Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, when the Government plans to ratify International Labour Organisation Convention 185 on Seafarers' Identity Documents.

The UK has always been supportive of the Convention but in line with a number of other States preferred alignment with the International Civil Aviation Organizations Standards for Travel Documents (ICAO 9303) as this provided for a more secure document.

The UK was a key State in pushing through the amendments that were formally adopted in 2016 that finally aligned the Convention with ICAO 9303. There are a number of technical and practical issues that the UK is currently resolving to allow the UK to produce documents to the required standard. It is expected that if these can be suitably addressed than the UK will be in a position to pursue formal ratification.