no conflicts of interest.”
Instead, the declaration of compliance should be received by, and the prime enforcement body should be, a state authority. The obvious candidate is the MCA.
Secondly, there should have been provision for seafarers or their unions to enforce the national minimum wage equivalent, not least by making the entitlement to it contractual.
Thirdly and lastly, enforcement by way of surcharge is, with respect, inappropriate. It is a penalty and the noble Baroness’s letter to us, of 21 October, says of surcharges that
“Rather than being a punitive measure, its purpose is to make it not worthwhile for an operator to underpay their seafarers.”
Of course that is so, but then there is no distinction of purpose between a fine and a surcharge. One suspects that the real reason that a surcharge is preferred to a fine is that it avoids the stigma of a criminal sanction, which is, if that is true, an unattractive justification given that we are all here seeking to prevent repetition of the disgraceful behaviour of companies such as P&O Ferries. Such companies should be stigmatised by criminal prosecution if they underpay their seafarers.