Seafarers (Insolvency, Collective Redundancies and Information and Consultation Miscellaneous Amendments) Regulations 2018 — House of Lords, 2018-03-06
Topic: Labor
Elizabeth Sugg (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, these regulations will amend the Employment Rights Act 1996, the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 and the Information and Consultation of Employees Regulations 2004. Together with the Seafarers (Transnational Information and Consultation, Collective Redundancies and Insolvency Miscellaneous Amendments) Regulations 2018, they will transpose the requirements of the seafarers directive into Great Britain and UK law. Northern Ireland is making provisions to transpose those elements for which it has devolved responsibility In simple terms, the purpose of both sets of regulations is to ensure that seafarers and share fishermen, where employed, are provided the same level of employment protection as those working on UK soil with regard to insolvency, collective redundancies, transfers of undertakings, information and consultation, and works councils. They further demonstrate our commitment to ensure that employment rights are protected in the UK The European Commission, through a special task force, identified five employment directives that contained derogations for seafarers and therefore allowed land-based workers greater employment rights than those at sea if member states chose to apply them. The purpose of the seafarers directive was to remove these derogations and address the anomaly that land-based workers may enjoy greater employment rights than those at sea. Member states have been able to apply derogations on an ad hoc basis. The result has been that businesses in one member state have been able to comply with less favourable social protection for seafarers than those in another member state, such as the UK The Government have been fully supportive of the seafarers directive and have engaged with UK social partners, such as Nautilus International, which is the officers’ union, the RMT, which is the ratings’ union, and the UK Chamber of Shipping. UK social partners were at the forefront of the discussions with the European social partners and were instrumental in steering the discussion in those fora I will not detail all of the amendments as most of them simply omit previous clauses. I will instead draw attention to the reason for some of them. The UK had previously made use of the derogations relating to share fishermen as it considers them to be self-employed. Share fishermen are fiercely protective of their status, and I should be clear that these regulations do not amend their employment status. However, it is recognised that in certain circumstances a share fisherman may be considered to be employed and, in such circumstances, should have the same rights as those who are employed in other forms of work. These regulations amend the Employment Rights Act 1996 and the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 to include share fishermen, where employed, in matters relating to insolvency and collective redundancies Part XI of the Employment Rights Act 1996 provides protection for employees in the event of a redundancy, which may, among other things, arise in the context of the insolvency of an employer. Regulation 2(2) removes the exclusion relating to Part XI in relation to employed share fishermen. Part XII of the Employment Rights Act 1996 provides protection for employees in the event of insolvency in Great Britain. This had previously excluded employed share fishermen, but Regulation 2(2) will amend Section 199(2) of the Act by removing the exclusion relating to employed share fishermen. Regulation 2(3) corrects a previous omission and brings merchant seamen within the scope of Part XII of the Act The UK had not relied on the derogation for the crews of sea-going vessels in relation to procedures for handling collective redundancies, and this was removed by the seafarers directive. However, an amendment is made to Section 284 of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 to bring employed share fishermen within scope of the collective redundancy requirements.