Draft Merchant Shipping (Prevention of Air Pollution from Ships) (Amendment) Regulations 2021

Richard Thomson Excerpts

Wednesday 15th September 2021 General Committees

[Richard Thomson (Gordon) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies.

Obviously, it is highly desirable that domestic legislation should match the highest international standards, particularly where the UK Government have been a party to calling for higher standards in international regulation and in compliance through international bodies such as the IMO. For all that the draft statutory instrument before us is highly technical, it is of huge significance, and it is absolutely the right thing to be doing to ensure that domestic UK legislation is in alignment with not only the highest international standards, but those standards that the UK has been a party to calling for.

That clearly has a number of effects on aligning our sulphur and nitrogen-related emission requirements with those high standards, on setting standards for new engines in the marine sector and on improving the ability of the authorities to enforce compliance with the stipulated requirements. On all those things, we are content with the draft SI.

Speaking more broadly, in particular in the year of COP26, the environmental impact of heating and our industrial and transportation requirements are clearly the next areas that we need to focus on to reduce our environmental impact on the planet. Rightly, there is a focus on decarbonisation, but carbon is not the only emission to harm our planet and quality of life. Shipping is a key part of that. Reducing the environmental impact of shipping as we move goods around the globe is clearly a huge part of the positive impact that we can make by reducing emissions. The draft legislation is significant in that, and we are happy to support it.