Ministers halt 'scandal' of Scots wind farm foreign labour

Concerns have been raised with ministers after it was revealed in November, last year, British-based crews were being let go - with recruiters citing an extension to the concession as the reason.

But the Workboat Association, the industry trade, skills and safety standards association has warned the final end of the concession will result in an immediate staff shortage and "potential unsafe situations" due to a general lack of industry experience.

There are concerns that offshore wind farm operators would struggle to maintain operational continuity due to a shortage of skilled and qualified staff.

And the association has warned that vessel owners have started to "purposefully look" outside the UK for work as they cannot guarantee they can meet the labour requirements - which could badly hit Scotland's offshore wind revolution.

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Unions have been fighting the OWWC which allows companies to skip the usual post-Brexit immigration restrictions and employ foreign nationals to join vessels engaged in the construction and maintenance of offshore wind farms.

Originally introduced in 2017, the government has renewed the 'temporary' concession multiple times starting with a 12 month extension to April 21, 2020. In 2021 the extension was done with no warning, on the day after it expired.

A deadline was put in place on July 1, 2022 only for it to be extended to October 31 before being put back even further till April 30, 2023. It was feared that this has had  laid the door open for the continued use of cheaper foreign workers.

But immigration minister Robert Jenrick has said that the concession will not be extended any further.

And the Home Office confirmed this week to the Herald on Sunday: “The offshore wind workers concession is time limited and leave to enter under the terms of the concession will not be granted beyond 30 April 2023. The concession will not be renewed beyond this date.”

Legal experts have already begun advising shipping industry of what they have to do to comply with the end of the concession which they say has "massive implications for everyone in the sector" as many international workers will now have to leave the UK by April 30.

Employers have to ensure that all offshore workers have the right to work in the UK and must ensure that non-settled workers apply for an entry clearance - a visa from outside the UK - to work on wind farms in the UK.

The Home Office have also imposed an additional reporting duty where employers must notify the Home Office when offshore workers enter and depart from the UK. This was to be complied with from last Wednesday, prior to the end of the existing concession.

It was confirmed that as a result of an extension last year at least 36 predominantly British crew recruited in anticipation of the concession ending were given their marching orders in the wake of the extension.

The workers were employed on the Normand Navigator, a Norway-registered key supply ship working on the huge £2 billion Neart Na Gaoithe (NnG) offshore wind farm project in the Firth of Forth off Fife.

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It was expected that they were to be replaced by a Filipino crew that had previously worked on it.

National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT) sources said that means a British deck hand who would be paid £18 to £20 an hour would be replaced by cheaper Asian workers.

Norwegian offshore service and supply ship shipping company Solstad, which owned the vessel, said their crew salaries were in line with at least the national minimum wage which is at £9.50 an hour.

It further emerged that UK-based staff on board Balder, the world’s first semi-submersible crane vessel serving the creation of one of Scotland’s biggest offshore wind farms had their contracts terminated following the extension of the concession.

Multiple staff told how over 50 seafarers out of around 250 on the deepwater construction vessel owned by Dutch-based Heerema Marine Contractors were told that they are being let go with mainly Malaysian workers replacing them.

Overseas-based contractors working on the huge £2 billion Neart Na Gaoithe (NnG) offshore wind farm project in the Firth of Forth off Fife were told that staff are being advised not to leave the vessel in protest.

Former justice secretary now East Lothian MP and Alba Party deputy leader Kenny MacAskill raised concerns with ministers  that the concession extensions had created another injustice alongside the "shameful" sacking of UK seafarers by P&O Ferries.

In March, last year, P&O Ferries immediately fired 800 seafaring staff by Zoom with concerns that they were to be replaced by cheaper mainly foreign agency crew.

Kerrie Forster, chief executive of the Workboat Association said that concerns over safety have come because hundred of foreign workers would be lost through the end of the concession.

"Workers without the right to live and work in the UK will have to leave and be replaced by either returning or new seafarers. But, this is currently a very empty bucket. The only reason we rely on non-UK workers now is because we have exhausted the UK offer.

"It takes time to train and gain experience in a certain industry. Although all trained as seafarers, it takes additional education and knowledge to work in different sectors and with the different processes and equipment it requires.

"For example, an HGV driver cannot go directly from operating a dustcart one week to operating a tour coach the next (and vice-versa). The coach driver would know about the system on board the dustcart or how the routes work, who does what and why etc. The dustcart driver wouldn’t know how to manage the passengers and their belongings, how to provide a good on board experience or understand the expectations of the industry. This is exactly the same offshore.

Within the Offshore Wind industry there are a lot of tasks on board that require very precise methodology. It takes time to understand these processes and the equipment used (and why), then put it all into action.

"A ferry steward would not be able to go straight into offshore wind without causing a raised risk on board due to their lower experience, if hundreds of new or returning entrants move into offshore wind, or new entrants move into seafaring, whatever the sector, in mass to fill the staffing demand – safety levels are lower.

"The way we manage this is to slowly integrate skills, this cannot be achieved with a sudden end to the concession and no appropriate short-term visa route in place."

He said he was aware of some vessels not accepting new charter contracts because there were "simply not enough people to run them".

"In 2023 we are facing a year of extremely high requirements for boats across Europe, Charterers are finding it hard to find enough boats, this stretches the current seafarer pool even thinner."

He said an ending of the concession would be a "very welcome" situation for the UK if managed properly.

"But, due to the previous poor handling of the concession renewals, the indecisiveness and poor communication with industry has often caught people out - both vessel operators and seafarers- causing unnecessary costs, creating an unsettled/disrupting situation for those involved and a very unclear message.

"To enable the transition to work effectively, the concession would need to end with the simultaneous introduction of a new temporary seafarers visa. This short-term visa solution would enable gaps in labour demands to be filled suitably, whilst equally providing opportunity for the UK over time to slowly reduce the number of visas awarded as the domestic skills pool increases.

"Sadly, the UK Home Office has not communicated with industry throughout the last 5 years on this issue and is still - despite numerous attempts - not agreeing to even [meet] council representatives or listen to their concerns and recommendations before changing the current concessions.

"The most economic sense for vessel owners is to lower reliance on UK workforce/content and move focus to work in overseas markets where the challenges are more economically interesting, the political situations are often more stable and governments are engaging effectively with industry.

"Sadly, I foresee the biggest losers following the withdrawal of the concession will be the British seafarer."