Speeches

Mr Gordon Marsden – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Mr Gordon Marsden on 2014-03-24.

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, when he expects to appoint the working group to assess the impact of the Equality Act 2010 (Work on Ships and Hovercraft) Regulations 2011 in the shipping industry; what the terms of reference will be for that group; and what the expected timeframe will be within which it will report its findings to Ministers.

Stephen Hammond

Discussions have already been held with government, association and union representatives and we have a broad understanding. A meeting of interested parties will be convened within the next two months and will focus that understanding into formulating the terms of reference and to agreeing the membership of the group. The review will be fully compliant with Section 6 of the Equality Act 2010 (working on ships and hovercrafts) 2011.

Another action of that meeting will be to set the timeframe in which the Group will report back. Members of the Group will be asked to give consideration to their own timescales that will be necessary to deliver their contributions to the Group. Therefore while Section 6 sets an absolute deadline of 17th July 2016 it would be expected for the working group to publish it report before then.