Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether Civil Service employees from core departments retained continuity of employment for contractual purposes when they transferred from working for their previous department to work for the Marine Management Organisation in 2009.

Continuous statutory service would be transferred as per the protocols. However, Defra does not keep information on staff who have transferred under Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment)/ Cabinet Office Statement of Practice. All data becomes owned by the organisation that the work moves to, as the staff are theirs as if they had always been their staff.