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<p>The technical standards applicable to the current domestic passenger fleet vary
depending on the age of the vessel with new build ships being subject to updated standards.
These newer standards are considered to provide a higher safety standard than that
required for older ships. Concurrent with these developments, the standards for existing
vessels have remained mostly unchanged.</p><p>The aim of the Maritime and Coastguard
Agency’s (MCA’s) proposed changes to standards for older passenger ships is to bring
their level of safety as far as possible up to that required for new build ships in
order to lessen the safety gap in key areas and thus achieve an acceptable level of
safety for the travelling public in the 21<sup>st</sup> century.</p><p>The proposed
changes have been formed out of a review of standards. This review took place against
a background of Lord Justice Clarke’s Thames Safety Inquiry into the accident involving
the passenger ship MARCHIONESS and the dredger BOWBELLE on the tidal Thames, a Formal
Safety Assessment carried out for the UK government into domestic passenger ship safety,
and the UK Marine Accident Investigation Branch (MAIB) recommendations.</p><p>The
proposed changes were the subject of a public consultation which ran from 6 November
2018 to 29 January 2019. Following feedback received in the consultation the MCA have
reviewed the proposed changes and in some areas the changes have been modified to
maintain proportionality whilst still achieving an acceptable level of safety for
the travelling public. These modified proposals are the subject of a second public
consultation which was launched on 29 May 2019 and runs until the 10 July.</p>
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