A SCOTTISH government committee called on the UK Coastguard Agency yesterday to respond to safety concerns after the RMT condemned conditions aboard some vessels operating in the North Sea as “purgatory.”

Trade unions told the committee that British seafarers were being increasingly excluded from North Sea work due to “employers using gaps in employment legislation to employ non-UK seafarers below the UK minimum wage.”

RMT regional organiser Jake Molloy said the conditions aboard some ships were “appalling” with “less competent, less able and less willing workers being exploited in order to exploit our natural resources.”