Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what discussions officials in his Department held with their counterparts in the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy on the decision not to comply with the London Convention on the Prevention of Marine Pollution by Dumping of Wastes and Other Matter 1972 and the 1996 London Protocol to that Convention in relation to the (a) steel jackets and (b) concrete bases remaining in-situ underneath decommissioned Brent oilfield platforms (i) Bravo, (ii) Charlie and (iii) Delta east of Shetland.

The Offshore Petroleum Regulator for Environment and Decommissioning (OPRED), part of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), consults with a number of other Government departments and agencies including Defra regarding proposals for decommissioning offshore platforms.

Defra officials have had extensive discussions with OPRED and have examined the decommissioning proposals for the platforms in the Brent field, and were content that the decommissioning proposals offered the best, most practicable option for protecting the marine environment.

In these discussions with OPRED, Defra officials have been assured that any approval to leave in situ the footings of the Brent Alpha steel jacket and the concrete gravity based installations for Brent Bravo, Brent Charlie and Brent Delta will be consistent with our international obligations.