\n<\/p>\n
A government minister and a senior official have been accused of misleading MPs over their plans to strip coastguard officers of their hourly pay.<\/p>\n
Keir Mather, the maritime minister, was said to have made false claims on Wednesday, while Virginia McVea, the chief executive of the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA), was accused of having done so during a meeting with MPs a week earlier.<\/p>\n
The claims come as a row over government plans to stop paying coastguards intensifies. On Wednesday, coastguard officers gathered in Westminster, saying they were \u201cdeeply saddened\u201d and calling for a pause to allow negotiations, while MPs questioned Mather in a Westminster Hall debate.<\/p>\n
Officials came up with the scheme after the court of appeal confirmed in January that people who have been serving as coastguard rescue officers (CROs) have been doing so as workers, not volunteers. Lord Justice Bean said this was, in part, because they are paid for their time when on callouts.<\/p>\n
Rather than recognise their worker status, the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) has chosen to stop the payments from September, with the aim of being able to begin legally classing CROs as volunteers.<\/p>\n
The Conservative MP for Isle of Wight East Joe Robertson accused Mather of misleading MPs when he told them the judgment had \u201cchanged the legal status of CROs\u201d.<\/p>\n
He said: \u201cThe government and MCA must stop peddling this line,\u201d adding: \u201cIt is simply not true and the minister should know better. The court simply found that CROs are already workers, which is hardly surprising considering they get hourly pay and payslips.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe very fact the MCA is working through backdated tax liabilities and backdated pay is an admission that CROs have been workers for some time and the MCA has been in breach of certain obligations. It is the MCA which has now decided to change the CRO\u2019s worker status since the court\u2019s judgment.\u201d<\/p>\n
The MCA initially claimed its changes were a \u201cmandated consequence\u201d of the judgment. However, it acknowledged on 19 June the \u201cruling did not specify any specific model the MCA should use\u201d.<\/p>\n
Nevertheless, McVea was accused of telling a meeting of MPs five days later the judge\u2019s ruling had left the MCA with no choice.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a stormy meeting. The MCA were defensive and the MPs were angry on behalf of their volunteers,\u201d said Torcuil Crichton, the Labour MP for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Western Isles). \u201cThat\u2019s not a formula for resolution.\u201d<\/p>\n
After the talks, the Liberal Democrat MP for Orkney and Shetland Alistair Carmichael said McVea had \u201ctried to mislead MPs\u201d.<\/p>\n
The MCA did not dispute the accuracy of the account of McVea\u2019s comments, and declined to comment when asked why she appeared to repeat claims her agency had already acknowledged were false.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe seemed to be blaming the court of appeal … All the court of appeal decided was that these heroes are workers,\u201d Robertson said.<\/p>\n
He added that McVea then shifted to claiming \u201ccoastguard rescue officers wanted this\u201d, saying she told MPs the MCA had \u201cdone a survey\u201d, and citing a figure of 93% support \u2013 also terming it \u201cabove 90%\u201d at another point during the meeting.<\/p>\n
Results of a survey of CROs, seen by the Guardian and not disputed by the MCA, showed no attempt to directly gauge the level of CROs\u2019 support for either the volunteer or the worker model. Instead, CROs were asked how each model would affect their availability.<\/p>\n
The results suggested the MCA had included people who said they would become less able to respond to calls if they were volunteers, as well as those who replied \u201cother\u201d, among those it told MPs supported the change to a volunteer model. The agency said \u201csurvey findings were considered alongside a range of operational, legal, and practical factors\u201d. But it refused to say how.<\/p>\n
Moreover, the survey results showed that if a similar calculation was applied to the MCA\u2019s worker model, it would have attracted greater support than the agency claimed the volunteer model did. This viewpoint was not presented to MPs, nor did the worker model form part of MCA policy.<\/p>\n
The MCA has also claimed it would have had to introduce \u201cformal employment requirements and constraints\u201d if it had tried to preserve CROs\u2019 worker status. It has sought to compare that unfavourably with the \u201cflexibility\u201d it says the volunteer model provides \u2013 and that coastguard officers value highly.<\/p>\n
But, according to the leading employment lawyer, Nigel Mackay, it would have been within the MCA\u2019s power to preserve worker status and flexibility.<\/p>\n
Mackay, a partner at Leigh Day, said besides increasing the hourly remuneration to meet the minimum wage threshold and including holiday pay, there were few extra requirements the MCA would have been legally bound to introduce. \u201cEffectively, [worker status] is just slightly more expensive,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
An MCA spokesperson said: \u201cThe court of appeal ruling meant we had to change the way the coastguard currently operates. After careful consideration, we judged the volunteer model to be the best option to protect the future of the service, as it allows members more flexibility to continue to serve alongside their primary employment.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe deeply value and recognise the significant service coastguard rescue officers provide along our coastline and we continue to engage with them throughout this transition.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A government minister and a senior official have been accused of misleading MPs over their plans to strip coastguard officers of their hourly pay. Keir Mather, the maritime minister, was said to have made false claims on Wednesday, while Virginia McVea, the chief executive of the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA), was accused of having<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":50856,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[2124,1120,20663,24910,1354,2670,414,4490,1040,1436,702,415,1438],"class_list":{"0":"post-50855","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-crime-justice","8":"tag-accused","9":"tag-boss","10":"tag-coastguard","11":"tag-maritime","12":"tag-minister","13":"tag-misleading","14":"tag-mps","15":"tag-officers","16":"tag-pay","17":"tag-plan","18":"tag-rights","19":"tag-stop","20":"tag-workers"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50855","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=50855"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50855\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/50856"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=50855"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=50855"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=50855"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}