We use your sign-up to provide content in ways you’ve consented to and to improve our understanding of you. This may include adverts from us and 3rd parties based on our understanding. You can unsubscribe at any time. More info

The vessel is being detained after it failed safety checks by authorities. It follows claims by the MCA earlier today the Pride of Kent was undergoing inspection to ensure it was safe to put to sea without passengers or cargo ahead of full examination at a later date. An agency spokesperson said: “Our surveyors are in the process of detaining the Pride of Kent.” It is the second P&O ship to be held. On Saturday, the European Causeway remained confined to the Northern Irish port of Larne due to “failures on crew familiarisation, vessel documentation and crew training”.

While further details are expected this evening, the MCA spokesperson added: “We are awaiting confirmation of all the detainable items.”

The Pride of Kent was launched in 1991 as the European Highway, serving P&O’s Dover to Zeebrugge route. In 2003, it joined the company’s fleet of cross-channel passenger ferries.

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps wrote on Twitter: “The MCA have informed me tonight that they have carried out an inspection on a ship belonging to P&O Ferries.

“As a result, the #PrideOfKent ship has now been detained.

“Safety will not be compromised & further checks will continue.”

His comment follows a warning this morning that P&O must lift this Thursday’s deadline for the fired employees to sign redundancy and non-disclosure agreements.

According to P&O, 430 of the sacked crew have fully accepted the redundancy offer while only 29 have not yet confirmed they will do so.

Writing to Peter Hebblethwaite, the firm’s chief executive, Mr Shapps informed him P&O Ferries would be “left with little choice but to reverse your decision in any case” as a legal package of measures would “block the outcome that P&O Ferries has pursued, including paying less than the minimum wage”.

Mr Shapps is expected to unveil a plan on Wednesday that, made up of eight points, will include strictening employment laws for ship operators in UK waters. Consulting on redundancies and minimum pay will be part of that point.

It comes after the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT) said an agency had hired Indian staff for shipowner DP World in Dover at a rate well below the National Minimum Wage to replace those the company made redundant.

RMT general secretary Mick Lynch described the move as a reflection of the brutality of the sackings, which were delivered via a pre-recorded Zoom message with little notice.

He said: “The news that the seafarers now on ships in British ports are to be paid $2.38 [£1.81 at the current exchange rate] an hour is a shocking exploitation of those Seafarers and another gut-wrenching betrayal of those who have been sacked.

“The rule of law and acceptable norms of decent employment and behaviour have completely broken down beneath the white cliffs of Dover and in other ports yet five days into this national crisis the government has done nothing to stop it.”

Calling for No10 to intervene, he added: “These ships of shame must not be allowed to sail. The government has to step in now and take control before it’s too late.”

MORE TO FOLLOW…

Source: Read Full Article