Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment he has made of whether all stages of the Maritime and Coastguard Agency’s 2018 consultation on the Review of standards for older passenger ships were conducted in accordance with his Department's guidance on consultation principles; and if he will make a statement.
In accordance with the Cabinet Office guidance on consultation principles, the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) conducted two public consultations on the implementation of the review of standards for older passenger ships from 6 November 2018 to 29 January 2019 and 29 May 2019 to 10 July 2019, and received 75 and 52 responses respectively. The consultations were published on gov.uk and notified extensively to stakeholders.
In addition, the MCA engaged widely with stakeholders through the Domestic Passenger Ship Steering Group, and held five workshops with industry on the proposals, three during 2016, another in 2018 and a further one in 2019.