Maritime and Coastguard Agency: UN Agencies
(asked on 18th December 2017) - View Source
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, if he will list the official meetings with United Nations agencies attended by Maritime and Coastguard Agency officials since May 2010 which included discussion of seafarer (a) training, (b) safety and (c) welfare standards; and when the next such meetings are scheduled.
Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) officials have routinely attended all meetings at the International Maritime Organization (IMO) and the International Labour Organization (ILO) (the two United Nations Agencies that consider maritime matters) since May 2010 where seafarer (a) training, (b) safety and (c) welfare standards have been on the agenda.
The IMO has a regular programme of meetings that discuss these matters, averaging around 15 per year. In addition, several working groups will also have these matters on their agenda.
The details of the key topics of discussion can be found on the IMO’s website. The next scheduled committee meeting of the IMO that is predominantly focused on seafarer (a) training, (b) safety and (c) welfare standards is on 16th May 2018.
At the ILO, MCA officials have attended the following official meetings since May 2010:
| Meeting | Date |
a) Training | Meeting of Experts to Adopt Guidelines on the Training of Ships’ Cooks | 23 – 27 September 2013 |
b) Safety | Meeting of Experts on Maritime Occupational Safety and Health | 13 – 17 October 2014 |
c) Welfare standards | 1st Preparatory Special Tripartite Committee on the Maritime Labour Convention | 20 – 22 September 2010 |
| Tripartite Meeting of Experts to Adopt Port State Control Guidelines for Implementation of the Work in Fishing Convention, 2007 (No. 188) | 15 – 19 February 2010 |
| Joint ILO/IMO Working Group on Medical Fitness Examinations of Seafarers and Ships’ Medicine Chest | 26 – 20 September 2011 |
| 2nd Preparatory Special Tripartite Committee on the Maritime Labour Convention | 12 – 14 December 2011 |
| Global Dialogue Forum for the Promotion of the Work in Fishing Convention, 2007 (No.188) | 15 – 17 May 2013 |
| 1st Special Tripartite Committee on the Maritime Labour Convention | 7 – 11 April 2014 |
| Meeting of Experts to Adopt Flag State Guidelines for the Implementation of the Work in Fishing Convention | 21 – 25 September 2015 |
| 2nd Special Tripartite Committee on the Maritime Labour Convention | 8 – 10 April 2016 |
| International Conference on Labour Exploitation in the Fishing Sector in the Atlantic Region | 25 – 26 November 2016 |
| Working Group of the Special Tripartite Committee of the Maritime Labour Convention | 3 – 5 April 2017 |
| Tripartite Meeting on issues relating to Migrant Fishers | 18 – 22 September 2017 |
The next scheduled committee meeting of the ILO to discuss seafarer welfare is 23rd April 2018. There are no further ILO meetings scheduled on seafarer training and safety.