Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, if he will take steps to introduce cabotage legislation in order to regulate (a) employment, (b) merchant ship registration and (c) port activity in the coastal shipping sector which includes the offshore energy supply chain.

The EU Regulation 3577/92 which guarantees market access to maritime cabotage in the EU will cease to apply in the UK at the end of the transition period. The UK would, at that point be able to introduce its own regulation on maritime cabotage for foreign flagged vessels operating in UK waters. However there are no plans to do this. The UK has historically operated and benefited from an open coast policy. Some aspects of maritime cabotage in UK waters fall under other legislation. For instance, some UK employment rules may already apply to all seafarers regardless of nationality working on ships that are operating predominantly within UK territorial waters, and will continue to do so after the end of the transition period.