Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 17 October 2022 to Question 61899 on Offshore Industry: North Sea, if he will publish the terms of reference for the Asset Integrity Task Group.

In March 2021 Offshore Energy UK (OEUK) arranged a workshop involving representatives from North Sea operators, Suppliers, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) to discuss the increasing trend of maintenance backlogs within the offshore sector. This became the Maintenance Backlog Working Group (MBWG). The terms of reference are given in Appendix B of OEUK’s published guidance “OEUK’s Maintenance Backlog Measurement, Interpretation and Management Guideline”. During the coronavirus pandemic it was determined that the MBWG should be the principal asset integrity focus, and it is now part of the Asset Integrity Task Group (AITG).

The AITG has met twice in 2022 with another meeting planned for 30 November 2022.

Duty holders represented on the AITG are BP, Petrofac, CNOOC, Repsol Sinopec, EnQuest, Serica, Equinor, SRCN Solutions Ltd, Harbour Energy, Shell, Ithaca, Spirit Energy, Neptune Energy, TAQA, ODE Asset Management, TotalEnergies, Perenco and Wood.