My Lords, I added my name to this amendment because the concerns that we have raised in this House have been quite wide ranging, from the principles of the Bill and its compliance with international law to details of its implementation. We are all agreed that we need to do something about the pitifully low wages being paid to seafarers. I think we were all probably quite shocked to hear from the noble Lords, Lord Hendy and Lord Berkeley, just how low they are. But wages are by no means the only problem; rosters and pensions and so on are equally problematic. So we commend the Government for giving this some thought, particularly in the nine-point plan; the difficulty is that if the Bill does not work as intended, nobody is a winner.
We know that the International Chamber of Shipping is very concerned about compliance with international conventions, and we have heard from both the RMT
union and the port authorities that they just do not see how the Bill is going to work in practice. We know that the Government do not accept those concerns. That is fine. But it is slightly troubling to me anyway that the key stakeholder groups have not really been listened to.
Rather than re-table amendments on all those issues, I think we have settled on this amendment being the best way forward because it provides an opportunity to review how the Bill is operating in practice and, crucially, how it is fitting with the nine-point plan and with the progress we are making on international wage corridors and so on. We can see how the international shipping community is responding and where the port authorities have found ways of delivering what the Government ask. Crucially, we might be able to work out whether this legislation is resulting in a better deal for seafarers.