Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what recent estimate he has made of the (a) staffing and (b) funding levels required by the Maritime and Coastguard Agency to ensure compliance with International Maritime Organisation regulations for monitoring, verification and reporting of (i) sulphur dioxide, (ii) carbon dioxide and (iii) greenhouse gas emissions from (A) UK and (B) international registered merchant shipping in each year from 2018-19 to 2022-23.

Implementation of the International Maritime Organization’s (IMO) Data Collection System for fuel consumption, a metric for CO2 emissions, is not expected to create a significant new burden for the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) as the bulk of the new requirements for data collection and processing sit with the Classification Societies acting on behalf of the flag State. The MCA will undertake inspection activities to verify compliance of vessels in UK ports as part of normal Port State Control Activity.

The regime for verifying the sulphur content of marine fuels remains unchanged and is carried out as part of the MCA’s existing budget and complement.