§ Mr. Damian GreenTo ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions what estimates he has made of the effect of the tonnage tax on employment of UK seamen. [48847]
§ Mr. JamiesonIt is too early for meaningful estimates to be made. However, to date 50 groups of companies have been approved by the Inland Revenue for entry into tonnage tax. These 50 groups, and eight more, have received approval from the DTLR of their training commitments. This equates to about 509 officer training places.
We believe that recent changes we have made to the Support for Maritime Training (SMarT) scheme, together with the tonnage tax training commitments, will lead to a significant increase in seafarer recruitment.