The Department for Transport has a range of responsibilities covering the shipping industry, including to:

• put together policy that ensures the UK balances commercial interests with safety, security and environmental considerations
• promote a successful, safe and sustainable UK ports sector that meets the needs of its customers
• encourage shipping companies to be British registered
• implement and influence European Union legislation
• ensure efficient delivery and modernisation of marine aids to navigation

UK shipping

The number of vessels registered under the UK flag has been increasing for a number of reasons. Probably the main factor has been the Tonnage Tax introduced in 2000. This is an alternative method of calculating corporation tax using the net tonnage of the ship operated. It is linked to an obligation on shipping companies to provide training.

The Department is committed to the Quality Shipping initiative which commits us to strive for high quality, good public reputation and predictable performance for all UK-registered ships.

Tonnage Tax

Tonnage tax applies normal corporation tax to notional profits determined by the tonnage of the ships operated. It brings certainty and clarity about tax liabilities and is used by most other EEA countries. Shipping companies can opt into tonnage tax, or stay within the corporate tax regime. There is no requirement for ships entering UK tonnage tax to be registered in the UK. However, tonnage tax, together with registration reforms by the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA), has been a major factor in the revival of the UK shipping register.

A key feature of the UK scheme is the minimum training obligation. This requires each shipping company to recruit and train one officer trainee each year for every 15 officer posts in its fleet, and to give consideration to employment and training opportunities for ratings. Trainees must be UK or EEA nationals and be ordinarily resident in the UK. In certain circumstances, companies can make payments in lieu of providing actual training.

• Tonnage tax guidance
• Tonnage tax training commitment forms

Seafarers

A seafarer is a person employed or engaged in any capacity on board a seagoing ship on the business of the ship. This is taken to mean a person employed either directly by a shipping company or through a manning agency, whose usual place of work is on board a seagoing ship, and includes masters, crew members, resident entertainers and franchise employees on passenger ships.

Within the European Maritime State Aid Guidelines, the Government provides support to the industry, with the aim of maintaining and increasing the seafaring skills base. The Government meets roughly up to half of the training costs through the Support for Maritime Training scheme (SMarT), and requires companies who enter into the Tonnage Tax regime to train a certain number of officer trainees. The Government also supports the industry through the Seafarer Earnings Deduction tax relief scheme for certain seafarers.

If you are interested in a career at sea visit careers in international shipping

If you are interested in finding out more about the maritime sector visit Sea Vision UK

Support for maritime training

The Support for Maritime Training (SMarT) scheme was set up in 1998, following the White Paper ‘British Shipping: Charting a new course’. SMarT was intended to facilitate an adequate supply of UK maritime expertise to meet the nation’s economic and strategic requirements, by giving financial assistance to organisations providing merchant navy training. This in turn helped ensure the continuing viability of the UK maritime sector, including shore-based maritime activities.

The SMarT scheme was reviewed as part of the Government’s spending review towards meeting the deficit reduction facing the UK. Following interim measures introduced for the year 2011-12, in January 2012 the Shipping Minister announced his decision to provide a budget of 12 million pounds a year for the support for maritime training scheme for the remainder of this Parliament.

In view of the forecast national shortage of trained seafarers and the need to develop the next generation of UK ratings, the majority of the SMarT budget is to be focussed on supporting initial training for cadets studying at junior officer level with the remainder supporting ratings training and ratings to officer conversion training.

• Written statement by Mike Penning MP, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport, 23 January 2012
• Independent review of the economic requirement for trained seafarers in the UK
• Report of the independent panel review on maritime training

Information for seafarers

The Equality Act 2010 (Work on Ships and Hovercraft) Regulations 2011 (SI 2011/1771) came into force on 1 August 2011. These Regulations apply in England, Wales and Scotland. Separate Regulations will apply in Northern Ireland.

The Regulations seek to ensure that, as far as possible, seafarers receive the same level of protection from discrimination, harassment and victimisation as individuals working in other sectors on land. The Regulations also clarify how equality legislation applies to work on ships and hovercraft, and seafarers.

To help ensure the competitiveness of the UK shipping industry the Regulations provide that it is not unlawful to offer to pay or pay different rates of pay to seafarers (applicants, employees and contract workers), other than those from EU, EEA or designated states, if a person applied for work as a seafarer or was recruited as a seafarer outside Great Britain. If the seafarer later becomes a British citizen or a national of another EU, EEA or designated state then the exception will no longer apply.