Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether his Department has made an estimate of the cost of the environmental clean-up operation to (a) charities and (b) local authorities, following the North Sea vessel collision on 10 March 2025.

Liability for the pollution sits with the shipowner, and the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) and Local Authorities will work with them once clean-up operations are concluded to recover costs. The ‘polluter pays’ principle is a dominating principle in international environmental law and under this principle it is not the responsibility of a government to meet the costs involved in prevention or remedial action for environmental damage.