The Bench Report

Seafarers' Welfare: Uncovering Sea Blindness and Fighting for Maritime Workers' Rights

• The Bench Report • Season 5 • Episode 16

Share episode

Seafarers play a vital role in the UK economy, as 95% of the country’s goods arrive by sea. Despite their profound contribution, seafarers face "sea blindness"—being overlooked—leading to serious issues like chronic fatigue, isolation, poor mental health, and tragedy, as suicide rates are higher among crews than the wider population. We explore legislative efforts, such as the mandatory seafarers' charter via the Employment Rights Bill, designed to strengthen protections for pay, rest, and safety. The discussion also covers the crucial need for secure funding for port welfare charities through an opt-out levy system, and the need to tackle international challenges such as nationality-based pay discrimination and the abandonment of crews.

Key Takeaways

  • The UK relies heavily on maritime trade, with seafarers staffing the ships that bring 95% of the country's goods and services to shore.
  • Seafarers are often overlooked, a phenomenon called "sea blindness," which allows welfare standards to slip, resulting in cramped living, long shifts, and chronic fatigue.
  • The Government is working to improve standards through the Employment Rights Bill and the introduction of a mandatory seafarers’ charter, aimed at strengthening laws around mandatory rest and limiting maximum periods of work at sea.
  • Charitable organisations, such as the Queen Victoria Seafarers Rest, provide essential port-side support, offering services like free Wi-Fi and fresh food. However, only about 40% of UK ports have such facilities, and many face financial uncertainty.
  • A long-term funding solution suggested is an opt-out levy (e.g., £50 per visit) charged to vessels entering UK ports, which would provide a reliable income stream for welfare services.
  • International co-operation is necessary to tackle issues like nationality-based pay discrimination and the growing problem of ship owners abandoning vessels and crews without pay or vital resources.

Source: Seafarers’ Welfare
Volume 776: debated on Thursday 4 December 2025

Follow and subscribe to 'The Bench Report' on Apple, Spotify, and YouTube for new episodes daily: thebenchreport.co.uk

Subscribe to our Substack

Shape our next episode! Get in touch with an issue important to you - Producer Tom will grab another coffee and start the research!

Email us: thebenchreportuk@gmail.com

Follow us on YouTube, X, Bluesky, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok! @benchreportUK

Support us for bonus and extended episodes + more.

No outside chatter: source material only taken from Hansard and the Parliament UK website.

Contains Parliamentary information repurposed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0...

Amy:

Hello and welcome once more to the Bench Report, where we discuss recent debates from the benches of the UK Parliament. A new topic every episode. You're listening to Amy and Ivan. Today we're looking at the welfare of seafarers. Now, this might seem a bit of a niche topic, but when you think about it, 95% of all goods in the UK arrive by sea.

Ivan:

Everything on your supermarket shelves, essentially. Aaron Ross Powell, Jr.

Amy:

Exactly. And the people staffing those ships, all 160,000 of them, are often just completely overlooked.

Ivan:

There's actually a term for it that came up in Parliament: sea blindness. It's this idea that because the workers are, you know, out of sight, out of mind, it leads to a really staggering human cost.

Amy:

What kind of cost are we talking about?

Ivan:

We're talking about chronic fatigue, uh severe loneliness, and really serious isolation. And tragically, the suicide rates among seafarers are significantly higher than for the general population.

Amy:

So what was the catalyst for change? What made Parliament finally take notice?

Ivan:

Well, it was some pretty shocking corporate malpractice. I mean, we all remember the PO Ferry scandal.

Amy:

Of course. 800 staff just dismissed basically overnight.

Ivan:

Dismissed and then replaced with agency workers, who in some cases were paid as little as, I think it was, 4 pounds 87 an hour. An unbelievable figure.

Amy:

l So how did the government respond to that? What was the actual legislation?

Ivan:

The response came through the employment rights bill. And the key policy, the real heart of it, is something called the Seafarers Charter.

Amy:

And this is mandatory, right? Not just a guideline.

Ivan:

Absolutely. It's legally binding. It's meant to set firm rules on things like the maximum amount of time someone can be expected to work. It also covers managing fatigue, improving training, and crucially preventing those awful fire and rehire cycles.

Amy:

So it's about pay, rosters, social security, the basics?

Ivan:

The absolute fundamentals, yes.

Amy:

But that sounds like it's tackling the UK domestic side of things. There's a much bigger international problem here, too, isn't there? Ship abandonment.

Ivan:

A huge problem. You have ship owners who run into financial trouble and they just they ditch their vessels in port.

Amy:

Leaving the crew stranded.

Ivan:

Completely stranded, often with no pay, no food, no way to get home. And 2024 was the worst year on record for this, with over 2,000 seafarers left abandoned across the globe.

Amy:

Which I imagine is where the shoreside support charities become so critical.

Ivan:

They become a lifeline. We're talking about places like the Queen Victoria Seafarers Rest, which has been around since 1843. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

Amy:

And there's a detail from the debate that really stuck with me. Volunteers there had wrapped 3,000 Christmas presents.

Ivan:

With handwritten cards, yes. For seafarers who might not get anything else, it's that kind of human touch that matters so much.

Amy:

But that work, as incredible as it is, highlights a major funding crisis.

Ivan:

It really does. Only about 40% of UK ports even have these kinds of welfare facilities. And for the ones that do exist, many need around um 170 pounds a day just to stay open.

Amy:

So how do you fix that? What was the solution put forward?

Ivan:

A surprisingly simple one, actually. A proposed opt-out levy of just 50 pounds per vessel visit.

Amy:

50 pounds, and you compare that to typical docking costs, which can be over 100,000 pounds. It's a tiny fraction.

Ivan:

It's almost nothing. And it's not a new idea either. This model is already working in 25 UK ports. Humberport, for example, raised over 72,000 pounds last year with it. France, Germany, New Zealand. They all do something similar.

Amy:

But this must run up against broader international challenges.

Ivan:

It does. The big one is the use of so-called flags of convenience. This is where ship owners will register their vessels in, say, Panama or Liberia, specifically to get around stricter labor laws and reduce costs.

Amy:

To undermine standards precisely.

Ivan:

And that makes coordinated international action so important.

Amy:

And even on UK flag ships, there's still this really persistent issue of pay discrimination based purely on nationality.

Ivan:

Yes. It's a practice that is, believe it or not, still legal today, paying non EU nationals less for doing the exact same job.

Amy:

And the government is going to address that.

Ivan:

They've committed to a consultation on it next spring. So there is movement, but it's slow.

Podcasts we love

Check out these other fine podcasts recommended by us, not an algorithm.

Parliament Matters Artwork

Parliament Matters

Hansard Society
What Next Artwork

What Next

Slate Podcasts