Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many seafarers from non-European Economic Area (EEA) countries have been employed in the offshore wind sector on vessels engaged in construction and maintenance projects in UK territorial waters since the Immigration Rules on employment of non-EEA seafarers were amended.

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.