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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