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Merchant Shipping (Recognised Organisations) (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019

I thank noble Lords for those questions. This first piece of secondary legislation is about the recognised organisations, which play a vital role in ensuring that ships are built and maintained so that they operate in compliance with standards for safety and to prevent pollution. The MCA delegates about 85% of its work to recognised organisations. These regulations will simply make changes to adapt an EU system for approving, monitoring and assessing recognised organisations in the UK system. I am afraid I will have to take the Scilly Isles point back to the department and look into that, and will come back to the noble Lord on it.

This is a no-deal SI. During an implementation period, the SI would not be needed because the withdrawal agreement will provide that EU law should continue to have the same effect. I fundamentally believe that it is important that as a responsible Government we continue to prepare for no deal. The long programme of statutory instruments is all about ensuring that we have a functioning statute book should we leave with no deal on 29 March. As long as that remains a possibility, we will need to continue the scrutiny of these SIs.