Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what the average time taken was from when a call was received for the coastguard service to when that call was actioned in each of the last five years.

The reported time of an incident to Her Majesty’s Coastguard is the time a 999 call is received. Whilst HM Coastguard specifically records the reported time of an incident it does not specifically record an actioned time when that action does not involve the tasking of a search and rescue resource, such as when Coastguards are gathering information.

Information may be held within the text narrative of an incident record but this would require a check of tens of thousands of records over the last five years at disproportionate cost to the taxpayer.