Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what recent assessment he has made of the potential merits of introducing restrictions on the proximity of large passenger vessels to the UK coastline, other than when entering or leaving port.

We recognise the impact in terms of noise, environmental damage, and air quality that large vessels can have in proximity to coastlines. Whilst we have made no recent assessment of this impact for the purpose of placing restrictions, we have taken significant steps to improve our evidence base on the emissions from shipping by developing a new Maritime Emissions Model.

The UK continues to push for the adoption of the Net Zero Framework at the International Maritime Organization, which will place global regulation on the maritime sector to incentivise the transition to zero, and near-zero, emission fuels.