Recommendation 33

The Seafarers’ Wages Bill’s aims must also be supported by the promised welfare charter, which we urge the Government to bring forward as soon as possible. This must include concrete action to hold employers to high standards and to support better mental health among seafarers, and must be underpinned with funding where necessary. We feel that the Government’s current plan to ask operators to sign up voluntarily will not give the assurances and protections that seafarers want and deserve. We therefore call on the Government to make signing up to the charter a mandatory requirement for all UK maritime operators. The relationship of this work to the ‘social framework’ envisaged by Maritime 2050 should be clarified. (Paragraph 171) Cross-government working