Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps she is taking to ensure that (a) unregistered and (b) uninsured vessels do not (i) enter UK territorial waters and (ii) dock at UK ports.

As a signatory of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNLCOS), the UK (or any state that has subscribed to the agreement) cannot disrupt the transit passage of vessels through its territorial waters for lacking insurance, or being unregistered, as this is not considered to fall within any of the exceptions to passage being ‘innocent passage’.

Refusal to allow a vessel to dock into a UK port is a decision for the port. Vessels docked at a UK port may be subject to a Port State Control inspection. Registration and insurance are part of the documentation that is checked.