Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether he has made a recent assessment of the (a) resilience and (b) safety of helicopter transport operations in the North Sea.

The Government is committed to ensuring that North Sea helicopter flying is as safe as possible. In 2014, the CAA published a comprehensive review of the safety of offshore helicopter operations. The Review examined the risks to helicopter operations to support the oil and gas industries in and around the North Sea. It identified a wide range of opportunities to improve the safety of those operations and to increase the chances of passengers and crew surviving an accident.

As the UK’s aviation safety regulator, the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) continues to monitor all aspects of the operations of offshore helicopter companies and any risks to safe operation through its ongoing programme of safety oversight - which includes implementation of the review findings and monitoring data from operators.

It is the role of the CAA as the independent regulator to collect safety data, it is not for the Department to do so.