Closed consultation

Consultation on maritime civil sanctions provisions

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Summary

This consultation seeks your views on the proposed extension of enforcement powers used for maritime legislation to enable a comprehensive suite of civil sanctions.

This consultation ran from
to

Consultation description

The MCA is the government agency responsible for maritime regulation and enforcement.

At the present time, the MCA has more limited powers to impose civil sanctions than other national enforcement bodies. Consequently, the MCA is mostly reliant on the use of informal warnings (notices of concern), prohibition and improvement notices, and criminal sanctions (alongside some existing limited civil sanctions) to punish both minor and serious offences, and breaches of merchant shipping legislation.

This creates a situation where a person in breach of a legislative requirement could end up with a criminal record for committing a minor offence, or, alternatively, offenders might receive an informal warning in cases where it is not in the public interest to prosecute, giving no incentive to encourage compliance.

Views sought

Consultees are invited to respond to this consultation and in particular to the consultation questions in Section 5. Section 2 of the document, together with the three annexes, gives a more in-depth explanation of the proposal.

It should be noted that this is a brief, high level consultation, aimed at gathering stakeholder feedback on improvements that could be made to the maritime enforcement regime in the event that primary legislation were amended to provide the necessary powers. There will be further opportunities to comment in the event that primary legislation is taken forward to implement these changes.

A full list of consultation questions is contained in Section 5 of this consultation.

Documents

Consultation Document: Maritime Civil Sanctions Provisions

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Section 5 - Civil sanctions response form

ANNEX A - Maritime Civil Sanctions Impact Assessment

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If you use assistive technology (such as a screen reader) and need a version of this document in a more accessible format, please email infoline@mcga.gov.uk. Please tell us what format you need. It will help us if you say what assistive technology you use.

MCA consultation feedback form

Request an accessible format.
If you use assistive technology (such as a screen reader) and need a version of this document in a more accessible format, please email infoline@mcga.gov.uk. Please tell us what format you need. It will help us if you say what assistive technology you use.

Updates to this page

Published 6 December 2021

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