Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment he has made of the annual (a) budget and (b) staffing levels duty holders in the North Sea have allocated to backlogs of unmanaged Safety and Environment Critical Element maintenance and inspection work in each of the last five years to date.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has been proactively engaged with duty holders over the last five years to ensure that they have effective management of Safety and Environment Critical Element (SECE) maintenance and inspection backlogs.

In 2022 HSE wrote to 43 duty holders operating 193 production installations requiring them to provide details of SECE maintenance backlogs and the action proposed by the duty holder to manage the backlog. It is for the duty holder to identify the risk and allocate a budget and staffing levels proportionate to the risk, therefore HSE does not hold any data on the budgets and staffing levels of duty holders.

Where HSE interventions identify concerns with the duty holder’s arrangements, enforcement action is taken in line with HSE’s Enforcement Management Model.