Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps she is taking to promote access to and develop welfare services for seafarers visiting British ports; and what resources she has allocated for that purpose.

The Government recognises the essential role played by seafarers in supporting our national prosperity and is committed to improving seafarer welfare. The Merchant Navy Welfare Board (MNWB), founded in 1948, was designated in 2021 as the UK’s national seafarers’ welfare board and runs projects and supports its constituent organisations to provide services benefitting seafarers’ welfare.

In 2025 the Department provided the MNWB with £152,000 to support its programme helping charities and voluntary organisations replace vehicles that enable them to undertake ship and home visits to seafarers and transport them around ports. The Department provided a further £5,000 to support a project that provides mobile internet hotspots that are brought aboard ships to provide seafarers with connectivity that help them stay in touch with family and friends.