Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, for what reasons the Immigration Rules were amended to enable employers in the offshore wind sector to recruit seafarers from countries outside the European Economic Area to work on vessels involved in construction and maintenance projects in UK territorial waters.
A time-limited concession, outside of the Immigration Rules, has been introduced to afford the industry opportunity to take steps to regularise its arrangements for employing non-EEA crew of vessels engaged in the construction and maintenance of wind farms located in UK territorial waters. It is not possible to give an overall figure on the number of such crew affected.