Section 55 of the Act is amended as follows—
(a) at the beginning of subsection (1) there shall be inserted “Subject to subsection (1A),”;
(b) after subsection (1) there shall be inserted—
(1A) A person under 16 years of age shall not be employed in any sea-going United Kingdom ship.
and
(c) in subsection (2)—
(i) in paragraph (a), after “in a ship” there shall be inserted “ which is not a sea-going United Kingdom ship ” ,
(ii) in paragraph (b), after “in a United Kingdom ship” there shall be inserted “ which is not a sea-going ship ” ; and
(iii) after paragraph (b) there shall be inserted—
(c) prescribing circumstances and capacities in which persons of at least the age of 16 but under the age of 18 or under such lower age as may be specified in the regulations must not be employed in a sea-going United Kingdom ship or may be so employed only subject to such conditions as may be specified in the regulations.
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In the Merchant Shipping (Safe Manning, Hours of Work and Watchkeeping) Regulations 1997 the following provisions shall be omitted—
(a) in regulation 2(l), the definition of “safety committee”;
(b) regulations 6 to 10; and
(c) in regulation 17—
(i) in paragraph (1), “9”;
(ii) in paragraph (2), “7(2)”; and
(iii) paragraphs (2A) and (5) to (8).
The Merchant Shipping and Fishing Vessels (Health and Safety at Work) (Employment of Young Persons) Regulations 1998 shall be amended as follows—
(a) for the definition of “young person” in regulation 2(2) there shall be substituted—
“young person” means—
(a) in relation to employment on a sea-going United Kingdom ship, any person who is of the age of 16 or 17; or
(b) in relation to employment on any other United Kingdom ship, any person who is under the age of 18 and, in Great Britain is over school-leaving age for the purposes of section 55 of the Act or, in Northern Ireland, is over compulsory school age within the meaning in Article 46 of the Education and Libraries (Northern Ireland) Order 1986
(b) in regulation 6—
(i) paragraph (6), and
(ii) in paragraph (7) the words “Where paragraph (6) does not apply,”,
shall be omitted.
