Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many fully-trained coastguard staff working at the National Maritime Operations Centre in Fareham were on the daytime watch covering the south coast from Plymouth to Selsey Bill on (a) 2 May 2015, (b) 9 July 2015, (c) 24 May 2016, (d) 29 May 2016 and (e) 4 June 2016.

The operational concepts and procedures that underpin Her Majesty’s Coastguard’s national network mean that the Coastguard Centres within it no longer have fixed geographic boundaries. This enables Coastguards at either the National Maritime Operations Centre (NMOC) or any of the 9 Coastguard Operations Centres (CGOC) to coordinate any incident anywhere around the UK coast irrespective of their location. As a result workload is now managed on a national basis rather than Centre by Centre as was previously the case. National capability and Coastguard staff from any Centre are now available to provide additional support to any individual Centre within the network when it is considered necessary by senior operational managers.

Therefore the national network had the following fully trained coastguard staff on daytime watch for the following dates:

• 2 May 2015 - Total network staff 25 (national network in transition: Network Centres – NMOC, Falmouth, Holyhead, Milford Haven, Humber. Centres still to transition - Belfast, Stornoway, Shetland, Aberdeen, London and Dover)

• 9 July 2015 – Total network staff 37 (national network in transition: Network Centres – NMOC, Falmouth, Holyhead, Milford Haven, Humber. Centres still to transition - Belfast, Stornoway, Shetland, Aberdeen, London and Dover)

• 24 May 2016 – Total network staff 46 (Full national network)

• 29 May 2016 – Total network staff 41 (Full national network)

• 4 June 2016 – Total network staff 45 (Full national network)