Visa guidance issued for seamen arriving in UK

The Home Office has published new guidance on which seamen and offshore workers arriving in the UK require a work visa, and which don’t. Whilst it’s aimed at immigration officers responsible for the enforcement of immigration control it is also important for employers to understand because, of course, they must comply with the UK’s immigration rules. We’ll speak to an immigration expert about the changes and how and how employers are affected by them.  

The guidance clarifies previous versions which contained wording to suggest that seafarers did not need work permission for the UK as long as the vessel was operating “wholly or largely” outside UK waters. That conflicted with the Home Office guidance for offshore workers, which states that all workers working inside UK territorial waters require appropriate immigration permissions. The “wholly or largely” wording has now been removed, confirming that work permission is required for any work inside UK territorial waters, regardless of duration. The net effect of the change is, therefore, a tightening up of the rules.

The change brings clarity on the issue but does make life harder for employers of offshore workers so let’s consider that. Earlier I caught up with immigration specialist Maria Gravelle who joined me by video-link from Edinburgh to discuss it. First, that conflicting guidance problem:

Maria Gravelle: “So, the guidance that has been updated is the Home Office caseworker guidance for seamen arriving in the UK and what they have done is rather than change the rules dramatically is that they have clarified some of the ambiguity that was previously present in that guidance. So this is a sector where there has been a lot of policy change over the past 18 months. Previously, there was the offshore wind workers concession which ended in April 2023 and there was the introduction of the offshore workers caseworker guidance which clarified that for crew members and seafarers entering UK waters for the purpose of working in those waters, those individuals would be caught by UK immigration control and if they didn't have any other sort of permission, then they would need a visa to conduct the work that they were they were planning to do. Now, that guidance was introduced in April of 2023 so it's not a dramatic new change, it has been in place for over a year now, however, the seafarers guidance still remained intact in addition to this guidance for offshore workers, and what we had was a bit of conflict between the two sets of guidance. So, you had offshore workers on the one hand who, UKVI clarified, need permission to work in UK waters and then you had the guidance for seafarers, who are crew members who are engaged in the service of the ship, and who didn't necessarily need work permission if they were working in a vessel that was going to be operating ‘wholly and largely’ outside of UK waters. Now, the issue that many employers faced was, well, what does working ‘wholly and largely’ outside UK waters mean? If I'm employing somebody to do a six-week tour and they're spending one week in the UK, on a plain reading of those words you could see why many employers would say okay, well, yes, that vessel is working wholly and largely outside UK waters and so that really conflicted with this position that an offshore worker, somebody who's operating in UK waters, needed work permission. So, what the Home Office have now done is clarify this and they have done so by removing the reference in the guidance for seamen arriving in UK waters to wholly or largely working outside the UK. It now says that a crew member who is operating on a vessel will be considered an offshore worker if they are entering the UK for the purpose of working in UK waters, and by UK waters I mean within the 12 nautical mile limit of the shore.”

Joe Glavina: “So on a practical level, how does this change affect employers, Maria?”

Maria Gravelle: “So, if you are an employer and you have been capitalising, you might say, on the ambiguity that was present. So if you were employing crew on a vessel and, as I say, the vessel is doing a six-week tour and only two of those weeks are spent in the UK, where you might have previously relied on that ambiguity to say, well, for me, these people are working wholly or largely outside UK waters so they don't need permission, that ambiguity is now gone. So, it's very clear now that individuals in that situation will require permission from UK Visas and Immigration in order to work within the 12 nautical mile limit and that's particularly true of individuals who are working on installations located within the 12 nautical mile limit or, indeed, working onshore. So, these individuals if they don't already have permission to work in the UK, if they're not British or Irish citizens, if they don't have frontier worker permits, if they don't have an existing visa under some other route, they will need a visa, most likely a skilled worker visa sponsored by the organization who employs them. Now, that comes with a whole range of issues sometimes for this sector. So, sponsorship in the offshore crewing sector is not as easy as it as for a land-office-based role. So you've got issues around who should be the sponsor, which entity should be the sponsor? Do they have a presence in the UK in order to obtain a UKVI sponsor licence? Is the individual, crucially, going to be paid enough to meet the threshold for sponsorship bearing in mind that the thresholds for crew, and most crewing positions, are quite high compared to the median salary in the UK. So, all of these factors then become an issue and, in many cases, sponsorship is simply not going to be an option for some crew members in some roles.”

Joe Glavina: “Some of the crew will be caught by this change, Maria, and some won’t so is that going to be a challenge for employers isn’t it?”

Maria Gravelle: “That's definitely going to be a challenge because it's the question that we get asked most often as well - who is an offshore worker and who is a seafarer? It’s not something that in the industry there's necessarily a distinction between and the UK immigration rules, or the Home Office policy, now does make a distinction between this. So an offshore worker is an individual who is entering the UK for the purpose of working in UK waters, whether they arrive by land, or sea, or otherwise. A seafarer is crew engaged on a vessel which is really only going to be transiting UK waters. So, it’s still fine for a seafarer to enter on a vessel through the UK, perhaps it stops at a UK port and then swiftly exits, there is no stopping, there is no work being carried out on UK based installations. That's the distinction that the Home Office are getting out. Now, that's very nuanced. Anybody who works in this industry knows that it's not as clear cut as just transiting the UK. Sometimes it is and sometimes it's not. So you get questions around well, what happens if there is maintenance that needs to be carried out on the vessel while it's in a UK port? What if the vessel needs to stop at several UK ports before it leaves again? These are all circumstances which make this distinction quite complex. There is guidance now, as I say, this guidance that has been updated and which does provide some additional clarity. It provides some additional examples as to who the Home Office consider to be an offshore worker and who they consider to be a seafarer for immigration purposes. So it's worth having a look at those and if there is any uncertainty still, then, you know, please do reach out to us and we'll be happy to give you a view.”

Joe Glavina: “What do you want employers to do. Is some kind of crew audit required?”

Maria Gravelle: “Yes, I think that employers in this industry who are engaging seafarers in UK waters really need to have a look at what kind of permission do they have to work in the UK? For those who don't have permission, you know, over the next sort of 12 months or even longer foreseeably, how much time are they going to have to spend in UK waters. Make a distinction as to are they an offshore worker or are they simply transiting with reference to that guidance and some of the new examples that have been included there, and if that person does need to a UK visa, or permission from UKVI,  to do the work that they're planning to do, then as an organisation you might want to give some consideration to the possibility of sponsoring that individual. It is possible to sponsor an offshore worker for a long duration and report each time they enter the UK and each time they leave the UK. That is something that we're happy to discuss with our clients and look at well what is a reasonable period of time to sponsor this person so that they don't need to be sponsored every single time they need to enter the UK for one or two days? So if that's something that organisations are going to need to look, if sponsorship is going to become a requirement going forward, then they are welcome to get in touch with us to discuss it.”

That Home Office guidance is available from the government’s website and is called ‘Seamen arriving in the UK: caseworker guidance.’ We’ve put a link to it in the transcript of this programme for you. 

LINKS
- Link to Home Office guidance on seamen arriving in the UK