Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether his Department has plans to allocate funding from the public purse to Maritime Research and Innovation UK.

To date the Department for Transport has provided £3.3m to Maritime Research and Innovation UK (MarRI-UK). This funding has supported the establishment of MarRI-UK and two rounds of innovation funding - a £1.5m Clean Maritime Innovation Call and a £1.5m Technology and Innovation in UK Maritime Call.

Both calls take forward our Maritime 2050 ambitions set out in the Clean Maritime Plan and in the Technology and Innovation in UK Maritime Roadmap. The Government continues to support MarRI-UK in coordinating UK maritime research and development. It is MarRI-UK’s intention to fund its core research programme through contributions from its members.