Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what discussions he has had with his French counterpart on the effect of the EU Sulphur Directive on (a) the shipping industry, (b) jobs and (c) the environment; and what the outcome of the conversations has been.

In the last eighteen months, there have been several meetings between officials from the Department for Transport and their French counterparts　to consider the effect of the EU Directive on sulphur content of marine fuels on the shipping industry, jobs and the environment. One of these meetings was a quadripartite meeting between UK and French officials and representatives of the UK Chamber of Shipping and its counterpart, the Armateurs de France.

As a result of these discussions, the governments of the UK and France have supported applications to secure EU finance under the Trans-European Network (TEN-T) programme, and affordable capital through the European Investment Bank, on the part of shipowners and ports which wish to invest in green technologies.　 We have also obtained an assurance from the European Commission that it will meet individual ferry operators who wish to discuss their ‘route to compliance' strategy.