Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many times one person has been left on (a) daytime and (b) night-time watch at Falmouth Coastguard Operations Centre in the last five years.

The operational concepts and procedures that underpin Her Majesty’s Coastguard’s national network mean that the Coastguard Centres within it no longer have fixed geographic boundaries. This enables Coastguards at either the National Maritime Operations Centre (NMOC) or any of the 9 Coastguard Operations Centres (CGOC) to coordinate any incident anywhere around the UK coast irrespective of their location. As a result workload is now managed on a national basis rather than Centre by Centre as was previously the case. National capability and Coastguard staff from any Centre are now available to provide additional support to any individual Centre within the network when it is considered necessary by senior operational managers.

The network enables Coastguards at either the National Maritime Operations Centre or at any of the nine Coastguard Operations Centres to coordinate any incident anywhere around the UK coast. Workload is managed on a national basis enabling national capability and resource to be available to support any Coastguard Centre when it is considered necessary by senior operational managers.

The number of watches when one Coastguard Officer has been on duty at Falmouth in the last five years is as follows:

(a) Daytime – 0

(b) Night Watches – 6.5