Offshore wind workers ‘deterred by UK’s visa requirements’

The UK is fast becoming an ‘undesirable’ location for international offshore wind workers. That is the view of an immigration lawyer in a feature article for Energy Voice warning that visa requirements are deterring skilled workers from UK offshore wind projects. The lawyer is our own immigration specialist Maria Gravelle and we’ll hear from her shortly.  

Maria is referring to the consequences that flow from the Home Office decision to finally end the offshore wind workers back in April with no further extension granted. The concession allowed certain foreign nationals to come to the UK - without the need for any kind of visa in advance - if they were undertaking certain permitted work on vessels engaged in the construction and maintenance of a wind farm within UK territorial waters. With the concession gone it means all non-British and non-Irish nationals coming to work in the UK, including on windfarms will need a work visa or other permission to work in the UK before they begin work. Maria says companies now face “extremely complex” rules which are not suited to the industry’s needs.

So why is the immigration system failing in this area and are there any solutions? Earlier Maria joined me by video-link from Edinburgh and I put that to her: 

Maria Gravelle: “Well, the offshore sector is a very mobile sector so staff who work offshore tend not to just be based in one country, they're used to working across projects in different countries. So one week, they could be working in UK waters, the next week they could be based off the coast of Thailand, the following week they could be in Saudi Arabia. That maybe a slight exaggeration, but it's not uncommon that people in this sector will work around to different projects around the world. So they are people who are used to travelling and they are people who need visas quickly and efficiently in order to facilitate the projects that are often given to them at relatively short notice. So if you have an immigration system which is slow, which does not facilitate the quick turnaround of visa applications, which requires applicants to attend in-person appointments, which requires applicants to surrender their passports as part of those appointments, you can see that it's not a very desirable location for a worker who needs this mobility to make their career work for them, it's not a very desirable location for them to go to. It's equally undesirable for employers in this sector. So employers in this sector - again, there are many who are UK based companies, but there are many who are global companies with offices in various different locations - and, again, they're sending workers to lots of different locations as well, and if the UK is seen as a more expensive option, or itis seen as an option where these administrative red tapes are going to get in the way of actually delivering the projects that these companies are tendering for, then it's just going to be the case that they're just going to look elsewhere for work, if they can. So, there is a risk there. Certainly there are a lot of interesting renewable and offshore projects in the UK and many global companies, whether in the UK or overseas, will still be interested in bidding for them, but it's important that these rules about offshore workers coming into the UK, and being able to work on a short-term basis, don't create a red tape deterrent, particularly for the UK’s renewables objectives.”

Joe Glavina: “In your article, Maria, you say the solution could lie with the introduction of a sector-specific immigration route. How might that work and what’s the government’s approach currently?” 

Maria Gravelle: “So, the government's approach to offshore workers is that they should apply for skilled worker visas. There are other routes under global business mobility, but offshore workers, unless they're very specialised are unlikely to be eligible for those because the job codes that offshore workers are normally sponsored under are not eligible for global business mobility. So, in most cases we would be looking at a skilled worker visa. Now, a skilled worker visa is like a one-size-fits-all visa for anybody who is working in a skilled occupation in the UK, whether that is offshore on a wind farm, or an oil rig, whether that is in an office, whether that's in a hospital, or a school, or in a lab. It’s the same visa that all of these people would need to apply to. Now, all of these roles are very different from one another and, I think, particularly in the offshore sector, the employment practices, because it's such a niche area and it's just not comparable to somebody working in an office, if you're working 80 hours a week on a vessel you're just not doing a similar job to somebody who works nine to five and an office. So to have the same visa requirements that apply to both of these sectors when they are so different does mean that there are features of the skilled worker visa which make perfect sense for other sectors and requirements that absolutely are justified, that are just not as justified when it comes to an offshore worker. So, an example of that would be the English language requirement. So an offshore worker may not have a requirement as part of their role to speak English if the crew and the vessel are flagged from a different jurisdiction. So speaking English on a vessel offshore is not always a requirement, in the same way that somebody working in an office in Aberdeen would need to speak English in order to do their job. So for this reason, one of the suggestions that we have made is that, perhaps, the UK government could consider a visa route specific to the offshore sector and this is something that they have done before. So when there was a shortage of HGV drivers around two Christmases ago, they introduced a temporary visa under the old tier five route for HGV drivers. Similar temporary visas exist for specific agricultural workers, and also for poultry farmers. There are these temporary routes that have been made available for sectors that are struggling to find staff heavily reliant on overseas labour. So the offshore sector could potentially be given the same treatment as these other sectors and a tier-five, or a temporary visa, could be introduced to facilitate these short-term assignments that offshore workers are coming into the UK to do. It could take the form of the offshore wind workers concession which existed from 2017 to 2023. So there was actually a visa concession specific to this sector that could be mimicked with some of the adjustments that the UK Government wish to make if they wish to bring it into the immigration rules. So from our perspective that would certainly be a solution, although it's not one that we're aware that the government are currently pursuing.”

Joe Glavina: “We hosted a shipping seminar on 12 October in Aberdeen to discuss these issues. What came out of that? What were clients at the sharp end saying?” 

Maria Gravelle: “Yes, the shipping seminar was really successful and we got a lot of great engagement so many thanks to our clients who attended that. The issues that came out of that when we were discussing this topic was the English language requirement seemed to be a real problem for many employees in this sector, as does the fact of identifying which entity should be the sponsor. So the shipping sector is one where staff are often contracted as part of a wider commercial agreement. So you might have one entity who is the crew management provider feeding in, you've got the vessel owner, you've then got the entities who are working on the project, and so the entity who is in the UK might not necessarily be the employer of these offshore workers. There are potentially ways around that. Certainly it came up during the seminar that a common misconception of the UK immigration system is that the UK entity absolutely has to be the employer of the sponsored worker. Now, that is not strictly true. It is possible to engage and sponsor somebody who is on a contract of services with your organisation. So there does need to be still a link between the sponsor and the worker, and the sponsor does have to have ownership of what the worker is doing in the UK, they have to have ownership over how much they're getting paid when they're in the UK, and oversight of their responsibilities, but that relationship does not strictly need to be one of employment. So there seems to be opportunities there for some of the clients we discussed this with that hadn't previously been identified because of this common misconception.”

Joe Glavina: “Finally Maria, what’s your main message to viewers watching this?”

Maria Gravelle: “I think the main message that we would drive home is that there isn't currently anything that has been announced from the Home Office that would suggest that this position is going to change. So if anybody was holding out on a visa specific route, or the wind workers concession coming back in, we're not sure how viable a position that's going to be long term. So our recommendation would be that if there are any companies who are working in the sector who are struggling with staff, even if you don't need to sponsor somebody already, it is a good idea to apply for a sponsor licence now. In that way you have one to use if you ever need to sponsor somebody urgently in the future.”

That article quoting Maria Gravelle is called ‘Lawyer says UK is becoming ‘undesirable’ for international offshore wind workers’. If you’d like to read it you can – we’ve put a link to it in the transcript of this programme for you.

LINKS
- Link to Energy Voice article: ‘Lawyer says UK is becoming ‘undesirable’ for international offshore wind workers’