The Government has published report which recommends the closing of a legal loophole that allows race discrimination on pay for seafarers.

Under existing law, ship owners are allowed to pay seafarers who don't live in the UK less than their colleagues who are UK residents.

Unions have campaigned to end this discrimination that can mean, for example, that Filipino and Indian workers, who are employed on ferry routes between two UK ports, earn substantially less than the crew they work alongside.

Following the announcement earlier this week, the TUC has called on ministers to act now to end pay rates of less than £2 an hour within the UK shipping industry.

Commenting on the Department for Transport's review of evidence on differential pay in the shipping industry, TUC general secretary Brendan Barber said: "It's high time that the disgraceful practice of allowing the shipping industry to pay poverty rates to workers who don't live in the UK was stopped. Exploitative rates of pay for seafarers working on British ships have no place in a modern society.

"The review published today comes to the right conclusion, that nationality-based pay discrimination against seafarers should be outlawed. We urge ministers to press ahead with changing the law as soon as possible."