Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what recent assessment he has made of the effect of (a) open and (b) closed loop scrubbers on annual levels of greenhouse gas content in exhaust fumes from merchant ships operating from UK ports.

The Government has been in regular discussions with stakeholders including industry, NGO’s and other States, but we are not aware that greenhouse gas emissions from these systems are a significant concern.

All electrical systems on-board ships – including open and closed loop exhaust gas cleaning systems – rely on power which has been generated by ships engines which increases carbon dioxide emissions. However these amounts are relatively small, and the production of distillate fuel at refineries also generates carbon dioxide emissions. So any carbon emissions generated from on-board cleaning systems would be offset by lower carbon emissions during production.