Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, if she will make an assessment of the adequacy of the accessibility of the consultation entitled Consultation on the merchant shipping (EPIRB and PLB registration) regulations 2025, published on 5 December 2024.

The consultations on the Merchant Shipping (EPIRB and PLB Registration) Regulations 2025 and the Merchant Shipping (Vessels in Commercial use for Sport or Pleasure) Regulations 2025 are published on gov.uk in a variety of formats: the main consultation documents are published as an HTML webpage which allows document readers to read for the visually impaired. The draft Regulations, Code, M-Notices and De Minimus Assessments are, by their nature, lengthy and technical documents and as a result have been published as .pdf files to preserve formatting and technical content; however, these too are capable of being read by pdf readers for the visually impaired. The response documents are published as open document format (ODF) files that can be reviewed and edited in any word processing software such as Microsoft Word or similar.

As well as publishing on gov.uk, links to the consultation documents were sent directly by email to a number of different stakeholders, industry representatives and member organisations and the devolved nations bringing this directly to their attention. This has subsequently then been shared with the wider membership of such organisations. There were also press releases from the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) highlighting the launch of these public consultations, and they were shared on multiple official MCA social media channels, which were then shared further by the respective followers.

The MCA understand the importance of accessibility to public consultations such as these and take their responsibility for promulgating information very seriously. I believe the MCA have taken every step to ensure the documents shared are in an accessible format and have clearly signposted how the public can input to the consultation process.