{"id":695551,"date":"2026-07-16T21:54:14","date_gmt":"2026-07-16T21:54:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/695551\/"},"modified":"2026-07-16T21:54:14","modified_gmt":"2026-07-16T21:54:14","slug":"uk-government-drops-plan-to-stop-paying-coastguard-volunteers-voluntary-sector","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/695551\/","title":{"rendered":"UK government drops plan to stop paying coastguard volunteers | Voluntary sector"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ministers have U-turned on plans to strip volunteer coastguard officers of their hourly pay after intense criticism of the plan.<\/p>\n

The announcement, made by the maritime minister in parliament on Thursday, was described as a huge win for coastguards, many of whom had said<\/a> they would reduce their hours or leave the service altogether if the government had pushed ahead. It has raised questions over the position of Virginia McVea, the head of the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA).<\/p>\n

Coastguard officers \u201ctook their campaign across the UK and into the corridors of power\u201d and had secured a \u201crichly deserved win\u201d, said their representative.<\/p>\n

Nicola Savage, a national officer with GMB, the union representing the coastguards, said: \u201cIt was a scandal that these brave, life-saving workers would have their pay cut. But ministers have listened and done the right thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Coastguard rescue officers volunteer to join the service, but are paid by the hour when on callout. Officials came up with the plan to scrap that pay after the court of appeal confirmed in January that CROs had been serving as workers, not as pure volunteers \u2013 partly because of that remuneration.<\/p>\n

Rather than recognise their worker status, the MCA chose to stop the payments from September, with the aim of being able to begin legally classing CROs as volunteers.<\/p>\n

This was met with heavy criticism from CROs, their union and parliamentarians. The maritime minister, Keir Mather, and the head of the MCA were both accused of misleading MPs as they sought to justify the measure. Results of an internal survey, revealed by the Guardian, suggested the MCA knew the measure risked driving away many experienced CROs.<\/p>\n

Addressing the Commons on Thursday, Mather confirmed the plan was being scrapped. He said: \u201cWe want to ensure that CROs are treated with dignity, with respect and they are empowered to carry out the incredible duties that they do. Having listened to the views and testimonies of CROs first-hand, I can confirm that the move to the expenses-only volunteer model in September will not go ahead, and that current arrangements will remain in place.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mather also refused to say he had confidence in McVea, the MCA\u2019s chief executive.<\/p>\n

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Jerome Mayhew, the shadow transport minister, told Mather the survey leaked to the Guardian had revealed widespread opposition to the plans among CROs. But he said McVea had tried to tell MPs the proposal had their overwhelming support. \u201cSo given that he has reversed the decision and he has seemingly failed to express his support for the chief executive, can he now confirm whether or not he still has confidence in the chief executive of the MCA?\u201d<\/p>\n

Mather said: \u201cThe MCA and His Majesty\u2019s Coastguard do vital work and ministers have full confidence in the service, but when those on the ground raise concerns of the scale that we\u2019ve seen and when the evidence base proves insufficient, it\u2019s absolutely right that we pause and that we engage again. That is exactly what taking this decision to not move ahead with the new model in September facilitates, to ensure that we treat CROs with the dignity and respect that they deserve, and most importantly get this system right.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ministers have U-turned on plans to strip volunteer coastguard officers of their hourly pay after intense criticism of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":695552,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-695551","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/695551","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=695551"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/695551\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/695552"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=695551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=695551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=695551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}