Call For Better Coastguard Resourcing After Pay Cut U-Turn

Two North Yorkshire councillors have agreed to write to the Maritime Minister, calling for the Coastguard service to be better resourced and to move away from relying on volunteers.

North Yorkshire council leaders are urging the Government to properly resource the Coastguard service rather than relying heavily on charities and volunteers.

Scarborough Councillor Derek Bastiman, chair of the Local Government Association Coastal Special Interest Group, and Councillor Carl Les, Leader of North Yorkshire Council, have agreed to write to Maritime Minister Keir Mather to express their deep concerns over the future of the service.

The call comes as the Government recently rolled back on controversial plans to move coastguards to an expenses-only volunteer model in the autumn.

The Maritime and Coastguard Agency had initially proposed the pay cut following a Court of Appeal ruling in January. The court found that providing modest remuneration had inadvertently created a worker relationship with the officers.

However, the proposal faced intense backlash from coastal communities. More than half of the coastguards in Yorkshire and Humberside warned they would be forced to reduce their hours or stop volunteering altogether if they were stripped of their hourly pay for attending incidents and training exercises.

Scarborough Councillor Derek Bastiman, who is also the chair of the Local Government Association Coastal Special Interest Group, said:

"These are extremely important people who get paid a pittance, 11 pound an hour, taxable for the first 3 hours, and then nothing thereafter.

This is a blue light service, and they attend incidents where a lot of other people wouldn't want to attend, where some poor soul have to be rescued or recovered from the bottom of a cliff.

These brave people, men and women, dangle of cliffs of 500 ft on the end of a rope for 3 hours pay, the recovery may take longer than that, but after 3 hours, they get no pay whatsoever.

Coastguards are the fourth emergency service and should be treated as such, Government must not just rely on charities to maintain statutory rescue services."

Following a concerted campaign by coastguard rescue officers, unions, and members of parliament, Maritime Minister Keir Mather announced in the House of Commons that the expenses-only model will not go ahead and current arrangements will remain in place.

The minister acknowledged that the information-gathering process used to inform the operational decisions was not sufficiently detailed to reflect the true impact of the changes on individuals and their families.

Councillor Carl Les, Leader of North Yorkshire Council, said:

"Coastguard rescue officers do do an important job and it's supplemented with volunteers and charities but it should not be replaced by volunteers and charities, especially when the savings that are proposed are actually quite small in the scheme of things, especially when that is compared to their value."

The MP for Scarborough and Whitby, Alison Hume, recently convened an urgent parliamentary evidence session attended by coastguard rescue officers from Whitby and Ravenscar.

Alison Hume, the MP for Scarborough and Whitby, said:

"I welcome the minister's intervention to end a summer of uncertainty.

The Maritime and Coastguard Agency made a poor and rushed decision following a court ruling which, if implemented, would have decimated our cherished 999 emergency service.

I've met Coastguard Rescue Officers across my constituency and I pledged I would fight for them. They deserve a management who values them.

Having previously met MCA Chief Executive Virginia McVea, who vigorously defended the MCA's decision and inferred it was supported by the majority of CROs, I would suggest Ms McVea should now review her position in the light of this debacle."

GMB National Officer Nicola Savage called the government's U-turn a victory for the workers who actively campaigned against the pay cuts.

Nicola Savage, GMB National Officer, said:

"This is a richly deserved win for GMB's coastguards, who took their campaign across the UK and into the corridors of power.

It was a scandal that these brave, life-saving workers would have their pay cut.

But Ministers have listened and done the right thing."

The Department for Transport has now committed to exploring options in the longer term for how coastguard rescue officers can continue to be rightfully recognised and rewarded while protecting coastal communities.

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