Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the Marine and Coastguard Agency’s Consultation on the Proposed Revised Technical Requirements and Associated Impact Assessment Resulting from the Review of Standards for Older UK Passenger Ships, published on 6 November 2018, whether the Maritime and Coastguard Agency will publish updated proposals to regulate older UK passenger boats before 20 August taking into account responses already received; and whether any such proposals will include essential safety measures to improve human survival rates in the event of a major collision.

The Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) has adjusted the proposals in the light of responses to the first consultation and launched a second consultation on the revised proposals on 29 May 2019. The consultation can be found at https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/second-consultation-on-the-review-of-standards-for-older-passenger-ships. These proposals retain damage stability requirements for some vessels.

The MCA believes that the enhancements to damage stability, life-saving appliance carriage requirements and pumping arrangements will improve the outcome in the event of an incident.