Select Committee on Transport Written Evidence


Supplementary memorandum by NUMAST (TT 01A)

  Thank you very much for giving NUMAST the opportunity to address your committee in June to present oral evidence to your inquiry into the effects of the tonnage tax scheme on the British shipping register and the employment and training of British seafarers.

  We believe that this inquiry is extremely important and it comes at a crucial time for British seafarers and the British shipping industry—not least because of the evident failure of the scheme to deliver a sustained increase in the number of British officers or in the number of cadets in training.

  During the presentation of our verbal evidence, we made reference to a concern that the tonnage tax training requirements have inadvertently proved counter-productive. I would like to take this opportunity to provide some additional information on this point, in the form of a supplementary memorandum.

  We said that there were many companies, new to UK shipping, entering the tonnage tax regime—companies that had no previous record of training UK cadets, and simple arithmetic suggests that as the total number of cadets in training had remained relatively static, other companies must have cut back their totals.

  In seeking to clarify our concerns on this issue, I can do no better than refer you to the joint submission made by NUMAST and the Chamber of Shipping on the future employment prospects for British Merchant Navy officers. In the background section to this paper, the Chamber acknowledges that " . . . the possibility of an over-supply of newly-qualified junior officers has caused a few companies to rein back their own training programmes".

  This paper notes that NUMAST and the Chamber are seeking to cooperate to research this issue further and to establish an informal database of surpluses and shortages for junior officer employment. However, I do believe the unfortunate reduction in the overall number of cadets in training (-7.52% between 1997 and 2003) is in no small part the result of some companies choosing to reduce their intakes to the minimum required by tonnage tax—and particularly in the belief that they will be able to pick up newly-qualified officers who are not required by companies which have trained cadets but chosen not to give them continuing employment as officers. I would also add that the initial reports filtering back to NUMAST about this autumn's intake of cadets at UK colleges suggest there has been no improvement in the situation.

  These developments are of the utmost concern, because NUMAST believes the continued existence of the tonnage tax arrangements will face increasingly intense political pressure if they are not being seen to deliver tangible improvements in the employment and training of British officers. Our proposals to extend the training commitment with a modest and flexible employment link—to take officers through to a level when they are fully able to compete in an international labour marketplace—seek to bridge a commercial gap and to create the conditions in which companies do not have an incentive to reduce their training levels to the minimum.

  I do hope you will be able to take these points onboard during your committee's consideration of the evidence and I would be happy to provide you with any further information you may need.

Brian Orrell

General Secretary

September 2004





 
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