CONFIDENTIAL
(a) Manning by British Officers.
The Director of Marine's attitude, as expressed in
his letter of 5 May, is reasonable and accords with
their thinking. There is a shortage of qualified
seafaring officers. DTI are now reviewing current
arrangements in relation to certification, manning and
training of ships' officers in the hope of laying the
foundations of a more stable situation in the long term.
They will be discussing this shortly with both sides
of the shipping industry in the United Kingdom. In
the course of such discussions they will be considering,
among other things, the extent to which the present
requirements as to the nationality of persons holding
senior positions such as Master and Chief Engineer
may need to be relaxed. This is a difficult and
sensitive issue. The Departments view is that some
flexibility as regards nationality will be necessary
(in any case the point will come up in connection with
our possible entry into the Common Market) but that they
may run into strong resistance from representatives of
the seafarers' organisations. To sum up, they think
some relaxation of the UK's present nationality rules
in this context is probable but they doubt whether the
change will necessarily go as far as Mr Pao has suggested,
namely complete relaxation.
(b) Acceptance of Foreign Nationals.
It is extremely difficult to make a realistic
comparison of the standards of training and competency
2.
CONFIDENTIAL
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