REGULATIONS RELATING TO CREW GREEMENTS

HC Deb 11 March 1970 vol 797 cc1424-5

Mr. Goronwy Roberts

I beg to move Amendment No. 2, in page 3, line10, after 'them', insert: 'and requiring copies of or extracts from documents referred to in crew agreements to be made available, in such circumstances as may be specified in the regulations, for inspection by members of the crew'. In our discussions in Committee, we agreed that it was most desirable that seamen should have reasonable access to documents referred to in crew agreements. I agreed to consider further how best this result could be achieved. I have carefully considered the helpful comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Kirkdale (Mr. Dunn), my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull, North (Mr. McNamara), my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull, West (Mr. James Johnson), and those of the hon. Member for Wan-stead and Woodford, for which I am particularly grateful. I think that we should take power to ensure that this point can be covered in the regulations.

As hon. Members suggested in Committee, it may not be necessary for the documents to be carried in the ship—may not be; I am not being dogmatic about this—and the circumstances may be limited to providing for them to be available ashore. This will depend on the nature of the documents and the circumstances within the industry. We shall discuss these matters with the shipping and fishing industries before regulations are drafted and I hope to have their guidance as to what is feasible in each case. For these reasons, we are not seeking to lay down in the Statute the circumstances in which the documents should be available, but we leave this to regulations to be made after consultation with the industry.

I hope, too, that the number of documents referred to in crew agreements will be reduced to a minimum so that the crew agreement itself is largely self-contained. We shall watch this in giving approval to the various kinds of crew agreement. I hope that the Amendment meets the doubts which have been expressed, and I commend it to the House.

Mr. John Page

I was interested to hear that the hon. Gentleman is to have further discussions about the form of the document with the interested parties. I wonder whether I may slip in a quick one and ask whether it would be possible for copies of the official log book also to be considered as part of the documents which might be made available to individuals and to certain parties outside and perhaps considered in the same grouping.

Mr. Roberts

I expect that when the discussions leading up to these regulations are proceeding, that point, among others, will be considered by both sides of the industry and by us.

Mr. Patrick Jenkin

We are again much obliged to the Government for having brought forward an Amendment which entirely meets the case which we put in Committee. We had particularly in mind the Year Book of the National Maritime Board which contains the details of most of the agreements with which seamen are concerned. It is extremely important that this should be available at the time they sign their crew agreement, so that they may see what it is that is being incorporated in the agreement which they are signing. The Amendment meets that point completely and we are grateful to the Minister for it.

Amendment agreed to.