Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what estimate his Department has been made of the number of merchant vessels beneficially owned in (a) the UK and (b) outside the UK that will be moved to the UK Ship Register (UKSR) following the expansion of the UKSR’s criteria for shipowner eligibility.

Merchant vessels that are beneficially owned in the UK are already eligible to join the UK Flag, therefore there is no direct impact following the expansion of the UK Ship Register’s (UKSR’s) criteria for shipowner eligibility.

Following the expansion of the UKSR’s criteria for ship ownership the potential Gross Tonnage (GT) that the UK can now market to in this wider market is in excess of 1 Billion GT.