Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what recent discussions he has had with the (a) Royal Fleet Auxiliary and (b) the Secretary of State for Transport on the Memorandum of Understanding between his department and the Maritime and Coastguard Agency.

The Ministry of Defence (MOD) has regular working groups with the Royal Fleet Auxiliary and Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) which offer opportunities for amendments to the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between his MOD and the MCA.

At the most recent MOD and MCA annual working group meeting chaired on the 12 November 2025 there were no formal requests for amendment to the overall MOD-MCA MOU received for this year, though several clarifications and feedback points have been noted for potential future updates.

Internal discussions within the Defence Maritime Regulator (DMR) are planned to address clarifications, mainly regarding the approach to affected services, rather than substantive changes to the MOU itself.